Holy crap, it's Rorshach!

[Imrahil]

Didn't everybody have beards like that in Rasputin's time?  It's not really the beard that made him famous, it's his charismatic take over of the czar's family.....and his fantastically strange murder.  The beard is only known because to our modern sensibilities it is CRAZY to have a big beard.

Hey!  I resemble that remark!

If you trim his beard, his head gets stuck in doorways.

[Chaos]

Hey, all this talk about bears and Rasputin is really interesting. But you know what I wish we had? A thread for talking about WATCHMEN.

I saw it on opening weekend, and I just saw it again last night with my wife. I'm a hardcore, longtime fan of the comic (like Steve-O, from way WAY before it was cool). My wife had never even heard of it until the trailer came out several months back, and I studiously avoided telling her anything about it leading up to us seeing it together.

I absolutely loved it the first time I saw it, and I think I actually liked it even better the second time through, because I noticed some things that I had missed the first time. She loved it to, especially the characterization of Rorschach. I'm probably one of the few hard-core fans that not only understands the change to the ending, but gladly say that it is BETTER (for a movie version) than the book ending - because the book ending just could not work in a movie without people feeling it was pulled out of someone's ass. I told my wife about the differences on the way home from the movie, and she immediately said "A giant space octopus? Really? Wow, that wouldn't work in a movie."

Some of the song choices were definitely weird, but I actually think Cohen's Hallelujah works really well in that scene. I'm sure a lot of you folks south of the border don't even know who Cohen is (a lot of people I've talked to think Hallelujah is John Cale's creation, which is insulting... fucking Shrek making fucking bad covers popular). Cohen is all about darkness and passion, and that song fits in absolutely perfectly with people getting passionate after nearly getting themselves killed. Plus, the poor guy needs the money really badly, so I'm just glad to see him getting some songs out there again (a couple of years ago, his accountant who was a personal friend of his for over 20 years, skipped town with almost all of his money, he was practically broke and had to come out of being mostly-retired to start performing again).

So yeah... good movie. I definitely would have liked to see more time spent on Rorshach's descent, and more time showing Ozy's strengths and good side (like how he didn't just rest on the laurels of his parents' success but basically gave all of his inheretence away to charity and built himself back up to a super-rich from scratch). It certainly would have made him seem less instantly a villanious character that way... but I understand time constraints, and the small things like this are completely outshadowed by the awesomeness of the rest of the movie. 9.7 out of 10... and I consider myself a harsh critic.

[bettertomorrowamy]

I liked all the music in it, except for that crappy "Desolation Row" cover at the end.

[anais.jude]

Hey Now, Chaos, just because we aren't as cool as you "Canadians" doesn't mean we've never heard of Leonard Cohen! Been a fan since High School I have!

[Chaos]

I did say "a lot" of you probably didn't know who he was, you know. I never said anything about all of you.

I'm sure there are some of you hip youngsters who have heard of Cohen, probably because someone told you it was nice and angsty, which I understand you young people like.

My wife is a huge fan and always has been, and I have respect for the fact that he's still modest after all these years (when he won a Juno award, the Canadian equivalent of a Grammy, or as I more appropriately refer to them, the "everyone gets a trophy" awards, he said "Only in Canada could a man like me win an award like this. Thank you."), and that he considers himself a poet first and a performer second. He puts a lot of himself and a lot of soul into everything he does, and it shows.

If you like a good beat and a great voice, go away and listen to your own music. If you like thought-provoking, beautiful lyrics sung very gravelly but honestly, check out Cohen.

[Imrahil]

I had never heard of him.
*goes and listens to his own music, as Chaos instructed*

[Chaos]

Sweet. Now go make me a sammich.

[stansimpson]

Hey, all this talk about bears and Rasputin is really interesting. But you know what I wish we had? A thread for talking about WATCHMEN.

I saw it on opening weekend, and I just saw it again last night with my wife. I'm a hardcore, longtime fan of the comic (like Steve-O, from way WAY before it was cool). My wife had never even heard of it until the trailer came out several months back, and I studiously avoided telling her anything about it leading up to us seeing it together.

I absolutely loved it the first time I saw it, and I think I actually liked it even better the second time through, because I noticed some things that I had missed the first time. She loved it to, especially the characterization of Rorschach. I'm probably one of the few hard-core fans that not only understands the change to the ending, but gladly say that it is BETTER (for a movie version) than the book ending - because the book ending just could not work in a movie without people feeling it was pulled out of someone's ass. I told my wife about the differences on the way home from the movie, and she immediately said "A giant space octopus? Really? Wow, that wouldn't work in a movie."

Some of the song choices were definitely weird, but I actually think Cohen's Hallelujah works really well in that scene. I'm sure a lot of you folks south of the border don't even know who Cohen is (a lot of people I've talked to think Hallelujah is John Cale's creation, which is insulting... fucking Shrek making fucking bad covers popular). Cohen is all about darkness and passion, and that song fits in absolutely perfectly with people getting passionate after nearly getting themselves killed. Plus, the poor guy needs the money really badly, so I'm just glad to see him getting some songs out there again (a couple of years ago, his accountant who was a personal friend of his for over 20 years, skipped town with almost all of his money, he was practically broke and had to come out of being mostly-retired to start performing again).

So yeah... good movie. I definitely would have liked to see more time spent on Rorshach's descent, and more time showing Ozy's strengths and good side (like how he didn't just rest on the laurels of his parents' success but basically gave all of his inheretence away to charity and built himself back up to a super-rich from scratch). It certainly would have made him seem less instantly a villanious character that way... but I understand time constraints, and the small things like this are completely outshadowed by the awesomeness of the rest of the movie. 9.7 out of 10... and I consider myself a harsh critic.

What did she think of Bubastis?  Even if she loved the movie, that still had to have been at total WTF moment for her.

I mean, if we're talking about the movie as a movie (independently of the source material), you have to consider that a flaw, right?

[Imrahil]

Sweet. Now go make me a sammich.

*waves magic wand*
Poof, you're a sammich.

[Chaos]

No, she just figured it was from the comics and was in the movie to pay service to them... which is pretty much dead on. She understands the limitations of a 3 hour movie versus a full-length comic/novel. Nobody who's being rational about it expects an adapted work crammed into a shorter time frame to make 100% sense compared to the original source material.

[gbeenie]

Well said.

[Johnny Unusual]

Finally saw this and I liked it.  However, it didn't really make me "feel" anything.  I think that's a mix of the limitations of an adaptation, my love of and familiarity with the story and. as some critics have said, a sense of sterility.  Unlike some fans, I certainly don't consider it to be the bible of comics (that honor goes to Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud) but it definitely is one of the great comics and the understandable cutting and changing is going to cause some problems.  Still, I liked it and my complaints are generally quite small.


Also, a bit more gory than the already bloody book.

Barely on the subject, it just occured to me that if they decided to make a good Hellblazer movie (F U Keanu) they would have to time travel to get all the actors I think would do a good job and use magic to make them British)

[Imrahil]

Agreed on your spoiler tag.

[Chaos]

I agree on that point as well, though I don't think it falls under the category of ruining anything, it's just one of the small things they changed because Zack felt the need to tell us explicitly which characters were good (or he felt that some of them NEEDED to be explicitly good, anyway). A little misguided, perhaps, but overall not that big of a deal.

[Doctor Who?]

I have to say for some reason it seemed better the second time,I don't know why but now I feel like giving it an 8.5/10.