‘Watchmen’ ski masks? Alan Moore won’t be amused

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I’m headed over to see a ‘Watchmen’ screening Tuesday and then Wednesday it’s on to the press junket at the Four Seasons. It’s exciting to see this movie reaching the final leg of its long and tortured marathon to the silver screen and I’m eager to see what Zack Snyder has accomplished with his quest to film the unfilmable movie.

Alan Moore has made it clear that he won’t be going to see the film and if you were holding out hope (I know I was) that he might change his mind, well, I think that’s just a pipe dream now. Why? Well, this new crush of tie-in merchandise is staggering and each item -- from the doomsday ball-caps and Dr. Manhattan lunch boxes to the coffee mugs, wall pennants and booze flasks -- will be like a sharp jab in the eye to Moore, an iconoclast who loathes American corporate culture and its soul-sapping commercialism.

Seeing the extent of all this stuff made me groan. Anyone who read and loved ‘Watchmen’ as a genre-challenging masterpiece in the 1980s will probably agree that this crass gear feels as tone-appropriate as ‘Catcher in the Rye’ pop tarts. But if you do indulge in this odd retail orgy, well, you can always hide your face afterward -- one of the catalog items is a Rorschach ski mask ...

-- Geoff Boucher

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Photos courtesy of Warner Bros.