The Seven Year Itch

Oh, yes. You're right. It's that movie. With what's-her-face. The image of Marilyn Monroe standing on the subway grate getting her dress ruffled by a passing train is almost synonymous with cinema, Hollywood and American pop culture in general. But if you're not a film buff, Marilyn fan or interested in pop culture at all, chances are you haven't seen this movie. Which is a little sad, because The Seven Year Itch is a classic.

Telling the story of a married Manhattanite whose wife and child are away for the summer, the movie begins with the explanation that all the married men (in New York, at least) have affairs of some sort while their families are gone. While this premise is certainly debatable, it's worth noting that A) this is a comedy movie and B) it was made in 1955. While attempting to catch up on work, maintain his doctor's orders, and uphold the fidelity of his marriage, Richard Sherman finds himself being tested to his limits by the girl upstairs, a striking twenty-something blonde with a habit of walking around her apartment nude. He gets crazier and crazier for her, leading to many uproariously awkward and insane situations.

As a child of the nineties, I just didn't expect a movie made thirty years before I was born to be so funny. Tom Ewell shines as the neurotic Sherman attempting to stave off the temptations brought about by Marilyn Monroe's character, credited simply as The Girl. Monroe's performance is bubbly, naive, and consistently hilarious. She somehow comes off as innocent as a schoolgirl while still managing to be a thoroughly convincing flirt, and it's no small wonder how she attained such meteoric status in American cinema and the public consciousness.

Billy Wilder's direction gives the movie a clip, a beat you can almost dance to in the classic tradition. The movie's writing is witty, filled with side-splitting asides, and breaches the fourth wall at least three times. As much as I hate to say it, they just don't make 'em like this anymore.

And yes, it's got THE scene, with THE dress. The one you've seen parodied to hell and back. Interestingly enough, the famous full-body shots of the wind from the passing subway car lifting Marilyn's dress above her knees and her coyly attempting to cover herself are absent. The story is that the original scene was shot on location in Manhattan, but the uproar caused by the onlooking crowd made the footage unusable (they did a re-shoot on a sound stage; it was this that made its way into the final product). The sensibilities of the age may also have contributed to the cut.

This is a movie you need to see. An American classic comedy with one of the greatest American actresses who ever lived. It's very much a fifties movie, but still funny half a century later. If that doesn't define "timeless", I don't know what does.

Watchmen: Aaronus

Watchmen is a good movie. Let me start with that.

When word began to spread that Zach Snyder, the man behind 300 was helming a movie adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons highly acclaimed graphic novel, sentiments were mixed. Many fans of the tome were downcast; surely Snyder would turn this into a slow-mo action fest, butcher the story, and rob this astounding accomplishment of its soul. Others were ecstatic. Snyder is a comic nerd, after all. No true nerd, in good conscience, would ever lay an uncanonical hand on Rorschach his compatriots. Right?

It is my opinion that both groups were mistaken. What we got was a mixture of a faithful retelling and a Hollywood rework, which I have to admit, works rather well.

I'll get the negatives out of the way first.

My most immediate, and the greatest of my complaints lies with the soundtrack. Songs like The Sound of Silence and Flight of The Valkyries might seem to fit with the movie as a whole, but their placement within the film reduces what should have been some of its more dramatic, epic moments to cheesy cliches. Edward Blake’s funeral in particular lost it's morose and dark atmosphere, a fact not lessened by it's taking place in broad daylight. I had to ask myself what exactly they were thinking, and even slumped forward in my seat and said, “You’ve gotta be kidding me” when Dr. Manhattan crested over the hill in the Vietnam flashback to Die Walkure’s most recognizable piece.

There were also a lot of scenes which I was hoping I’d see, but which were predictably omitted. Pieces of Rorschach’s origin flashback are nowhere to be found, and characters like Hollis Mason aren’t given near as much screen time as you think they should. Relatively little time is spent explaining the history of the Minutemen/Watchmen, and the majority of the original masked adventurers are all but gone.

