• Who'd Watch THIS Watchmen?
  
  Not me, that's for darn sure.
  
  You might know that they're making a movie out of the Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons comics classic Watchmen, and I'm dead set against it. It's just impossible to convey the experience of Watchmen in any way other than actually reading the story in the medium in which and for which it was produced. Period. They might as well try to make a movie out of Dali's Persistence Of Memory.
  
  Anyway, I was looking at action figures on the internet tonight ('cuz I'm just so white and nerdy) and I saw some custom crafted comic book action figures at this page, including a pretty cool Rorschach from Watchmen half-way down the page. Wendy asked me what I was so excited about and I told her that I'd just come across a Watchmen action figure, which led to a little bit of question and answer about Watchmen.
  
  Yes, guys, my wife is into comic books. Read that sentence again and weep. This is known as playing the nerd trump card.
  
  Anyway, we were looking around the net for other Watchmen stuff and I came across the following hypothetical Watchmen movie poster… a piece of "fan art" … which made me recoil in horror:
  

  

  
  So, here I sat, yelling "NO! NO NO NO! NO NO NO NO NO!!! at the monitor. Not only is making a movie based on Watchmen a terrible idea, but this is the worst combination of cast, director, music, and everything else.
  
  First of all, as opposed as I am to the movie (have I made that clear?), I'd much rather have Zack Snyder directing it than that washed-up hack Shyamalan. These days, nobody can ruin a movie like Shymalan.
  
  And having Radiohead do the music for a film based on Watchmen is like proposing that … oh, I dunno… that Flava Flav do the music for a film based on The Dead Sea Scrolls. It's a total WTF proposition.
  
  The actors are all wrong, too. The only one I'd accept is Michael Douglas as Captain Metropolis, and that's because he's such a minimal and unimportant character. Ed Harris as Dr. Manhattan? Who in the world would buy that? Look at Ed Harris in that picture. He looks like some kind of blue serial killer. Come on. Dr. Manhattan is a cerebral, detached, post-human godlike being. He shouldn't seem like he's about to rip your throat out, and Ed Harris (God bless him) couldn't tell you to have a nice day without coming off like he wants to rip your throat out.
  
  Mel Gibson is all wrong for the Comedian, too. The Comedian is a psychopath. Gibson, in that poster, looks like Dabney Coleman. Catherine Zeta Jones as the Silk Spectre is just dumb. She can't act. She just can NOT act. Hope Davis might work as Silk Spectre, but, then again, I don't want a movie made from Watchmen, so, really, nobody would be right. John Cusack would just be a silly choice as Nite Owl II, and I can't for the life of me figure out why he's leading this informal fan pole for the role.
  
  Ralph Fiennes is an awful choice for Ozymandias. For one of a thousand reasons, that character has to be older. Maybe Mel Gibson could pull that role off. He could probably put across the character's megalomania. Maybe he could play Ozymandias and then Bruce Campbell could play The Comedian. He's leading for that role in the fan pole anyway. Not that he'd ever get the role... and not that I actually want the movie to be made. The only proposition here I could even consider is Edward Norton as my favorite character in the title, Rorschach. Other than that, this poster is really just a good iconic summary of how terrible the idea of filming Watchmen is in the first place.
  
  And, speaking of Watchmen, if you know the story and you know the characters, and if you know my politics, you're probably not surprised to find out which character I apparently scored as in a "Which Watchmen Are You?" test.
  

  Which Watchmen character are you?

  You are Rorschach. You are a crime fighter who believes that no crime should go unpunished and you will go to any means to bring justice to the world. But you might be slightly insane. Take this quiz!

  
  
  I'm fine with all that... but I resent the words "might" and "slightly." I also resent the fact that this quiz is really short, really lame, and I'm considering using my current obsessive knowledge of Watchmen to put together a better one while it's still fresh in my mind.




• Reverend Bob Said What?
  
  I don't know who the Reverend Bob Harrington is, but when I read what he'd said about The Simpsons at Bulletproof Bracelets, I got a little miffed:
  
  

  "Their father has replaced his faith in the Lord with the love of money, which is the root of all evil … They don't represent American standards and certainly not Christian standards."

  
  
  Then I realized that he was talking about the father of Ashlee and and Jessica Simpson … not Homer Simpson of The Simpsons. So I got over it.



• PCs And Macs
  
  There are basically two kinds of computers. Apples, or "Macs" … and PC's, or "actual computers." The following look at Macs is courtesy of A Golden World.
  




• Politics N' Such
  
  A few political items I enjoyed today:
  
  
  • Rich Lowry finds the good side of the Mark Foley scandal: finally, the Democrats are concerned about somebody's sexual conduct!
  
  
  • Ann Coulter is usually shrill, but also usually good for a couple of laughs. She's figured out what Foley's real problem is: He's a closeted Democrat.
  
  
  • Boy, there's just nothing that makes my day quite like the site of a bunch of aging, dying hippies at an anti war protest. Go, hippies, go! Go to the nursing homes! They already have bedpans with your names on them!

Labels: Media, Movies, News, Politics, Watchmen, You Tube

Permalink -- Posted by Darrell at 17:53