Watching: Watchmen

Zack Snyder tackled one of comicdom’s most celebrated graphic novels and delivered a fun action movie packed with stunning visual, intense action, and gets the gist of Allan Moore’s story down but, unfortunately, does not do it without a plodding pace, sub-par acting, and a soundtrack that nearly killed the whole movie for me.

A little background: I’m a huge fan of Allan Moore and David Gibbons’ work in Watchmen. I’ve read it on and off for the last ten years or so just finished re-reading it cover-to-cover only a few months back. The story just gets better and better over time as the layers that Moore has worked into the stories offer a little bit of everything for the casual comic geek, hard core sci-fi head, and lover of literature. Gibbons’ art lends the right amount of deep noir, classic panel-to-panel action, and detailed facials that let the reader appreciate the nuances in Moore’s story.

When word came out that the long rumored film adaptation was turning into movie reality, I was skeptical but optimistic. While I love my comic books, I also love great cinema and how one artist can build off the work of another artist. Sometimes for the better and some times fro the worse–anybody want to compare Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight to Joel Schumacher’s Caped Crusader?

In his adaptation, Snyder has trimmed a lot of storyline fat to get to the heart of the superhero story. On the good foot, his changes to the climax (Bye, bye Giant Squid of Telepathic Doom; we hardly knew ye) make some great logical sense and allows us fro an extra destruction scene that we don’t get from the comic and his condensing of the pure text postscripts to the comic chapters into one coherent opening montage was a bold move that I think paid off in terms of keeping the feel of the comic and laying out the back-stories.

I haven’t seen the “Tales of the Black Freighter,” the movie-within-a-movie, yet but I don’t think the movie lost anything from it’s absence. What does hurt the movie is the conversations that happen at the corner newsstand while the “Black Freighter” is being read, the reactions from the newsstand owner and his constituents is the Greek chorus Moore uses to let us know what the average citizen thinks of all this masked hero business. Without that chorus or the whole issue dedicated to how Rorschach’s madness/clarity affects his jailhouse psychiatrist, or the tragic demise of the original Nite Owl, we have a stripped down version of Watchmen that is sadly devoid of humanity. The bad cameo roles of historical figures like Richard Nixon, Lee Iaccoca, Ted Koppel and the like just adds to the lack of human perspective. Who watches the watchmen? In Snyder’s movie, it’s just capes and spandex regulating capes and spandex.

The bad acting doesn’t help either as most of our major characters are going through the lines like if they just read them for the first time or never really get the fact that they are all caricatures of superheroes and not the actual heroes themselves. I don’t know what to make of the fact that the best acting came from Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach and Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhattan, two key figures that are equal parts amazing voice work, CGI effects and standout acting when in their civilian gear.

Any mention of Dr. Manhattan will probably lead to the fact that Snyder decided to go full frontal, a wise move if you think about all the negative reaction to last year’s Beowulf that fought for 10 minutes in the buff in a scene more Austin Powers than awesomely powerful. Snyder also didn’t hold back with the gratuitous “Hey, let’s give all the geek guys who show up their money’s worth!” sex and with the insane violence and fight sequences that were so good I was cringing in my seat.

Last point of contention, Snyder should revisit that part of film school called “Soundtrack 101” where you learn that popular music should aid and enhance a scene not explain it before hand with the subtlety of an anvil coming down on a toe. The before mentioned opening montage with Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’” was cool but from there it goes downhill fast to the point where it’s not bad enough to have Tears for Fears’ “Everyone Wants to Rule the World” as the music for Ozymandias’ plotting but the elevator music version to boot. Whack.

Still, it is still Watchmen and Snyder does get the visuals right invoking the same response heard in Sin City and 300, “Wow, that’s straight out the comic,” with astounding sound effects, and some masterful CGI sequences that along with the shell of Moore’s narrative gives us a film that delivers the surface elements of Watchmen’s parable of superhuman power gone wrong with (for good and bad) all the punch of a Hollywood Blockbuster.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Duo

We got our tickets for tonight’s IMAX midnight show of the Watchmen! Huzzah!

Tickets for the SF IMAX midnight show have been sold out, early reviews from critics and fans seems strong, and keeping in line with Gaiman’s Law of Superhero Movies: this movie has the look and feel of the comic book. (As opposed to the accompanying graphic I’ve posted which is up cuz it cracks me the hell up. Schroeder as Ozymandias = Hilarity!) All of this indicates Watchmen will be having one solid opening weekend. A better breakdown can be found at boxofficeguru.com.

A few months back my biggest concern was if Zack Snyder could fit all of Alan Moore’s narrative into a movie form. Now my biggest question is if US moviegoers are really ready for Moore’s commentary on what happens when we give away our decision making power, when we’ve settled for safety for so long that we’ve lost all our agency, when we can’t tell the terrorists from the freedom fighters. Of course, this sounds mighty familiar when you put it through the 9/11 lens and say–Hey that’s us! But it’s not, Moore wrote this for an audience that (whether they knew it or not) were ready for new heroes and the only it was gonna happen was to take the familiar tropes and completely burn em in effigy. Expose them for how hollow they are in the face of real terror and have some of them come up with the courage to put on the costumes again, even if they’re 20lbs and 10 years past their prime. And that’s what I doubt US audiences are ready for. They hate to have someone else tear down their heroes, they’re fine doing ti themselves with the power of the tabloids and negative opinion, but have someone else come in and question all that is popular and sells well on the Home Shopping Network and things change. So, will Snyder go for the explosions and visuals to satisfy Hollywoood or will he delivers all the goods. I’ll find out tonight.

