V For Vendetta

[Pubrick]

DRE: What's next?


Portman
: ... Also I'm a doing a film that's called Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

Will the gambit pay off? 20th Century Fox is betting.. it will.

[polkablues]

Poster I hadn't seen before... pretty great, I'd say.

[Ultrahip]

i just got a south by southwest film badge and i plan on seeing this when it plays wed. night. is anyone else here going who's had some experience with the fest, and do they know if i'll even be able to get in? do i show up five hours early and chill out on the sidewalk with a book and some xanax? or is it easier than that? or harder?

[Ghostboy]

If you have a badge, you'll be able to get in. You shouldn't need to get there more than an hour ahead of time, either. And since the film opens two days later, it might not be as packed as, say, Prarie Home Companion will be.

[squints]

If you have a badge, you'll be able to get in. You shouldn't need to get there more than an hour ahead of time, either. And since the film opens two days later, it might not be as packed as, say, Prarie Home Companion will be.

do you think both showings of PHC will be ultra-packed? i can imagine the first one..but i dunno? the friday at 4:30?

[Ultrahip]

yeah, i'm wondering that too. the friday 4:30 showing is on my schedule as well.

[samsong]

it's okay.

natalie portman is really good (and HOT).  starts out really well -- i was into it -- and proceeds in a very uneven, clunky manner but it maintains the momentum it starts out with pretty well.  the action's sweet.  it's sort of like A Very Long Engagement, in that it's visually satisfying (as opposed to pleasing or "stunning") but overstuffed and completely underdeveloped.

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

I'm definitely going to see this, to get over any notion that the comic wasn't done justice.

I just hope that the action isn't the focus more than the actual plot.  Not to say the action isn't important, but Moore is quite a storyteller, and I'd hate for that to be sacrificed in the name of explosions.

[modage]

The Vendetta Behind 'V for Vendetta'
Source: NY Times

THE most vivid characters in Alan Moore's graphic novels are antiheroes of ambiguous morality and identity: costumed avengers like Rorschach, the disturbed street vigilante of "Watchmen," or the crusader known only by the letter V, who commits catastrophic acts of terrorism in the dystopian tale "V for Vendetta."

With inventions like these, and a body of writing that spans nearly three decades, Mr. Moore, a 52-year-old native of Northampton, England, distinguished himself as a darkly philosophical voice in the medium of comic books — a rare talent whose work can sell solely on the strength of his name. But if Mr. Moore had his way today, his name would no longer appear on almost any of the graphic novels with which he is most closely associated. "I don't want anything more to do with these works," he said in a recent telephone interview, "because they were stolen from me — knowingly stolen from me."

In Mr. Moore's account of his career, the villains are clearly defined: they are the mainstream comics industry — particularly DC Comics, the American publisher of "Watchmen" and "V for Vendetta" — which he believes has hijacked the properties he created, and the American film business, which has distorted his writing beyond recognition. To him, the movie adaptation of "V for Vendetta," which opens on Friday, is not the biggest platform yet for his ideas: it is further proof that Hollywood should be avoided at all costs. "I've read the screenplay," Mr. Moore said. "It's rubbish."

Mr. Moore has never been shy about expressing himself. With "Watchmen," a multilayered epic from 1986-87 (illustrated by Dave Gibbons) about a team of superheroes in an era of rampant crime and nuclear paranoia — and again with "V for Vendetta" (illustrated by David Lloyd), published in America in 1988-89, about an enigmatic freedom fighter opposing a totalitarian British regime — Mr. Moore helped prove that graphic novels could be a vehicle for sophisticated storytelling. "Alan was one of the first writers of our generation, of great courage and great literary skill," said Paul Levitz, the president and publisher of DC Comics. "You could watch him stretching the boundaries of the medium."

But by 1989, Mr. Moore had severed his ties with DC. The publisher says he objected to its decision to label its adult-themed comics (including some of his own) as "Suggested for Mature Readers." Mr. Moore says he was objecting to language in his contracts that would give him back the rights to "Watchmen" and "V for Vendetta" when they went out of print — language that he says turned out to be meaningless, because DC never intended to stop reprinting either book. "I said, 'Fair enough,' " he recalls. " 'You have managed to successfully swindle me, and so I will never work for you again.' "

Mr. Levitz said that such so-called reversion clauses routinely appear in comic book contracts, and that DC has honored all of its obligations to Mr. Moore. "I don't think Alan was dissatisfied at the time," Mr. Levitz said. "I think he was dissatisfied several years later."

Mr. Lloyd, the illustrator of "V for Vendetta," also found it difficult to sympathize with Mr. Moore's protests. When he and Mr. Moore sold their film rights to the graphic novel, Mr. Lloyd said: "We didn't do it innocently. Neither myself nor Alan thought we were signing it over to a board of trustees who would look after it like it was the Dead Sea Scrolls."