All of these complaints, however, come from a fan of the graphic novel. I went in the theater hoping (but, admittedly, not expecting) to re-experience the novel through a different medium. I wanted that same feeling that I got the first time I watched Rorschach break fingers and the discovered Adrian’s master plan. I wanted Watchmen. And in a few ways, that’s what I got.
Additionally, when viewed through the eyes of a movie goer and not a hardcore comic nerd, the film looks a little better.

The characters are all well preserved, and the actors do a competent (and in some cases excellent) job of portraying them. Rorschach is almost perfect, Nite Owl isn’t far behind, and visually, Dr. Manhattan was just plain amazing. The Comedian’s overall character is there, but some wooden acting lightens his impact. Silk Spectre is… well, Laurie; largely a support character with no real, substantial effect on the film as a whole. The only character which I feel could have been done better is Ozymandias, but he fills his niche in the story and does a few really cool things besides.

And yes, of course, the ending has been changed. Everybody knows that by now. You’ll have to draw your own conclusions as to whether or not you like the plot alterations, but in my opinion it works well, and is accessible to fans of both the novel, and people being introduced to the Watchmen for the first time.

All in all, I got what I came for. I got to see my favorite characters in motion, I was wowed by some of the visuals, and I enjoyed myself. There are other things I could say, but they’ve been covered in the other reviews. At the end of the day Snyder’s Watchmen is a great movie, a decent adaptation, and a worth watching at least once.



*Rorschach’s dialogue at the beginning is perfect, lifted straight from the graphic novel.

*As we left the theater, my friends joked that the sequel would be called, “The Revenge of Rorschach”, and that he would be endowed with Dr. Manhattan like powers.

*And yeah I know you see Manhattan’s junk. Next.

Watchmen : Brett

I have read the graphic novel 3 times and studied its pages countless more times. So the night I was at the midnight premiere of the Dark Knight, and the first trailer for Zack Snyder’s film adaptation came on, I was enthralled, to say the least. As it went on, I sat at the edge of my seat, leaning forward, jaw on the floor, muttering “oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.” And when the movie was over? I went home and watched the trailer online even more times. That trailer stuck with me more than the film I was there to see in the first place.



So now the wait is over and the film is out. I attended the midnight premiere with my Rorschach-obsessed girlfriend and two other friends, we firmly seated ourselves, excited, anticipating the greatness that would wash over us.

Nearly three hours later, we walked out scratching our heads, with the same opinions: it was beautiful, it was good, but something wasn’t right…

It took a day of thinking back on it to figure out why it didn’t feel right, and now I know: it was too damn artificial feeling. Let me put it this way: this film is incredibly faithful to it’s source material, insofar as the attention to detail, the events as they happen, right down to the lines spoken by the actors coming straight off the pages of the graphic novel. The problem is, while it captures all of that, what it fails at is capturing the FEEL of the book.

That was what irked me the most, for the entire time I sat in the theater watching the movie, I never felt any of what I felt while reading the graphic novel. No shivers down my spine, no holy shit moments, none of it. It just didn’t feel right.

Okay, that’s not entirely true. I enjoyed every scene with Rorschach in it, because he was nailed pretty much perfectly. I also loved the guy who played Dan Dreiburg/Nite Owl II, aside from a few moments here and there that I felt were really out of character for him. The rest of the characters, however, did not work for me. Doctor Manhattan’s voice was too plain and soft, and the way he recited his lines just came out as flat. I mean yes, Manhattan’s supposed to be detached from humanity and all that, but it just didn’t work. The Comedian had a lot of potential that you could tell was just waiting to be unleashed, but never happened. Veidt was painted into a corner. Laurie contributed nothing, same goes for her mother. Arg.

And then there are other things wrong with it. The pacing is terrible, while it moves at a decent clip and is never boring, some scenes are way too rushed, while other sequences go on for far too long (see the Comedian’s death and Dan having sex with Laurie), and you never get that gut-punch feeling that the book accomplishes when important things happen. The movie is also ultraviolent, unnecessarily so, and it’s just distracting and takes you out of the film. That, along with the horrible score and bad song choices, just gives the movie an overly-cheesy feel, which is precisely what it SHOULDN’T be.

