A Blithering Literates Life

Firstly, I apologize for the terribly cliche title, but I figure, every other critic out there is going to town with that word play (bunch of gamecock eaters that they are) so why don’t I. Secondly, this is going to be a rather pithy review as it is almost 3 A.M. as of this writing, so don’t expect my normally well thought out and colloquial mode of expression in this blurb.

So, I went to see “Watchmen” and me going to see a movie on opening day is rather unprecedented, but it’s been a long time coming and this is one of my favorite stories EVAR; not just of the comic medium, but of any narrative medium.
If you don’t already know, “Watchmen” is a comic book or, rather, “graphic novel” in massive nerd quotes, if you’re inclined to use said quotes, and is the story of an alternate reality 1985 world on the brink of nuclear war, where superheros are a regular part of the social fabric. Now, the tapestry woven by the “graphic novel” (this and “V for Vendetta” are the only two comics I would consider graphic novels, as I put on my shiny, literary elitist pants) is far too dense to be captured in the medium of film.
The writer, Alan Moore, said that but you know hollywood. They just won’t listen to reason. So they made it a movie and it wasn’t as good as the book, but seldom is that the case. Books are almost always better than the movies they become because they are made specifically for that medium, so it’s rather insular to equate or compare two completly different things. I will also qualify this review by saying that I am severely biased in this situation because it’s my favorite story and Rorschach is my favorite hero, so my views are colored by the orange tinted glasses of… nostalgia and bias, I guess.
So, here it is. I was entertained by it and it was a lot more action packed than the comic, sorry, graphic novel, but it followed the story pretty faithfully, despite replacing some significant set pieces and cutting parts of the story for times sake. It’s almost three hours already and if everything had been included, I fell they would have had to make a sci-fi channel mini series out of it (god forbid). It all fit together, though if you’re not familiar with the material, you may get a little lost in the narrative. That’s not really it’s fault though. It’s billed as “action/adventure” by the universal pigeon holing council, but the story is more of a “mystery/thriller” with action elements. Some of the movie seemed needlessly gratuitous (sex and violence was a little over the top at times) but it fit the theme over all.

What really irked me most was the music. I said this to my friend after we left the theater and I think this captures the essence of the problem. “The composer was a lazy *fill this space with whatever colorful word you choose to*.” The music was good mind you. I like Jimi Hendrix and Simon and Garfunkle as much as the next person, but it hurls you out of the viewing experience like a trebuchet. One minute you’re watching a poigniant scene and the next all you can think is, “Man, I love ‘All Along the Watchtower.’ Jimi Hendrix is great.” Tyler Bates needs to do more of his job and stop robbing from other artists. Lastly, I think this movie has the most full frontal male nudity of any movie that isn’t a porno. Seriously, it’s ridiculous to the point where I applaud it’s prevalence.
There is a lot more to be said about that movie, but I’ll leave that to the professional critics (who get paid for their reviews). Bottom line is:
I was entertained.
I recommend it.
Music could have been better.
That is all and I applaud “you” for reading this far. *golf clap*

I’ve been trying to formulate an adequate simile for the level of shit of this movie I saw last night.  I think it was called “Sukiyaki Western Django” and it had three Japanese actors, whose names I can’t recall, and Quentin Tarantino in it.  I have a general rule about Tarantino:  Whenever a movie banks on his name or lumps him into a cast and calls it a “talented ensemble” then the movie doesn’t have much going for it.  The movie was so putrid that I’m going to write this quick and forget I was ever conscious for those 90 minutes of eye gouging time.  It was essentially a rip off of a “Fist Full of Dollars,” which is a western version of “Yojimbo,” another, much better, Asian movie.

Just Imagine if those movies had a child out of wedlock and sexually abused the little bastard, took scenes and themes from much better movies for no apparent reason other than struggling to look more legitimate and then smeared the whole abomination unto visual media with acidic shit.  Finally, have that whole mess rape your eye sockets and ear canals for about an hour and a half and you have a pretty good idea of how bad it was.  Uhg.  Let’s just forget the whole thing ever happened.

