Watchmen Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Now that we're in the middle of the awards season, it's time to look back and praise the performances the world forgot -- and perhaps even complain that they did so. Everyone's going to be doing it. Variety's Timothy Gray did today, noting that he thought Paul Rudd and Gerard Butler turned in fine performances in I Love You, Man and Law Abiding Citizen, respectively. As he wisely puts it, "There are three types of good pics: awards front-runners, dark horses and the terrific work that, for whatever reason, does not seem to be considered a contender ... This isn't one of those 'what's wrong with the awards voters!' screeds. There are enough of those at this time of year, and they're almost always silly. (The subtext is usually 'Those voters are idiots because they didn't pick my favorites.') The point is that awards recognize terrific work, but they can't be expected to honor all terrific work." I don't want to launch into one of the aforementioned screeds, but two of my favorite performances of 2009 have completely fallen off the radar. I thought I'd praise them now, complain a little bit, and then open the floor to you.

The first on my list is Viggo Mortensen in The Road. For whatever reason, The Weinstein Company thought they could only champion one film this awards season, and it was Nine. The Road fell by the wayside. (Pun not intended.) Critical consensus seems to be divided on the film itself, and your opinion may vary, but I thought the film was bleakly brilliant. I thought Mortensen was outstanding -- haunting, starved, and desperate. It was all there. If anyone was able to actually watch him put a gun up to his own son's head and not shiver at the look behind his eyes, I'd be surprised. It was equal to anything Jeremy Renner did in The Hurt Locker, or any of George Clooney's frowns in Up in the Air. My personal opinion was that it surpassed it, but that's just my take.

Trying to rank the best comic flicks of the decade is a surprisingly tough task. I've approached it with all the enthusiasm Hester Prynne must have shown walking to the scaffold. It's not because I don't love discussing the past ten years of the genre, but because I hate ranking films. It puts me into knots of indecision. If I could, I would rank things in a sort of Venn diagram – Iron Man overlaps Batman Begins which overshadows Spider-Man.

But Venn diagrams are impossible to post, and the end of the decade demands lists. So please, take this as one humble writer's list, and use it to jump-start your own. To keep myself sane, I'm leaving off adaptations such as A History of Violence and Road to Perdition. They were based on graphic novels, and they certainly elevated the art of comic adaptation to a whole new level, but that's precisely the problem. Trying to rank Perdition against X2: X-Men United feels like a disservice to both films, and a cheesy way to flesh out the list.

So, don't think of the exclusion of American Splendor, Road to Perdition, Ghost World, Persepolis, and A History of Violence something negative. They're excellent films. They prove what rich material is often contained within a mocked genre. But I would rather think of these films as literary adaptations that belong in dramatic categories. Even that implies they're "better" than superhero tales, which I suppose is true to some extent, but also unfair. They hit us in different ways, and appeal to us on different levels. Asking Tony Stark and Marjane Satrapi to compete just because they're both illustrated is just wrong. But your mileage may vary. If you can resolve the conflict, I applaud you, and am anxious to see how you rank them.

Now, on to the rankings -- and you don't know how I longed for more time to re-watch every selection.

Villainy isn't just found in an evil plot, a straight razor, or a hockey mask. Sometimes it's a crippling state of mind and place that sucks the soul out of its heroes and heroines. It can be Purgatory, it can be hell, it can be a mental asylum, or it can be a bustling metropolis. So, I'd like to salute 1970s New York as being one of the most vicious, ruthless villains to ever wreck havoc on the silver screen.

By now you're regarding me with skepticism, outright derision, or a need to see Pinhead or Jigsaw saluted for the millionth time on a Halloween list. But think about the lurking menace behind Serpico, Taxi Driver, Fort Apache the Bronx, Cruising, Dog Day Afternoon, Klute, Mean Streets, Death Wish and dozens more. (Every once and awhile Hollywood mixed it up and set something in San Fransisco. But it always felt like a New York stand-in, didn't it?) The city's sickly decay spawned Watchmen. Without the drugs, spiraling crime rate, police corruption, and riots you wouldn't have Travis Bickle or Rorschach, who are rejected, broken, and made by what they witness on the city streets. In 1976, you wouldn't have had a charming dramedy called New York, I Love You. It probably would have been called New York: You'll Die Violently. The class and romance seen An Affair to Remember wouldn't come back until Disney dressed it up again.

As we know and lament often, studios are never content to release a DVD just once, and any special edition is just a precursor to a bigger and better version somewhere down the road. Just a few months after we enjoyed Watchmen: The Director's Cut comes Watchmen: The Ultimate Cut, which hits store shelves on November 3. As you can guess from the cover art, this is the edition that will splice The Tales of the Black Freighter back into Watchmen, extending the movie's running time by another half hour or more.

Presumably, the footage with the newsstand vendor and the kid reading the comic will also be added in to help it flow better, but the official press release doesn't actually mention that. Other than the Black Freighter, the special features are just one big grab bag of what already appeared on the Director's Cut and Tales of the Black Freighter DVDs. (For reasons of space and word count, I've included the bullet list below the jump. Compare at your leisure.) It should also be noted that back in July, Zack Snyder stressed the Director's Cut was his preferred cut, and seemed to dismiss the Ultimate Edition as an excessive re-release.

I'm tempted to buy this one just so I can hang out with the newsstand vendor, and watch Black Freighter without having to swap discs. But I know that when I really want to kick back for a Watchmen viewing, I'll just put in the Director's Cut. That version of the film was good enough for me, and if I really want the ultimate fan experience, I'll just read the book again. What about you guys? Will you race to the stores and buy this triple dip? Did you hold off buying it, knowing this version would hit at Christmas? Or are you one of the Watchmen movie haters who doesn't want any version but the paper one by Alan Moore?