Essa cena é tão boa quanto a de Gladiador.

You bring the crowns and heads of conquered kings to my city steps. You insult my queen. You threaten my people with slavery and death! Oh, I’ve chosen my words carefully, Persian. Perhaps you should have done the same! 
 Madness…?  This is Sparta!

Sim, porque esse filme tem enredo, sangue e o Rodrigão,

mas fala de honra, orgulho, valores e luta, muita luta.

Não escutou?

Tonight we dine in hell!!

PS1: Alô, Ricardo Gomes? Fica a dica!

PS2: Eu tenho respeito pelo Gerard Butler. Nesse filme.

The film 300 is based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley about the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C. and directed by Zack Snyder. Xerxes is a powerful Persian king and half-god, who wishes to annex every inch on earth and make all bow before his might and splendour. Spartans are a race, however, that appraise freedom above anything else and refuse to bow to any man. Surrender and subjugation is viewed as weakness and there is no place for weakness among Spartans – be it man or woman or child. It is Spartan law to consult the Mystics on whether or not to go into battle and Spartan King Leonidas is advised not to by the Oracle. He cannot go against what has been decided, but is compelled to fight for the freedom of his people . Therefore, he gathers 300 of Sparta’s best warriors to stall Xerxes’ onslaught and kill as many of his men as possible. But Xerxes’ massive army far outweigh his men in number. It is, surely, a descent into self-destruction.

Let me start off by acknowledging that I have not yet read the graphic novel by Miller and Varley, and therefore, cannot honestly say whether I believe 300 to be a good rendition of it. But according to the Wikipedia the film is a shot-for-shot adaptation of the comic book. And let me get it off my chest that I find it hard to stomach violence these days. It is quite weird, for I am quite open-minded, I’m very liberal and not conservative, yet I find violence superfluous in films as I get older. My husband is a graphic novel lover, and he thought 300 was amazing and that the violence was very comic-book-like. And I admit, I would have expected nothing less from a filmic adaptation of a graphic novel that has integrity. Violence is a key element in graphic novels, and when we heard that 300 has an age restriction of fifteen, we doubted that it would be as dark and bloody as it is supposed to be. But it did not disappoint. 300 definitely has all the ingredients that a graphic novel usually consists of: unapologetic violence, unashamed sex and the most beautifully stylized murals on screen – bereft of colour some times, and laden with colour at others. The cinematography gives a real graphic novel feel and the graphic creatures, décor, make-up and costumes conjure up an amoral universe where myth and reason, love and hate, ugliness and beauty, the sexual and the sensual, coincide. It is, indeed, awesome.

Take my criticism from where it comes – a graphic novel layman: I would certainly raise the age restriction to eighteen and find it quite disturbing how low age restrictions are these days in order to draw as many crowds to the box-office as possible. Pulp Fiction was violent, yes, but I believe it draws an older audience with a more mature mindset which is capable to watch it and not be inclined to go out and shoot someone. 300 draws many impressionable young men and women who might see violence as cool, and that scares me. My only other criticism is that the plot is a bit weak and that their burst of battles get quite monotonous as the film progresses. It is also quite unbelievable that three hundred men can cause such damage to Xerxes’ massive army, but Zack Snyder contends that the “events are 90 percent accurate” and that some world-class historians he showed the movie to “can’t believe it’s as accurate as it is”. But you graphic novel lovers will probably not have the qualms that I do, so go out, watch and enjoy!

Genre: War / Action / History / Fantasy
Running time: 117 min
Country: USA
Language: English
Director: Zack Snyder
Writing credits: Zack Snyder (screenplay)
Kurt Johnstad (screenplay)
Michael Gordon (screenplay)
Frank Miller (graphic novel)
Lynn Varley (graphic novel)
Producers: Gianni Nunnari
Mark Canton
Bernie Goldmann
Jeffrey Silver
Cinematographer: Larry Fong
Editor: William Hoy
Music: Tyler Bates
Distributed by: Warner Brothers
Main Cast:
King Leonidas – Gerard Butler
Queen Gorgo – Lena Headey
Theron – Dominic West
Dilios – David Wenham
Captain – Vincent Regan
Stelios – Michael Fassbender
Astinos – Tom Wisdom
Daxos – Andrew Pleavin
Ephialtes – Andrew Tiernan
Xerxes – Rodrigo Santoro

Interview: Carla Gugino

Carla Gugino has spent the better part of the last decade playing some of the most complicated and interesting female characters in Hollywood. After early roles in lighthearted fare like Son in Law, she played an appropriately combative counterpart for Michael J. Fox’s deputy Mayor on Spin City before appearing in Wayne Wang’s The Center of the World as a troubled seductress, Robert Rodriguez’ Sin City as a tough-as-nails parole officer, Ridley Scott’s American Gangster as Russell Crowe’s exasperated ex-wife, and most recently in Zack Snyder’s Watchmen as a sexpot superheroine with a pitch-black past. This month, she’s acting in Sebastian Gutierrez’ Women in Trouble, where she plays a porn star coming to terms with the news that she’s pregnant.

Cinematical recently spoke to Gugino at the film’s Los Angeles press day, where in between pointing out some of the bruises she earned while shooting Zack Snyder’s Watchmen follow-up, Sucker Punch, she offered a few insights into her character in Women in Trouble.

Cinematical: What immediately jumped out to me about Elektra is that even though she’s at her own crossroads in Women in Trouble, she seems to have the most certainty of the characters about who she is.

Carla Gugino: It was interesting. I was kind of intrigued by the fact that this woman who was a porn star, which was all have varying ideas about what that means and what that kind of person might be like, [and] I think that’s where Sebastian really kind of deserves the credit, because it was a structural thing, which was she is at the very top given a piece of information that is a wake-up call. It’s a real “uh oh – I’d better take a look at my life, and I’d better look at it really clearly really fast.” So therefore it did seem like all the scenes had this kind of resonance of, yeah, I have to look at what I’ve been doing, and I have a 13-year-old saying to me, “do you have fake boobs?” and sort of having to be like, I have to be accountable for all of these things, and kind of realizing like, oh wow, somebody else might have taken my childhood and done something better with it. Do I still have that chance? It’s not even better like a judgment of someone who is in that profession, but I think for her, I think she definitely has become very famous for something that she isn’t that proud of.

That was a really interesting thing as I was sitting there in the elevator; we were shooting that and that was one of the first scenes I shot. [Actually] we shot the Even Reverse Cowgirls Get the Blues scene and then we shot that, but I was sitting there and I thought, what an interesting thing! Because I reveal myself on an emotional level as an actress a lot; actresses, actors, that is what we do. We have to strip down, and you do it in a fairly private way [when] there are maybe 100 people on set, in this case it was ten people on set because we had such a small crew, and then you give it to the millions of people – you just give it to the world. But this is so interesting for her because she’s physically completely revealing in her profession, but nobody knows anything about those people; you know very little about what they’re like for real. Many porn stars have very faithful relationships they’ve had for many years, they’re very homebodyish people, and it’s a really interesting juxtaposition between their profession and their personal life, but from that I wanted her to be really no-nonsense and to be kind of unadorned, and that’s what I think maybe is what you’re saying, which I’m so appreciative that it came through.

