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Digital Culture

Watchmen

The many-storied making of the film Watchmen evidently took another turn today. Darren Aronofsky was attached to the film, which I thought was brilliant. Now it appears that he has some conflict and Paul Greengrass has taken over. Greengrass directed The Bourne Supremacy, which was a fine action film, but didn’t convince me that he can do Noir Superhero.

That said, I do sincerely hope that whoever makes this film does it some justice. Hollywood has gotten better at the superhero movie (see: Spiderman I & II, Hellboy, and hopefully the upcoming Batman Begins) in recent years, but Watchmen is a different beast. For anyone who hasn’t read it, go pick it up. It’s one of the most compelling stories ever told in the comic medium, full of darkness and despair and real characters rather than archetypes (ok…we’ve still got archetypes in Dr. Manhattan and Ozymandias).

In a related note, I just checked the Wikipedia entry on Watchmen, and the director had already been changed. Amazing.

By griffey

Jason Griffey is the Director of Strategic Initiatives at NISO, where he works to identify new areas of the information ecosystem where standards expertise is useful and needed. Prior to joining NISO in 2019, Jason ran his own technology consulting company for libraries, has been both an Affiliate at metaLAB and a Fellow and Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and was an academic librarian in roles ranging from reference and instruction to Head of IT at the University of TN at Chattanooga.

Jason has written extensively on technology and libraries, including multiple books and a series of full-periodical issues on technology topics, most recently AI & Machine Learning in Libraries and Library Spaces and Smart Buildings: Technology, Metrics, and Iterative Design from 2018. His newest book, co-authored with Jeffery Pomerantz, will be published by MIT Press in 2024.

He has spoken internationally on topics such as artificial intelligence & machine learning, the future of technology and libraries, decentralization and the Blockchain, privacy, copyright, and intellectual property. A full list of his publications and presentations can be found on his CV.
He is one of eight winners of the Knight Foundation News Challenge for Libraries for the Measure the Future project (http://measurethefuture.net), an open hardware project designed to provide actionable use metrics for library spaces. He is also the creator and director of The LibraryBox Project (http://librarybox.us), an open source portable digital file distribution system.

Jason can be stalked obsessively online, and spends his free time with his daughter Eliza, reading, obsessing over gadgets, and preparing for the inevitable zombie uprising.

One reply on “Watchmen”

Heard this news earlier today and it reminded to go finally buy a copy. I’d only read about half of it. In fact, half of your copy while I was doing laundry at your old place while you two were out of town.

I don’t really know much about these directors, but I’ll be damn sad if another Moore book is given a huge rewrite for the screen.

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