CrAiGeR's CINEMA CORNER TURNS 10!

Al White is a multi-talented and multi-award winning British artist, musician, critic, writer, and film director. His superlative short films have played festivals around the world, to much critical and artistic acclaim. He just recently wrapped his newest short film GEEKS and is following that up with his feature film directorial debut with the upcoming CERTAIN OR SURE and will follow that up with a GEEKS feature film.

When Craig first asked me to contribute to his 10th Anniversary Blog, I will admit to being little stumped. Being an obsessive list-maker, the idea of writing about one of my favorite movies from the past decade was both compelling and exciting to me and I was honored that he would want to include my ramblings. But when it came to actually picking a film...I struggled. You see, I quickly realized that the majority of my top twenty or so movies came from 2003 and prior, so all the titles banked in my brain for this piece ended up being a frustrating handful of months shy of the necessary time bracket.

Eventually, I rifled through a number of top lists online to help jog my memory and generate some ideas of what has really resonated with me over the past 10 years. There’s been dozens of incredible films that I would happily talk for hours about. From mainstream thrillers like ZODIAC, to hidden anime gems like 5CM PER SECOND, completely unique and purposefully oblique character studies like IN THE CITY OF SYLVIA and sizzlingly scripted dramas such as BEFORE SUNSET and BEFORE MIDNIGHT all the way through to masterfully ambitious and powerful sleepers akin to THE FOUNTAIN.

But eventually I settled on something that’s a little controversial. Not because it’s my favorite film of the decade, but because it’s one I feel passionately about and don’t believe I’ve ever been given the platform to discuss in an article (only rant to my poor, bewildered friends about and occasional heated podcast debate as well).

I want to talk about Zack Snyder’s WATCHMAN. In particular, the ULTIMATE CUT with all the extra scenes and the animated sections inserted.

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a huge comic book nerd. I’m not as well versed these days as I used to be, but I’ve been passionate about the format of storytelling since I was a kid and in particular since my teen years in the mid 90’s with Todd McFarlane’s rendition of Spidey, Neil Gaiman birthing the sublime Sandman series and Frank Miller’s stunning run with Romita Jr. on Daredevil with THE MAN WITH NO FEAR. But I will confess to never having read WATCHMEN.

It passed me by simply because I’m a visual guy and (apologies to all fans of the art style) WATCHMAN looked visually staid, cartoonish and lackluster to me. So I missed out, because I’m an idiot. Being a fan of Zack Snyder’s DAWN OF THE DEAD remake, I was naturally excited for WATCHMAN and so I went back to read the book a few weeks before the movie hit theaters.

I went with a dear friend of mine who was also a genre fan like myself, but had never read the book. I remember vividly exiting together and walking to the nearest pub where we sat and talked non-stop for almost two hours (about half the extended director’s cuts running time) about all the things we loved about the film. It was a rare occasion. Only LOST IN TRANSLATION and KILL BILL: VOLUME 1 have evoked such unanimous and immediate praise from myself and my friend in the past and the more we talked, the more excited we became. The startling and bold opening credits sequence, thundering soundtrack, inspired casting, lavish and extravagant FX, brutally cool editing, painstakingly perfect style, and, crucially, powerfully poetic finale, all had us hooked.

I returned to the film again and again throughout the following twelve months and it immediately stormed onto my list of favorite movies of all time.

Now I know, I know...most self-respecting comic book fans loathe the film. But why I just can’t fathom. If I’m brutally honest I feel that only narrow-minded fanboy snobbery stops lovers of the book from embracing the epic movie, because it’s so insanely faithful to its source material. I would say, in fact, that only SIN CITY has come as close to painstakingly recreating the comic its based upon, the only difference being that for SIN CITY it was arguably too close, weighing down the film's structure and making the purposefully blunt dialogue a little disengaging. Whereas in WATCHMAN the film practically radiates with the energy, passion and it’s note-perfect recreation of panels and dialogue. It’s dark, funny, dramatic, hilariously overblown, thought provoking, unsettling, stunning to look at, and, powerfully moving.

The pinnacle segment of the movie for me is the center section, where we take a lengthy sojourn into the origin story of Dr. Manhattan. A montage event executed with such incredible poise and confidence that it always moves me to tears. Thanks in no small part to the perfect voice performance of Billy Crudup.

The one issue fanboys can legitimately hurl at the film is that it changes the ending of the comic. But (and I won’t spoil it here, don’t worry), personally I think they couldn’t be more wrong. The only real issue I had with the book was it’s rather unrefined and semi- purposeless finale, whereas the movie gives some of the characters (and one in particular) far more purpose and tragedy. Sure, it may be more ‘constructed’ than the comics and I have no problem if you prefer the original's approach to its message. But for me personally, the film's ending is far more nuanced and affecting.

I’d love to talk for hours about this film. I’ve chosen not to really delve into it too deeply or to deconstruct it as an actual film, but rather to defend it as my choice. This is simply because I feel most people have made their mind up about it, whether they’ve seen it or not. And I want to champion its place as possibly the best comic book film ever made as well giving a little slack to the universally disliked Zack Snyder. He has the ambition and the style in buckets. Luckily, in this picture he was given the great source material and actors to back him up.

If you’re just joining Craig’s wonderful site then I hope my sprawling diatribe hasn’t put you off. His reviews are far more concise and entertaining, I promise. Go on, take a look for yourself. I’ve only had the fortune of knowing him and his work for the past year or so, but I’m excited to be around for the next 10 years.

Congratulations Craig, don’t stop doing what you’re doing.