DJG / Watchmen

Watchmen * * * * ½
Directed by: Zack Snyder / 2009

Just as the bar was raised when “Watchmen” was released in print and picture form, so it has for the super hero and comic book movie. Director Zack Snyder has proved he’s the ultimate fan boy and so did the smell of b.o. from theater goers who hadn’t bathed or left their Mom’s basement since purchasing their first issue of “Watchmen” back in the 1980s. A few more tweaks and a few more months “Watchmen” woulda/coulda/shoulda been perfect. Like all fans of the book, I too was worried. With the close of opening weekend, many will disown it like its creator Alan Moore, but I find the film standing on its own as a work of art and genius. Aside from a few sub-plots either skimmed or skipped, an altered ending, the nauseating blast of My Chemical Romance bastardizing a beautiful Bob Dylan song over the end credits and Snyder's choice of over-top in the sexual conquest department, “Watchmen” was a joy and one of the most unique film experiences I’ve been absorbed in. In fact, the opening credits had my goosebumps weeping. I wouldn’t even know how to begin to make a movie, let alone an adaptation of something like this…and in this way. “The Dark Knight” can officially choke on its guano.

-djg

DJG / The Reader

The Reader * * * * ½
Directed by: Stephen Daldry / 2008

Sympathy For The Devil…

I’m sure that a lot of 81st Academy Awards viewers were wondering where in the world “The Reader” came from, and/or what it was other than, “Oh, that movie that helped Kate Winslet finally win an Oscar.” I didn’t hear about the movie until mid-December as it seemed to slip under the radar to lock-down the Best Picture nomination that “The Dark Knight” would have probably gobbled up. I’m not complaining though, as the quiet-yet-hard hitting lust/love and literacy story was better on my eyes than the new billion dollar Batman franchise.

Don’t worry I’m not going to give anything away as I know how splendidly it unfolded for me going in blind. I’ll just set the story up. Its 1958 Neustadt, Germany as a 15-year-old boy stumbles in the rain, sick and out of bounds in the entrance to an apartment building. An older woman attends to him, cleans up his vomit and aids to his sickness, sending young Michael Berg on home to get better. After three months in bed with scarlet fever, he is eager to get back to school and back to the apartment building to thank the kind woman who helped him. Her name is Hanna Schmitz and she comes with what seems to be a big bag of complexities, and especially so to 15-year-old Michael. Its lust at first site for both and perhaps naïve love for him. Despite her being twice his age, the two quickly strike up a summertime affair that involves lots of bed sheets, bath tubs, bicycle trips and very tender sessions where Michael reads aloud to her (a little hint to the film’s title). But, it’s all a season’s fire to rage the rest of their lives.

“The Reader” will definitely have you walking out looking for fire…as in, some sunlight. It’s a downer and with few lighthearted moments. My first thoughts knew it was a good movie, but I wasn’t certain if it was Best Picture caliber because it’s not necessarily a movie that can be seen repeated times (a priority for me with such a high honor, though "Schindler's List" I could watch twice a month, go figure). I want to read "The Reader" now instead of seeing the movie a second time. Though, upon further inspection, and you will be inspecting over and over what you’ve just seen, it’s a very remarkable, worthwhile story that needed to be told. It will get you thinking and talking and that’s what good movies should do. At times it questions your own once-thought hardnosed ethics and morals, causing a fine line to be drawn and casting a card to sympathy in the most unlikely of candidates and circumstances.

It is subtle in style, yet not in its exploration of the sex-capades of Michael and Hanna. In fact, their secret lust action consumes much of the first half of the film and with a bold stamp. Even as a male I was thinking, “OK, how many more angles on Kate Winslet’s naked body will I see today? Oh, that’s a new one…her scanning the water hole in a drenched, see-thru bra.” It’s a well-crafted, well-played story, but I think that director Stephen Daldry should have scaled back on the sex some. Or, maybe the intension was to be completely carnal? Though, I can’t help but think of how beautifully and artfully director Zhang Yimou handled the two-to-tango in his magnificent “Ju Dou”, and every time I see a movie that misses for me in the bedroom I think of that one. I wonder how much more sensual and suggestive the character’s actions would have appeared behind the beautiful hanging curtain dividers in the apartment or through the many panes of frosted glass that the camera seems drawn to in other scenes. It would have also suggested that there is something buried and burdened behind this sexual act, which one indeed finds out come the film’s second act.

-djg

DJG / The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight * * *
Directed by: Christopher Nolan / 2008

Even with a Best Picture Oscar in its hands, which I’m still trying to figure out, I never thought I'd see a movie more overrated than 1998's "Shakespeare in Love." But, congratulations are in store for you, Christopher Nolan, you're latest Batman takes my spoiled cake and I secretly hope that you only gobble up a Best Supporting Actor at the big dance.

With my track record on Nolan films and eternal dislike for "Batman Begins", I have been prepping for "Dark Knight" disappointment for about six months to a year now. But, don't get me wrong...I DID try to like this movie. The past couple of weeks I'd finally worked myself up to seeing "The Dark Knight". I knew that it was going to be a cold calculated and hard boiled machine of a movie, and with a so-called legendary performance from Heath Ledger. Though, just when I was starting to warm up to “The Dark Knight”, it failed me. Most importantly, I've come to realize that one shouldn't speak of their lack of love for the new Batman movies in public as everyone and their grandmother are in love with Nolan’s vision and my childhood love is beaten and lost in the heartless debris chunks of a mediocre movie that is close to sinking the box office ice berg that “Titanic” set back in the late ‘90s.

Heath Ledger's lip-licking, make-up smeared, insanely creepy-cool Joker acting genius is the only reason to even give a hoot for "The Dark Knight". Well, I take that back, because I did find great enjoyment in the opening bank robbery and the well-orchestrated truck and motorcycle chase half-way. Maybe because both scenes have solid action and thrills stolen straight out of a Michael Mann heist movie page? Credit is also due to the dark and cold scenic cityscape of Chicago in providing a wonderful asset for swooping shot backdrops. I understand their cooperation for actual special effects and pyrotechnics to be very applauding. Chicago, you've got Gotham in you!

However, all of the things I actually enjoyed and found to be absolutely worth the hype about "The Dark Knight" only accumulate for about 30 minutes of a bloated blah of a Batman that lost my interest less than halfway through. The rest of "The Dark Knight" is a giant melting pot filler of celluloid. Maybe I'm being too critical and harsh? Maybe it's because I think that Christopher Nolan is just as overrated as his movies and I find his films to lack character and plot development. Movies are filler in their own right, but I love them and how in the world am I missing the boat on Nolan and his Batman franchise? I’ve tried so hard to like them, I even did my homework. And Christian Bale’s hot-shot play boy Bruce Wayne is decent at best, but when he puts the cape and cowl on I just can't take Batman seriously. By the end of the film I didn't care if my boyhood hero lived or died, same with the thousands of Gotham citizens and police officers whose lives were on the line. I could have cared less. Am I the heartless one? So, it’s cemented, I don't like this new Batman stuff. I get that Nolan's Batman is all down to cold cutting, brass knuckled business, but give me Tim Burton’s fun operatic and comic book backdrop “Batman” any day.

Now back to the late Heath Ledger. Academy Awards don't define the movies. They don’t define actors. It's all nice, but ultimately nothing but hardware and looks great on paper for future film fans and the cinema archives. However, as Ledger's family accepts a posthumous Oscar in a couple of months, it will be a cemented reminder of one of our finest young actors passing away at the height of his what-might-have-beens and his Joker is the ONLY element that can't be over-hyped enough when talking about "The Dark Knight”.

-djg