*sigh* I know it sounds like I hated it. I didn’t hate it. There were some great bits to it, like I loved how they handled Veidt’s bullet catch, the opening credits were amazing, and like I said, Rorschach was perfect. I’m going to wait on the director’s cut to hit DVD, with the Black Freighter stuff included, and we’ll see how that goes.

[Brett]

Watchmen: Murex

Murex's Journal, March 6th, 2009: Hot dogs in heater this morning, sweet relish on burnt frankfurters.

This theater is afraid of me. I've seen its true facade. Impressive. Very art nouveau. The trailers are all extended teasers and the teasers are full of explosions and when they're over all the fanboys will drown in their sweat. The accumulated filth of all their candy wrappers and popcorn buckets will foam up around their feet and all the film buffs and comic-lovers will shout "Start the movie!" and the projectionist will whisper, "No." but then the manager will have a stern talk with him and he'll change his mind.

Watchmen, in case you have somehow missed it or are some night-clubbing cool kid with no nerd friends whatsoever, is a graphic novel. Many would argue that it is in fact the graphic novel. If you are new to Watchmen, do not approach your resident comic-book-reading friend to learn about it. They will gesture wildly and begin foaming at the mouth in an attempt to both explain what the premise of the novel is and to express their ardent fervor for its brilliance, which may result in a mild stroke.

The setting of the film and novel is an alternate 1985 America, where masked heroism has been outlawed. Reaching its heyday in the forties, the moral quandaries of allowing "masks" to take the law into their own hands finally reach their peak and Congress forbids it. All heroes retire—except for the misanthropic Rorschach, an over-the-edge masked avenger with an inflated sense of justice and a belief that morality is an absolute value.

It is this aspect that makes the property so engaging—all the characters are so astoundingly human, with all the problems and personality disorders you'd expect someone who punches guys while dressed up in tights to have. Even the godlike Dr. Manhattan has problems with being immortal, indestructible and omnipotent. All of this comes through via the (mostly) capable performances of the film's actors. Some stilted acting, however, comes close to ruining certain moments, and while the performances are mostly decent, there is a certain robotic feeling to it all, that it's an adaptation, not a work by itself, and the movie suffers from it.

The action sequences in the movie are stylized, and a bit over-the-top in classic Snyder tradition. Making extensive use of slow-motion and kung-fu flick-esque choreography, one gets the feeling that these segments are there for the benefit of everyone who came to see Watchmen: That One New Comic Book Movie, as opposed to Watchmen: the Adaptation of Said Comic. I'm not saying that Silk Spectre never kicked ass, just that I don't remember her turning a guy upside down and slamming him bodily into a wall. The same goes for a lot of the violence in the film. I really don't remember that many stray entrails. Don't bring the kids. Seriously.

Visually, the movie is candy. As close to the novel as a movie made in this era could possibly be, Zack Snyder's love for the source material is shown in beautiful still shots and slow pans, letting the viewer take it all in. His eye for detail is unmatched as well, cramming as much as he possibly can into every frame. In a way, though, it proves Alan Moore right: even with all the loving detail in the world, a movie is a ride on rails rather than a walk in the park, and the viewer can't stop and admire and examine the little things as one could with a comic book. Having said that, the film does its damnedest and succeeds for the most part on translating the still panels into moving images.

Some things had to be cut, however. The Tales of the Black Freighter comic-in-comic is nowhere to be seen, and several smaller scenes were taken out, dampening the impact of events like the unmasking of Rorschach. The climax of the novel has been changed, but before you storm angrily out the door, it was tastefully, even brilliantly executed. While I do enjoy Moore's version, I think it would have (ahem) alienated many moviegoers, leading to confusion and lots of what-the-fuckery. A hilariously subtle nod is made to the novel—possibly for the Watchmen faithfuls like me—during the movie's version of the climax, something I sadly missed and had to have a friend point out to me. Luckily in the case of the deleted scenes, Snyder plans on releasing a ginormagantuan three-and-a-half-hour director's cut version of the film on DVD, and if we are good fanboys and it sells, there are rumors of a theatrical release of this version as well. Fingers crossed, mates.

