Muzman on 27/2/2009 at 06:58
Quote Posted by ZymeAddict
that doesn't change the fact the film overall is an incoherent mess.
Except that it wasn't and isn't. I knew exactly what was going on and people's various motivations (even if in the original a lot of the good character stuff is truncated and a couple of people are cut out of the movie about half way by removing the captured alien bit). Lumps and bumps are not overall incoherence.
Aerothorn on 28/2/2009 at 00:15
What happened to Watchmen :(
Printer's Devil on 28/2/2009 at 02:03
Something Awful has a short advance review if anyone's interested. It could be fake, but the tone of the article suggests otherwise.
Muzman on 28/2/2009 at 05:03
Yeah, but I am wondering if it's geeky forgiveness to some extent. When the less invested critics get involved it might even out a bit.
Mark Kermode just said, in response to people twittering that it was rubbish, 'review next week. But word of warning; it is un filme du Zack Schneider' or words to that effect.
If it's no less an adaptation than V for Vendetta I'll probably like it and let it mostly off the hook for the other stuff.
Aerothorn on 28/2/2009 at 05:10
The same thought occurred to me, but V for Vendetta and Watchmen are very different beasts. V is relatively straightforward, largely cinematic, and concise enough that it can be adapted relatively easilly to the big screen. Watchmen is much more difficult, and (I feel) is much more complex thematically than V. We actually had to read it for a class I'm taking (that's basically about how media influences ideas of love and intimacy in American couples), and even I didn't realize how much sex-and-gender commentary one can draw from Watchmen.
Fafhrd on 28/2/2009 at 05:10
Mark Kermode strikes me as the Yahtzee of film criticism, so I can't really take anything he says seriously.
Muzman on 28/2/2009 at 05:19
I'm a convert. He seems one of the most genuine and heartfelt movie go-ers to ever become a critic. He has little to no interest in the journalism side of it, where it's all about how clever you are with words, and just puts it out there. He has high standards, but it's not as if nothing can meet them.
I don't think Yahtzee's actually the one trick slagging angry critic that everyone says he his, but he has his schtick and is being sort of the comics section of Escapist. Kermode doesn't resemble that at all.
Scots Taffer on 28/2/2009 at 05:32
Another convert here.
Kermode, like most people, loves the excuse to have a good rant - to the extent that you can tell he purposefully goes to movies he knows he's predisposed to hating (I know it's his job but...), and even in those cases he almost always has something vaguely positive to say in some respect about some element of the movie. I largely agree with Muzman though, when he waxes lyrical about a movie it's true movie-going passion that you're seeing not some empty pseudointellectual artsy bollocks opinion.
Angel Dust on 28/2/2009 at 06:33
People are always pissing and moaning about critics in one way or another when really what it almost always comes down to is "They don't like what I like". From Kermode to Ebert to Kael to Lane, I think a lot of film critics are, or were in Kael's case, obviously film buffs first - journalists second. Note I'm obviously not talking about the local paper critic here although they might be real film buffs too.