I don’t know whether to categorize this as a blurb or a criticism, so I’m slotting it in both categories.  You see, I just watched half of this god awful movie, “Love in the Time of Cholera,” and noticed a pattern in the exposition of some crappy and not so crappy movies like “Babylon A.D.” with Vin Diesel as Vin Diesel (because that’s all he ever is) and  “Citizen Kane.”  They start at the end of the story to draw you in, possibly because they are aware that the actual story itself is concentrated drill-in-forehead.  I would almost call it a cop out and a form of sentimental bathos that’s trying to trick us into caring for these characters, or at least snagging our attention in place of a flimsy introduction, but I see potential in showing us the end at the beginning.

Actually, I have seen it work.  “Citizen Kane” didn’t say too much with it’s classic “Rosebud” line, but it was enough to beg the question “Who (or what) is Rosebud?” where as “LitToCholera” gives us the entire end of the movie by showing a guy die and another guy come up to the fresh widow confessing his enduring love for her.  She told him off, which made me laugh a bit, but that was the end.  The whole end.  I really didn’t need the rest of the movie to explain these characters and why they are the way that they are because I already know that ones a dick and two of them were happily married.  I could briefly mention why “Babylon A.D.” was bad, but I didn’t actually see the movie, so I don’t really know the story. Still, I could hazard a guess that it had nothing to do with communication problems and everything to do with Vin Diesel “getting some” in every sense and really, I don’t need to see it because I can see, from the constant advertisements, the crux of my rant.

They (that is, the bastardy producers and advertisers) bank on you going to see the movie out of morbid curiosity by telling you that Vin dies (from the looks of it in a fiery explosion).  At that point, I don’t really care about the character.  To be fair, I don’t think that I would have cared for the character even if they hadn’t mentioned his untimely death in the commercials, but I do feel the whole “ending at the beginning” method of foreshadowing renders most stories moot because there’s nothing to twist at the end or shock me.  He’s gonna die and I know it.  I don’t care how he got there for the most part.  I didn’t even care what “Rosebud” was either, but Citizen Kane was a good movie after it’s foreshadow foe paw, so I let it slide.

Recently I mentioned a bout of unleashed force against various alien races.  Actually, I can’t remember if I wrote that or just said it, but it doesn’t matter anyway because I’m saying it now.  For those of you who don’t know, “The Force Unleashed” is a video game developed by LucasArts, a company most notably cited for the epic “Star Wars” trilogy and the pathetic yet still excessively hyped “Star Wars” prequel trilogy.  They also produce “Star Wars” games in Lego, design “Star Wars” sound effects and have led the brain dead army of “Star Wars” fan zombies since the 70’s.  I don’t really approve of the one trick pony that is George Lucas, but it does make good business sense that, when you find something that works, you milk it until it’s teats fall off.

“The Force Unleashed” is another carton of milk squirted from the raw udders of the “Star Wars” cow and is designed to let the player play around with the incredibly satisfying havok physics of the game world and fling objects and people around with your unrivaled force powers.  Luke Skywalker pales in comparison to this kid.  I would say he’s even better than Darth Vader, though, when I fought him, I got my ass thoroughly tossed around before a narrow victory over the cyborg Sith lord.  The story was sound and the voice acting was adequate, though the script did endeavour to constantly mention destiny, which is writer speak for “I don’t know why he’s doing this thing, so let’s just tell the audience it’s the characters destiny.”  Then the executives cheer his literary genius, give him an unreasonably obese check and sell their new force pushing, light-saber wielding, prequel tie in to the fanatic masses.

It’s not a bad game in terms of entertainment value.  I had fun yanking stormtroopers around with my mind and shoving force lightning down the throats of anybody in the game who pissed me off, which was everybody.  It’s not Orwell in terms of explication, but it’s adequate to drive the games story.  I did like the constant betrayals and the fact that you’re a bad ass Sith warrior as opposed to a little goody two-shoes Jedi.  It may be a “God of War” game given knew mapping and telekinesis, but that’s great because “God of War” was great and it was fun, as a video game should be.  All in all, “The Force Unleashed” is a delightful romp, worth renting and, if you’re a fan of the franchise, a good buy, though I would have given the game a more appropriate title for the experience.  It would have been a better sell if they just called it “Star Wars: Telekinetic Asshole.”