All in all, it's a good movie. It's not a fantastic, mind-altering experience. It's Watchmen: The Ride, the essence of the novel brought to life as vividly as it can be. Its flaws are apparent, and serve to show the stark contrasts between mediums, and how a positive aspect in one can be a pitfall in the other. Its obviously painstaking recreation of its source is its biggest shortcoming, and fails to attain a real level of greatness and soul as Christopher Nolan's Batman reboot and sequel did for that series. A gem to be sure, but a flawed one.

(I feel I should also mention that there is a penis in this movie. A blue one. I feel I should mention this because every single other review in the godforsaken universe thinks it's important. I mean, yeah, sure, it's obscene. That's kind of the point. Can we grow up now?)

Watchmen: Krenz

"Never compromise. Even in the face of Armageddon."

Okay, so if you are a part of the geek mind set in this country in the slightest, you knew it was coming months and months in advance. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's comic masterpiece take to the silver screen in one of the most highly anticipated adaptations of all time. How did this bar of high expectation fare once the film finally played in theaters nationwide this weekend?

When I first heard of the Watchmen, I knew nothing about the comic. I didn't know it existed. In fact, when I saw the first trailer, I thought Watchmen was about one guy who was a super hero dick who didn't want to save people. ("I whisper, 'No'") Then it came to light that there was this comic turned graphic novel, and a film adaptation has been in production hell for over 20 years. My interest peeked. Eventually I got a hold of the novel, began reading it, and before you know it I had Watchmen fever.

I'm not going to lie, I was damn excited for this flick. It's directed by Zack Snyder, the man who brought to life 300. If you aren't a fan of 300 you don't have any testicles. It was an R-Rated superhero flick, meaning sex, violence, the usual course of interest keepers in movies today. It seemed unable to disappoint.

And I was right. This movie was practically flawless in it's adaptation of the comic. Having finished the comic 24 hours prior to seeing the film, I was watching out for anything ghastly different to ruin the ebb and flow of the heros' converging story lines. They were all expertly crafted together in a nearly seamless fashion. What changes were implemented were done only to better translate the message into a new medium, and they weren't anywhere near unwarranted.


The editing in this film was great. The actors portrayed their parts with near perfection. I especially enjoyed Rorschach's film portrayal, and to hear his voice narrate his journal was amazing. I was surprised but not upset by the choice of how to make Dr. Manhattan sound. In reading the novel, I gave Doc a deep god-like voice, something that would seem to pierce all layers of the universe at once. The filmmakers went for a more Hal-esque sound, making me think Doc Manhattan was more of a computer than a being that transcends reality. All the other parts were cast remarkably well, resembling their comic counterparts in every detail.

The soundtrack in this film was different, but well done. It consisted of more lyrical tracks than ambient noise, making the movie less orchestral in sound. The special effects were interesting, though I do have one complaint. Certain scenes with Dr. Manhattan seemed too animated. Some of the textures in the CGI revealed it to be CGI way too easily, much like the final scene in the Matrix Revolutions. It felt less a part of the film, and more like an effect. The point of an effect is to make it not look an effect was used.


In the end, however, the film did not disappoint. I went and saw it with my lady friend, who didn't read the comic, and she greatly enjoyed the film as well. It seems like a home run for fans and non-fans alike. It is my personal recommendation that you close your laptop, turn off your monitor, or get off of your iPhone, and drive to the nearest theatre to see it. Immediately. Like, right now. I'll wait, it's okay.

...

Are you back? Good. Did you like it. I knew you would. You're welcome.

"All the whores and politicians will look up and shout 'Save us!' And I'll whisper 'no'. "

Kingdom Hospital

I’ve only ever read one Stephen King novel, in the 9th grade, and that was Carrie. It was…pretty bad. However, my girlfriend is obsessed with Stephen King and insists that he doesn’t suck. And well, I liked the movie adaptations of 1408 and the Mist, so when she (my girlfriend, that is) came home from a trip to Florida wielding a television miniseries written by Stephen King, called Kingdom Hospital, I figured it’d be worth a shot.