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Cinematical: Did that empathy and understanding of her come from what was on the page, or did you do any research into the private lives of real porn stars?

Gugino: It was kind of both. I think as an actor you end up being more empathetic than most people because you end up getting in the skin of other people so you see it from their perspective. I just finished doing Desire Under the Elms on Broadway a few months ago, and that’s a character that literally has never had love in her entire life – [she] falls in love with her husband’s son, has a child with him, and ultimately kills the child. So Elektra’s a saint! (laughs) I mean, I really had to get into the heads of some people, and you end up understanding where they’re coming from. You end up understanding the nature of humanity and the complexity of it. I’m not a very judgmental person anyway; I never say, “oh, I would never ever do that.” We’re all capable of everything, and life is complicated, and people are trying to do the best they can. But I think that he wrote this character and he wrote all of these characters with multiple levels, [and] I think we are all empathetic of people when we understand them. Which is of course the meaning of empathy, but I think if you are standing outside someone and you cannot see it from their perspective, then there is an innate separation. But even in something like this, with Connie Britton’s character and my character, at first – and I think Connie plays that moment so beautifully too – she’s like, “oh, you’re an actress? What do you do, film, television?” And I’m like “porn,” and she’s like, “oh?” You can see the moment of this is a different woman than I thought she was, and she does it so well, but then very soon she also is like, (whispering) “so are you famous?” You realize we all want pretty much the same thing you know; we all want to be seen for who we are and we want to be loved.

Short of that, everyone goes about it in different ways, but in terms of the question you asked, yes, some of it was from the page, but also I watched this really cool documentary that I had Tivo’d so I’m pretty sure it was on HBO, and it was a bunch of porn stars talking about their profession. Some of them were extremely successful, some of them were just starting out, so I was like this is so fascinating because they’re talking about these things just as if [an ordinary person were saying] “yeah, when I wanted to become a secretary I could only type 20 words a minute, but then I ended up being able to…” and meanwhile they’re saying “I could only take one guy but now I can take three.” Then you also realize, how cool is that, the power of words? It’s just words, but words make people so uncomfortable, and that’s the thing about this movie too, that I love is that there’s nothing really physically explicit. I mean, you see women in lingerie and hopefully they look sexy, and there’s that aspect of things. But the truth is it’s much more of an emotional bareness, and verbally it’s very evocative and provocative. I love that – the simplicity of like, you could do all of these things but mostly people just want to see their neighbor naked. it’s nice because Sebastian loves women but it’s not like, “she’s smart so she can’t be sexy,” or “she’s sexy so she must not be very smart.” It’s like, they can be everything – they can be complicated and everything that we are.

Cinematical: You’ve had some really interesting opportunities to play strong female characters. Whether or not it’s out of a sense of responsibility – because certainly no one asks men if they feel a sense of responsibility to portray men in a flattering way – do you feel a sense in a film like this which is representing so many different kinds of women that you might tend to play up a character’s, say, resilience rather than her vulnerability? Or is vulnerability an inherent part of female strength?

Gugino: I do, actually. I guess I feel like Elektra is super-vulnerable ultimately, but resilient, and I guess that’s the thing. I feel like human beings are really resilient; people have survived just insurmountable things. Did you ever see Steve Jobs’ commencement speech for Harvard? It is one of the most inspiring speeches I’ve ever heard, but one of the things he says is, “all of the pieces connect, but you just don’t know when you’re in it how they’re going to connect. But you will know later, so just trust that they will.” I do think people are resilient, and also, I’ve played some really tragic characters too, but I guess for me, I want you to come out feeling a little hope. I want a shift to have been made. There are characters I’ve played, like inCenter of the World, this Wayne Wang movie, she’s pretty tragic and you don’t ever really get out of that hole with her. But that was also what I needed to serve in that movie, so that’s a woman who’s sort of stripped-down and hasn’t found her way back yet. So it’s not like I feel like they always have to be resilient, but nor am I afraid of vulnerability in those instances.

[But] I think you said it perfectly – they don’t ask men these questions – but the reason they ask women these questions is because there are so few portrayals, [so it's like they're saying] you have a full character here so you really owe it to the women to get everything in there, you know? If I looked at it like I was in any way representing my entire sex, it would be too overwhelming and I wouldn’t know because you’re sort of boxed in. the only thing I can do is be true to the story and the character, and maybe kind of like a little hidden thing I might want to [include] is to go, “you might think there is no way to get out of this situation, but there will be some way.” I think that’s the good thing with Sebastian as well; he has the ability of cutting to the core or the heart of somebody, but he’s innately optimistic.

Cinematical: Is it challenging then to play a character where you know what their trajectory is going to be? Or is it freeing to know that endpoint and in the process of getting them to that you can construct the formative moments in between?

Gugino: It’s funny because I’ve asked writers that question too, and mostly they don’t know where it’s going, or they might have a sense where it’s ending, but then it’s that thing of like, all of a sudden a new character appears and it’s like, “oh, I didn’t know she was coming in.” So I kind of like the beginning, middle and end, because in that I have no idea how certain things are going to manifest, but it does give me a sense of, if I have to get there, if this scene doesn’t deliver what it needs to deliver, I never want to be in a position where you don’t believe how I got there. So laying groundwork, just as a technical thing, it’s actually really helpful. I’ve been a part of movies where there’s a lot of improve; …Center of the World was a film where things were changed by how we shot it. Like after the scene where I came into the hotel room, that scene changed everything so much; they were supposed to have a big sex scene right after that, and they were like, “we would never be having sex right now – that was too intense.” So it’s cool when you can change those things, but you still kind of know somewhat of a sense where you might be going.

by Todd Gilchrist (cinematical.com)

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Sam Neill, Geoffrey Rush, Hugo Weaving and David Wenham will topline the voice cast of Animal Logic’s 3D animated feature, “Guardians of Ga’hoole,” according to Heat Vision.

The big-budget fantasy film, in production in Sydney and directed by Zack Snyder, also will feature the voices of Aussie actors Emily Barclay, Abbie Cornish, Emilie de Ravin, Ryan Kwanten and Jay Laga’aia, as well as English actors Miriam Margolyes, Helen Mirren and Jim Sturgess.

The animated film is an adaptation of the 14 book bestselling kids series by author Kathryn Lasky and illustrator Richard Cowdry and follows Soren, a young owl enthralled by his father’s epic stories of the Guardians of Ga’Hoole, a mythic band of winged warriors who had fought a great battle to save all of owlkind from the evil Pure Ones.

The film is due for release in Australia on 9th December next year.

Yep. I watched it. All three hours and thirty-five minutes of it. And despite adding nearly an hour of extra footage, including the ‘comic within the comic’ “The Black Freighter”, the problems with Watchmen remain.

Based on the overrated fanboy funnybook by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Watchmen is based in an alternate America, between the 1930’s and early 1980’s, where ordinary (and not so ordinary) people dress up as hood ornaments to fight crime. Years after being outlawed, these crime fighters come together again to unravel a mystery surrounding the murder of one of their own.

