Monday, March 2, 2009

The fine line between being Good and Enjoyable. And a question for everybody.

I finished The Watchmen. It promptly gave me nightmares. It was excellently written but I thought the ending was incredibly dissatisfying and now I pretty much don't want to see the movie. Sigh. I won't deny that it was Good but I can be pretty clear on the fact that I didn't get a single moment of pleasure out of it.



And then I got lectured about not depriving myself of the joys of Frank Miller just because I've prejudged him (based on everything I've ever seen of his work, ALL of which I hated). Sigh. And this was shortly after he re-watched Sin City last night and deemed it "moronic". Sin City was the only movie I have ever walked out of in theaters. Although the last Batman was pretty close too.

So I read The Dark Knight Returns, to make him happy. Yes, it's a brilliant story. Yes, the art is great. That doesn't mean I didn't still fucking HATE IT. I grew up on the cheesy Adam West Batman and the early Tim Burton Batman. Those were silly and fun. This is go-kill-yourself levels of depressing. Jesus, yes it was a brilliant idea to have Batman and Superman fight and it was a great setup (who else could get you to root AGAINST the Man of Steel?). That still didn't make me like it. Or any of the rest.



I don't like Hemingway either. I will acknowledge his greatness, but he pisses me off. Alan Moore I'm ok with, but I don't know if I will read V for Vendetta after all. And Frank Miller? Yes he's great. But I never want to read anything else by him. Ever.

There's a meme - best item of reading or viewing material that you hated? As in, you can acknowledge how good it is but still can't stand it. Anyone? Anyone?

Edit: Tonight I finished Arkham Asylum and The Killing Joke (both Joker ones). This is just not my Batman. Tomorrow I pick up Sandman and V for Vendetta at the library. Maybe those will be interesting without being so miserably bleak. We'll see.

2 comments:

Mella DP said...

For me, Steinbeck, and Forrest Gump (the only movie I can say would have been 1000% more enjoyable if it hadn't had a plot).

As for the whole superhero thing, I'm sure there's an art and aesthetic of some great significance, but the general appeal is a mystery I've never been able to crack.

drwende said...

There is not one modernist "literary" novel I've enjoyed, and I particularly loathe Graham Greene. I'm an idealist; I don't want to read about unhappy people who spend the entire book being unhappy in order to conclude that unhappiness is the basic human lot and that they're happy about being unhappy.