Sucker Punch is a catastrastroke

Zack Snyder's 15 minutes just might be over. He made a spectacular debut with 300, and it's been pretty much downhill since then. His career is perishing on the rocks of his unhealthy obsession with crappy graphic novels put out by DC Comics. If he doesn't get over this obsession, it's going to be all over, real quick like.

I don't want to mislead you in anyway: Sucker Punch is an unmitigated, unadulterated cinematic catastrophe. The only good thing I can say about it is this: They honed in on their target audience very sharply. I am sure that this movie will inspire every sex worker who has ever been committed to an insane asylum. There may be 20 or 30 girls living in the San Fernando Valley who will love this movie.

What about for you an me? Well... not so much.

I told my aunt that takes a heck of a lot of hallucinogenics to write a graphic novel like Sucker Punch.

"You don't seriously think they used hallucinogenics while writing it, do you?" she asked.

"Oh yes I do. I really do. I am sure magic mushrooms, peyote, Salvia-A, and plenty of LSD were involved in the production process. There is no other way to explain a chain-reaction of such bad ideas. There is no other explanation of how they could look at this pile of shit and think it was genius."

Folks, I want to level with you. I was a big fan of DC comics when I was a kid. I read everything they published. I stopped when I turned 14. This was a full decade before the graphic novel movement if of 1990s. My brother was reading comics during that epoch of history, and he collected many graphic novels. Some of the better ones, such as The Sandman, he passed over to me. I had little time for that stuff. I was finishing my degree at UCLA.

Later, as I started my career, and began to have free time and zero disposable income. I tried to read a few of these graphic novels for entertainment during that time. I found most of the 'books' to be rubbish. Pseudo intellectual, pseudo artistic, pseudo political, pseudo relevant, pseudo hip; they were mostly bullshit drivel. These were failed attempts by poor artists to try and achieve something great.

Probably the worst of them all was The Watchmen. I couldn't stop laughing when I heard Time Magazine elected this piece of shit to their top 100 books of all time. That was the end of their street cred. I now wipe my ass with Time Magazine. That's all it's good for now.

Regrettably, Zach Snyder doesn't agree with me. Evidently, he is deeply inspired by this drivel. He picked a good one in 300 to kick off his career. Then came The Watchmen. I consider that an epic failure. Now we have Sucker Punch. This is a catastrastroke.

The failure is not in the implementation. Rather, it is the inception. The story ideas themselves are crap. You can't polish a turd. No matter how well directed, a bad story is a bad story. If it ain't any good on the pages of the screenplay, it won't be any good on the screen.

The pitty is that Zach is a very talented director with very poor taste in material.

Will Anybody Watch the Watchmen?

CNN just published an interesting piece called "Will Anyone Watch the Watchmen?". You can read it here.

There are two potential answers to this question:

1. Not if they're smart
2. They will but they know it isn't going to be good. They are just doing it to be part of the social conversation that will rise out of this film.

So, I was an avid comic book reader when I was a kid, as was my younger brother. Between the two of us, we have about 10,000 books in storage. Although he was still actively reading in 1985, I was not. Neither of us read this graphic novel until just recently. Both of us had similar thoughts about this book. They go like this:

1. Vastly, vastly, vastly over-rated
2. Fucking stupid costumes.
3. Fucking stupid character names.
4. Fucking weak super heroes
   
5. The emphasis on personal depth and psychology is highly strained. It is not worth the number points critics assign for this material
6. Totally a product of Cold War fear of Nuclear War.
   
7. Mostly a false prophecy of the Left during the Reagan era.

On New Years Eve, 1985-1986, I attended a big thrash metal bash in San Francisco. Metallica, Megadeth, Metal Church and Exodus were all playing the Civic Auditorium. It was a blast. The concert didn't end until 1 or 2 in the morning. It was 1986 by then. As I walked to the Bart station to ride home to Concord, I spied a funny bumper sticker on a crappy Volkswagon Bug. The sticker said "Reagan '84, Nuclear War '85". I laughed like hell. By that time, the sticker was officially a false prophecy. It was typical of the hysterical San Francisco hippies of the time.

Well folks, The Watchmen is a bumper sticker just like that. It is basically a prophecy of atomic doom, and a bitter polemic written against Ronald Reagan. The objective of the book was to stir up pasificism in hearts of comic book readers like me, who voted for Reagan. It failed. It strikes me as hillarious that they have chosen to make this movie around an out-dated political rant, 21 years post-Reagan and 20 years post Cold War. I have no idea in the world how they can make this cold-war hysteria relevant today.

One wag said "Easy, just substitute Bush II for Reagan and you've got it!" Ehhh... When the movie opens a few weeks Obama will have been president for a couple of months, so you don't got it. I guess the hysterical hippies don't keep track of current events too closely.

Worse, I have never seen such preposterous implementations of already horrid costumes in all my life. The character design in this graphic novel was downright horrid. The movie guys have decided to revel in it. They think it is fun. When I saw the production notebook film, cold shivers ran through my spine. I saw visions of hundreds of millions of dollars, burning in a bond fire, during a time of economic crisis, when major studios can go bankrupt. That wouldn't be good for my town of Los Angeles.

Not since the 1960s Batman staring Adam West have I seen such cheese. That Batman was very successful, albeit a guilty pleasure for most. That one succeed because it was extremely camp. Everybody was hamming it up, and playing it tongue in cheeck. It worked because it was comedy, and the people took it that way. Unfortunately, Watchmen is being made as a serious graphic novel should be. They have delusions of greatness, seriousness, psychological depth, and political importance. This toxic mixture of stupid character design and serious themes just can't work in movie. There are reasons why so many considered this graphic novel un-filmable, and a non-movie candidate.

I want to go on the record clearly here: Watchmen is destined to be one of the biggest motion picture catastrophes in Hollywood history. I am talking about a disasterpiece of cinema. It is going to fail. It will live in infamy. In a certain sense, this movie is already a failure. Warner Bros footed the bill for this film, and wound up in a legal squabble with Fox, who now owns the rights to distribute it. This is a legal train wreck has already spoiled any potential profits that might come from this film.

The best outcome that Mr. Snyder, Fox & Warners can hope for is something like King Kong 2005. That King Kong made a lot of money, as all other King Kongs have, despite the fact that it was long and borring. It was profitable, and it more or less sunk Mr. Peter Jackson's career. Anybody noted that he hasn't been seen or heard from again? I know there are rumors of him producing several films. But he has been inactive for almost 5 years. The movie is not remembered well. Have a look at this as just one example. Rumor has it that Mr. Jackson has been sulking over the poor reception of his pet project.

I hope Zach Snyder does not do the same after Watchmen tanks. He made a truly classic film in 300. I would like to see more from him

If Watchmen turns out well, I will eat my words, but I fear not.