Known as Minutemen, there’s Night Owl (Patrick Wilson), a pudgy technogeek with a serious case of erectile dysfunction;  Silk Spectre (Malin Åkerman) who has daddy issues and seems to find sucking on a battery arousing;  Rorschach (Jackie Earl Haley), a deeply disturbed bloodnut and quite literally a dirty son of a whore;  Ozymandias (Matthew Goode), an effeminate billionaire and ‘the smartest man in the world’;  The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who generally speaking, just isn’t a very nice guy;  and Doctor Manhattan (Billy Crudup), a blue skinned nudist with a penchant for hiding his dong just out of frame (or behind a budgie smuggler). These characters come together to crap on about quasi-philosophical garbage and to slow-mo fight their way through a poorly constructed conspiracy mystery.

There is such a thing as ‘too faithful’, and after “300” and “Watchmen”, director Zack Snyder has proven that he is about as imaginative as Rain Man counting cards. By spewing each frame onto the screen, he has essentially made a moving version of the funnybook. Snyder has revered the source material so much that he has lost sight of the fact that what works on the page, doesn’t always work on screen.

Snyder has made a number of severe miscalculations; the music in particular is annoying and obvious. “Ride of the Valkyries” for a Vietnam scene? “Hallelujah” for a love scene?  That’s just lazy.  And a truly bizarre and baffling use of “99 Luftballoons” which comes completely out of nowhere and lasts about 19 seconds before fading out. It’s like Snyder had it written into his contract that he must include the song in the movie.

Also annoying is the aforementioned over-use of slow-mo, and the constant movement of the camera. It seems as if Snyder was conscious of the restrictions he placed on himself by being so faithful to recreating every frame as it was in the comic that he attempted to breath life into the film by moving the camera in every single shot. In a static scene of dialogue or exposition he is constantly doing a slow push in. It’s annoying.

The performances as a whole are fine. Jackie Earl Haley is particularly good as Rorschach, but he benefits from having the most interesting character and the best lines.  Ozymandias looks less like ‘the smartest man in the world’ and more like he should be dancing on the Kylie float in the Gay Mardi Gras Parade.  He also has a staggering amount of superhuman ability for an ordinary human being.  The bullet thing is particularly ridiculous.

Snyder hasn’t interpreted the funnybooks for the movies. Sure, he’s made a substantial change to the end, which was the correct decision. The squid in the comic is stupid, but it kind of works. At the very least, it’s easier to accept. If Snyder were to have featured a giant squid attacking New York in the movie it would’ve been laughed off the screen. So he had the foresight to change that, but has mistakenly kept infantile joke shots like the flame spurt.

Jarv's favourite moment in film history.

The best part of the film is the Doctor Manhattan origin.  It’s the one section that successfully translated from funnybook to screen.  And it’s good to see Crudup without the CG dong and the weird lightbulb eyes.

The most enjoyable part of Watchmen, as in the comic, is “The Black Freighter”. A brutal tale of one mans descent into madness, the animated sequences in this Ultimate Cut are very effective and make for a welcome respite from the film itself.

The biggest problem with Watchmen, is that I just don’t think that the story’s relates to 2009.  The original comic is a somewhat effective commentary of a particular time and state of the world.  Now that the Cold War’s over, Nixons a distant memory, Vietnam’s old news and Viagra’s been invented, it feels irrelevant.

Watchmen did have potential, but it’s been kicking around for so many years that it’s time has passed and the list of those who DIDN’T direct or star in it, what could’ve been, is more interesting than that finished product.

O diretor Zack Snyder, conhecido de filmes como 300 e mais recentemente, Watchmen está no cargo para dirigir o longa em animação 3D “Guardiões da Ga’Hoole”. De acordo com o Hollywood Reporter, trata-se de um filme com elementos de fantasia.

A produção é australiana e será realizada em Sydney. Na história, Soren é uma jovem coruja que é fascinado pelas histórias épicas que seu pai conta sobre os Guardiões Ga’Hoole, guerreiros míticos alados que lutaram numa grande batalha para derrotar o puro mal.

Alguns nomes já estão fechados para fazerem vozes dos personagens. São eles: Sam Neill, Geoffret Rush, Hugo Heaving, David Wenham. O projeto também contará com atrizes australianas e inglesas, como a vencedora do Oscar por A Rainha, Helen Mirren. Não está implícito na notícia quais personagens os respectivos atores emprestarão suas vozes.
A Warner Bros. e a Village Roadshow Pictures cuidam da produção, visando o lançamento na Autrália no dia 9 de dezembro de 2010.

Sem dúvida um projeto bem diferente de juntas homens sem camisa em um fundo verde ou dar vida para heróis que até então estavam fracassados. Parece interessante. Não custa nada ficar de olho no trabalho de Snyder. Não dá pra negar que é um cineasta talentoso. Se agrada, aí fica por conta de cada um…

Guilherme Jr.

4. Cuando se le pide que razone su proverbial alergia a cualquier adaptación cinemtaográfica de su obra, Alan Moore ofrece razones ciertamente interesantes. Por ejemplo, en esta entrevista con The Guardian: “Hay alguna cualidad en los cómics que hace posibles cosas que no puedes lograr en cualquier otro medio”. Más: “Con Watchmen, hicimos cosas sobre el papel que pueden ser francamente horribles, sensacionalistas o desagradables si las interpretas literalmente en un medio como el cine”. En otras entrevistas, a medida que se iba acercando el estreno de la película, Moore explicaba que él y Dave Gibbons concibieron la miniserie como una reflexión metalingüística de los cómics en cuanto medio de expresión. Esa es una de las razones por las que la historieta de los piratas es relevante: coloca al lector ante un marco dentro de otro marco, haciendo así que se plantee su propia posición con respecto a la obra. En un nivel de lectura superficial, Watchmen es la historia de unos justicieros enmascarados que deben formar equipo una última vez para detener el retorcido plan mesiánico de uno de ellos, decidido a aprovechar su condición de superhombre para cambiar el rumbo de la humanidad. La película de Zack Snyder hace lo que puede por traducir las tácticas posmodernas y la narrativa no lineal que Moore supo integrar en el lenguaje de la novela gráfica: es muy difícil que una superproducción comercial canalice a la perfección el joyciano flujo de conciencia del episodio narrado por el Doctor Manhattan, pero (al César lo que es del César) el director tampoco sale mal parado en su intento. El problema es que, básicamente, no pasa de ese primer nivel de lectura.