Mr. Moore recognizes that his senses of justice and proportion may seem overdeveloped. "It is important to me that I should be able to do whatever I want," he said. "I was kind of a selfish child, who always wanted things his way, and I've kind of taken that over into my relationship with the world."

Today, he resides in the sort of home that every gothic adolescent dreams of, one furnished with a library of rare books, antique gold-adorned wands and a painting of the mystical Enochian tables used by Dr. John Dee, the court astrologer of Queen Elizabeth I. He shuns comic-book conventions, never travels outside England and is a firm believer in magic as a "science of consciousness." "I am what Harry Potter grew up into," he said, "and it's not a pretty sight."

Actually, he more closely resembles the boy-wizard's half-giant friend Hagrid, with his bushy, feral beard and intense gaze, but those closest to Mr. Moore say his intimidating exterior is deceptive. "Because he looks like a wild man, people assume that he must be one," said the artist Melinda Gebbie, Mr. Moore's fiancée and longtime collaborator. "He's frightening to people because he doesn't seem to take the carrot, and he's fighting to maintain an integrity that they don't understand."

After he left DC Comics, he spent the 1990's working his way from one independent publisher to the next, ultimately arriving at Wildstorm Studios, owned by the comics artist Jim Lee. There, Mr. Moore was given his own imprint, called America's Best Comics, where he continued to write such pioneering and popular titles as "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," about a proto-superhero team of Victorian literary characters including Allan Quatermain, Captain Nemo and the Invisible Man.

DC Comics purchased Wildstorm, in 1998, expecting that Mr. Moore would not tolerate the arrangement. "We did the deal on the assumption that Alan would be gone the day it was signed," said Mr. Levitz. But Mr. Moore's loyalty to his artists trumped his aversion to his former employers, and he stayed put. "It seemed easier to bite the bullet meself," he said.

In 2001, the first film adaptation of one of Mr. Moore's graphic novels arrived in theaters. "From Hell," distributed by 20th Century Fox, was based on his extensively researched account of the Jack the Ripper murders, a 572-page black-and-white title illustrated by Eddie Campbell. Mr. Moore had no creative participation in the film, and happily so. "There was no way that I would be able to be fair to it," he said. "I did not wish to be connected with it, and regarded it as something separate to my work. In retrospect, this was kind of a naïve attitude."

Two years later, when 20th Century Fox released a movie version of "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," the screenwriter Larry Cohen and the producer Martin Poll sued the studio, charging that elements of the film had been plagiarized from their work. Though the film, which was one of the year's costliest flops, differed drastically from the graphic novel, the lawsuit nonetheless claimed that the "Extraordinary Gentlemen" comics had been created as a "smokescreen" to cover up the theft.

Mr. Moore found the accusations deeply insulting, and the 10 hours of testimony he was compelled to give, via video link, even more so. "If I had raped and murdered a schoolbus full of retarded children after selling them heroin," he said, "I doubt that I would have been cross-examined for 10 hours." When the case was settled out of court, Mr. Moore took it as an especially bitter blow, believing that he had been denied the chance to exonerate himself.

Since then, he has refused to allow any more movies to be made from work he controls. In the case of work whose rights he does not control, he has refused credits on any film adaptations, and has given his share of option money and royalties to the artists who illustrated the original comic books. That position is so radical that though his colleagues say they respect his position, few in the film industry can understand it.

"It's very simple, but they don't seem to hear it," said John O'Neill, the illustrator of "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen." "They just gravitate towards offering more money."

Last year, when Mr. Moore received a phone call from Larry Wachowski — who, with his brother, Andy, had written and directed the "Matrix" movies — to discuss the "V for Vendetta" film that the Wachowskis were writing and producing for Warner Brothers, Mr. Moore felt he had made it clear that he did not want to be involved in the project.

"I explained to him that I'd had some bad experiences in Hollywood," Mr. Moore said. "I didn't want any input in it, didn't want to see it and didn't want to meet him to have coffee and talk about ideas for the film."

But at a press conference on March 4, 2005, to announce the start of production on the "V for Vendetta" film, the producer Joel Silver said Mr. Moore was "very excited about what Larry had to say and Larry sent the script, so we hope to see him sometime before we're in the U.K." This, Mr. Moore said, "was a flat lie."

"Given that I'd already published statements saying I wasn't interested in the film, it actually made me look duplicitous," he said.

In a telephone interview, Mr. Silver said he had misconstrued a meeting he had with Mr. Moore and Dave Gibbons nearly 20 years ago, when Mr. Silver first acquired the film rights to "Watchmen" and "V for Vendetta." (Mr. Silver no longer owns the rights to "Watchmen," though Warner Brothers is still planning an adaptation.) "I had a nice little lunch with them," he said, "and Alan was odd, but he was enthusiastic and encouraging us to do this. I had foolishly thought that he would continue feeling that way today, not realizing that he wouldn't."

