The Reader

Retro Rage:

Now in its third decade, venerable ABC clip show Rage is taking a wistful glance back at its salad days, a bygone era of big hair, big snares drums and Big Audio Dynamite (sadly not included here). From the counter-culture video collage of Sonic Youth's Teen Age Riot to hyper-coloured cartoon world of De La Soul's Eye Know, via the Mary Chain, Bowie, The Specials (Jerry Dammers' truly awkward skanking is a particular highlight), Neneh Cherry's immortal Buffalo Stance and, err, Yazz, there's hardly a dud within. However, considering Rage launched as hip-hop was entering its golden age and beginning to infiltrate the mainstream, the selection on offer is somewhat light on 'rap,' as it was called back then. I also take issue with the Fine Young Cannibals quotient - Johnny Come Home over She Drives Me Crazy? Really? - but that's an argument for another day. Retro Rage is somewhat of a wasted opportunity though, as the videos are presented cold, one after another, without any context or commentary. The main attraction of Rage is that it spares us the zany 'youth' presenters that usually helm these programs, gurning and leering at the camera with their mad hair, and goes straight to The Talent. The artists program the selection and interject at will with anecdotes and history lessons - amongst a good deal of indecipherable slurring and cackling - providing fans with crucial insight into their heroes' influences. An introduction before each song here certainly wouldn't have gone astray. But while one may question the validity of these kinds of DVDs - and indeed Rage itself - in the Youtube age, consider this: who, after stumbling home, wants to huddle over your mate Phil's 9" x 7" netbook screen at four in the morning and expend what precious few brain cells remain trying to remember who sang The Riverboat Song? That's right.

Watchmen: (Paramount)

Directed by Zack Snyder (of 300 infamy) and adapted from the graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Gibbons, Watchmen follows the lives of the 'Watchmen' (funny, that) - a group of former superheroes who, after gaining recognition in the 1940s, subsequently help the USA to win the war in Vietnam and thus change the course of the Cold War. Now, in a dystopian 1985, their vigilante activities have been outlawed and most members live hugely disparate lifestyles. When one of the original members of the superhero team - the violent, misogynistic 'Comedian' (played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan) - is murdered, the volatile loner Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) gains the impression that someone is attempting to eliminate all former Watchmen. The film is compelling in its earlier moments, most notably the stunning opening credits where Snyder recreates the history of the superheroes' formation, their actions and their subsequent decline in a brilliant, compelling montage set to the tune of The Times They Are a-Changin'.

However almost immediately after the murder of the Comedian, when Rorschach begins attempting to reform the Watchmen in order to investigate a possible plot against them all, every scene feels rushed, making them often confusing. Snyder attempts to squash in far too much background, action, plot twists and character development into what is - at 160 minutes - a relatively small amount of time. Unluckily for Snyder, the film would also have come across as far more interesting for its dark exploration of the lives of pariah superheroes, themselves struggling with issues of identity and purpose, had audiences not so recently experienced the exceptional production of The Dark Knight. The result is that, although still engaging and impressive, the film is a vast underachievement compared to its potential. The two-disc special edition contains a plethora of extras, but as usual, nothing you would give more than a quick glance over.