5. La reflexión sobre el propio medio es la razón de ser última de una obra como Watchmen. Su estudio del arquetipo superheroico supuso una deconstrucción y una búsqueda de alma en la ficción popular sin precedentes: el existencialismo por fin cabía en una viñeta. Moore asimiló los fundamentos de la narrativa posmoderna y los adaptó al universo cerrado de los tebeos, obteniendo como resultado un trabajo que tenía mucho de placer intertextual para los conocedores de la historia del cómic. Trasladar tal cual una obra que versa sobre los mecanismos de un medio de expresión artística a otro diferente acaba revelándose como una traición evidente, o al menos como una mera simulación epidérmica del original. Snyder pudo haber calcado hasta la última mancha de la gabardina de Rorschach, pero tendría que haber reparado antes en que el error fundamental estaba en el propio Rorschach. En el fondo, no en la forma. Por paradójico que suene, los protagonistas de un Watchmen cinematográfico realmente fiel a los postulados del original no deberían haber sido arquetipos de cómics, sino arquetipos de película: Sally Jupiter como una femme fatale octogenaria, el Comediante como un Clark Gable realmente crepuscular, el Búho Nocturno original como un detective a lo Humphrey Bogart, Dan Dreiberg como el Philip Marlowe altmaniano de El largo adiós (1973), Ozymandias como un villano del James Bond cinematográfico, Espectro de Seda II como la versión madura de la Jane Fonda de Klute (1971), Rorschach como una evolución del David Sumner de Perros de paja (1971)… Por supuesto, el tebeo de piratas sería sustituido por un serial cinematográfico de piratas, en el que el actor protagonista no dejara de mirar directamente a la cámara (con contraplanos del niño negro sentado en su butaca). Los personajes podrían reflexionar en voz alta sobre lo mucho que se parecen sus vidas a las de los personajes literarios en los que se inspiran y el clímax consistiría en un tiroteo, una pelea de tartas, un beso catártico y el Doctor Manhattan (un sosias de Clint Eastwood) caminando hacia el atardecer.  En suma, la única posibilidad de ser fiel a Watchmen hubiera pasado por remodelar Watchmen de arriba a abajo. Por rodar un Watchmen sin mención alguna a los superhéroes.

6. Aún sería necesario dar un paso más para alcanzar la adaptación definitiva de la obra de Moore y Gibbons. El Ultimate Cut ha convertido la historieta de piratas en un mediometraje de animación, lo que desvirtúa gran parte de su sentido y lo convierte en poco más que un extra vistoso. Otro error cometido en aras de la literaridad es trasformar los fragmentos de Under the Hood, la autobiografía de Hollis Mason, en un documental, cuando su potencial como postre de los primeros números de Watchmen residía, precisamente, en su condición de páginas con mucha letra y pocos dibujos en un medio caracterizado por presentar muchos dibujos y poca letra. Traducir esas páginas estáticas al lenguaje audiovisual es contraproducente: si Snyder quería literaridad, debería haber filmado un largo plano en HD de cada página del falso libro. Así, llegamos a la idea de montaje intelectual de Eisenstein, quien no en vano pretendía hacerle justicia a la teoría marxista con una adaptación (un Ultimate Cut avant la lettre) de El Capital que integrase una serie de imágenes dispares y aparentemente inconexas en un Todo que solo tendría sentido una vez decodificado por la mente del espectador. Así, el Ultimate Cut de Watchmen debería ser algo más parecido a un hipertexto que a un largometraje tradicional: un montaje no lineal de secuencias audiovisuales que despliegan una reproducción en movimiento (un motion comic) de la página original, fragmentos de animación, textos del libro de Mason o del New Frontiersman, archivos de audio con las canciones que cerraban cada episodio, fotografías del hongo atómico y de la superficie de Marte, clips de Los arquitectos del miedo superpuestos al clímax revisado de la película… El espectador formularía el significado abstracto de Watchmen a partir de esta sobredosis de significantes concretos. El resultado sería una adaptación tan fiel que solo tendríamos una opción al terminar de verla: quemar la novela gráfica original.

El lanzamiento en DVD y Blu-ray de Watchmen: The Ultimate Cut (2009) ha hecho realidad, por fin, el sueño megalómano de su director Zack Snyder: una adaptación cinematográfica que reprodujera, con una voluntad mimética casi obsesiva, la experiencia de leer el cómic de Alan Moore y Dave Gibbons. El montaje definitivo es producto de descomponer Tales of the Black Freighter (2009), versión animada del relato-dentro-del-relato que Moore concibió como juego de espejos y enésimo nivel de lectura, de manera que cada fragmento corte la narración principal en el mismo punto que el original. En suma, la desproporcionada edición de cinco dvds y cuatro Blu-rays presenta como plato principal un montaje del director (que ya había sido editado previamente) con el relato de piratas incluido, formando así lo que para muchos espectadores supondrá la adaptación definitiva, la experiencia análoga total que ya tantearon Robert Rodriguez y Frank Miller con su Sin City (2005). Sin embargo, este blog propone a sus lectores una paradoja: es posible que el Ultimate Cut no sea la adaptación más literal posible de Watchmen, sino una traición falsamente mimética que, en realidad, le es infiel al original en lo fundamental.

1. En los meses anteriores a su estreno, la película de Snyder provocó la ira de los fundamentalistas del comic-book, considerado durante décadas como una pieza de ficción intocable e inabarcable. Los rumores apuntaban a que el director y sus guionistas habían cambiado el final imaginado por Moore, sustituyendo la falsa amenaza extraterrestre con forma de pulpo gigante por una solución más viable desde el punto de vista narrativo. El problema estaba en que los fundamentalistas tenían razón: Watchmen es realmente inabarcable para el lenguaje cinematográfico, aunque solo sea por el hecho de que ninguna película podría condensar su multiplicación de subtramas y líneas narrativas. Ni siquiera el Ultimate Cut, de tres horas y media, podría haber incluido la explicación al pulpo gigante (un grupo de artistas y científicos son secuestrados y trasladados a una isla desierta para imaginar una amenaza del espacio exterior). Por tanto, Snyder no tuvo más remedio que recurrir a uno de sus protagonistas para simplificar el clímax final.

2. Las quejas de los integristas de la viñeta se pueden interpretar como una advertencia sobre los peligros de prometer una literaridad extrema que se antoja imposible (si los acostumbras a darles absolutamente todo, es normal que se vuelvan contra ti cuando les escatimas aunque sea un ápice), pero no les faltaba parte de razón: el pulpo gigante tiene unas connotaciones políticas y culturales que forman parte del ADN de Watchmen. Además, es uno de los pocos momentos en los que el lector comprueba hasta qué punto lo extraordinario está integrado en la realidad paralela de la historia. Es bien sabido que Moore pudo haberse inspirado en Los arquitectos del miedo (1963), episodio de The Outer Limits que también presentaba una amenaza desproporcionada y monstruosa como única solución posible a la Guerra Fría. Hacia el final de la película, Snyder hace una referencia directa al episodio, que se está emitiendo en el televisor de Sally Jupiter cuando su hija y Daniel Dreiberg van a saludarla. De esta manera, el director invalidaba cualquier crítica por parte de los fundamentalistas: si su deseo era que todo estuviera ahí, que todos los elementos se vieran en pantalla, Snyder había cumplido, a través de un guiño al espectador-lector que tenía mucho de disculpa. La referencia a Los arquitectos del miedo era una manera de suplicarle a un sector del público que no lo linchase, pues conocía el material y sus fuentes. La fiebre por la adaptación al pie de la letra como sinónimo de calidad (el modelo Sin City) significa que cualquier desvío del original conlleve una escena posterior en la que alguien pida perdón.

