Category: Reviews

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Watchmen

Written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. Serialized in twelve issues in 1986 and 1987; published as a compilation in 1987.

Like many snooty bibliophiles, I always try to read an acclaimed book before the movie adaption comes out. Reading the branded tie-in edition would wound my pride. Reading the book immediately after the splashy debut of the movie preview pricks my vanity, too, but honestly, I’ve been meaning to read Sean’s copy of Watchmen for years. Truly.

I have to admit, however, that Watchmen was never at the top of my list. As much as I like to say that those who dismiss an entire medium or genre are intellectually lazy fools, I myself have a lingering prejudice against graphic novels. The hypocrisy and snobbery of that embarrasses me, but I do most of my reading on subway cars, and I feel uncomfortable carrying a book-length comic around with me.

The inevitable irony, of course, is that my own self-consciousness just delayed my enjoyment of a great book, for Watchmen really is as good as people say. A few years ago, Time included it on a list of the hundred best English-language novels written since 1923, and although the attempt to impose “objective” rankings on artistic work always makes me uncomfortable, the esteem in which Time’s critics held the book is not misplaced. Watchmen isn’t just “great for a graphic novel” (whatever that means); it’s great, period.

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Opening ceremony, 2008 Olympic Games

Held in Beijing on August 8, televised by NBC.

The Olympic Games always pits cynicism against idealism, no matter where the event is being held. When you watch women’s gymnastics, do you think about girls being starved and overworked to prevent the onset (or at least slow the advance) of puberty, or do you just appreciate the artistry and athleticism of the competitors and the apparent joy they take in their routines? When you watch runners, do you think about how many of them might be boosting their performances with some drug cocktail or another, or do you just marvel at their speed and at the precision and teamwork of the relays? When you watch swimmers, do you think about the technical arms race of suit development and the global inequality it reflects, or do you just cheer for your country and beam at every new gold medal?

Every Olympic Games is an ethical tangle—a volatile mess of unchecked commercialism, rampant jingoism, vast financial disparities, questionable judging and refereeing, possible abuse of minors, and untold human suffering—so I don’t quite understand why the Beijing event has provoked so much more hand-wringing than usual, especially in the United States, where we’ve recently ceded the moral high ground when it comes to human rights violations. (By this, I do not mean that the violations are of equal weight, but rather that once you have to start arguing over which are worse, you’ve already lost.) Perhaps holding the Games in China does taint the event in some way, but so, too, do any number of other shameful blemishes on the ideals of the Olympiad. Pretending otherwise is naive.

But pretending there is nothing redeemable about the Games is foolish, too, because there are still beautiful moments, moments that do seem to live up to the ideals of international fellowship, of celebrating participation just as much as victory. I’m a sucker for the pageantry of the opening ceremony, for example, and Beijing’s was undoubtedly the most breathtaking I’ve ever seen.

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Transsiberian

In theaters.

At first glance, Transsiberian looks like the typical story of innocents abroad. Jessie (Emily Mortimer) and her husband, Roy (Woody Harrelson), stumble into grave danger as they travel from Beijing to Moscow via train. Jessie is reckless, Roy is naive, and both make several foolish decisions, but interestingly, the culture clash between entitled Americans and world-weary Russians is merely a backdrop to the truly compelling subject: Jessie and Roy’s troubled marriage and, even more specifically, Jessie’s tortured sense of self.

The rest of the movie—with the drugs, false identities, and mobsters—is all pretty generic, but Jessie is a fascinating character, and Mortimer plays her beautifully. She’s not always likable, certainly not that admirable, but she’s wholly real and engagingly human, and she makes the movie worth seeing.

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Once Upon a Time in the West

On DVD.

I always feel sheepish in situations like this. I’ve discovered something cool and new, something I’m excited about—which would be great except that my “discovery” is nothing of the sort. Countless people have already been there and have already offered the same observations and insights. And when my new find is an acclaimed, iconic, hugely influential director like Sergio Leone, the sheepishness is particularly acute. How in the world have I not “discovered” him already?

Even over the phone, I could hear my brother’s amusement as I happily babbled about Once Upon a Time in the West, my first Leone film. Henry Fonda plays the bad guy! Leone’s use of sound to rachet tension is incredible! Composer Ennio Morricone is a brilliant melodist! The big reveal of Harmonica’s shadowy motives actually lives up to the buildup! Director Quentin Tarantino has virtually duplicated some of Leone’s key shots in his own movies! Smoky eye makeup can look really cool! Michael would agree with me and bounce back ideas of his own, but I know him well enough to hear his unspoken thoughts: You really didn’t know the black hat was going to be Henry Fonda?!

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Eminent Domain: Contemporary Photography and the City

Exhibition at the New York Public Library through August 29.

So my last few posts, collectively, were starting to look a bit Comic-Con-esque. That might be kind of inevitable, given summer fare, and it’s not there’s like there’s anything wrong with that, per se, but … there’s more to life. I felt like writing about something that didn’t involve superheros or aliens and whatnot, so at lunchtime I walked down to the public library to check out this exhibit, which has been stuck on my well-intentioned meaning-to-go list for a while.