On a related note: Watchmen is #1 on the New York Times’ newly inaugurated Graphic Book Best Seller list. I’d be more excited about the fact that the Times has such a list in place but I think that the reports of the comicbook’s death (If Comics Don’t Change, They “Could Be Dead In 18 Months) are not exaggerated at all. Very littel daring or innovative has come from the spandex brigade in a minute and Marvel seems ready to put more energy and resources into Hollywooding their properties then they are in developing new heroes.

March is Small Press Month

Small Press Month
Small Press Month is a nationwide celebration highlighting the valuable work produced by independent publishers. Held annually in March, Small Press Month raises awareness about the need for broader venues of literary expression. From March 1st-31st, independent, literary events will take place from coast-to-coast, showcasing some of the most diverse, exciting, and significant voices being published today.

More info at www.smallpressmonth.org.

X-Post: Amiri Baraka responds to the New York Post cartoon

On the New York Post simulation of the murder of the president of the United States
by Amiri Baraka

Naturally we are outraged by Rupert Murdoch’s low rag The New York Post’s depicting Barack Obama as a monkey, whatever garbage they use to lie about this racist attack. But even more deadly is the fact that the Post in that cartoon is actually calling for the assassination of the president of the United States!

And this is punishable by prison.

Can you imagine anyone drawing a picture of Bush being slain, what the consequences would be? In Venezuela Chavez had to pass a law against the right wing calling for his assassination over television. What would be the penalty for some group calling for the assassination of past presidents of the United States by public media.

Complete response is at the San Francisco Bay View

The Post cartoon was bad but its attempt to apologize for it is even worse. The Post has lived off of material like this ever since Murdoch took over. And only now they’re trying to make up for it? And with an apology that acknowledges its history only to say that it doesn’t owe an apology for past insensitivities? Backtrack much?

I know a tabloid does not have a mandate to be sensitive or even responsible but it should at least be consistent; if the Post wants to make money off of racially inflammatory material, then they should own up to it and not go through the farce of issuing an apology.

The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry ON TOUR at Moe’s Books

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2009, 7:30
Poetry Flash at Moe’s Books

The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry ON TOUR
edited by Francisco Aragón, presenting the editor & contributors:
John Olivares Espinoza
Venessa Fuentes
Adela Najarro
Paul Martínez Pompa

The title of the ravishing collection of poems by 25 Latino and Latina writers can be read as an allusion to change and to the fact that poetry is a force, like wind, that knows know borders. Whether inspired by family, love, despair, poems by Rilke, or a painting by Jose Clemente Orozco, the poets gathered here are involved in the infinite possibilities of language.
—Booklist

This is a compelling and exhilarating addition to Latino letters.
—El Paso Times

MOE’S BOOKS, 2476 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, (510) 849-2087
Parking at the Durant/Channing Garage, close to Telegraph. Channing is one block north. For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.

Contributors:
John Olivares Espinoza is the author of, The Date Fruit Elegies (Bilingual Press), his first full-length book. His chapbooks include Aluminum Times (Swan Scythe Press) and Gardeners of Eden (Chicano Chapbook Series). Born in 1978, Espinoza grew up in Indio, CA and studied creative writing at the University of California, Riverside and at Arizona State University, where he received a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans. His work has appeared in various journals and anthologies including, most recently, The Bear Flag Republic : Prose Poems from California. He has been a participant in The National Book Foundation Summer Writing Camp in Bennington, VT, The Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, and the Macondo Writers Workshop in San Antonio. Espinoza teaches writing, literature, and ethnic studies at The National Hispanic University in San Jose, California.

Venessa Fuentes writes poems. She graduated from Macalester College in 1997, earning her degree in Women’s and Gender Studies. A week after graduation she started working for the Loft Literary Center, where she continues to work today. She is the recipient of a SASE/Jerome Award; has led creative writing workshops for children and families; and has served as a teaching artist in the Saint Paul public school system. In addition to The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry (University of Arizona Press), her poems appear in Between the Heart and the Land / Entre el Corazón y la Tierra: Latina Poets in the Midwest (March/Abrazo Press) and in Swerve magazine. Venessa lives in Minneapolis with her son, Felix.

Adela Najarro holds a doctorate in literature and creative writing from Western Michigan University, as well as an M.F.A. from Vermont College. She currently teaches at Cabrillo College as part of the Puente Project. In addition to in the University of Arizona Press anthology The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry, her poetry appears in numerous journals, including Feminist Studies, Puerto del Sol, Nimrod International Journal of Poetry & Prose, Notre Dame Review, Blue Mesa Review, Crab Orchard Review, ACM: Another Chicago Magazine, Artful Dodge, Cimarron Review, and elsewhere.

Paul Martínez Pompa grew up in the Chicagoland area and earned degrees from the University of Chicago and Indiana University, where he served as a poetry editor for Indiana Review. His chapbook, Pepper Spray, was published by Momotombo Press in 2006. His first book, While Late Capitalism, was selected by Martín Espada as winner of the 2008 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize and will be published by University of Notre Dame Press in 2009. He currently lives in Chicago and teaches composition and creative writing at Triton College in River Grove, Illinois.

Editor:
Francisco Aragón is the author of, Puerta del Sol (Bilingual Press) and editor of, The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry (University of Arizona Press). His poems and translations (from the Spanish) have appeared in various anthologies and journals. The founding editor of Momotombo Press, he directs Letras Latinas—the literary program of the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame.