Alan Moore on faces of different eras

In the first text part of Watchmen, "Under the Hood," Alan Moore writes:

"Moe Vernon was a man around fifty-five or so, and he had one of those old New York faces you don’t see anymore.



"It’s funny, but certain faces seem to go in and out of style. You look at old photographs and everybody has a certain look to them, almost as if they’re related.



"Look at pictures from ten years later and you can see there’s a new kind of face starting to predominate, and that the old faces are fading away and vanishing, never to be seen again."



It's something that probably we all think at some point. I'm not sure. Is it the hair? The clothes? Or even the cameras, etc? Actually, one of the guys in the first photo (from the 1950s) looks something like one of the guys in the second photo, which is from the 1980s.


1950s photo licensed through Creative Commons from freeparking’s photostream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/freeparking/468956377/

1980s photo licensed through Creative Commons from
foundphotoslj’s photostream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/foundphotoslj/334767030/

athletic photo licensed through Creative Commons from lululemon athletica's photostream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/lululemonathletica/3491309891/

A few words about the movie, 12 Monkeys (1996)

Generally a pretty good movie! My main problems with it were:

a) Willis’ character was a major nutcase, violent, and not too bright, either. He’s supposed to travel back in time, not to prevent a biomedical event that kills most of humanity, but to seek information about the virus that would help those in the future deal with it better. Why on earth would you send him, of all people, back to the past on such an important mission?

b) A few of Terry Gilliam’s art direction choices, especially the lab in the future, were absurd and detracted from the believability. He did the same thing, in spades, in Brazil. That can work in the sort of flicks Tim Burton usually does, but it’s just a silly diversion with something like this.



But I’ve always liked Willis, and Madeleine Stowe was very good.... Brad PItt is a bit over the top here. The fact that he was nominated for Best Supporting for this says a whole lot about how stupid and unfair the Oscars are....

This was “inspired by” the famous French short, La Jetée, which we watched in junior year honors English. (Our teacher was media-oriented, and we watched quite a few important (and cool) shorts in class.) Anyway, “inspired by” is a good way of putting it. The movie uses the basic paradoxical time -traveling ideas of the La Jetée storyline, but of course, adds a whole lot to it in the way of plot and characters.

I had actually written a little short story for 8th grade English class that was pretty similar (though a whole lot shorter). In that, the character travels back in time to prevent a nuclear war and ends up being the one who starts it.

No doubt, somehow my subconscious traveled two years into the future to draw inspiration from my viewing of La Jetée....