I’m glad I saw it, but it almost felt more like a cliffsnotes on Watchmen than a movie out to entertain me.  It was technically accurate, but didn’t really effect any emotional response from me.  It was as if the director had a checklist of scenes, items, people he needed to show from the book to appease everyone.  From that perspective, it was successful.  

People are too critical of movies based on books/comics.  They want them to be the book.  They never will be.  What you experience when you read a well written book is between you and the author.  No filmmaker will ever capture that for you.  Ultimately, the best adaptation into film that I saw is To Kill A Mockingbird.  I’ve recent reread the book and viewed the film again and still stand by that.

They should have made the Watchmen their own.  I understand why they didn’t… too many critics out there.

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Tonight, I’m going to go see Watchmen with a few guys.  We’re going to have wings and beers and hit the flic on a big screen.  I’m really looking forward to it. 

Movies have always been part of my life.  I believe the first movie I saw in the theater was probably Unidentified Flying Oddball by Disney.  My mom took me to it when my Grandmother refused to let me go with my older brother to see some movie with monsters in it… Star Wars.  I loved the George Burn’s God movies.  When I was ten, I road my bike to the nearby strip mall and would watch matinees every Saturday.  My favored seat at the time was front row right.  I was there by myself and didn’t want to know people were staring at me.  I fell in love with superheroes that summer when Superman came out.  

We moved not long after and it was several years before I was back in a city with a theater I could attend regularly.  For a while, I thought I would get into movie making going so far as to try to major in Film and English Lit.  That really didn’t end up being the path I took, however.  I did learn the best place to sit in a theater, though.  But still I have the memories, like going to the movie Alive in the dead of winter in Fargo, ND with a group of people I worked with at an Italian buffet restaurant.  You could feel the cold permeate through the walls and sense what they were going through in that plane.  But when the bodies were lined up outside and they started eating, we all lost it and said “buffet style”.  I saw Big drunk off of tequila while hitting on a couple of cute girls in front of me.  It was probably my most confident moment with a woman.  It lasted until the end of the movie when the world started spinning and I ran out and threw up in the parking lot.  

Before we had kids, my wife and I saw probably 2 movies a week.  After kids, we went through a pretty good dry spell.  Now, we’re back up to about one per month.  Movies are expensive, babysitters for 4 kids even more so.  

Tonight’s a special treat.  I’m looking forward to sinking into my seat, closing out the world and letting my mind be overcome with flashing lights, pounding sound and a story that will bring alive a 10 year old boy sitting in the front row to the right.

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Last week I called the “Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences” a bunch of leftist punks due to their formulaic, pretentious nominations for Best Picture.  The flick I was most surprised to see on the list was “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”.  When I posted before, I hadn’t seen the film.  My take was that it was probably technically good, but it would serve as a “vehicle” for Brad Pitt more than anything else (and I’m not a huge Brad Pitt fan.  He’s ok, but nothing to write home about.  Bottom line, it was probably a decent film, but I felt Dark Knight was better.

I’m going to talk a bit about my  impressions and there will be some SPOILERish information, but nothing too specific.  I’m just warning in case you are not into that sorta thing.

So, the wife and I saw it Saturday.  Guess what?  I was right.  Special effects were really good.  The story was interesting, but I always felt like there was some meaning I should have been getting but was too dense to get.  There were several good performances, but I wouldn’t lump Pitt into that list.  The CGI baby in the beginning showed more emotional depth than he did.  Benjamin Buttons walked through his Curious life with the same look of embarrassed confusion I felt.  I guess I felt a connection to Pitt.  We both seemed like there was something going on here that was beyond us.  Someone who had seen it suggested it had a Forrest Gump feel about it.  I get what he meant.  It’s not in your face about it like Gump, but there are definite parallels between the outsider, naive main characters (Gump vs Buttons) and the loves of their lives experiencing different worlds.  We see the world through various points in history through their eyes.  Heck, there’s even a child involved.  

