Laverne Cox + Doomsday Clock
Mar. 20th, 2024 12:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amado1Y'all I forgot to mention two things:
1) I rewatched the 2016 Laverne Cox version of Rocky Horror last night and found that it holds up pleasantly well. I still like the original better, obviously -- no contest. But the remake is charming and the voices are (mostly) excellent. Laverne as a stunt casting is maybe not the best choice, out of place among professional singers and Broadway stars, but plenty charismatic. The only real flaw of the remake is the shitty direction, which almost totally ruins some of the sequences. But that's sort of to be expected with a TV movie.
2) I finally read Doomsday Clock, the sequel to Watchmen........sigh.
Normally I would just list the things I liked and the things I disliked as little bullet lists... but that's so difficult here! Everything on the like list is followed by a big old whopping "BUT..." except for one item: the artwork. Genuinely loved it. Competent, stylish, easy on the eyes. Not quite so idiosyncratic or colorful as the original, which is a downside, but if I wasn't comparing this to anything, if it was just the default artwork for some totally new book, I'd be blown away!
Plot summary: In 1992, nearly a decade after Adrian Veidt sicced a tentacle monster on NYC, his plot has been exposed and the world is on the brink of nuclear war yet again. As missiles fly, Adrian and a new Rorschach climb into a time machine and transport themselves into a whole new universe -- the regular Batman-and-Superman DC universe -- searching for Dr. Manhattan in the hopes that he can fix their world.
Once there, the story devolves into a series of often-nonsensical cameo appearances: Batman, Lex Luthor, the Joker, Lois Lane, Johnny Thunder, the Comedian (alive and well, because apparently Dr. Manhattan blipped him into this universe before he hit the concrete?), etc. New Watchmen-universe villains are introduced (Mime and Marionette; Mime is somehow able to fire invisible weapons at people and actually kill them, which doesn't seem....totally in line with the Watchmen universe rules....); halfway through the book, Adrian and Rorschach 100% fade out of the story for a weirdly worshipful focus on Superman, which lasts for the entire rest of the graphic novel.
Eugh. I don't know! There was an intriguing subplot that, at first, seemed VERY Watchmen to me -- the mysterious 1954 death of a Hollywood star named Carver Colman. Clips from his last film are interspersed throughout the book. Teasing hints about who murdered him are packed into the end of some issues. But the pay-off... not great. It turns out Carver's own mom was blackmailing him, threatening to reveal that he was gay, and she ended up bludgeoning him to death with one of his Academy Awards -- okay, I'm fine with that, I like that. What really made me grit my teeth was a lengthy flashback issue where we learn that Dr. Manhattan has been strangely obsessed with Carver since they met in 1938, visiting him every year to give Carver a minor glimpse of his own future. Manhattan's obsession with Carver is really never satisfactorily explained, and at the end of the novel, he overcomes his own refusal to interfere with human tragedies and goes back in time to encourage Carver to come out as gay. Carver's entire life changes. Instead of being killed by his own mother, he lives to a ripe old age as an out gay activist.
I....have a really hard time seeing Dr. Manhattan doing this.... There are so many stupid little elements to this sequel that I COULD focus on, but this one was the closest to being up my alley, so it's the one I HAVE to discuss!
1) I rewatched the 2016 Laverne Cox version of Rocky Horror last night and found that it holds up pleasantly well. I still like the original better, obviously -- no contest. But the remake is charming and the voices are (mostly) excellent. Laverne as a stunt casting is maybe not the best choice, out of place among professional singers and Broadway stars, but plenty charismatic. The only real flaw of the remake is the shitty direction, which almost totally ruins some of the sequences. But that's sort of to be expected with a TV movie.
2) I finally read Doomsday Clock, the sequel to Watchmen........sigh.
Normally I would just list the things I liked and the things I disliked as little bullet lists... but that's so difficult here! Everything on the like list is followed by a big old whopping "BUT..." except for one item: the artwork. Genuinely loved it. Competent, stylish, easy on the eyes. Not quite so idiosyncratic or colorful as the original, which is a downside, but if I wasn't comparing this to anything, if it was just the default artwork for some totally new book, I'd be blown away!
Plot summary: In 1992, nearly a decade after Adrian Veidt sicced a tentacle monster on NYC, his plot has been exposed and the world is on the brink of nuclear war yet again. As missiles fly, Adrian and a new Rorschach climb into a time machine and transport themselves into a whole new universe -- the regular Batman-and-Superman DC universe -- searching for Dr. Manhattan in the hopes that he can fix their world.
Once there, the story devolves into a series of often-nonsensical cameo appearances: Batman, Lex Luthor, the Joker, Lois Lane, Johnny Thunder, the Comedian (alive and well, because apparently Dr. Manhattan blipped him into this universe before he hit the concrete?), etc. New Watchmen-universe villains are introduced (Mime and Marionette; Mime is somehow able to fire invisible weapons at people and actually kill them, which doesn't seem....totally in line with the Watchmen universe rules....); halfway through the book, Adrian and Rorschach 100% fade out of the story for a weirdly worshipful focus on Superman, which lasts for the entire rest of the graphic novel.
Eugh. I don't know! There was an intriguing subplot that, at first, seemed VERY Watchmen to me -- the mysterious 1954 death of a Hollywood star named Carver Colman. Clips from his last film are interspersed throughout the book. Teasing hints about who murdered him are packed into the end of some issues. But the pay-off... not great. It turns out Carver's own mom was blackmailing him, threatening to reveal that he was gay, and she ended up bludgeoning him to death with one of his Academy Awards -- okay, I'm fine with that, I like that. What really made me grit my teeth was a lengthy flashback issue where we learn that Dr. Manhattan has been strangely obsessed with Carver since they met in 1938, visiting him every year to give Carver a minor glimpse of his own future. Manhattan's obsession with Carver is really never satisfactorily explained, and at the end of the novel, he overcomes his own refusal to interfere with human tragedies and goes back in time to encourage Carver to come out as gay. Carver's entire life changes. Instead of being killed by his own mother, he lives to a ripe old age as an out gay activist.
I....have a really hard time seeing Dr. Manhattan doing this.... There are so many stupid little elements to this sequel that I COULD focus on, but this one was the closest to being up my alley, so it's the one I HAVE to discuss!
