Next time Bill Simmon gives me grief for not liking Watchmen, I think I'll just direct him to the comments of Mr. Terry Gillian.

Quint: That’s what we love about you guys. Now, did you see WATCHMEN? Did you end up seeing it?

Terry Gilliam: Yeah, I thought it strange. I thought it was too reverential. That’s what I really thought it was.

Quint: Faithful to a fault, yeah. I would agree with that.

Terry Gilliam: And you look at it and he’s tried really… so much is stunning. It got trashed, but there are great sequences in there, but the overall effect is kind of turgid in a certain way.

Here's the trailer for Terry Gilliam's latest, Heath Ledger's last film, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. Excited for this. (Via Gynomite.)

Sci-Fi links for a Thursday without joy.

* AskMetaFilter on slammin' science fiction-themed hip-hop.

* Where I Write: Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors in Their Creative Spaces.

* Just Another Post-Apocalypse Story.

* Fox is promising not to ruin Dollhouse this time around.

* Terry Gilliam is hoping to adapt a Philip K. Dick novel, The World Jones Made. Will it be the first PKD movie since Blade Runner to be actually good? (Sorry Arnold.)

* And Warren Ellis says the future is small.

Tilting at Windmills: The Outrageous Fortune of Terry Gilliam. The guy can't catch a break. Via MeFi.

The Watchmen that never was

The 1986 graphic novel Watchmen has often been called the ‘Citizen Kane’ of graphic novels. Epic, dense and complex, this tale of superheroes struggling with very human tribulations has also been called ‘unfilmable’, but many have said that if it were to be filmed, the ideal director to capture its fantastic nature would be Terry Gilliam. Twice, both in 1989, and in 1999 Gilliam has attempted to helm a production of Watchmen. After his final attempt, he let the rights pass back to the owner, stating “I just don’t think I can do it justice by reducing it down to a film. I keep thinking it would be better as a miniseries – a five-hour miniseries is what I think Watchmen should be…when you reduce it down to a 2-hour film – you’re taking so much textured detail out that it kind of loses what it’s about.” Watchmen is currently being directed by Zack Snyder, who previously helmed 300.

New culturemonkey post: Reification and dystopia in mass culture, or, a few quick thoughts on the greatness of Brazil.

I know there are a few Brazil fans in the audience, so for their benefit here's the short essay we're using in our classroom discussion on the movie this Wednesday in Introduction to Film. Did anyone out there ever wind up seeing Tideland? I've been meaning to, but I've been so disappointed by Gilliam lately I haven't pulled the trigger.

It is also possible to see Brazil’s simultaneous past/future makeup in the images and music Gilliam selects (as opposed to just the words). While the above discussion basically deals with the philosophical tenets of postmodernism, the movie’s visual dimension is more concerned with style. As a style, "[postmodernism] emphasizes diversity, displays a penchant for pastiche, and advocates eclectic use of elements from the past." Although Brazil is meant to be futuristic in some sense, it incorporates several cultural artifacts, in particular elements from the late ‘30s and early ‘40s. The workers watch Casablanca (1942) and B westerns on their mini-TV/computer screens; the costumes are vintage Hollywood fashions from the ‘30s and ‘40s; the large eagle statue at the entrance of the Ministry of Information symbolically recalls the Nazi domination of the late ‘30s/early ‘40s, as do the scenes in which armor-clad police burst into apartments (Buttle’s and later Sam’s mother’s) like SS troops; the various posters in the film ("Don’t Suspect a Friend – Report Him!") copy the style of those World War II posters designed by the Englishman Abram Games; and finally, even the title song "Brazil" by Xavier Cugat comes from 1939.

To the idle viewer, all of this may seem like mere coincidences, but Gilliam strategically designs his film to recall the writing of Arnold Toynbee. According to Toynbee, the "second act" of the "first postmodern general war in AD 1914, brought into focus a series of problems with the rapidity of technological change…in so far as [it] threatened prevailing forms of life…" Put another way, "World War II, with its unprecedented savageness and destruction, with its revelation of the brutality at the core of a high-technological civilization, could appear as the culmination of demonic modernity, a modernity that has finally been overcome." Overcome, quite simply, by the advent of postmodernism. Thus, is it any wonder that Gilliam created Brazil to look like that moment in history that best exemplifies the evils of modernity and the beginning of those styles associated with postmodernism?

Also, was 12 Monkeys really left off that list of good sci-fi? That's simply an inexcusable omission.

* The Best Time Travel Site on the Web takes on 12 Monkeys
* 12 Monkeys FAQ
* 12 Monkeys Trivia at IMDB
* Interview with Terry Gilliam
* "Bruce Willis as the Messiah: Human Effort, Salvation and Apocalypticism in Twelve Monkeys"
* Original Trailer

The French New Wave film that inspired Gilliam:
* La Jetée Part 1
* La Jetée Part 2
* La Jetée Part 3