The Lair

I’ve watched The Watchmen before. But not in Sri Lanka, and not with the crowd I usually hang out with here. So off to the cinema we went. The first time, it was the movie experience. This time around, it was the movie going experience. For the past decade or so, I’ve probably watched more movies in a tiny screen embedded into the back of an airplane seat than I have on a large screen.

False alarm of the day: Despite dire warnings, the national anthem was not played before the start of the movie. In retrospect, I can’t even articulate why the concept of having a national anthem played before a movie screening bothers me so much. Except it does and I was glad when it didn’t happen. Maybe the practice has fallen out of favour?

The movie itself: the movie rating system in SL confuses me greatly. Back in the day, you had your general audience movies, the “more suitable for adults” shtick (which in the late 80s really meant a proverbial flash of ankle and petticoat) and the “adults only omgz” which probably included a flash of mammaries at most. Now The Watchmen is rated R in the US and 18+ in the UK. There is violence (big deal, this is the country which repeatedly televised the bug eyed terrorist corpse face with much gusto, we’re sort of used to seeing pieces of limbs and lots of blood everywhere) and nudity. You’d expect it to be an adults only classification here, right? Even the permissive UK slapped a 18+ on it, right? Umm. No. The Watchmen was classified “more suitable for adults” in Sri Lanka. Go figure. I don’t know what people were thinking either.

Then there was the actual movie; which surprisingly enough featured very little in the way of creative editing by censorious morality police. Yes, so Dr. Manhattan’s nether regions were perpetually blurred out (prompting much sniggering from myself). In a blatant double standard, his magnificent blue buttcheeks (I can’t believe I just typed those words out) were left exposed to the cinema goer. The infamous, cringe inducing sex scene aboard the Archimedes was (almost) uncensored, which surprised me no end. All in all, the movie was left intact.

Finally, there was the saga of the beer. Yes, apparently beer can be purchased by cinema going folk (Ok, it’s been years since I was in a Sri Lankan cinema, ok? I don’t know these things). But as usual, there are caveats and rules which make the experience slightly less enjoyable than it could be…

First, no beer purchases before 1700 in the evening. Not unreasonable, you might argue – until you realize that the movie starts at 1630. Or it would have, if they had bothered starting on time (they didn’t).

Second, containers of beer cannot be taken inside the hall. Note that this does not apply to other beverages, which people happily carted in – but apparently beer is … umm … special. Ok, I can see the logic in that too (someone could easily be buying for minors in the cinema hall proper) except that this requires beer be purchased and downed during intermission.

Which brings me to the last element in this hideous trifecta of beerfail – for some inexplicable reason, the intermission was barely 5 minutes long. Ice cold beverage chugged down in 30 seconds or less because omg-the-movie-is-starting-up-again and this is the part where Manhattan is accused of giving people cancer?. Yeah, instant brainfreeze. Not fun.

But hey, it was fun. I probably wouldn’t do that again in a hurry though – if I want to pay for the privilege of sitting in an unpleasantly musty smelling hall; I’d go back to school or something.

No, I’m not going to tell you. Wait, I will. I mean The Watchmen, of course.

No spoilers. Well, it’s spoilers in the same sense that the Star Wars prequels would be spoilers. Nonetheless, a few fleeting impressions.

Firstly, I will treat the internet reviews with an appropriate amount of respect from now on. Which is to say, not very much at all. In the interests of being well informed, I read reviews (yes, even ones which slated the film) and kept my eyes and ears peeled for the jarring notes that the reviewers kept harping about.

Didn’t see it.

Well, ok – horrifyingly bad sex scene, made worse by the choice of song in the background. Leonard Cohen. *cringe*. I did a gigantic facepalm (audible smack on forehead and all) when it started.

Choice of music there was more than made up by Tears for Fears in the background while Ozy waxes lyrical about his powers. That was beautifully done. Liked the opening credits a lot (as did most people who watched the movie, I gather). I thought the choice of Jimi Hendrix was apt too.

See people. This is a rarity for me. I recognized ALL the music on the soundtrack. Every single song.

Overall – I liked the movie a great deal. Would see again A+++ etc. I didn’t think the gore was overdone (much). The change in the ending was probably for the best, since most of the superhero mockery was lost.

Of course, the writing is on the wall. In the UK, at least, this movie is unlikely to do well. Cinema wasn’t particularly full for the screening that I went to and this is the opening weekend. It’s 18+ cert here. Titanic or Harry Potter this isn’t. Then again, I felt reasonably meh about the Martian clock palace and a few of the other special effects scenes; so maybe a lower budget may have helped. Dunno. I still liked the movie. Just a pity that many people who haven’t read the comics probably won’t have the patience (or stomach) to sit through it.

Sage points me towards the Da Vinci Code movie. After the recent legal tussles were resolved in favour of Dan Brown, the movie was pretty much given the all clear to proceed. Given that the book was such a monumental best seller, it seemed almost inevitable that Hollywood would be all over the movie rights.

I’m going to make a revelation that will surprise/shock/enrage all those determined to drag down Dan Brown as being a mediocre writer. I actually liked Da Vinci Code. Of course, I’m a person who listens to 80s cheesy pop and enjoys some of it and my sense of style can only be called “roadkill chic” tinged with a healthy dose of “I don’t give a flying furball”. But still, I liked Dan Brown.

Oh, so the other books he wrote (and which I devoured within a few days/weeks of reading Da Vinci Code) were pretty much predictable crap. I won’t even go into how bad I felt (having a passing interest in cryptography) after reading Deception Point and Digital Fortress. But still, as a premise and a story, Da Vinci Code worked for me. I wouldn’t have discovered Umberto Eco (Name of the Rose) without reading the much better marketed Da Vinci Code first.

There are only three classes of books for me these days. Books I read, books I read and thoroughly enjoy (and can quote from at will) and books I never bother finishing. The last category is surprisingly infrequent, actually. There is so much choice since I switched to mostly electronic books that I start reading a book or a series after careful selection (and/or a recommendation from someone who’s literary choices interest me). Da Vinci Code was a book I read for pure escapism, a book with an intriguing premise. On that basis, it worked. Is it the equivalent of the utterly fascinating and much better written Pliocene Exile or The Galactic Milieu? Almost certainly not. But it’s better than the venomous thoughts of throwing into the rubbish heap of history, as the more vehement critics would suggest.

Picking up and reading a Dan Brown is like reading a Ludlum or a Cussler. Prepare to suspend disbelief, prepare to snort skeptically while reading some of it, but at the end: you will be entertained. Look beyond the more or less obvious warts and you’ll find escapist literature. Is it going to win a literary prize any time soon? Maybe not. But then, Shakespeare wrote his work for the bawdy houses and the commoners of his day, didn’t he? Ludlum wrote a trilogy of books which struck a chord with me in my early teens; the Bourne series. So the more recent movie editions (Matt Damon variety) weren’t quite what I had in mind… I rather preferred the Richard Chamberlain/Jaclyn Smith TV series better. Da Vinci Code has all of the ingredients to make a decent movie too. Literary classic it may not be – but as a story it worked. And Dan Brown just happened to be the right guy at the right time to make a killing.

Don’t hate if you can’t create. *grin*