First and foremost: BEST OPENING CREDITS SEQUENCE EVER.



Not that you really need to know this going into it, but Kingdom Hospital is essentially Stephen King’s version of a slightly older, Danish miniseries called the Kingdom. It’s not quite a remake, but it’s something close. Kingdom Hospital is a 13-episode miniseries that ran in 2004 originally, and it is mighty interesting. And weird. And awesome.

The gist of it is this: Kingdom Hospital is built on the ruins of what is referred to as “the Old Kingdom,” an older hospital that was burnt down. And the Old Kingdom was built upon the burnt ruins of an old mill that produced uniforms for the Civil War. So we’ve got a hospital built on a hospital built on an old mill. Would it shock you to learn that the place is rather haunted? If you said yes, stop reading this right now and go throw yourself down some stairs because you are clearly not paying attention.

There is a little bit of a story arc to follow, involving the ghost of a little girl named Mary, earthquakes that keep going on at the hospital, and a guy who got hit by a truck and keeps drawing while in a comatose state and interacting with what can only be described as a huge anteater with sharp teeth and a taste for bad puns (and ants). The whole ordeal kind of takes the backseat to the plot from time to time so that other weird stuff can happen, such as one episode where a man is found crucified, but still bleeding, and miracles are occurring. All of which references the Bible, of course, but not every episode is like that. You’ve also of course got all the drama going on between the doctors, particularly Dr. Hook, played by a man who looks and sounds very much like Edward Norton but isn’t, and Dr. Stegman, who is a complete asshole but hilarious nevertheless to watch.

That’s one thing that makes the series so much fun: it bounces around from quirky to dramatic to hilarious to downright surreal. How scary it gets depends on how well you deal with horror-themed things, and while it never really got too creepy, there were some disturbing moments. I loved it most for when it just went all-out strange, like when patients occasionally hallucinate and the doctors break into dancing and singing “na na na na! Na na na na! Hey hey hey! Goodbye!” My particular favorite bits involve a guy with a severed head running around, so that should tell you something. Sure, some episodes are weaker than others, but isn’t that how it always is?

It also seems that Stephen King threw a lot of his own quirks into it. The man who was hit by a truck vaguely parallels his own experience of getting hit by a vehicle, one episode revolves around a retired baseball player (Stephen King luuuurrrrvvveeeessss baseball), characters are reading his books, references are made to other works of his such as the Dark Tower series, and at least twice you hear someone say, “like something horrible out of a Stephen King novel.” And of course the man himself makes a rather entertaining cameo.

So if you hate Stephen King and his writing? I‘d still say try it out, if only for how unique it is. If you love him though, then what the hell are you waiting on? You need to check it out. The first episode is a good 2 hours long and the final episode is an hour, but the rest of the episodes are a nice thirty minutes each, so it’s not too taxing to watch.

[Brett]

GET BONUS: Here, roughly, is the first 10 minutes of the first episode, courtesy of teh Youtube! ENJOY.

My Name is Indrid Cold (The Mothman Prophecies, 2002)

(Originally posted Nov. 3, 2008)

In 2002 I was a socially awkward 14 year old with an affinity for monsters and a budding interest in Cryptozoology. During my adolescent “figuring myself out” phase I sometimes referred to myself as an, "amateur cryptozoologist", which is a sort of oxymoron, if you really think about it.

That said, I was ecstatic when I learned that a movie based on the cryptid "Mothman" was in production, and scheduled to be released the summer after my interest in arguably-non-existent animals had blossomed.

So a couple of friends and I negotiated the terms with our parents, and opening night were dropped off to see The Mothman Prophecies at the AMC next to the Merit Square Mall. What followed was a sort of thrill ride; a feeling I've yet to experience since.

