Watchmen

I don't know how many hundreds of times I've watched the Zapruder film (hey it's quick) but it was only until Watchmen that I was able to discern the brain parts on the trunk of the ill-fated Ford Lincoln. Watchmen rewrites the history of the 20th century to create its singular alternative cosmology of our bleak existence. Make no mistake, Watchmen dwells in the penthouse apartment of its own gloom.
The action encompasses two generations of super heroes starting around WWII and running up to the mid-80s.

The following is a list (I got it off the internet) of the various characters encountered in Watchmen:
THE WATCHMEN (aka the minutemen):
the comedian (edward blake) b.1918
nite owl (hollis mason) b. 1917
silk spectre (sally jupiter) b. 1918
mothman
silhouette
dollar bill
capt. metropolis
hooded justice
THE NEW WATCHMEN (aka the crimefighters):
the comedian (edward blake)
nite owl 2 (dan dreiberg) b. 1950
silk spectre 2 (laurie juspeczyk) b. 1953
dr. manhattan (jon osterman)
ozymandias (adrian veich) b. 1950
rorschach (walter kovacs) b. 1942
capt. metropolis


The detour point between science fiction and comic strips can be blurry. Watchmen seemed to exist more in the land of sci-fi to these bloodshot eyes than to the pages of comic books. However Watchmen does owe its source to the Alan Moore written graphic novel. Moore, as is widely known, distances himself from movie adaptations of his works. Perhaps a good idea when you consider League of Extraordinary Gentlemen but I had no problem with V For Vendetta. For more on Moore see the documentary The Mindscape of Alan Moore (highly recommended).
Watchmen director Zack Snyder may not overwhelm you with his political point of view but this isn't the Wachowski Brothers on display. Snyder has made one of the best remakes of a horror film (Dawn of the Dead) that I could stand to watch. The jury's hardly out on 300, but I felt that Spartan tale, while visually delicious, was way sillier than anything in Watchmen. Iron Man and Dark Knight are fine popcorn movies, the latter especially well directed, but one thing that irked me was the PG-13 rating and the general inability to go places that question the status quo. Iron Man particularly avoids issues of arms dealing but Tony Stark manufactures armaments for the government. I get it - it's not a Nicholas Cage movie (Lord of War) that nobody saw, it's a superhero movie that everyone watched.
Watchman does cover such sticky subjects although it's up to individual viewers to decide how much heaviosity the subject's dealt with. Snyder's at the top of his game offering mesmerizing images and indeed appropriating a dim Kubrick-esque vision of humanity. If Watchmen fails to achieve true cult status that would be due to the portrayal of mankind as a blight on the solar system.
Snyder fills his enormous canvas with an endless array of archetypes. The costumed heroes, Viet Nam, political corruption and assassination, the impotence of the superman. The musical accompaniment fits in perfectly by offering tunes that would be cliche in any other setting, yet are fresh and real when used by Snyder as backdrops to montages that capsule sum up main story points: "Sounds of Silence," "Ride of the Valkyries" during the Nam sequence, Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changing" and "All Along the Watchtower" (Hendrix version), Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" and of course "First We Take Manhattan," along with more time correct mid-80s tunes like Philip Glass tunes from Koyaanisqatsi and "99 Luftballoons."
In a nutshell after President Nixon outlaws the Watchmen they try to retire but when someone starts methodically eliminating them the remaining members team up to find the culprit. Dr. Manhattan, the ad hoc group leader and the only one with true super powers, provides the spine of the narrative by blowing off his code of super human coolness and meditating on Mars, hoping that sapiens vanish like an extinguished flame from a candle.
You won't be bored despite the films longer than comic attention span running time. There's enough going on to warrant at least a couple of viewings.

DVD: In the Electric Mist

In the Electric Mist (the DVD was released March 3 by Image Entertainment) deserves a better outing than just DVD. In Europe a longer version will unspool theatrically but here in the States we'll have to settle for the disc release. Still there's enough going on cinematically in this Louisiana set mystery thriller to engage your interest.
Based on the Dave Robicheaux character created by James Lee Burke and directed by French master Bertrand Tavernier the movie serves up a delectable gumbo of backwoods politics, bayou style crime and earthy characters. Tommy Lee Jones headlines (Alec Baldwin played the same character in Heaven's Prisoners) as a rough no-nonsense lawman who's just as liable to pistol whip a suspect as he's to let another one walk on a marijuana charge in exchange for information. An impressive cast includes Peter Sarsgaard, Kelly Macdonald, Mary Steenburgen, Ned Beatty, and a rascally John Goodman as a scumbag named Baby Feet.
A serial killer leaves a bloody trail in Robicheaux's territory of New Iberia while at the same time a $40-million movie is lensing in town. Between the Hollywood stars (Sarsgaard) with their disregard for local laws and the murder investigation Robicheaux also digs up details of a decades old murder that he happened to witness as a young man. Jones and Goodman shine in particular. They may have once been friends long ago but they now clash over issues that include local corruption.
There's some sly comedy involving the movie crew and in once rather bizarre sequence Robicheaux, a recovering alcoholic, gets dosed with LSD at a movie wrap party. It gets better. On his way home from the party Robicheaux crashes his car in the bayou and comes across a squadron of Civil War ghosts (an amazing turn by musician/actor Levon Helm as a Confederate general). Rather than reject this weird vision, Robicheaux seeks the consul of the ghost general throughout the rest of the film.
Jones (like Eastwood) can play a part like this in his sleep but he definitely lends the film a gravitas not supplied by most of the other actors. In the Electric Mist has a creepy mood that's enhanced by its Southern milieu. But Tavernier also detours into ghost drama and pokes fun at the movie within the movie. It's a shame Electric Mist will only spin on disc in the US, the movie is accomplished enough to warrant a screen release.

