What’s Unfilmable?

Wired has a nice little article about what’s unfilmable in Hollywood- which books or comics cannot be done correctly? The Neil Gaiman quote slaps you right on the face:

“It’s not film-shaped,” Gaiman said. “I went out to Hollywood with beautiful artwork and toys and did a presentation…. I got to the end, very proud of myself for encapsulating 2,000 pages of comics into a giant visual pitch, and what I got was, ‘Does The Sandman have a clearly defined bad guy?’ I said, ‘No it doesn’t,’ and they said, ‘Thanks for coming!’”

Trust me, I’m going through this slog in meetings right now. There’s a reason all films feel vaguely the same: they’re designed that way. It’s actually a miracle that both Stardust and Coraline got even past the pitch stage.

[Fan-art illustration of Death and the Sandman by UMINGA. Art here]

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Alan Moore Reading Rorschach’s Journal

So much more effective and spooky than even my favorite part of the Watchmen movie, Jackie Earle Haley’s performance:

Creepy.

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Sigh. If I Must: Watchmen

Went against my better instincts and saw Zack Snyder’s Watchmen Monday. Woof. I was fighting myself, as, of course, Moore’s Watchmen and Miller’s Dark Knight melted my brain back in ’87.

I’ll make this quick, as who-the-hell-cares. What I liked:

• Stunning opening credits, except for the JFK/Comedian connection. Ponderous. Like a rhino with a paintbrush.
• Added scene with Rorschach and his therapist (surprisingly).
• Jackie Earle Haley and his performance in general. One of the few people in the film you care about at all. His last scene is really touching.

What I didn’t like so much:

• Malin Ackerman. She’s beautiful, and looks as close to a real world Laurie as possible, but… just wasn’t ready for this. Could have been the direction. In her defense, I wasn’t really blown away by anyone save JEH.
• The endless stop-start slo-mo bullshit. Everything doesn’t have to be fucking WAY COOL. Tell the goddamn story. Every action scene is a showstopper. If everything is amazing looking, nothing is amazing. Nothing has any weight. Snyder has no subtlety at all.
• The gratuitous violence: Bones snapping, close up on the arms being sawed, fetishizing the violence. Needless. And why did the Ozymandias/Rorschach/NiteOwl fight have to go on FOR YEARS? This isn’t the Matrix; the point of that fight was to show Veidt’s phyical dominance over both Rorschach and NiteOwl.

As Joe Jackson would sing, I could go on but what’s the use? Overall, I was surprised that I didn’t hate the changed ending. Maybe by that point I had given up. More than anything, I feel as if I compromised myself, and didn’t respect Alan Moore’s wishes as a creator. I went in with high hopes but low expectations, and came out feeling like a sell-out.

“Disappointed!” yelled Kevin Kline.

I will say this: it was beautifully shot.

UPDATE: Patton Oswalt has a great opinion on his myspace blog, completely dismantling my cynicism. He’s right. It was gonna get made no matter what. I think what I’m annoyed about is the inevitability of Hollywood narrative corruption (“I’m not sure if the blue penis works…”) and just the lazy acceptance of it.

Zack Snyder did a great job. I’m still not sure if that justifies the adaptation, but I’m glad it was Zack who did it, someone who clearly loves the material, even if I quibble with his execution of it. After all, what the f*ck have I directed?

It takes vigilance to not turn into Jeff Albertson.

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