What Are You Watching Right Now - Not Adam Dancing!!!

[Adam54]

I'm watching the first season finale of The Americans. If the show keeps up this level of quality, and by all accounts it actually gets BETTER after season 1, it can make a pretty easy claim to the title of Best Show on Television.

[Dalty]

Is that the KGB sleeper show?

[Dalty]

Dracula Untold.

I heard bad things, so freed from the burden of expectations I am really enjoying it!

[Adam54]

Is that the KGB sleeper show?

Yep. It's fantastic.

[neglet]

Crimson Tide. Has a vaguely Top-Gun feel to it at times. For obvious reasons.

We need more submarine movies!

I always agree about needing more submarine movies--may be why the offspring is headed for Nuke School. Crimson Tide is one of the sillier ones.

[Dalty]

Watchmen is on TV now.

Watching it now it seems different. Masterful, even. The Doctor Manhattan monologue is pretty amazing.

[Space Tycoon]

Crimson Tide. Has a vaguely Top-Gun feel to it at times. For obvious reasons.

We need more submarine movies!

I always agree about needing more submarine movies--may be why the offspring is headed for Nuke School. Crimson Tide is one of the sillier ones.

It's no Red October, but it has legs.

I think what I've always liked about submarines is the fact they are the closest thing we have to a spaceship down here. Self-contained, pressurized, closed-cycle life support system etc. Can't just step outside for a breath of fresh air whenever you feel like it.

[Space Tycoon]

Her. After years of internet dating, I yearn for a time when I will be able to cut out the middleman. Or rather, the part that comes after the middleman. Like, just have the middleman, and don't bother with the thing the middleman is supposed to be in the middle of in the first place.

I'm making no sense, agreed.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

They got a name for the winners in the world. I want a name when I lose. They call Alabama the Crimson Tide. Call me Deacon Blues.

[Space Tycoon]

Watchmen is on TV now.

Watching it now it seems different. Masterful, even. The Doctor Manhattan monologue is pretty amazing.

Agreed, good use of Philip Glass in that sequence.

Sometimes if I'm in a rural area with some people, like cottage country or whatnot, I'll look around the landscape and ask,"Tell me, how would all of this be greatly improved by an oil pipeline? By a shopping mall?" Or, "They claim their labours are to build a heaven... yet their heaven is populated with horrors."

Folks usually move away slowly from me in these types of situations.

[Dalty]

After watching the movie I was left with two thoughts. One - why do people get all whiney about this movie and two - where the fuck was the Zack Snyder of that movie and the DOTD remake when making BvS??

[Space Tycoon]

I read the GN after I saw the movie, and I can see why the diehard fans could have been disappointed, or at least, in disagreement with Snyder's choices.

I've been there. Summer of 2009.

I still love the movie, but there are flaws which make themselves more apparent over time.

For example, I think Matthew Good was miscast as Ozymandias. Fine actor, but wrong for this part. Veidt is supposed to be hugely charismatic, with an almost godlike aura about him. Good doesn't project that. He is such a cold fish from the get-go that the big reveal at the end is not much of a surprise, to say the least. There is also the way that every fight scene or violent act in the movie is taken to extremes, just because, "we can, and it looks cool." Same for the film's political message, which was a little more even-handed in the GN, less so in the film.

But, still...

[Dalty]

I think the squid works fine in a comic book. Would have been hard to pull off in the movie.

[Space Tycoon]

Yeah. I find myself relating to Dan, for various reasons. When I buy a house I'll make sure it has a huge basement that can be expanded and connected to an inactive tunnel network...

[Mal Shot First]

[W]hy do people get all whiney about this movie [...]?

[Mal Shot First]

We've already covered this ground, Dalty:

Even though it seems like you're trolling, I'll humor you by saying that a complete and satisfying adaptation of a work like Watchmen would entail more than the simple inclusion of plot elements such as the squid or a nod to the pirate comic nested within the actual comic.

Yes, there is a basic plot to Watchmen that was captured for the most part in the movie, but the reason that the Watchmen comic was so influential was that it was self-reflexive in a way that comics hadn't been up to that point. It was groundbreaking in the way that it commented on comics as a medium, and the pirate comic was only one part of that. Another part, for example, were the newspaper articles that were part of each installment. And even if you try to incorporate all these parts into a film version, they won't necessarily make a cohesive whole, simply because certain things are possible in print media that feel awkward in other media.

