Isotope’s Watchmen-Inspired Cocktails
Do you hear that weird, wet fluttering noise? No, it’s not an intergalactic death squid. That is the sound of the buttholes of approximately 6 million nerds palpitating in dewy anticipation. Watchmen must be opening today.
Anyone else need a drink? Yes, I realize it’s only 8am here. Hey, we all cope differently. Dave Gibbons, Zack Snyder et al are very likely bathing in solid gold jacuzzis filled with dom perignon. Meanwhile, somewhere in Northampton, Alan Moore, having chugged a quart of psilocybin tea out of the gilded skull of a medieval pope who secretly worshiped Glycon the snake god, is now levitating three feet above the ground, muttering a curse of warts and incontinence upon anyone who dares to attend opening weekend.
I figure I can have a morning cocktail if I like.
Left: a “Full Frontal Manhattan” (hurr hurr!) Right: the “Black Freighter” (let’s drink ourselves direct to DVD!)
James Sime and the other kind folks over at the Isotope Comic Book Lounge understand:
The End is Nigh! Ladies and Gentlemen, the day has finally arrived! After over a decade of waiting, speculating about the cast, and debating whether it should even be attempted, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ classic graphic novel, WATCHMEN, is finally a major motion picture. And whether you feel that this is cause for no end of celebration or you believe you will need to drink yourself into oblivion to make it through this bastardization of a pure artistic vision, the Isotope is here for you! Serving up a bevy of Watchmen-inspired cocktail recipes to suit all your boozing needs!
Bless you, Isotope. I’m going to fix myself a “Silk Spectre” right now… with added Rohypnol.
Folks, feel free to use this thread to rant, rave and runteldat about Watchmen Babies or whateverthefuck to your heart’s content. Please, just try to keep the spoilers to a minimum, and remember, I have to mop up the booth when you’re done. Cheers.
March 6th, 2009 at 8:37 am
My complaints with the movie are minimal. I have a few, but all in all, I think the adaptation is very well done.
March 6th, 2009 at 10:12 am
I remember crying out of my ass for weeks after seeing the Wachowski interpretation of “V for Vendetta”. I really hope Watchmen doesn’t suck like that.
March 6th, 2009 at 10:26 am
Oh my, those are actually some pretty tasty cocktail recipes (except for the Comedian, but that’s my hatred of Dr. Pepper in any cocktail speaking) and I’ll have to give some of them a try when my health is back up. The Black Freighter sounds most delicious, though I’d probably use Cruzan Black Strap instead of Gosling’s.
Hmm, I might have to take up that challenge of mixing up a Rorschach cocktail…
No particular plans to see the movie unless my other comic fan friends report back with shuddering exclamations of “it’s awesome.”
Also, as a matter of strictly enforced international law, I think Zack Snyder should be prohibited from using slo-mo. Just sayin.
March 6th, 2009 at 11:09 am
That is the sound of the buttholes of approximately 6 million nerds palpitating in dewy anticipation.
Wow. I could have done without that mental image.
Haven’t seen the film yet, myself, but I’m not a big Zack Snyder fan, so it may not be for me.
March 6th, 2009 at 11:42 am
I’m really on the fence for this one… I’ve read enough reviews to think this might be another chunder fest like “The Spirit”, but can’t say for sure without seeing it.
Damn them. Even if they made a shitty movie, we have to go to clarify that fact for sure. When will we nerds figure out that just cuz there’s tits in latex and a blue wang involved, the movie is not inherently worth seeing?
March 6th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Watchmen is actually much better than I expected it to be. And I thought Snyder’s 300 was laughably horrid.
March 6th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
“I’ve read enough reviews to think this might be another chunder fest like “The Spirit””
Oh no. The Spirit, whoa… that movie is terrible. I think the biggest flaw with The Watchmen film is it starts to enter the realm of tedium and may bore some viewers. Otherwise, it isn’t too bad, unless you’re a serious purist. But those people aren’t often happy with any adaptation.
March 6th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
I’ll do my best to not spoil anything for anyone, but here’s a hint… things still don’t end very well. Shhhh! Secrets!
My issues with the flick are minimal. Its strengths as a movie outweigh its deviation from the book. It met my expectations, which were very high. However, my only two issues are that Sally Jupiter became a drunk cougar for seemingly no reason at all, and that the guy who played Nixon looked like a college football team mascot for a team called ‘The Fightin’ Crotchety Nixons’.
March 6th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
It couldn’t possibly be as bad as the Spirit. But yeah, as a “purist” I’m not really interested in watching unless everyone I know starts orgasmically moaning about how I NEEEEED TO SEEE IT.