Six years later, I'm a socially awkward (though less noticeably so) 21 year old and I can't stop buying DVDs. So when I ran across The Mothman Prophecies at work the other day, I felt almost obligated to purchase it. I've just finished re-watching it and hope to do it justice with the following.






The Mothman Prophecies is based on a book by the same title, written by John Keel and published by Panther Books in 1975. It is categorized as non-fiction, and chronicles the strange goings on which took place in and around Point Pleasant, Virginia, between 1966 and 1967. Most notable among these events is the appearance of a winged, humanoid creature, commonly referred to as the Mothman.

The movie takes the great majority of it’s inspiration from the book, but differs in that it is more of a psychological thriller than an investigative look at the paranormal.

It follows the character John Klein (played by Richard Gere). Klein has a good job at the Washington Post, and is happily married to the woman of his dreams. Life seems perfect for him, until one night his wife suffers a sort of panic attack, and runs their car off the road. This lands her in the hospital, where it is discovered that she has a tumor in her brain.

She dies, and Klein becomes predictably depressed.

Two years later, unable to sleep, he takes to the road at one in the morning, driving with no apparent destination in mind. He finds himself in Point Pleasant, the town which is the main focus of the original book. His car breaks down in front of a house in the middle of nowhere. He knocks on the front door, asking to use the phone, and is shocked as the owner of the home points a shotgun at his head, and drags him inside.

The police show up, and it is revealed that someone, believed to be John Klein, has come knocking at the front door of the house at two thirty AM for the past three nights, asking to use the phone. John insists that he’s never been there before.

From here it just gets weirder. John becomes friends with the disturbed home owner (a man named Gordon), who begins to receive messages related to forthcoming natural disasters, including accurate predictions of locations and death tolls. John himself is set upon by a bizarre series of events which seem to be connected to that of his new friend, and many residents of Point Pleasant report seeing a winged creature with glowing red eyes.

While all this is going on, John wrestles with his own grief over his wife’s death, even as he forms a relationship with the town’s sheriff (portrayed by Laura Linney). He begins to investigate, and draws ever closer to the truth concerning Point Pleasant, which may be connected to the death of his wife.

At the center of everything, yet always just out of reach, is the Mothman. Seen only in passing glances, backlit by blinding red light, the creature appears to forty-some eyewitnesses before the movie’s climax.

John Klein receives phone calls from the apparent being, which refers to itself as Indrid Cold. It demonstrates the ability to read John’s mind, to know things before they happen, and warns John of a tragedy soon to befall Point Pleasant. The messages are so cryptic, however, that John can scarcely decipher them, and his warnings are brushed off by those he tells.

The movie portrays a sense of the unknown in very Lovecraftian fashion; an entity, more advanced than a human being, operating at the edge of known reality. Seen only when it wants to be seen, heard only when it chooses to speak, The Mothman meddles in the lives of select individuals with little or no explanation. It hints at a reality far beyond human comprehension, too vast and terrible to be understood.

Subtle imagery is used throughout the film. Allusions to butterfly-like shapes and glowing pairs of red eyes are consistent from start to finish, and add to the idea of something which is unseen, but almost certainly present.

The film may disappoint some viewers in that a good look at the monster – if indeed there is one – is never given. Blurred glimpses from far away, sketches drawn by people who may or may not be crazy, reflections in mirrors which disappear as soon as you notice them: these make up the majority of the Mothman's screen time. You'll find yourself wondering whether or not the creature actually exists.

Are the Mothman sightings legitimate, or the result of mass hysteria? Has Gordon actually encountered the creature, or is he insane? Is John Klein really being contacted by some paranormal being, or are his experiences hallucinations, brought about by his emotional instability? The film does an excellent job of crafting an open-ended plot, allowing the viewer to draw his or her own conclusions as the story progresses.

Overall, this is a great movie. A psychological, suspenseful thriller with a lot to offer any fan of the surreal. Gere’s performance is believable and competent, and the supporting cast does an excellent job. More than worth your time, and with a typically low price tag, it’s a highly accessible commodity.

Careful, though – next time your phone rings, you may think twice about answering.