3. El modelo Sin City tiene su contrapartida en Ghost World (2001): el director Terry Zwigoff también contó con la estrecha colaboración de Daniel Clowes, autor de la novela gráfica original, en las fases de escritura y preproducción. Su estrategia no pudo ser más diferente a la de Rodriguez y Miller, que escogieron cuatro historietas firmadas por el segundo y las tradujeron a un lenguaje cinematográfico que hibridaba el estaismo de los tableaux vivants con una suerte de infografía noir para reproducir viñetas en las composiciones de plano. Zwigoff y Clowes, en cambio, decidieron conservar el espíritu del original y proponer una historia paralela, pero complementaria. El resultado fue una película más viva y satisfactoria que Sin City, que aún hoy supone una experiencia extraña, casi una naturaleza muerta, que no aporta demasiados placeres inéditos al lector de cómics. Por suerte, Snyder no decidió seguir este modelo hasta sus últimas consecuencias: su diseño de producción y su encomiable formalismo no calcan la estética de Dave Gibbons, sino que dejan a la película respirar y encontrar su propio ritmo. No obstante, el director no puede prescindir del todo de esos ralentís que tanto lastraban 300 (2007), su adaptación de Miller, y que los fans del original aplaudieron como intentos de reproducir las viñetas en pantalla grande. Esta manera de pensar debería haber llevado a muchos a preferir Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic, una producción de no-animación que se lanzó al mismo tiempo que la película llegaba a los cines. En principio, su premisa fundamental podría parecer una deconstrucción crítica (propia casi de instalación artística) del modelo Sin City: si se lleva hasta el extremo, esta estrategia tan amada por cierto tipo de espectador no difiere demasiado de pasar muy rápido las páginas del cómic.

Seguimos mañana.

Un film del 2011, regia di Zack Snyder, con . Prodotto da ()

Azione / Drammatico

Frank Miller e Zack Snyder tornano a narrare le epiche gesta degli eroi spartani.

So, I haven’t blogged in forever, but at last the term’s winding down, and my workload is (slowly, slightly) dissipating. Soon winter break will be here and I’ll have little better to do than spout out thoughts onto the Internet. In any case, I’ve got some random thoughts clotting up my brain: movies I’ve been watching lately, good & bad. Gender roles and perceptions. Feminism, activism, and privilege. Where to start? My ideas aren’t really in any kind of especially useful or coherent form. But I’ll see what I can do.

[Watchmen SPOILERS!]

First of all: the Watchmen movie. I wanted this to be good. I honestly, sincerely wanted to see Watchmen and enjoy it, and say, “Well, that was a worthy adaptation.” Alas, that was not to be. I know everybody went over all of this months ago, but I just now caught up with the film, so I’m going to speak my piece: I love Alan Moore’s Watchmen. I read it for the first time when I was a senior in high school. Its merits (and its influences) are endless. With Dave Gibbons’ impressive artistry and Moore’s blow-you-the-fuck-away writing, which veers between the trenchantly political, satirical, personal, and epic, it’s an ambitious, mature work of art that changed both how readers thought about superheroes, and how comics writers wrote about them.

But praising Watchmen is like bringing coals to Newcastle – it’s been declared the greatest graphic novel of all time, and so far, that claim seems at least as legitimate as calling it “the Citizen Kane of comics” (just try searching that phrase and see what comes up). My point is, I’ve loved the book for a while, loved how it lures you into its dystopian yet recognizable world and gives you pathetic has-beens to identify with (Dan and the insulated Laurie), loved its intelligently crafted images from the snow blindness of Karnak to the majesty of Jon’s Martian solitude, and loved how they all came together to form a brilliant and imaginative end result.

Then I saw the movie.

Yes, it’s faithful, but only to the letter of the original, not to the spirit. A real Watchmen adaptation (IMHO – after all, who am I?) would have acknowledged that comics are a different medium than film, so the techniques that worked so well in one just wouldn’t translate to the other. Similarly, we read comics in a different way than we watch movies. In comics, you can page back and forth, reconnecting subplots, noticing subtle visual clues, and resolving suspicions. Moore & Gibbons used this to their advantage time and time again. In a movie theater, though, you can’t slow down the pace at which you’re taking in information – it’s going to be constantly hitting you at 24 fps – and you can’t ask the projectionist to rewind to a earlier reel because you want to check something. (Maybe Watchmen can be an object lesson in medium specificity.)

What this amounts to is that 1) while in the book, we could extract all the detail out of Gibbons’ art by lingering over each panel, we don’t have time for that in the movie, especially when so much jumbled, hyperkinetic action is being thrown at us and 2) the complex, interweaving strands of narrative and character development are reduced to chaotic attempts to give each character his due. Robert Altman could dart back in forth between sets of characters and do each one justice, showing the audience how they all intersect and what that means. (See Nashville, Short Cuts, or Gosford Park.) Zack Snyder just can’t. So what ended up happening?

The viewer’s assaulted with chunks of pages ripped from the book, with no chance to appreciate any of their nuances. We get one flashback, then another, then another, with a little bit of the present day thrown in for good measure. What was a fully-developed world full of unhappy, relatable people becomes a competing mix of garbled ideas, some carried out well, others not. The massive background of Watchmen, apparently tossed in as one of many efforts to please fans, instead becomes a contextless distraction. Who’s Dollar Bill? Who’s Hooded Justice? Snyder might as well have tacked a note to those scenes saying, “If you can’t tell what’s going on, go read the book, then come back.” This is by no means a stand-alone project; instead, it’s like a parasitic twin sprouting out of the Watchmen legacy.

So what the film’s unflinching “faithfulness” to the book means, in the end, is that it’s a rushed, 3-hour attempt to tell a huge story. And to paraphrase Citizen Kane’s Bernstein, “It’s no trick to [tell a huge story], if all you want to do is [tell a huge story].” Well, OK, it is something of a trick, but my point is that Snyder doesn’t tell the story well or interestingly or in a way that adds anything to the body of cinema; he just tells it. Sure, every plot point is filled in, but they’re done perfunctorily. In the book, the ending is cathartic and daunting – with Dan and Laurie still together, two people in a shattered, confused world, and the New Frontiersman potentially about to change all that.

Having felt for these two and been involved in their lives over the preceding hundreds of pages, I could sympathize with the crises they’d faced and the uneasy point at which they’d arrived. In the movie, however, I just didn’t care about Laurie. Maybe it was fucking Malin Åkerman. Or maybe it was the way she was squeezed into all of these emotionally loaded situations – her mom popping up briefly at the beginning and end to reminisce, Dr. Manhattan with his making-you-remember-things superpower (where did that come from?) to let her know that the Comedian is her father. All the right words and pictures are there, but none of the feeling.

I’ll keep my minor complaints to a minimum: for example, why did the masked heroes call themselves “the Watchmen”? I’m not a purist who insists every detail in the book must be in the movie, but there was a reason for the group in the book to be called the Minutemen instead. The title derives from a Juvenal quote, graffiti’d on walls periodically throughout book and film, “Who watches the watchmen?”, an explicit questioning of the pre-Keene Act team’s power and lack of oversight. If the team calls itself the Watchmen, that takes away the whole critical aspect of the title, and reduces it to a simple descriptor. Of course, as Ashley pointed out, if they’d called the team the Minutemen, audiences would’ve been confused and upset, so it’s probably all for the best.