I don’t know… it had some good visuals, good supporting cast and some nice little humorous surprises when you least expected them.  All in all, I’d recommend it.  I wouldn’t list it as Best Picture, though.  Well, I guess if I was a socialist, I would.  There’s some definite subtext of a vagrant, whimsical hero where Communist Russia is a cool place to visit and the successful business man is the bad guy, but I digress.

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Here’s an update… it’s not just me who thinks the Academy is a bunch of self-absorbed elitists:

The problem with the Oscars is that voters are nominating films that relatively few people have seen…

…2005, when the five Best Picture nominees combined to gross just $245M.

BOX OFFICE FOR 2005 BEST PICTURE NOMINEES

Crash - $54.5M
Brokeback Mountain - $83M
Capote - $28.75M
Good Night and Good Luck - $31.5M
Munich - $47.4M

The disconnect between the Oscars and rank-and-file movie fans started in 2005. This is where the Academy Awards “came off the rails.”

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/smason/2009/01/22/oscarsnub/#more-28397

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You have got to be kidding me…

1. Best Picture: “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “Frost/Nixon,” “Milk,” “The Reader,” “Slumdog Millionaire.”
2. Actor: Richard Jenkins, “The Visitor”; Frank Langella, “Frost/Nixon”; Sean Penn, “Milk”; Brad Pitt, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”; Mickey Rourke, “The Wrestler.”
3. Actress: Anne Hathaway, “Rachel Getting Married”; Angelina Jolie, “Changeling”; Melissa Leo, “Frozen River”; Meryl Streep, “Doubt”; Kate Winslet, “The Reader.”
4. Supporting Actor: Josh Brolin, “Milk”; Robert Downey Jr., “Tropic Thunder”; Philip Seymour Hoffman, “Doubt”; Heath Ledger, “The Dark Knight”; Michael Shannon, “Revolutionary Road.”
5. Supporting Actress: Amy Adams, “Doubt”; Penelope Cruz, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”; Viola Davis, “Doubt”; Taraji P. Henson, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”; Marisa Tomei, “The Wrestler.”
6. Director: David Fincher, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”; Ron Howard, “Frost/Nixon”; Gus Van Sant, “Milk”; Stephen Daldry, “The Reader”; Danny Boyle, “Slumdog Millionaire.”
7. Foreign Film: “The Baader Meinhof Complex,” Germany; “The Class,” France; “Departures,” Japan; “Revanche,” Austria; “Waltz With Bashir,” Israel.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com …

Sure, someone did a holocaust film (“The Reader”), so it’s a given.  Unfortunately, this year’s holocaust film has mixed reviews (no obvious choice here).  ”Milk”… well, I doubt many in the Academy actually saw it, but read it starred Sean Penn (Check) and was about the first openly gay mayor (Check) – automatic inclusion.  Same type of view goes for “Frost/Nixon”.  Hollywood LOVES to make anti-war, liberally-bent political flicks.  It’s just unfortunate they are pretty much all crap and bomb at the theaters.  I’m guessing “Valkyrie” was better than “Frost/Nixon” (yes, I saw Valkyrie and it was good).  I haven’t seen “Slumdog Millionaire”, but I’ve heard good things about it.  As far as the “Academy” is concerned, it’s kind of like a foreign film, so it must be good so yeah, let’s include it.  Then there is “The Curious case of Benjamin Button”.  This is an incredibly predictable film whose only interesting qualities for me are the period authenticity and special effects.  Let’s face it, Brad Pitt is a mediocre actor.  I get why it’s on the list.  It’s a movie the “Academy” likes.

So what movie am I really pissed didn’t get included for Best Picture?  ”The Dark Knight”  It’s an incredibly gritty, emotional story of tainted characters torn between doing what’s right and doing what’s needed.  There’s depth, amazing imagery and some of the best acting out there.  Why didn’t the “Academy” nominate it?  The main characters happen to be comic book characters.  These people are a bunch of asses who have probably never picked up a comic book in the past 20 years.  These are authored by some of the best writers in existence.  These are characters with more depth than a 2 dimensional figure in tights and cape.

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