I’ve got this vandal friend, see.  He likes to wreak havoc on things and play “Guitar Hero” and the like.  Recently I spent some time with him and got a chance to bang away at his latest purchase apt to simulate rock stardom and wake up people who may be asleep in the immediate vicinity.  Mind you, these fake drums for “Rock Band” aren’t nearly as loud as real drums - I would know because I actually play real drums quite well - but they get the job done and, despite slight position differences and impact sensing issues, are good at reproducing the drum kit experience.  It’s a lot different in terms of noise, but I have total approval for the device because it adequately trains rock star wannabees in the art of banging on heads.  Unlike the guitar controller, with it’s Simon Says style matching game play, the skills developed on the  pseudo drum set will actually translate to real musicianship and is thus a great support for music everywhere.  “Rock Band,” you have my approval.

All right, all right.  I’m not really proud of going to see a movie so thoroughly drenched in nubile girlhood fantasies about sexy vampires, but it was a family thing and I felt it appropriate that I spend as much time with my them as I could during my break from school.  So we went to the new theater that cropped up in the middle of the Southcenter mall and hacked off a couple of fingers to gain entry into the theater.  After struggling to decipher what looked to be famous catch phrases etched into the floor, I wandered through the darkened theater, advertisements flashing on the screen, and into a plush red chair with cup holders big enough to hold milk cartons.  Twenty-five minutes and several orthodox epic trailers later, the movie started and followed the story of an angst laden, adolescent girl that everyone instantly falls in love with and a bunch of vampires from Dawson’s Creek.

Now, this is a coming of age love story at its core with the twist being that instead of falling for some normal person, our female protagonist goes straight for the mysterious loner with a preposterous jaw line and who is in fact dead and made out of leathery diamonds.  They have their usual acceptance troubles and fight with each other and theres some bad vampire that they decapitate and burn in the end and the two of them end up happy together in the end and there is of course a cliffhanger because they still have three other books to knock out and they want to make sure that you know that so you can spend more digits to go see the next screen adaptation of the next book.

Though the exposition was good and everything fit in terms of plot, there are a few details that kept scratching at my minds eye while I watched and even now when I look back on it.  For one thing, when these vampires go out in the sunlight they don’t burn to cinders like conventional vampires.  They sparkle like they’re “made of diamonds” which threw me out of the experience partly because I hadn’t read the book and didn’t have all the back story and partially because its just a little dumb.  I suppose it gets around that whole ability to go to school during the day and live a normal life, so long as there’s cloud cover, aspect of the story, but I feel the author could have done better by just calling the whole sunlight thing a myth or saying it made them sick or something.  This whole diamond skin business also brings up another dilemma, that leads to an even more obvious dilemma.

So, from what I hear from the women in my family, who have read all the books and have MySpace pages dedicated to these characters and all that stuff, is that the vampires are like stone statues to the touch; they’re cold and hard so when they touch people they bruise them easily.  Considering a traditional vampires strength, this was a detail I could handle, but what really confounded me about this whole scenario was how this girl could be physically attracted to this vampire boy after touching him.  It doesn’t make sense that she would appreciate skin that cold or sex that rough.  It can make sense, however the only way is for this to be feasible is if she’s a masochistic necrophiliac, which she could very well be for all I know.  The book probably has more detail on motivation and thought process for all the characters, but, as I said before, I haven’t read the book and never will, especially since they’re making all the books into movies.   I doubt I’ll even bother to go see the other movies because, like Harry Potter, I’m just not interested.  Stories about arbitrarily chosen people and wizards and vampires don’t interest me.  However, not having read the book, I’m in a much less biased position than that of a person who is already emotionally invested in the story and characters.

Let me just say that it was explicated well enough, made me feel for the characters, well acted and a realistic portrayal of high school life and how hard it is to find a decent vampire to date.  It held my attention enough to warrant a recommendation, if your into that sort of thing, though I wouldn’t consider seeing it again for any reason other than placating a girlfriend with a crush on one of those ludicrously handsome vampire boys.  It should also be noted that I invested eight dollars in the experience, so maybe I do have a bias in that I hate wasting money and will be positive about anything I shill out a non-negotiable appendage for.