March 6th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Caught it last night
No space squid of doom. Was it deemed too uncool to drop a cyclopian,mutant cephalopod on Manhattan?
Otherwise…..liked it!
March 6th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Saw this on Thursday (NZ time) I never read comics or graphic novels but almost always love the movie adaptations. I was so hyped up for this one after seeing the trailers but it didn’t live up to my expectations at all!
It probably would have been better if I was a fan of the book, or had heard of it before I heard of the movie :P? Maybe it’s because I’m the kind of girl who actually loved V for Vendetta and 300?
It was just too slow, not enough action, stupid flashbacks that added nothing and random sex scenes that were ridiculous. Still epic though, The Comedian, Dr Manhattan, and Rorscharch were pretty strong characters.
March 6th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
It was okay, they did not cut Dollar Bill out.
March 7th, 2009 at 10:17 am
Here’s my two cents–
I didn’t hate it. I enjoyed it. In fact, I was sitting there for the first half-hour going “cool cool cool!!!” But I kept wondering if this would make ANY sense if I hadn’t read the book, and judging from Ms. Constantine’s comment above, it probably wouldn’t have.
When it comes down to it, Watchmen wasn’t a work of art. And an adaptation can be. But Watchmen wasn’t. Like the Harry Potter films, it was a giant, moving, awesome-to-watch-for-some-fans illustration.
SPOILERS BELOW
The squidless thing that pissed everyone off so much, I actually thought was a good decision. What they ended up doing worked, and in fact worked better in the context of the film than the squid would have. But I had to wonder, why be so slavishly, at times illogically, devoted to getting every little detail in when you’re going to change something so big? For instance, the sequence with “Times They Are A’Changing” was really cool for me to watch, but if I hadn’t already read about the events they were depicting over several days, would it have just been confusing?
An example of Z.S. just not paying attention was the sign outside Hollis’ garage. Not only was it there, but the camera stayed on it for a good second or two: “Obsolete models a specialty!” In the world of the comic, gas cars are obsolete because of Dr. Manhattan’s new fuel. But in the movie, the world is still using fossil fuels (a decision I’m neutral about), so there ARE no obsolete cars. Old-fashioned, yes, but not obsolete. It seems to me proof that Snyder was more focused on little tiny fanboy details than looking at the big picture. But then, he was willing to change something so big as the ending to make the film work better as a stand-alone piece, so why not all these other things that kept it from working as such?
And there ya go.
March 7th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Probably having an idea of this one going into it was good, Ms. Constantine. That was a main gripe of all the reviewers who panned it. Pretty damn hard for a neophyte to grasp the goings on at times. A lot of the symbolism gets lost without the clearer narrative of the serial format.
What strikes me the most, is that in all of the bad reviews they’re actually bashing Moore’s original work. Apparently the movie would have been “better” to Hollywood if Snyder’d hacked the original work up to focus on Rorschach, say.
Of course, Hollywood gave us Beverly Hills Chihuahua, so what the hell do they know…
March 7th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
I seen this movie last night, it was really really amazing. I will go see it another with my girlfriend tonight.
March 7th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Keeping in mind that I’m poor at judging right after I’ve seen a movie whether I’ll like it next week, I liked it. It was very densely plotted but perfectly followable; the characterization of most of the characters was very strong; generally it unflinchingly reflected the themes of the comic. It was brutally violent in places.
The ending (besides the fact that there’s no giant alien bug thing from another dimension) was where they deviated most from the comic. As I remember it, the comic ends with most of the ensemble going, “Well, this sucks. I guess you win, Ozymandias, you fucker” and going home while Dr. Manhattan quietly vaporizes Rorschach in the tundra and tells everyone he’s probably going to die of exposure so they shouldn’t worry about him. In the movie, Nite-Owl witnesses Rorschach’s gory vaporization and *flips out*, screaming “Nooooooo!” and proceeding to beat the crap out of Ozy, who decides to let him. Weaksauce! Then and only then does he go, “Well, this sucks. I guess you win, Ozymandias, you fucker” and go home. There’s also a denouement that I don’t remember being in the graphic novel which dramatized a bit too explicitly how well Ozymandias’s plan was working. It felt heavy-handed, especially the jab at Reagan which seemed implicitly to also be a criticism of Bush. The whole thing was way too happy and then it was heavy-handed in a completely different way. Oh well. It didn’t ruin the movie.
