Spot the Penis
Entertainment Weekly has six special covers this week (or last week?) to showcase each of the primary Watchmen characters. Here’s Rorschach:
Everybody flipped out. His mask, his specifically to psychologize you ink blot mask, apparently looks like a penis. Ironic, right? What with him being so totally asexual and all.
Are you seeing it? I’m not. I’ve been trying. Is the penis the white part? When I look at it, I see like a wire cutters thing or a two socket wrenches.
I see tools.*
Collect the images at 6 Minutes to Midnight. It’s Flash interactive and sound heavy. Rorschach makes you take a Rorschach test to unlock preview images and interactive trailers. It’s a lot of fun to put in wrong answers deliberately to get him to growl at you. He doesn’t like it if you answer “butterfly.” He really doesn’t like it if you say “vagina.”
How many days now? Two? I can’t wait. I am so very excited. Even more so after reading the A.V. Club interview with Jackie Earle Haley. I like this part in particular, when they asked him how Watchmen was different than other films he’s done, as an adult:
Gosh, everything. I don’t even know where to—like what we first started talking about, doing a character who’s covered up through the whole movie, and geez, the scope of the film. And just the sheer love from the director, which was contagious through the cast and the entire crew. The sheer love of the source material. So it was like fans of the source material trying to make this and be responsible to the creators and the fans. Everything about it was just super-charged. It was all on 10. It was such an amazing experience. And that’s not to say that other films weren’t, but it was Watchmen. I don’t know what to say!
That makes me confident that, regardless of what anybody says about pirates or cuts at the end or restrictive framing that the heart of the story will come through. And we’re all sophisticated enough to recognize translation from medium to medium, right? Even if we aren’t sophisticated enough to spot the phalluses. It’s going to be good!
*Please, snicker. I am.
I see the Seattle space needle.
Comment by irishcav on March 4, 2009 at 7:57 am
That makes sense.
Comment by Sarah, etc. on March 4, 2009 at 8:46 am
I’m gonna call bullshit on Jackie and his line about trying to be responsible to the creators. Has he not seen anything from Alan Moore on this?
“The ‘Watchmen’ film sounds like more regurgitated worms. I for one am sick of worms. Can’t we get something else? Perhaps some takeout? Even Chinese worms would be a nice change.”
“And I can tell you that I will also be spitting venom all over it for months to come.”
“They take an idea, bowdlerize it, blow it up, make it infantile and spend $100 million to give people a brief escape from their boring and often demeaning lives at work. It’s obscene and it’s offensive. This is not the culture I signed up for.”
The only way to be responsible to the creators is to tell the studio to fuck off, you’re not going to be part of the movie. Of course, Alan Moore is a little nutty, and I’m really looking forward to the film. But to say that you are doing anything other than pissing in his cornflakes is being dishonest.
Comment by doc on March 4, 2009 at 9:20 am
Did he not want to sell the film rights? I asked, then saw that DC sells the film rights and he abdicates credit and gives his share of the money away.
So, yeah, what an asshole. I mean, what an unmitigated asshole. Here you’ve got a movie people have been trying to make for years, and they finally get a director that specifically says, “I’m not gonna make a big budget movie and cast a-list heartthrobs so that it can be about the story, not the actors.” And they get a bunch of apparently great actors. And they spend time trying to translate it to film as lovingly as possible, and respect Moore’s and Gibbons’s visions as much as possible. His bowl of pissy cornflakes is half empty, or something. One good cornflake piss deserves another?
Comment by Sarah, etc. on March 4, 2009 at 9:37 am
What a tool.
Comment by Chris on March 4, 2009 at 10:15 am
Rorschach, or Haley, or Moore?
(Oh my!)
Comment by Sarah, etc. on March 4, 2009 at 10:36 am
I don’t see it, either. I see two people with big afros standing back-to-back. I’m really hoping that this movie will be shown at the IMAX here in Rocket City. Oh, and it sounds like Alan Moore is just being crotchety like always.
Comment by Apollo on March 4, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Your IMAX usually gets great films, doesn’t it? You have the flat, not the dome, right?
Comment by Sarah, etc. on March 4, 2009 at 1:39 pm
I seem to remember it being domed but I haven’t been there in about 13 or 14 years. I can’t find any indicator that it is coming but since they showed The Dark Knight I would hope that they would get The Watchmen.
Comment by Apollo on March 4, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Alan Moore’s issue has long been about the rights to his properties. Personally I think he can fuck off. He signed away the rights and knew what that meant when he did it. That was and is the price you have to pay to have your work published. If he wasn’t willing to have his creation changed at will then he should not have been so eager to collect a check from DC and should have just published it himself.
I love Stephen King’s (yes, I am a King fanboy) approach to adaptations of his work. He always says that regardless of what happens the original is still on the shelf and the adaptations can’t change what the original work is. In most cases he just doesn’t get worked up over adaptations good or bad because he understands the nature of the business.
Alan Moore is just a crazy genius malcontent with an ax to grind. I love his work but his constant complaints about adaptations are getting old even though I think he was justified when it came to The League of Extraordinary Gentleman. Who didn’t think that movie sucked?
Bring on Watchmen!
Comment by Shadowhelm on March 4, 2009 at 3:59 pm
I see the penis. I’m not sure what that says about the state of my mind, though.
Honestly, I’m really looking forward to the movie, however I agree that the movie was hardly necessary, and wasn’t really a good idea. On the one hand, it’s going to be awesome to watch.
On the other hand, there is a really HUGE amount of interesting that is going to be lost due to medium shift. They wrote it as a comic book for a reason - many of which are well documented all over the internet. Reading a comic book just has a really particular effect on a person. There’s going to be a lot missing from the adaptation.
Doesn’t mean I don’t think it won’t kick ass.
And, then again, it will (and already has) drawn a lot of new attention to the comic. So, yay?
Comment by Poptart on March 5, 2009 at 2:51 am
I see a penis but would probably seen something else first if it hadn’t been in the post title. What says more about my state of mind is that the title was enough to get me to actually read the post. Actually, I always read your posts, it would have been enough to get me to read someone else’s post.:)
Comment by marciepooh on March 5, 2009 at 9:23 am
Is it wrong that I see a version of “Wilson’s” face from the Tom Hank’s survival movie?
Comment by Nicole on March 5, 2009 at 10:44 am
Yay. Thoroughly yay. That’s something that seems to get lost on Moore and all his threats of cursing the movie and its viewers. I saw the trailer and immediately bought and read the book. And proceeded to recommend it to everyone I know. He hates the forrest cos he just can’t see past all the trees.
Comment by Sarah, etc. on March 5, 2009 at 11:14 am
Woo! Embrace your inner smut hound.
Comment by Sarah, etc. on March 5, 2009 at 11:14 am
Do you think it’s wrong?
Comment by Sarah, etc. on March 5, 2009 at 11:14 am
Somehow I’m seeing a Groucho Marks mustache and glasses…that makes no sense. However, the tools reference has had me laughing for the last hour. Gotta love puns!
Comment by Laurie on March 5, 2009 at 2:04 pm