V review by Jason Silverman/ negative, anyone know about him?

[rainy]

By Jason Silverman| Also by this reporter
02:00 AM Mar, 17, 2006

Near the beginning of V for Vendetta, a masked avenger named V slashes his initial into a poster. The scene feels familiar: The sword work comes courtesy of Zorro and the logo looks like the anarchist symbol turned on its head.

From the start, Larry and Andy Wachowski, the Matrix brothers, pack Vendetta with literary, religious, political and pop culture references: the Sex Pistols and The Girl From Ipanema, The Count of Monte Cristo and Beethoven, Twelfth Night and Benny Hill.

Though Vendetta is a potential bonanza for a graduate student in search of a thesis topic, it may leave the rest of us scratching our heads.

That's not because Vendetta tries to pull together too many ideas and icons. It's because it doesn't pull together anything

[Beaverhausen]

1. I think it was all too much for Jason

He wanted more car chases and things blown up.

I have no idea who he is...where did this review come from?

[villager]

2. it clearly left poor Jason scratching his head...

link? Who does he "write" for?

[rainy]

3. Here:

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,70424-0.html?tw=wn_story_mailer
Here's the link its LYCOS whatever that is.

[villager]

4. did you see this great Alan Moore quote in the discussion section?

"We sneer. We lampoon and ridicule the sniveling little oaf before his peers.... We imply that even to have voiced such a question places him irretrievably in the same category as the common pencil-sharpener.... The reason why we do this is pretty straightforward. Firstly, in the dismal and confused sludge of opinion and half- truth that make up all artistic theory and criticism, it is the only question worth asking. Secondly, we don't know the answer and we're scared that somebody will find out." ~Alan Moore.

[rainy]

5. I just went back and read the comments. Everytime I read a bad

review the comment section never agrees with the reviewer. I'm thinking most bad reviews are from the right. What do you think?

[villager]

7. I don't know about this guy -- maybe the movie wasn't "ironic"

enough for the Wired reviewer... Read "D is for Denby" on James Wolcott's Vanity Fair blog -- he talks about how this movie makes overly-comfy liberal reviewers squirm... cause you know, it implies they may have to actually do something...

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

6. FWIW, I tend to agree with him

The politics were watered down, the film often felt pretty hollow and a lot of the contemporary references just didn't work.

[villager]

8. watered down? compared to what?

n/t

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

10. Alan Moore's graphic novel

Specifically V's anarchism and the extend of - and support for - the regime's fascism.

If the film gets people geed up and thinking, then great, but I do think an opportunity was lost for something better. It was fun, but pretty forgettable for me. (But then I thought Crash was hideous and look how that did!)

(Sorry for the brevity, but I've just noticed the time and I really need to go to bed.)

[villager]

16. but compared to any other studio film of the last six years...

...the politics in it were astonishing. Viz. the graphic novel -- well, Moore's original work is always going to be a ridiculously high bar for any adaptation... (though after all the previous misfires, I thought this one worked...)

[rainy]

9. Where I think it was powerful was the encouragement for people

to be brave and fight corporatism and corruption.

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. LOL: I completely agree with his review

Especially this line: "What's left is a fuzzy, pandering film. What are its lessons? Totalitarianism is bad. People power is good. Unless you aren't quite sure where to stand on the whole Hitler-Nazi-Holocaust thing, Vendetta is unlikely to evolve your worldview."

:rofl:

[Orrex]

12. A little off the mark

If anyone's going to the movies to get a lesson in political science, they're probably wasting their time. But if they're going for the purpose of entertainment, does the film provide this?

That, I think, would be a much more useful criticism of the film than a simple airing of Silverman's grievances re: the state of film as a tool of revolutionaries.

[alcibiades_mystery]

14. That would be the case

If so many people weren't huffing and puffing about the film's supposed political content. The film may be fine as entertainment. I found it predictable and unoriginal as entertainment. The point I agree with in Silverman's critique is the laughably standard politics of it. Oh, so we're supposed to be against totalitarianism. Ah, thanks for the update. It was silly. But again, that's just for those who have been proclaiming on these boards for weeks that V is some groundbreaking political statement.

[Orrex]

15. Good points, but not really unique to V

For the record, I haven't seen the film yet, but I'm quite familiar with the source-work, if that's of any value.

The same "pedestrian message" (that's my term--not something I'm blaming on you!) can be made of pretty much any "political" film, can't it?

The Constant Gardener: Exploitive drug companies, bad!
All The President's Men: Secretive criminal goverments, bad!
Bowling for Columbine: Out-of-control, gun-fetishizing, fear-crazed society, bad!

and on and on. It still strikes me as odd that V is singled out, but...


You make a great point when you touch on the brouhaha swirling in the wake of this film. I have very much the same view of The Matrix and the pseudo-deep blue-filter-equals-real-world philosophical nonsense. However good or bad the film is, the legions of worshippers make me queasy.

Maybe that's the point of Silverman's critique that had eluded me: it's not a critique of the film itself so much as a commentary on the film as a rallying-banner.

Your thoughts?

[leftofthedial]

13. Jason needs to "pull together" his fly