DVD: What Makes Sammy Run?

What Makes Sammy Run? has to be one of the great American novels of the 20th century that's never been made into a film. Another example would be Catcher in the Rye although you could argue that by changing a few things the movie Igby Goes Down essentially is that book. Same with Sammy when you think about the devious Hollywood characters that populate movies from The Bad and the Beautiful to Swimming With Sharks.
Ben Stiller was attached to a version of Sammy in the early 90s, and someone else must have it on their development list now; it just has never been made. Schulberg had even visited the same territory with his character of Lonesome Rhodes in the script for 1957's A Face in the Crowd, a film whose reputation has only grown in recent years.
First broadcast as a two-parter in 1959 on the NBC Sunday Showcase, Budd Schulberg's What Make's Sammy Run? captures the slick satire of Hollywood producer nee paperboy Sammy Glick. With his gift for gab Sammy talks his way in the door using other people's talent as leverage. To the other people Sammy doles out peanuts while he basks in the fame, money and glory.
Starring Larry Blyden (from Houston) as Sammy the television version was shot live while taping and then broadcast. The result reveals the wealth of a time capsule, showing talented actors who's names may be familiar to film buffs but whose faces have been forgotten, and offering a very cynical view of humanity that's at odds with everything else television of that era depicted. Those used to viewing high definition images may be put off by the quality of the video of the production. Like much of multi-camera studio television from the 50s it was preserved by filming the original video elements so even the digital restoration has that soft focus, gleaming sheen so peculiar to early television. And that's a good thing, the viewing experience takes on an archaic mood perfectly suited to its period drama.
Joining Blyden are John Forsythe as the voice of reason, a sultry Dina Merrill and a trim Barbara Rush. There's an informative Schulberg interview in the extras. Also, Rush and Merrill provide a commentary track. In the first few minutes Merrill offers a bombshell while talking about Blyden who died in 1975. His Variety obit lists his death as a car accident in Morocco but Merrill states that he was killed by robbers who hijacked his car.
What Makes Sammy Run? is a classic piece of early television but one which takes a serious eye for character and technique to fully appreciate.

Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures

Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum Kabul, presently on exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston until May 17, asks a disturbing question. What happens when governments rewrite history by destroying history?
When the Taliban blew up the largest statues in the world in March of 2001, the Buddhas of Bamyan, were they obliterating them because they depicted deity in human form? Many of the items in the exhibit, a lot of them the size of your small fingernail, depict gods like Athena or Eros who's holding his wife Psyche depicted as a butterfly (below pic).
I'm no historian but on a timeline of the last 30 years, in 1978 the Russians took over Afghanistan at roughly the same time archaeologist Viktor Sarianidi discovered a horde of gold objects 2000 years old.
Nobody ever stays, whether it's the Russians, British or Genghis Khan - Forget it Jake, it's Afghanistan. The over 20,000 items were transferred to the museum in Kabul where they were achieved. When the Russians left in 1988 the country was caught between the Taliban, the Mujahadeem and Civil War. Somewhere along the line the contents of the Sarianidi find disappeared from the museum, which was thought destroyed when the museum was bombed. Speaking before a group of media before the opening, Omara Khan Masoudi, Director of the National Museum of Afghanistan, expressed his astonishment that the Taliban, who took control of the country in 1996, waited so long to destroy the statues. "Nobody knows who gave the order to destroy those stateues," he said,
Also looted or demolished were many artifacts of the Kabul museum, itself an impressive palace with classical architecture. And now these tiny trinkets of gold, most displayed in hermetically sealed cases, are on a four city North American tour to fascinate the imagination. The Indian themed circle on the brow of a cherub Athena combined with Greco-Roman wings and ornamentation shows that the Silk Route through Afghanistan two millennia ago was a sophisticated Route 66 that connected the Middle East with Central Asia and India.


As I was glancing down through the glass case onto a series of gold rings, I noticed that the spelling of Athena was backwards because the item was a stamp (see pic, the alphabet is Cyrillic). The detail is amazing, especially considering how small the lucky charms are. A crown, which is one of the show's centerpieces, has six small rod-like trees that are removed and the crown folds up for easy travel. Because of the long distance of travel involved on the Silk Route the preferred means of exchange could best be carried as tight packets of gold.
The gallery display includes items from the first and second century found at sites in Northern Afghanistan, in the Begram and Tillya Tepe regions, as well as a 28-minute National Geographic documentary narrated by Khaled Hosseini (Kite Runner) describing how the treasures were found in locked safes in 2003.