It seems like the filmmaker spent more time generally trying to establish all the characters as bad-asses; all the non-powered, non-genius vigilantes seem a little more superhuman than they were in the comic, but whatever, it’s more fun to watch them that way. They don’t shy away from making Nite-Owl balding and flabby (yet still somehow an incredibly badass crime-fighter), which pleasantly surprised me. I was afraid they’d make him look like Christian Bale or something, but I honestly thought the casting was spot-on perfect for everyone involved. I hadn’t previously imagined Dr. Manhattan so mild-sounding, but it works wonderfully. It was interesting that the director somehow managed to get a cast of actors that no one has heard of (as far as I know) based entirely on how well they fit the characters rather than what they’d add to the box office returns. Does that ever happen in a big budget movie?
Showcasing that Nite-Owl (even after being retired and sedentary for years, which was puzzling) and Rorschach are both unstoppable avatars of crime-fighting devastation also helped effectively show how much better at everything Ozymandias was. As I said, I didn’t mind it, even if it seemed implausible. I suspect most people will just shrug and say, “They’re superheroes, whatever.”
I thought the soundtrack was well-chosen and effective, and I love hearing good music played over good speakers. A lot of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, but it fit. “All Along the Watchtower,” of course. “There must be some way out of here, said the joker to the thief.” And “99 Luftballons,” naturally. Everything was something you could have heard in 1985, I think, other than the fact that My Chemical Romance played during the credits. But it was a Bob Dylan cover, so that was okay.
March 7th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
I work at a theatre and it hasn’t been doing that great. Which surprises me cuz Oly is full of nerdlings.
But we keep getting these weird older guys in watchmen tshirts who want watchmen bags for their popcorn while they watch the watchmen. And people showing up 30 minutes early before the last showing has even dropped trying to seat themselves while the last 20minutes of the movie is happening, and looking confused when the auditorium isn’t completely packed.Also people taking their 11 and 12 year olds to see it. I was excited for it to come out, but damn the fans.
March 7th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
Argh, I just got to see this today, I hope I’m not too late!
So I’m a big fan of the book. and a major comic book nerd in general. I did my best to avoid pretty much every review or special or basically any information about the movie at all until it came out because I wanted the book to be my only expectation.
My opinion is that it was good. A good movie and a good adaptation. But, honestly…is more than good too much to ask of what’s considered the greatest comic book ever written? I mean, yes, they told the same story, got the same message across, all the stuff they left out wasnt that necessary or important but…even if it wasnt important, it enhanced the story. The newsvender and the details on the minutemen and the detailed back stories and the life of Rorschach’s therapist were the things that took it from being a great book to an AWESOME book.
I suppose I’m asking too much of the movie industry, or maybe I’ll get lucky this ‘director’s cut’ they’re talking about will solve all this. But that’s my final say. I’m happy with the movie as it is and I enjoyed it, but it really could have been so much more.
March 8th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
ps I vote for Matthew Goode being added to the list of Preternaturally Beautiful Men
March 8th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
Eve, curious…. what qualifies Matthew Goode for the preternatural tag? He looks plain ol’ hawt to me!
March 8th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
honestly? I thought it was too long and too slow. i loved the book, but the movie was just too much for my attention span and the blue dick did NOT help. Also, i had to explain EVERYTHING to my boyfriend, who’s never read a comic book in his life, and he still fell asleep three times.
it’s like, the movie had everything that SHOULD make a movie good. Good acting, complex plot, attention to details, visually stunning and excellent camera work. And it followed the comic decently well. (still, sad about the lack of squid. but oh well.)
and yet the length and complexity of plot that made this such an amazing comic book made it a movie that was inaccessable and, dare i say it… boring. As a movie, this needed heavy editing to be watchable and accessable. I would have gone less in depth with the history of the charachters for the movie.
It’s weird. this movie was good in all the aspects that people think should make a good movie. and yet i found it completely unenjoyable to watch because the complexity of the plot distracted from it. By the time you got done learning the charachter’s histories, you forgot all about the impending nuclear war and how the heroes relate to it at all, especially if you haven’t read the book.
my final word on it is that the story dosen’t work in the format of the movie. It worked great in the format of a comic book, where the aspect of reading allowed self directed pacing and processing of the plot, and the art clarified, and set the mood and helped the pace. In the format of a movie, where you have to process the story at the pace the movie dictates, the story didn’t work. A story has to stand alone in it’s medium of telling, be it a book or a movie, for people who are unfamilliar with the story to begin with, or it’s not sucessful. (preaching to the choir, if you will) some things, by virtue or lack there of, of the telling medium, will simply lend themselves to one format over another. This is one of those cases.
March 14th, 2009 at 11:19 am
I was pleasently suprised. I really thought that they’d completly ruin it and make it into just another Hollywood superhero movie, but it wasn’t like that at all.
Though somehow I strangely really enjoyed the opening credits the most. I don’t mean that in a terrible way. I just thought that the images presented were done in a really awesome way and the styling was really well thought out.