Other minor complaints: the soundtrack, dear lord. Hey, who wants another montage, action scene, or random transition set to the best of classic rock? “99 Luftballoons” appeared for about a minute as Dan and Laurie went to dinner together. You’re just left guessing what not-really-that-appropriate song they’ll turn to next. And finally, this isn’t really minor, but I can’t imagine enjoying this movie if you don’t enjoy stylized violence. All the time. Like blood splattering places for no real reason. Bones cracking in slow-motion. People being exploded by Dr. Manhattan, a lot, and having their guts stick to the ceiling. It’s not a party if no one’s being exploded.

So that’s my take on the Watchmen movie, and as you can imagine, I’m kinda sick of talking about it. Was it insufferably bad? Not really. Was it good? Eh. Jackie Earle Haley made for a suitably grungy, psychotic Rorschach. The general visual aesthetic worked well enough. But on the whole, especially in comparison to the book, no. Pretty much the only correct response to the existence of the film Watchmen is to go read the book. In cinematic form, it has all of its energy, emotion, and political inquiry sucked out, replaced with interminable blood-letting and tedious plot re-enactments, until you practically want to blow up New York yourself just to get it over with. (Another minor complaint: the changed ending also sucks, and it lacks the curiosity-piquing build-up of the book.) I may be a little tardy in reviewing this, but it doesn’t really matter. Maybe someday they (this mysterious “they”) will take the same route as with the 2003 Hulk, and reboot it all entirely. But given the legal quagmire this adaptation got stuck in, I doubt we’ll be seeing a brand new one any time soon.

One piece of Watchmen I did enjoy, though, was something lifted from another movie: the use of Philip Glass’s “Pruitt-Igoe” among other pieces from Koyaanisqatsi. The main effect, though, was to make me think, I want to go listen to some Philip Glass music, without Zack Snyder’s involvement. Listening to Glass makes me wish I knew anything about music. He’s called a minimalist, which makes sense to me – his compositions are often repetitive and cyclical, but beautifully so. When Godfrey Reggio approached him to score Koyaanisqatsi, he originally said he didn’t do film scores. Thank God he reconsidered, because what resulted was one of the greatest feature-length mergers of image and sound in film history. Since the film is entirely without dialogue (or narrative), the music speaks for it in a similarly universal language.

From what I’ve learned about him and heard of his music, Philip Glass is just cool. I first heard his name in connection to a new score he composed for the 1931 Dracula – I mean, how much more awesome do you get? He’s based symphonies on David Bowie albums. His score for Mishima, despite being totally un-Japanese, somehow fits Paul Schrader’s depiction of the author’s dark visions and imperial dreams. With Errol Morris’s The Fog of War, his music aurally illustrated the historical implications of Robert S. McNamara’s life. I can’t imagine a Glass score ever being a liability; I would (and have) watch a movie just to hear one. Out of all the classical musicians in the world today, I’m skeptical that any are as plainly awesome as Glass. Need proof?

That’s right, Glass composed music for Sesame Street. He’s just all over the place. And I salute his extreme versatility, ingenuity, and the great pleasure of his music. So, that done, I think I’ll take the time I have left at work to switch to a very different vein: talking gender roles, as I often do. Today in my often thought-provoking (and always very easy) Psychology of Gender class, we were watching clips of John Gray (of Men are from Mars fame) and Dave Chapelle talking about the differences between men and women. To put it directly, bullshit. In addition, fuck that. To make matters worse, last night Ashley and I were looking at a disturbing “trending topic” on Twitter: #arealwife. To give some random, unpleasant examples:

“sticks by her man thru thick or thin, rich or poor, her friends all hate him or not….”

“runs the family but acts and lets everyone think like her man is really running shit!”

“will give u a massage after a long day at work n will cook ur fave meal…. tell u she loves u n kiss u”

“will feed u, please u, need u, and always be right there for u”

Here’s what’s (obviously) wrong with this situation: these statuses are advocating deeply regressive gender roles that negatively affect both men and women. They’re claiming that “a real wife” should be subservient, sycophantic, hard-working, and sincerely caring all the time, subordinating herself to her almighty husband regardless of his behavior. It’s just a big, tiresome, worthless set of lies that people feel strangely compelled to fulfill. They’re similar to the lies we were discussing in class today: all women are [adjective], while all men are [adjective]; men and women apparently can’t talk to each other, but must do a formulaic dance in every relationship, struggling to reconcile they’re absolute goals (generally this means sex for men, and some combination of wealth, family, and commitment for women). Love, it would seem, has nothing to do with it.

And naturally feminism is very problematic, because it upsets all these supposedly universal desires of men and women. After all, if women expect to be treated like human beings, how are men supposed to degrade them and coerce them into sex? And if the men can’t do that, how are the women supposed to latch onto them for security and start producing babies? Why, feminism is just a wrench in the circle of life! It frustrates assumed life roles, it messes up how people of different sexes are supposed to relate (and really, without these schemata, how can men and women even talk to each other?), it just makes everything impossible!

That’s some extensive sarcasm, of course. I’d like to discuss this more, but I have some business to attend to for the rest of the evening. My point is that this #arealwife shit is just kind of saddening. Everyone should feel like they’re a worthy human being on their own, with no need for the validation of a set-in-stone relationship. Men and women are more similar than they are different, dammit. I feel like this should be obvious, but for some reason it’s just easier to perceive the world and relationships through the lens of oversimplifying roles. Hopefully people can gradually come to realize what confining, damaging bullshit all of this is – hell, I feel insulted when I’m told “men only want sex!” – and all of society can continue changing. I mean, we’ve made some progress in the past century. But so much of it lingers. The battle’s never over.

Moral of the story? Watchmen movie and gender roles bad; Watchmen book, Philip Glass, and liberation good.

Watchmen star Carla Gugino, who played Sally Jupiter and the original Silk Spectre in the movie, is reteaming with director Zack Snyder for his forthcoming fantasy action movie Sucker Punch.

The movie is based on Synder’s own script and centres on girls in a 1960s asylum who lead a dual life in an action-packed alternate reality. Gugino will play a psychiatrist in an asylum—and an alternate-universe dominatrix version of the character. Jena Malone, Abbie Cornish, Emily Browning, Vanessa Hudgens and Jamie Chung also star as the patients who plan their escape via their fantasy world.

Gugino, who is currently promoting Women in Trouble, told reporters that in addition to playing psychiatrist Dr. Gorsky that “In an alternate world, I play Madame Gorsky, who is a dominatrix choreographer/madame in a brothel. I sing and I dance and I’m Polish.”

Many of the same crew from Snyder’s Watchmen return for Sucker Punch, which is also filming in Vancouver, Canada. “I was just so excited to get to go back up and work with everybody again,” Gugino said. “I mean, I’m up there with my whole crew that I know from that, so it’s nice.”

It all certainly sounds interesting. Look out for this when it hits cinemas in 2011.