Mr. Silver said he called Mr. Moore to apologize for his statement at the press conference, but that Mr. Moore was unmoved. "He said to me, 'I'm going to hang up on you if you don't stop talking to me,' " Mr. Silver recalled. "It was like a conversation with a tape recording."

Through his editors at DC Comics (like Warner Brothers, a subsidiary of Time Warner), Mr. Moore insisted that the studio publicly retract Mr. Silver's remarks. When no retraction was made, Mr. Moore once again quit his association with DC (and Wildstorm along with it), and demanded that his name be removed from the "V for Vendetta" film, as well as from any of his work that DC might reprint in the future.

The producers of "V for Vendetta" reluctantly agreed to strip Mr. Moore's name from the film's credits, a move that saddened Mr. Lloyd, who still endorses the film. "Alan and I were like Laurel and Hardy when we worked on that," Mr. Lloyd said. "We clicked. I felt bad about not seeing a credit for that team preserved, but there you go."

DC, however, said it would be inappropriate to take Mr. Moore's name off of any of his works. "This isn't an adaptation of the work, it's not a derivative work, it's not a work that's been changed in any fashion from how he was happy with it a minute ago," said Mr. Levitz.

Still, some DC editors hope that Mr. Moore might return. "He remains a good friend, and I would work with him again in a heartbeat," said Karen Berger, the executive editor of the DC imprint Vertigo, in an e-mail statement.

But Mr. Moore does not seem likely to change his mind this time. For one thing, his schedule is almost entirely consumed with other comics projects, including a new volume of "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," to be released in late 2006 or early 2007 by the American publisher Top Shelf Productions. This summer, Mr. Moore said, Top Shelf will also be publishing "Lost Girls," his 16-years-in-the-making collaboration with Ms. Gebbie, a series of unrepentantly pornographic adventures told by the grown-up incarnations of Wendy Darling of "Peter Pan," Alice of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and Dorothy Gale of "The Wizard of Oz." "I refuse to call it erotica, because that just sounds like pornography for people who've got more money," Mr. Moore said. "It would seem to be possible to come up with a kind of pornography that was meaningful and beautiful, not ugly."

Ms. Gebbie said she was more excited to see Mr. Moore finish his novel "Jerusalem," another years-long project that he estimates will total 750 pages when complete. "It's his story, his heritage, his blood ties and his amazing, wonderful system of beliefs," Ms. Gebbie said. "This book for him is an unfolding of his real, deep self."

But Mr. Moore suggested that his comic-book writing has already defined his identity. He recalled an encounter with a fan who asked him to sign a horrific issue of his 1980's comic "The Saga of the Swamp Thing"; the admirer then disclosed that he was a special effects designer for the television series "CSI: NY." "Every time you've got an ice pick going into someone's brain, and the close-ups of the little spurting ruptured blood vessels, and that horrible squishing sound, that's him," Mr. Moore said. "So that's something I can be proud of. This is my legacy."

[polkablues]

To be fair, if I was the original writer of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and that was the movie that they made from it, I would be washing my hands of the movie industry too.

It's a shame, though, since Alan Moore is one of the most original and creative literary minds in any medium, and the thought that we may never see a movie that has his full cooperation behind it is kind of depressing.  The heartening thing is hearing the early reviews of V, and how the movie seems to actually respect the original writing, and actually gets the point of the book.  This, combined with the Watchmen movie that is bound to happen someday, and bound to be directed by somebody who cares passionately about it, is a good sign for Alan Moore fans.

[modage]

it's crazy how different of an experience Frank Miller is having right now.  maybe Rodriguez needs to make Watchmen panel for panel to turn Moore around.  if anybody wants to write a good paper compare/contrast Miller & Moore's influence on comics and their experiences/views on films.  it'd be a good read.

[Pubrick]

This, combined with the Watchmen movie that is bound to happen someday, and bound to be directed by somebody who cares passionately about it, is a good sign for Alan Moore fans.

that's not guarranteed.

i'd rather they don't make any more movies of his books if they're gonna keep turning out shit like From Hell. even V should be considered secondary to the original work, no matter how much ppl want to love it. it's more exciting to anticipate his own future works like those Jerusalem and Lost Girls projects. they will deliver.

[sheshothim]

(Chicago Tribune)

Movie review: 'V for Vendetta'
By Michael Phillips
Tribune arts critic

If the h-for-hype "V for Vendetta" connects with a wide American audience, then something truly has shifted in the homeland-insecurity pop landscape of the early 21st Century. It means we're ready for a cultured, sophisticated, man-about-town terrorist who espouses the belief that "blowing up a building can change the world." Finally, a film to unite movie-mad members of Al Qaeda with your neighbor's kid, the one with the crush on Natalie Portman.