Snyder's movie failed to capture any of the metanarratological elements of the comic (it could have, perhaps, commented on the superhero movie craze that had taken off recently, thus adapting the comic's narrative for the screen), and instead it focused on the main plot line, which essentially made it into just another superhero movie, albeit one with less idealized characters. Seen as such, it's arguably a decent movie, but in the grand scheme of things, I don't think anybody will be praising it in 2029 as a masterpiece that contributed to a shift in the discourse on the medium. And that's why probably any film adaptation of Watchmen would have been doomed to failure, let alone Snyder's.

All right. I lied. I'm not above re-boring people with the specifics. I'll add to what Mal has said, even though I'm pretty sure Dalty's baiting me. (Why do I think he's baiting me? Because this is what he originally said about the movie: "I thought it rated from 'Meh' to 'Good' but not great. But then I have read the graphic novel 5 times but think the graphic novel is highly, HIGHLY over-rated. I have read it so many times because, listening to the way people rave about it, I always thought I was being stupid and missing something. I read it a 5th time to get it fresh in my head before seeing the movie." I grant that a person is free to change his mind about a movie, and Dalty's tastes are famously ever-in-flux. But still! Dude loves to bait me, and I know he knows I love to be baited.)

I had a section concerning the same metanarratological elements Mal mentioned, but I saw when I did a refresh that he'd done a good job covering it, so I cut mine. Here's what's left:

I wanted something that wasn't a soulless visual carbon copy with speed-ramped-and-over-choreographed fight scenes and something that was a little less focused on badass. I wanted a less-hammy, more-believably-peak-perfection Ozymandias who didn't telegraph his villainy almost immediately. I wanted a Nite Owl II who was an actual schlub and not just Patrick Wilson wearing glasses. I didn't want a hilariously dumb sex scene set to Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," though I admit I didn't know I didn't want it until after I saw it. I would have liked a Silk Spectre II played by a halfway decent actor. Malin Akerman's pretty bland. I'm guessing she was a model before she was an actor. (This doesn't necessarily mean anything. There have been plenty of models-turned-actors who are good.) I wanted a Nixon who didn't look like some guy wearing a Nixon Halloween mask.

I really like the giant squid ending, but I didn't have to have it be a giant squid, specifically. One of the biggest problems with changing the ending so that it looks like the nuclear attacks are the result of Dr. Manhattan's blowing his top is that humanity's banding together as a result of this doesn't seem to me to be as obvious a reaction. The reason humanity bands together in the comic is because the threat is alien. It also helps that it was localized and that there was a single attack. Dr. Manhattan is an American, and the American government goes out of its way to associate itself with him. The Cold War-as-filtered-through-Watchmen is what it is, in large part, because the world outside of America fears retaliation from America/Manhattan. Is it believable that the world wouldn't instantly blame America for Dr. Manhattan's actions--despite the fact that they are led to believe he also took out part of America? I'm not sure. America would have a lot of spinning to do, and it would have to do it incredibly quickly. It would also probably have to adopt near-instantaneous transparency as far as governmental secrets are concerned.

Here's how I originally put it:

"Does Country A tend to strengthen its bond with Country B when a terrorist cell unrelated to Country B's government (but whose members hail, primarily, from Country B) bombs Country A, or is it more often the case that Country A becomes intensely distrustful of Country B?"

Snyder tries for subtlety on occasion, and I can applaud him for trying. He's just not capable of it. His moments of subtlety come off as someone trying to be subtle. He's like a very heavy man in high heels trying to sneak down a tiled corridor. Snyder's attempts at subtlety are like Nolan's attempts at humor.

I think you can cut the pirates without it doing too much damage to the major narrative. It's the kind of thing that would have worked better if the comics had been adapted into an HBO or Netflix miniseries. It doesn't really bother me that the comic-within-a-comic is not in the movie. It almost certainly works better on the page.

I didn't *hate* it. There's stuff I like. Kudos to Crudup (his voice is a little soft for me, but he still more or less works in the role), Haley, and Morgan. Kudos to Patrick Wilson for pulling off schlubby as well as someone as fit and attractive as he is could have. Kudos to Snyder for all those shots of blue cock. I was afraid they'd skimp. Semi-kudos on the opening. It was a decent way to handle setting up the world, even if it was a little showy.