Over a month ago, I detailed the release date and pricing for Zack Snyder’s “Watchmen” Ultimate Cut. Since I took a leave of absence, it appears that I missed the news that the release date had changed from Nov. 3 to Nov. 10. Why? I have yet to discover the cause, but apparently those who pre-ordered on Amazon were sent an email notifying them of the delay no later than Nov. 1. A little short notice, but it is finally here.

I should also note that I had no concrete evidence of whether or not you could play the director’s cut version of the film using this edition. Now, although I cannot confirm nor deny it either way at this point (it came out today, after all), it seems likely that it won’t have that ability.

Now, for those that saw the extremely high MSRP prices ($59.99 for the Blu-ray; $43.98 for DVD) two months ago, you may have noticed the price has come down. If you hadn’t noticed, well, here are some quick prices I found, and I must say I have never seen this kind of price variation at so many retailers:

$28.86 for the DVD and $28.86 for the Blu-ray at Wal-mart

$28.99 for the DVD and $39.49 for the Blu-ray at Amazon

$34.79 for the DVD and $45.49 for the Blu-ray at Target

$39.99 for the DVD and $49.99 for the Blu-ray at Best Buy

November is a time of year to ruminate on all the things that we’re thankful for, and as we close in on the end of 2009, I find myself with a list containing innumerable pieces of my life that I’m grateful of. I have a wonderful fiancée with whom I have a fulfilling relationship; I have a good home which I share with her and our two mischievous cats. I’ve got friends who care about me and family that loves me. And in our uncertain job market, I have a solid and stable job, which in turn lends me the financial stability that so many people in our country have been bereft of. In short, I’m happy and comfortable and secure; if that’s not reason enough to be thankful, I don’t know what is.

But of course, you don’t read this blog because you’re terribly interested in how great my life is; this is a blog about movies, and that’s ostensibly what you’re here for. You see, while thinking about those personal elements of my life, I got to thinking about my passion for the cinema, which in turn got me reflecting on the films that I’m thankful for, the movies that have influenced or affected my love for all things cinematic directly or in more clandestine ways. And so, keeping with the theme of this month’s holiday, I wound up putting together a list of ten such films for your reading pleasure.

As a note, this is not supplementary reading for my top ten list; it’s also not a generic “top X most influential films” list, though in some cases it is precisely the influence of the film in question that I appreciate. That appreciation will only be examined on a personal level– as much as some of these movies have had broad and far-reaching impact on cinema as a whole, here I’m only interested in how they have effected films that have specific significance to me. These aren’t necessarily the movies that I could watch from start to finish any day of the week, any time of day, but rather the movies that helped shape and change my perception of cinema. So with that in mind, please enjoy!

Shiri/Swiri– Shiri (spelled Swiri inside Korea) is often credited as being the film that jump-started the Korean New Wave back in 1999. While under even distant examination this isn’t totally the case, Shiri‘’s success did much to cause a resurgence in interest toward Korean cinema; as the film became an instant smash, local companies became more willing to risk their money on genre films with larger budgets, and the sales of Korean films overseas increased. On its own it’s a tight and energetic espionage thriller about a North Korean terrorist plot to target and destroy South Korean landmarks, but in the broader context of South Korean cinema, Shiri’s existence may largely be responsible for the boom the SK film industry has enjoyed since its release– and therefore, films like Oldboy might never have been made without it.

Watchmen– I wasn’t one hundred percent enthused by Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Alan Moore’s classic graphic novel (read my review here), but it’s hard for me not to crack an appreciative smile when I sit back and think about it in retrospect. Watchmen is a crackling, pulsing, living and breathing piece of glorious pop-art, flawed for certain but also filled with crackling performances and eye-popping attention to detail. It’s also a challenge to other super hero movies to attempt to achieve similar faithfulness to their source material. Watchmen is also the kind of against-the-mainstream property that one would never expect a major studio to back, and yet that’s precisely what Warner Brothers did. It wasn’t a box office winner, but it also hasn’t added up to a total failure for the studio just yet (thanks to the ancillary market), and if anything its existence should give the movie geeks faith in the studios; if Watchmen can get made, anything can get made. But most of all, even if the end result wasn’t as good as it should have been, I’m just happy that someone had the chutzpah to even attempt to translate this “unadaptable” story to the big screen.

The 40 Year Old Virgin– The Judd Apatow train got its start with the TV series Freaks and Geeks, but it picked up the most steam upon the release of this 2005 hit comedy. Since then, it’s helped shape the face of American comedy, leading films to place greater emphasis on character and plot development instead of leaving those elements to the wayside in favor of more fart jokes; it’s this focus on heart and story in addition to belly laughs (which leads to more robust and fulfilling comedies) that makes Virgin’s existence so richly deserving of our gratitude. Of course, no one does it better than the master himself; the best comedies of the last half a decade have come out of the Apatow camp, and no imitators have come close to replicating what makes those films great. (Though amusingly enough, many of those seeming imitators are actually part of the Apatow family, as Judd’s arm has grown so long that he has his hands in untold numbers of contemporary comedies.) And aside from being a comedy game-changer, Virgin is responsible for helping establish Steve Carell’s presence as a leading man, as well as introducing actors like Romany Malco and Seth Rogen to wider audiences; if that’s not enough reason to tip your hat to it, then I don’t know what is.

Kikujiro–  From my experience, filmmakers like Japanese auteur Takeshi Kitano get an unfair rap in the US for working in very narrow and specific genres of cinema. Here, Kitano is popularly thought of as a director of crime thrillers, and while I can understand why– much of his creative output that has reached the States consists of gangster films like Brother, Sonatine, and Hana-bi– the reputation is grossly unjust given his comedic roots and surprising penchant for the poignant. During my years in college, I found myself defending Kitano against just such accusations from my friend; the argument ended when I popped Kitano’s 1999 film Kikujiro in my DVD player. I’ll always be grateful  for this film’s existence as a counter-point against the idea that Kitano, as a filmmaker, knows only violence; here, he tells a story that’s artful and moving and entirely relatable despite examining its themes through a specific cultural lens. The movie follows the journey of a young boy as he travels across Japan to find his mother; Kitano plays the gruff, curmudgeonly eponymous character who accompanies the child on his quest. It’s a colorful and beautifully shot movie that’s perhaps more touching than Kitano’s better-known gangster films are violent, a road movie that closely explores isolation and alienation in Japanese society.

Shaun of the Dead– As a foreign property, Shaun of the Dead introduced me (and many, many others) to a bevy of English talent: Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, Jessica Hynes and Nick Frost. Wright, Hynes, and Pegg had worked together prior to Shaun on the wonderful TV series, Spaced, while Frost had starred on his program Danger! 5000 Volts! (wherein he advised his audience on how to best handle volcanic eruptions and hippo attacks). For this alone, I’m indebted to the film; the fact that it not only schooled me on these fantastic talents but also surprised me by turning out to be one of the best zombie movies of all time was icing on the cake. Or perhaps it’s the other way around? Either way, Shaun of the Dead makes up for decades of terrible imitations and blatant rip-offs of the films of Romero and Fulci and also stands up to them in sheer quality (I honestly believe that Shaun’s script might be one of the best scripts written in the last decade). The film’s secret to success? Shaun can be described as a zombie parody or an homage to the films of the greats, but the truth is that it eschews the chance to be cute, coy, and tongue-in-cheek and instead chooses to stand on its own as an honest-to-God zombie movie filled with laughter, fantastic effects and make-up, and a whole lot of heart. Like Virgin (both films are, after all, tastemakers in their respective genres), many films have tried to imitate what makes Shaun work, and none have succeeded; it’s a wholly unique film, something that can’t be replicated, and that makes it truly special and worthy of adulation.

