SmartRemarks

In my personal opinion, naturally. YMMV. If this were in any way authoritative, it would have been carved in stone by a finger of flame.

But I have been pondering, of late, the sort of things I like to read and watch, and I find myself mulling over some commonalities. There seem to be four recurring characteristics that mark a piece of fiction for me as enjoyable, memorable, and (if it’s in serial form) worthy of further attention. None of these by itself is either necessary or sufficient to make a story effective, but the presence of at least two of them is usually enough to pique my curiosity, and the presence of three or four almost guarantees that I’ll become a fan.

What are these oh-so-crucial characteristics?…

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Tags: Aaron Sorkin, books, continuity, genre, humor, John LeCarré, Joss Whedon, Lost, Mark Twain, movies, Star Trek, television, Watchmen

Reviews of the movie Watchmen have been mixed: 65% positive on Rotten Tomatoes, for instance, and 56% positive on Metacritic. That’s not as uniformly negative as the secondhand buzz might indicate, but this is perhaps because the most prominent “establishment media” reviews have leaned toward the negative side:  e.g., Anthony Lane’s in The New Yorker, wherein he demonstrates his usual sarcastic derision for anything pop-culture-related, or A.O. Scott’s disdainful take in the New York Times. Many quite simply seem not to “get it”; they betray preconceived expectations of what a “super-hero movie” ought to be that obstruct appreciation of what this one actually is.

Reactions in”new media” seem generally more positive—e.g., Andre O’Hehir’s piece at Salon (“Dense, intense, tragic and visionary, this is the kind of movie that keeps setting off bombs in your brain hours after you’ve seen it”), or Keith Phipps’ in The Onion (“[it] keeps moving so assuredly, it’s nearly impossible not to get swept along… the film’s ambitious drive to create a dread-soaked alternate America and people it with flawed, recognizable heroes carries it along”).

However, by far the most interesting and informative opportunity to study the reactions to this film, both pro and con, inverts that pattern. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: conservatism, movies, super-heroes, Watchmen

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