Various film enthusiasts, particularly suckers for anything based on a graphic novel, are hot for this picture. They argue that the story line is pro-revolution rather than pro-terrorism, set in the near future, imagining England under the thumb of a regime than makes Mussolini look like Musso & Frank. Call me a neocon -- that'd be a first -- but this film is in fact about a glam-terrorist who believes in better government through the demolition of landmark buildings. It's only a movie. But would "V for Vendetta" stand a box office chance today if it were set in America, not England, and the U.S. Capitol were blowing up instead of Parliament? Unlikely. We all enjoyed seeing the White House get it in "Independence Day," but there's nothing political about space aliens.

A British-German production, "V for Vendetta" is brought to you by the Wachowski brothers, Andy and Larry, gurus of "The Matrix." The first-time director -- it shows -- is John McTeigue, who assisted on the "Matrix" trilogy as well as "Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones." As Orwellian visions go, this one doesn't have much black magic in its corner. Only here and there do you find the spark and kinetic zap delivered by the first "Matrix" picture.

Portman plays Evey, orphaned daughter of activists. She is rescued from shadowy government abductors one dark evening by a man in a cape and a Guy Fawkes mask. (For those who don't know Guy Fawkes from Guy Smiley, look up "Gunpowder Plot of 1605.") The masked avenger is known only as V, and by his flaming logo, a V with a circle around it. Apparently he used to work in marketing for Warner. V wants to take back England from its oppressors. Life is no fun in this near-future world: Nuclear disasters and "America's war" have lead to permanently whacked-out weather patterns and rampant, murderous xenophobia, no Muslims or homosexuals allowed. John Hurt plays the nail-spitting Chancellor, who is seen on huge video screens in a Hitler haircut, bellowing every line as if he were saying: "Fee-fi-fo-fum!"

The picture is based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, published in its entirety in 1989. What was originally an attack on the social policies of Margaret Thatcher's England now speaks directly to George Bush's America. One character adjusted from Moore's original story -- Moore has already disowned the film version -- is a Bill O'Reilly-inspired TV pundit with a sinister secret.

All the free-floating dread and dress-up games aren't bad for about an hour. The second half, like so many second halves of movies taken from graphic novels -- everything from "Road to Perdition" to "Sin City" -- grinds on, growing increasingly flabby and yakky. By the big finish, the queasy feeling in your stomach tells you that you haven't been convincingly swept into the film's call to arms.

In the masked role of V -- all the time, he's got that infernal mask on -- we have plummy-voiced Hugo Weaving, the unstoppable killing machine in shades from "The Matrix." Weaving replaced another actor early in the shoot. In interviews Weaving has addressed his primary acting challenge here: As he told one writer, V "has a fixed expression, yet he talks a lot." And how! In his elaborate underground Shadow Gallery, decorated with "White Heat" posters and other artifacts banned by the Ministry of Objectionable Materials, V whiles away the hours quoting Shakespeare while playing the Julie London version of "Cry Me a River" on his precious jukebox. Or else he's speaking in the most ungodly clauses ("This world -- the world I'm a part of, that I helped shape ... ") To his credit, however, he does not make Evey listen to "The Phantom of the Opera."

In order for Evey to become a good little freedom fighter she must undergo a concentration camp like survival test. This section of "V for Vendetta" is a bit mad, yet Portman brings a fierce commitment to it. (It's easier to take than the interlude wherein she dons an ickily sexual schoolgirl costume for the delectation of a salacious vicar.) She grounds the heavy doings of the cautionary tale in an emotional reality, which is a way of saying she's a good actress.

Stephen Rea lends his hangdog, doleful authority to a generic role of an investigating officer trying to stop V before he makes good on his destructive promise. No suspense here, really: If he stopped him, there wouldn't be a "Matrix"-style showdown, this time with bullets and swords instead of bullets and aerial kung-fu. This scene, with its computer-generated sword-swooshes, no doubt will work with an audience, even though it's not half as cool as anything Neo got up to. "V for Vendetta" qualifies as "an uncompromising vision of the future" only if monotony qualifies as a lack of compromise.

mjphillips@tribune.com

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

I finally saw it and boy was I let down.  There was little more than a straight adaptation, minus a few key scenes and plus more focus on the action.

I didn't imagine V to sound like Hugo Weaving, either.  It worked, but I still imagined a more secretive voice, one sort of distorted through a vocalizer.

I'm still a huge fan of the comic, the movie did little for me that the comic book didn't do a million times better.

[modage]

i'm seeing this tonite, but if this was a straight adaptation with a little more emphasis on action why didnt you like it?  what did the comic do a million times better?