SmartRemarks

I followed Watchmen when it was first released, one issue at a time, back in 1986-’87, well before the collected edition appeared. It was must-read material at the time, and the month-to-month suspense was tremendous. In fact, I routinely ordered an extra copy or two just to pass around the dorm, as several friends of mine (not all comics readers beforehand) quickly got hooked on it.

It was groundbreaking then, and it still holds up today:  a formally innovative, intricately structured story, with a visual design that was painstakingly detailed and a backstory even more so. Self-referential, ironic, dark, and multifaceted, all its elements working together, both de- and re-constructing super-hero tropes in the context of real-world politics, psychological realism, and complicated moral themes. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons set a high-water mark for what comics can accomplish.

And now, after a long and circuitous process of development stretching over 22 years, Watchmen has finally made it to the screen. I saw it last night.

Where are my socks? I think they got knocked off somewhere…

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Tags: DC Comics, movies, super-heroes, Watchmen, Zack Snyder

Joss Whedon has a loyal and richly deserved fan following. There aren’t really a lot of “household name” television writers (Aaron Sorkin? Joe Straczynski? Maybe Gene Roddenberry, back in the day?), but he’s one. His following, built up over years of memorable work on Buffy, Angel, and Firefly, guarantees that any new project he does will attract attention. And right now (unlike any other big-name writer who springs to mind) he has a new project on the air.

What a fan following doesn’t guarantee is renatings high enough to make a show a hit, as Fox’s ignominious treatment of Firefly demonstrated. And as Fox is also the network that’s broadcasting Whedon’s new show Dollhouse—and that decided to bury it in a Friday night timeslot, among other questionable decisions—the fate of this new series is no sure thing.

To be sure, the show is built around a concept that can’t easily be summed up in a ten-second spot. The idea is that a very secretive organization exists, the “Dollhouse,” that maintains a roster of peopleensam (“dolls”) who have been wiped of their own memories and personalities. Any of these people can be rendered “Active” by being programmed with a different set of memories and abilities, customized to meet the needs or desires of the organization’s super-rich clients. For the duration of an engagement, the doll literally becomes an expert hostage negotiatior, or dream date, or whatever the case may be… anyone or anything… but in the aftermath retains no memory of the engagement, supposedly resulting in perfect confidentiality. The dolls have all voluntarily contracted to let their bodies be used like this for five years, after which they will (allegedly) be restored and released. There’s a full staff (technical, medical, etc.) managing the Dollhouse’s central facility, including “Handlers” who serve as remote bodyguards for each Active doll. Meanwhile, off on the fringes, there’s an FBI agent who has been spending more than a year investigating elusive leads about the Dollhouse, seeking to expose it and bring it down. Oh, and as it happens the programming technique isn’t quite flawless… some dolls retain fragmentary memories, and at least one has escaped the Dollhouse under violent circumstances and gone rogue.

Got all that?  Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Dollhouse, genre, Joss Whedon, television

Turns out that there really weren’t many surprises last night. My Academy Award predictions were correct for 19 out of 24 categories (which was enough to win the pool at the party I attended.  8-)  )  The only ones I missed were Foreign Film, Documentary Short, Animated Short, and both Sound categories. (Okay, those last two were a surprise. I really, genuinely expected Wall-E to take at least one of them.)

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Tags: 2009, Academy Awards, movies, Oscars

I’m off to an Oscar party this evening, and what fun are the Oscars without a scorecard? I’ve seen most (but not all) of the nominated films, and done some reading on the various other honors handed out during “awards season,” so let me toss my hat in amongst the many, many other sites offering analysis and predictions, and go on the record with my own expectations.

(Which are not the same as my wishes:  what I think will win and what I think deserves to win are often different things. But that’s nothing new.)

Taking it from the top:

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Tags: 2009, Academy Awards, Benjamin Button, Dark Knight, Milk, movies, Oscars, Slumdog Millionaire

It’s been far longer than I intended since my last post. Sometimes time just runs away from you. So let me just toss off a few ideas that have crossed my mind in recent days, and get caught up…

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First off:  the wrangling in Washington over the new “economic stimulus package” has been interesting to watch. Obama has gone out of his way to be as “post-partisan” as promised, extending an olive branch to Republicans the likes of which Dems never saw under eight years of Bush, wining and dining them, inviting input… and in response they basically gave him the finger. (Although, anxious not to alienate a public who likes him, they tried to shift their ire toward the Democratic leadership.) And the usual suspects in the punditocracy backed them up.

Basically, the GOP’s goal right now seems to be to shrink the stimulus bill down to something so small and weak that it won’t be effective… and then to blame their opponents for its ineffectiveness. All while the country at large continues to suffer, of course.

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Tags: Battlestar Galactica, Congress, Dan DiDio, DC Comics, economy, Final Crisis, House of Representatives, Illinois, Legion, Obama, Republicans, Senate, super-heroes, television, Tom Geoghegan, unemployment

In front of a movie a couple of weeks ago, one of the now-ubiquitous ads to which the captive audience was subjected was for the fifth season premiere of Lost, which aired tonight. I recall thinking that the scope and tone and visual style of the show seemed remarkably well suited to the big screen.

