Comedian |

January 4, 2013

Sleepwalk With Me

Sleepwalk With Me opens in a very interesting way with Writer/Director/Star and sort of Protagonist Mike Birbiglia turning from the toll booth at which he has stopped to drop in some coins towards the camera that is sitting in his passenger seat and speaks to it, telling it and us through it that now would be a great time to turn off our phones if we hadn’t already because the story is about to start and there’s nothing ruder than getting or receiving a text or call during a movie; a statement that he then strengthens by telling a terrific and truthful little joke about a time he was once in a cinema watching a movie like you are.

Breaking the fourth wall is nothing new for cinema, nor is meta all that meaningful on its own but the way in which Birbiglia goes about it here manages to be both. With these comments, and all the others that come in the car-based interludes, he isn’t simply acknowledging the existence of the audience and the reminding them of the fact that this is a film they are watching but actually putting himself on our side of the stage as well as on the center of it. The tale told in Sleepwalk is quite clearly that of his own life, his own successes and failures, and the protagonist he plays himself in all but a few letters so there is a poignancy in the way that he watches the story he wrote; it reflects the sort of wistful longing and self-reflection that is usually saved for a diary entry or suicide note and this makes watching the picture a potently personal experience.

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July 25, 2012

Before Watchmen: Comedian #2

Before Watchmen is a time machine, it’s a journey back into the pasts of these prominent comic characters, Before Watchmen: Comedian however takes that premise to its precipice by barreling back into the past of their, and our, world as a whole. Last month it was Monroe and the jocular John F. that The Comedian found himself chumming around with; this week it’s Bobby, Ali and a bunch of soon to be ‘Nam vets. The first two flitter by in a prologue that makes some salient points but ultimately doesn’t have one, while the latter largely defines the pacing of the entire issue. This book is bloody, brutal and honestly it’s a mess, it’s Vietnam in comic book form and I don’t invoke that imitation as a form of flattery.
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June 21, 2012

Before Watchmen: The Comedian #1

In direct contrast to the calm and cliche comic book trope of Silk Spectre stands The Comedian, a man who is in contrast and conflict with essentially everything and everyone in the world of the original Watchmen comic. He is a classic character, embodying exactly the eerie greys of Government influence, garish disregard for humanity and existential discontent that made Watchmen what it was; there is a reason that he is given front cover status, he stands at the core of the comic. Only, of course, he doesn’t really because he dies in the opening scene and unlike other superheroes he has the dignity to stay dead, unless of course you count memories and flashbacks as temporary resurrections. He is then a character whose entire presence exists in the the form of flashbacks: so surely then his past is potently explored, surely there isn’t much left for the prequel series to say? Though of course one should never be sure when dealing with the Comedian; for what’s a joke but a twist of expectations?