I'm fine with some of the changes. I'm fine with the Comedian killing Kennedy, even if it is a little much. It's not something the movie really needs, but I didn't have a strong negative reaction to it or anything. There were dumb little out-of-place nods to other movies, though, like the recreated War Room from Dr. Strangelove. It was just a distraction for me. Moore and Gibbons kinda-sorta hint at it in one panel of the comic, but Snyder outright recreates the Kubrick's War Room, its lighting, and Kubrick's camera angles. He even desaturates the shot, which must have been particularly painful for him. I guess it's cute-ish, and I guess it hints at the kind of meta-ness of the comic, but it also just feels thrown in there. The scene borrows visual cues from Dr. Strangelove the same way the rest of the movie borrows visual cues from its source material. There's a flatness to it that reminds me of Gus Van Sant's Psycho remake.

The movie in general felt a little compressed, but I can't honestly say I know it would have felt that way to me if I weren't already familiar with the Moore/Gibbons original. It would have been tough for anyone to turn it into a two-to-three hour movie.

It's odd to me, in light of Snyder's exhaustive visual fidelity to the comics, that he still chooses to make some of the changes he makes. Some of them are unnecessary. Some of them, for me, cheapen things. That's what my memory tells me, anyway. It's been more than half a decade since I saw it. One change, in particular, stands out for me: having Silk Spectre II be the one who delivers the "Nothing ever changes" line. That's my single favorite moment from the original--or, rather, Ozymandias's response to hearing it is. He wanted some kind of pat on the back and assurance he did the right thing, and he wanted it from the only person he considers to be his superior. Instead, he gets what amounts as a condescending cosmic shrug. It's pretty funny, and Crudup probably would have given it a decent line reading. Instead, we have Silk Spectre II/Laurie saying it. I feel like she says it to the group, too, though I could be mistaken. Part of why the scene has so much impact in the comic is that it caps a final private discussion between a god and the cream of the mortals' crop.

I still haven't seen the Ultimate Cut. Maybe I'd like it more.

I don't troll or bait. I have seen the movie two or three times more and read the comic a couple more times. Both are 'go to' items from the shelves in my study when I feel like revisiting something. The film, I feel, seems to get better with every viewing, probably viewed through a lens as it being an interesting piece vs. the ever increasing numbers of superhero movies out there now and it that regard it becomes increasingly, I dunno, almost subversive.

The comic itself still hits me as nowhere near as rate worthy as it is proclaimed. Maybe that is a naturally contrarian streak coming out in me.

I'm going to sound like a douchebag saying this, but any subversion the movie offers is too mainstream to be considered actual subversion. If the movie is meant to be subversive of other superhero movies by showing us superheroes who are just as flawed as everyone else and who aren't always living up to our moral code, then it fails due the sheer Snyder-ness of presenting all of them in the most badass way possible. It's hard to subvert when you're glorifying at the same time.

I would argue that the only subversion taking place is a function of the inclusion of the original plot from the comic, and the movie retains this sense of subversiveness despite itself.

You know, an analogy occurred to me yesterday after discussing the merits of Snyder's Watchmen adaptation (or his comic book adaptations in general). Snyder's method of adapting is like Seth Brundle's transporter machine from The Fly - with precisely the same problem. Snyder disassembles the source text into its constituent pieces and then reassembles it in a different medium. Much like Brundle's bland/synthetic steak, however, Snyder's result of the transportation/adaptation process, while succeeding in recreating the appearance of the original, simply lacks the essence that made the original what it was. Snyder gives us his stripped down interpretation of the steak rather than the steak as steak (the "steak-in-itself," if you will).

[Space Tycoon]

Carla Gugino was pretty hot.

[Dalty]

Lake Placid

Always good fun!

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

I still haven't seen the Ultimate Cut, but I did buy it for a few dollars from a bargain bin. If I ever get around to watching it, I may say a few things about it.

[Space Tycoon]

I forgot to mention, I watched Cap III the other weekend. Really good, not as good as Winter Soldier but worth seeing in the theatre.

[Space Tycoon]

Cabin in the Woods. Finally.

[Space Tycoon]

Jeepers H. Crackers!! What an ending.

Yeah, that's right buddy. You wanted a Merman... there's yer Merman.

[Space Tycoon]

So I thought I'd start watching Dexter. Late to the punch as always. I guess I resisted the idea of glorifying a murderer who kills other murderers. No judge, no jury, just a kill room. Seemed a bit too Chuck Bronson In Overdrive for my taste.

But my best bud swears by it. I guess it's all in the execution, so to speak.

[Space Tycoon]

Well, that was interesting. Kind of horrible and funny and sexy all in one. Further viewing is required.

[Space Tycoon]

Carla Gugino was pretty hot.

Carla Gugino is pretty hot. None of this was crap.