And as is often the case with stuff on that list, I enjoyed it tremendously once I actually got around to going. The title (alluding to the contentious issue of the government seizing private property for public use or, even more controversially, for private development) is misleading because the exhibit isn’t overtly political and certainly doesn’t deal with that subject directly. The point of the name is to get at the ways in which public and private spaces overlap in urban areas, and though that theme shows up in the exhibit in some artists’ work more than others’, I see where the curators were going with the idea, and it’s interesting.

But I have to admit, too, that I wasn’t thinking much about eminent domain—on either a literal or a metaphoric level—as I wandered through the exhibit. The photographs that really captured me were so arresting, so aesthetically striking and evocative, that I found myself enraptured in enjoying them on that level. These were the kind of photos that don’t find beauty so much as create it, and that, I think, is rare and special.

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The X-Files: I Want to Believe

In theaters.

Note: This isn’t so much a review as it is a navel-gazing meditation on what The X-Files once meant to me and how that meaning has faded. I tried to write a real review, but I wasn’t able to disentangle my reaction to the movie from my one-time infatuation with the TV show, and I finally gave up. Consider yourself warned.

“Trust no one” was the line most associated with The X-Files back when it was in its prime. That phrase reflected its convoluted conspiracy-oriented mythology, not to mention larger premillennial fears, so that was the phrase that magazines and the like used when talking about it. But for me, that was a misrepresentation, for much of the show’s drama comes out of the fact that Mulder and Scully both have someone they do come to trust: each other. The truly archetypal X-Files phrase appears on Mulder’s iconic flying-saucer poster in block capitals: “I want to believe.”

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The Dark Knight

In theaters.

Consider the title fair warning. Dark doesn’t even begin to describe the latest Batman movie. I don’t think much of the ratings system, but if you’re going to have one, it’s outrageous that The Dark Knight is rated PG-13. True, I don’t recall any swearing or exposed breasts, but the violence is wincingly graphic and deeply unsettling and not remotely cartoonish. Comic book source material notwithstanding (and frankly, turning up one’s nose at the medium is a breed of snobbery for which I have no respect), this is a movie for grown-ups.

And that, of course, is part of the reason it’s so good. Director Christopher Nolan and his brother and co-writer Jonathan aren’t content just to sell action figures and blow stuff up, and their ambition shines through in every scene of The Dark Knight. It isn’t as perfectly conceived and crafted as their previous collaboration, the underrated The Prestige, but unlike most summer blockbusters, Knight gets under your skin and leaves you talking. It stays with you.

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Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blog

Available online at drhorrible.com through July 20 and available for download at the iTunes store.

If I didn’t already love Joss Whedon, I would for this: When the writers’ strike prohibited him from working on screenplays for film or TV, he used the break as an opportunity to collaborate with friends, family, and colleagues on an Internet project, an oddball musical about a would-be supervillain, his smug superhero nemesis, and the object of his unrequited affection.

Given that “Once More, With Feeling,” the musical episode of Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, was one of the few truly bright spots of season six (I might love Joss, but I’m no apologist for Buffy’s sharp downturn), I was looking forward to Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blog, and it didn’t disappoint. It did surprise, though. I suppose I had expected something lighter and breezier, a trifle to match its let’s-put-on-a-show roots, but now I wonder why. After all, Whedon has all but perfected the art of exploring hard emotional truths in potentially campy premises. Why shouldn’t he do that online as well as on TV?

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Concert in the Park

The New York Philharmonic at Central Park, on Tuesday, July 15.

Lesson learned: When attending a free concert in Central Park, go directly after work to stake out a spot. In the past, I’ve done that as a matter of course, but the concert Tuesday snuck up on me, and I made a quick trip home to grab dinner and a blanket to spread on the ground. By the time I arrived at the park about forty-five minutes before the program began at 8, I could only find room about two-thirds of the way down the Great Lawn.

From there, I could barely hear the orchestra, particularly because at that distance most of my neighbors would best be described as picnickers rather than concert-goers. Not to be a snob, but I don’t understand their thinking. If you just want to eat and drink and talk and enjoy the outdoors, why attend a concert at all? Have a picnic some other night, and leave the concert-going for those of us interested in hearing the music!

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Giselle

The American Ballet Theatre at Lincoln Center on Tuesday, July 8.

Dancers generally don’t show fatigue. No doubt the fact that they’re in peak physical condition has something to do with that, but even so, it just wouldn’t do to have anyone gasping for breath between pirouettes or pausing after a series of leaps to put his head between his legs. So part of what makes the ballet Giselle so much fun is that it makes such a show of exhaustion. Characters literally dance themselves to death—but not before they pant and heave and collapse a few times, almost as if their bodies tire like those of normal human beings—and I have to admit, I kind of love it.

My sicko tendencies aside, however, Giselle is a wonderfully lush, twistedly tragic ballet, a paragon of the romantic tradition. If the score were by Tchaikovsky, it would be perfect. (The music, from a hodgepodge of sources, is fine, but it can’t compare to Swan Lake or Sleeping Beauty.)