At the same time, though, the show offers something more than any single two-hour movie. My posts about comics should certainly make it clear that I enjoy serial fiction… such a format is really the only way something as episodic as television (or comics) can approach the depth and texture of a novel. Moreover, I’ve written before about how much I enjoy intelligent, imaginative science fiction, which Lost certainly offers in spades.

And for the record, I’m also a sucker for a good predestination-paradox time travel story. So, as of tonight, I’m more hooked than ever.

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Tags: Lost, television, time travel

What, another top ten list? Sure, why not. It’s that time of year. Everybody’s doing it.

These are selected only from among films released in Chicago in calendar 2008, and (far narrower than that) from films I’ve actually seen—which is far from all of them, since no one’s paying me to be a critic (more’s the pity). Spoiler Warning: plot points may be revealed below.

Caveats:  this is an entirely personal and subjective list (of course).  2008 was a bit of a mixed bag, cinema-wise; there were a handful of great films, but not very many good ones, so assembling this list took a bit of effort. No guarantee of entertainment value for any third party is intended or should be inferred, and the author specifically disclaims responsibility for any time or money readers may consider to have been wasted on any of these movies. In other words, you’ll probably disagree with me about something. Tough! That’s what the comments section is for.

1) Milk

It begins with death, ends with death, and has death in-between, along with significant portions of prejudice and injustice. The one thing it doesn’t have is despair:  this is one of the most life-affirming movies I’ve seen in ages. Gus Van Sant captures 1970s San Francisco with what feels like easy naturalism, and Sean Penn turns in a brilliant, affecting performance way outside his usual type in the title role.

2) Wall-E

Pixar scores again. In many ways this film, especially the near-silent first half, evokes the terrific silent-era work of Charlie Chaplin, with the good-hearted but hapless hero contending with outrageous circumstances increasingly beyond his control. That the hero happens to be a trash compactor seems almost incidental. It’s irrestistably funny, moving, suspenseful, and (of course) beautiful to look at. Along the way, it also offers gentle lessons for kids and adults both about the undesirable consequences of rampant consumerism.

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Tags: Dark Knight, Iron Man, movies, super-heroes, Top 10 lists

There has been ongoing concern in fan circles over whether J.J. Abrams’ upcoming Star Trek film will be in keeping with the spirit of Trek as we’ve come to know it over 40+ years. I’ve written about it myself, but I’m far from the only one… and Abrams himself hasn’t exactly quelled such concerns with remarks like his recent statement to TV Guide that “it’s really made for future fans of ‘Star Trek,’ not existing ones.” Such statements may warm the hearts of executives at Paramount, but we existing fans want to like this movie too.

In an interview last week, screenwriter Bob Orci attempted to ease these concerns, emphasizing that he and co-writer Alex Kurtzman are dedicated Trek fans (unlike Abrams) and that they’ve made sure to tie this film into existing Trek continuity in a way that fans will appreciate. The way he describes this, however, has caused more consternation than it’s resolved.

Many of the concerns so far have been about the differences seen in the trailer—in the Enterprise, the bridge, and perhaps most significantly the backstory of Jim Kirk. The movie has looked suspiciously like a reboot, rather than a story within Trek’s familiar fictional reality.

Long story short? What’s the inside scoop? It’s like this:

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Tags: Bob Orci, continuity, J.J. Abrams, Star Trek

I vaguely remember, from my childhood, the news stories about the murder of George Moscone and Harvey Milk. I never really knew nor understood the backstory, though, that made the event so significant.

Gus Van Sant’s Milk, with Sean Penn in the title role, is a wonderful film, the best I’ve seen in months. It fills in that information gap, and inspires as it does so.

It reminds us that we’re all in this together, that gay rights are human rights. And it’s a very human story, in the most authentic sense. It doesn’t succumb to the light skimming over the surface of events that afflicts so many biopics; we feel what drives these characters.

All the little details ring true, with a vivid sense of how much has changed in our culture in 30 years, and how much remains the same. And it doesn’t recite its message with a heavy hand; instead it shows us:  none of us is perfect, but we all deserve the chance to be who we are, to make the most of our potential in life.

Anyone who cannot relate to this film, and the man at the center of it, has a heart of stone. See it.

Tags: Milk

As noted earlier, I didn’t get to see the new Star Trek trailer on the big screen as anticipated last week… but as is the way of things these days, it was released online this week, for all the world to see. And comment upon. (And satirize. And annotate shot-by-shot. Yes, while I would never deny my own geek status, there are people in this world who score much higher on that meter than I do.)

My personal reaction? Mixed, I have to admit. Certainly not as jazzed as I was by the first “teaser” trailer last winter.

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Tags: continuity, J.J. Abrams, Star Trek