And Charlton Heston is fabulous as the First Player; this is one piece of stunt casting that was inspired.

It's terrible, Marj.

The best Hamlet I've ever seen remains, to this day, the BBC version that came out in 1979 or '80. It has some limitations in that it was shot on old-style video in a TV studio, with a low budget and low production values but it has very few faults, otherwise. Shot with a sensibility somewhere between cinema and theater, the director sets things up and then steps back out of the way to let the actors do the rest. There is no attempt to stamp it with a new interpretation; they do nearly the entire script and it's all done very straightforward. Remarkably, with actors who can handle it, it's far more interesting this way (old Will knew what he was doing). Derek Jacobi is superb as the prince, funny and touching and heartbreaking. Claire Bloom as Gertrude is fabulous. The Gravediggers are terrific. Eric Porter plays Polonius and for once the character seems like he is capable of all his roles as royal adviser, father, and meddler; he’s perfect (funny, too). And Patrick Stewart is an amazing Claudius. He is every inch a king; you get the feeling that he really is a better king than the Old Hamlet, but had the misfortune to be born second. The only problem is the way he got the throne and his queen. It was the first time I ever saw Stewart and I've never forgotten it.

There's a cult film that I heard about fairly recently that has become sort of the Rocky Horror of the 2000s. It's called The Room and I rented it from Netflix. It came this week and I've already seen it twice. It'a a truly terrible movie--written, directed and produced by, and starring a strange Eurotrash type named Tommy Wiseau--but a strangely endearing one and one of the non-stop unintentionally funny ones I've ever seen, on a par with Valley of the Dolls.

There are lines of dialogue which mean nothing out of context but which are destined to stay with me for the rest of my life. I'm already quoting this movie a lot.

You must see The Room. You will never forget it.

Thanks, Joe and Billy.

I'm going to move State and Main down and The Room up my queue. Normally, I'd just drop the film all together, but I'm just too curious to do that.