***

What films are you thankful for? What are the movies that you appreciate in a broader context outside of their individual quality? Feel free to share your thoughts here. Enjoy the season, everyone!

Sleeping on the job.

I’m one of those people who dreams pretty much every night. My Mother is the same and I guess it’s one of those things that’s been passed down into my genes from hers. She documents her dreams the moment she wakes up in a little journal she keeps by the bed so she can scribe down the things she remembers whilst they are still clear in her head. I’ve never thought about trying this until today.

My dreams are fucking peculiar to say the least (Oohh, Zack Synder’s Dawn of the Dead remake is on and it stars the lovely Sarah Polley - I’m very easily distracted aren’t I? All it takes is zombies and a pretty girl to take my attention away from what I’m writing. Actually, I’m not sure why I feel the need to type about how my thoughts have slipped elsewhere. I guess I’m trying to be honest and show you guys the process of me writing and how easily that process is disrupted –Sarah Polley’s gentleman friend just got fucked up by a nasty-ass little girl zombie and now he is a zombie trying to feast on her blood!! Now a Priest with a gun got splattered by an Ambulance!! Fuck me, all hell is breaking loose here!! — I’m going to turn the TV off from now on when I’m writing.) and I often remember them vividly the moment I wake up and then forget them totally within 5 minutes.

Last night I dreamt that a selection of ghostly buses where passing through the adjacent walls of my back yard whilst I watched from the bathroom window that looks down on the yard with all my teeth fallen out in the sink. That’s all I can remember now aside from the occasional really random flashback I have when something reminds me of the contents. So I’ve got myself a little book and pen that’s going next to my bed for when I wake up in the morning with the previous slumber’s dream still fresh in my mind. I’ll even keep a few posts coming here and there and talk about the really wierd ones that I have.

Anyone else have any strange dreams they’d like to share with the world?

Platebransjen fikk en neve i toern av det norske rettssystemet. Men hvorfor driver mennesker med denne ondskapen?

PIRACY IS STEALING, skriker moralistene over seg. Jaja, det er vel sikkert det. Filmbransjen for eksempel, hyler WHYYYYY!? til at mennesker våger å ta deres dyre verk, og distribuere det over hele verden.

Jeg har en teori. En teori som er veldig nært virkeligheten. Nå skal du få høre en hjerteskjærende historie om svik, nederlag og hemningsløst raseri som glir over i eufori. Watchmen. Tegneserieeposet til Alan Moore. Filmatisert av naken-overkropp-entusiasten Zack Snyder. Og det viste seg at han visste hva han gjorde, og det ble en gooood film. Men vi ville ha mer. Det kom en directors cut. I Amerika. UTELUKKENDE I AMERIKA. Vi stakkars europeere måtte nøye oss med studioets sluttprodukt. Så. Det største sviket.

Ultimate Cut, med The Black Freighter innkorporert i historien. Nerden i meg ble klissete i buksa. Jeg leitet. Jeg googlet. Og så!

En releasedato. 11/11 2009. Det var dagen jeg skulle ha den på blu-ray og koble meg fra verden i nesten fire timer. Men plottet tykner! Den kommer ikke 11. november. Ikke her, i europa.

Hit, kommer den nemlig ikke.

OG DE LURER PÅ HVORFOR FOLK LASTER NED FILMER DE FAEN IKKE FÅR TAK I. WARNER BROTHERS, CAN YOU HEAR ME? YOUR BOYS TOOK ONE HELL OF A BEATING! Jævla naive fittemennesker som ikke vil gi meg min underholdning som jeg er villig til å betale for, måtte deres mødre få aids, deres fedre bli til hamstre, og deres barn lukte svette. FAEN TA DERE WB, MORDI!

Next film for Halloween is Dawn Of The Dead remake.

Based on the George Romero 1979 gore classic, this remake takes place as the United States is overrun (after a plague) by millions of corpses who walk the earth as cannibalistic zombies. A small group of survivors, including a nurse (Sarah Polley) and a police officer (Ving Rhames), try to find shelter within a massive shopping mall. But the zombies have a kind of sense memory and start arriving — in droves — for a shopping spree.

This is not so much of a remake as it is an update of the 1979 classic. The whole premise remains faithful to the original but then after that makes its own elements, which really was a good thing after all.

Dawn Of The Dead really does succeed because its use of exciting action and most of all, the gore. The added on blood and violence really does make this film exciting and fun to watch. Also, in the original the zombies were really slow and if you just ran they would’ve never caught up to you. Now, they are fast as a bullet and you can’t run or hide barely, and I think that is what makes this film even better.

The film also has little unriddle social commentary, and zero exposition. For instance, when a government official is asked “what are these things? are they contagious?” he simply responds “We don’t know!”. Giving you this idea of nobody knowing what is going on.

Zack Snyder, in his directorial debut, really does show some really great direction in this film. Many of the scenes he films with the action are slick and feature a lot of good camera angles that really do fit the part of the action.

I only had little minor problems with this film that aren’t as bad as you would expect. In George A. Romero’s 1979 Dawn Of The Dead, there was a lot more comedy and a satirical take on these zombies and the incidents that are being caused. I felt like this film was toned one way throughout, and although it did have some comedy it was more blatant than wise, as the original one was.

I also found the origins of why these zombies came to be very unknown and I wish I knew more of what was actually going on.

Consensus: Dawn Of The Dead is a gruesome, violent, tasteless, and well-directed take on the 1979 classic.

9/10=Fulll Pricee!!!!

Bueno, quizás no vuelvan a las Termópilas teniendo en cuenta la de estopa que se llevaron la última vez, pero lo cierto es que los productores de “300″ aseguran que habrá una secuela. Y que además, quieren contar incondicionalmente con Zack Snyder (que ya ha dado su aprobación)  y con el propio Frank Miller, guionista y dibujante del comic orginal.

La historia ocurriría entre la famosa batalla de la película y la batalla de Platea, también citada en el film. David Wenham incluso podría estar en el cast, repitiendo su papel de Dilios.

Aunque no se sabe a ciencia cierta, Snyder asegura que Frank Miller se ha puesto al guión para dar forma a esta continuación, en la que ha estado pensando durante años. Lo único que podemos imaginar, es que en la nueva cinta volverá a haber una batalla espectacular entre espartanos y persas. Aunque algunos rumores apuntaban a que la película jamás vería la luz, la cantidad de rumores nuevos que salen cada poco tiempo, apuntan lo contrario.

Crucemos los dedos.