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| billyweeds |
 Posted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 7:01 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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As a purist (duh), I have to tell you that Conrade was always "Conrade" though not ever a woman in my extensive Much Ado history (I've seen it more often than any other play and appeared in two productions). Also, it's "Leonato," not "Leonardo." (This is a role I've actually played myself.)
For the record, I was underwhelmed by the Whedon version even though I found it interesting. When you've seen Much Ado as many times as I have you get picky. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 10:07 am |
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Joined: 30 Oct 2014
Posts: 278
Location: Winnipeg: It's a dry cold.
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| I enjoyed that version of Much a Ado About Nothing, but it wasn't great by a long shot. |
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Big bang, shmig bang; still doesn't explain how anything starts. |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 10:25 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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Syd wrote: I'm watching Joss Whedon's home movie version* of Much Ado about Nothing, I have mixed feelings about filming it in a modern setting, but it's worth it just to see Beatrice's reaction when she overhears that Benedick loves her entirely. (There's a wonderful scene earlier when Benedick has already been taken in, and Beatrice comes out to invite him to dinner, and he convinces her that he is quite mad. It's Amy Acker's reaction that makes it work.
There are a lot of casting problems, but I like Clark Gregg as Leonardo. Don John's partner Conrad is now Conrade, a woman and his lover. The change works spectacularly. I immediately had a crush on Riki Lindhome.
*Whedon filmed it in his house. It's a nice house. |
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I ask you, Velvel, as a rational man, which of us is possessed? |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 10:26 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| I loved the Whedon "Much Ado," but part of my delight was due to my affection for the Buffy/Angel actors involved. It was very different from the film with Kenneth Branagh and the only stage version I've seen, in London, with Alan Bates. I thought it was better than the former, less good than the latter. |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 12:15 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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Syd wrote: The Man Who Would Be King: a rewatch of one of my favorite movies, with great performances by Caine, Connery and Plumber....
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Last edited by yambu on Sun Jun 21, 2015 4:38 pm; edited 1 time in total
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That was great for you. How was it for me? |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 4:08 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
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marantzo wrote: I enjoyed that version of Much a Ado About Nothing, but it wasn't great by a long shot.
In the Whedon version it is hard to believe those wine-swilling yups were veteran soldiers. And the cops were amusing, then flat, then amusing....
But I prefer Amy Acker's willowy Beatrice to Emma Thompson's. Thompson is made for the acid-tongued heroine, but there is a hard intellectual sheen to her that makes me not quite believe her vulnerable love for Branagh. I just think her core strength, both as character and actor, starts to work against her at some point.
That said, the Branagh film is the superior version. I love the theme, Sigh No More, Ladies. |
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That was great for you. How was it for me? |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 9:33 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| The Sound Barrier (David Lean, 1952) is also known as Breaking the Sound Barrier and was quite famous in its day. It has the minor problem today that people know the sound barrier was not first broken by the British. It also has a brilliant performance by Ralph Richardson as an aircraft magnate who is not above using his son and son-in-law in the dangerous pursuit of the limits of flight. It's a showcase for early British jet technology. My favorite scene is no attempt at breaking any record; it is the young son-in-law flying a jet across Europe to Egypt, taking his wife on a sort of honeymoon. The second best is near the end with Richardson listening to a pilot on the radio on yet another attempt to break the sound barrier and you get to see inside the man. This might be the best performance by that great actor. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 10:09 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: NYC
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| Yesterday I watched "They Might Be Giants" for the first time since we had it for our film class several decades ago. I remembered loving it, and remembered the basic concept (George C. Scott as a psychiatric patient who thinks he's Sherlock Holmes, Joanne Woodward as his potential doctor, whom he dismisses until he learns that her last name is Watson). But I'd forgotten how it suddenly goes askew near the end, right after his great speech about "we never left the Garden of Eden....Moriarty has made fools of all of us." The ending is a white-out that leaves the viewer wondering. I can understand that Moriarty can't be personified--he's all the evil in the world--but I wanted to see the greedy brother and asylum manager get their comeuppance. There must be a reason why the plot ends so abruptly--studio decree, audience reactions? Wish I knew. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Mon Jun 22, 2015 12:05 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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| I confess that up to now I thought They Might Be Giants was the band that sings Istanbul and Birdhouse in Your Soul. Am intrigued and, when you describe it, it sounds vaguely familiar. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Jun 22, 2015 5:35 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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bartist wrote: I confess that up to now I thought They Might Be Giants was the band that sings Istanbul and Birdhouse in Your Soul. Am intrigued and, when you describe it, it sounds vaguely familiar.
Bart--They Might Be Giants is indeed that band, which was named (AFAIK) for the movie. (I will check this factoid right now.)
P.S. Done, and here's your info:
"At their first concert, They Might Be Giants performed under the name El Grupo De Rock and Roll (lit. "The Group of Rock and Roll"), because the show was a Sandinista rally in Central Park, and all of the audience members spoke Spanish. Soon discarding this title, the band assumed the name of a 1971 film They Might Be Giants (starring George C. Scott and Joanne Woodward), which is in turn taken from a Don Quixote passage about how Quixote mistook windmills for evil giants, which itself was taken from Dante's Inferno Canto 34."
I did not know the part about Don Quixote myself. |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Mon Jun 22, 2015 7:49 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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carrobin wrote: I loved the Whedon "Much Ado," but part of my delight was due to my affection for the Buffy/Angel actors involved. It was very different from the film with Kenneth Branagh and the only stage version I've seen, in London, with Alan Bates. I thought it was better than the former, less good than the latter. |
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I ask you, Velvel, as a rational man, which of us is possessed? |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Jun 22, 2015 8:23 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| I've seen John Gielgud and Margaret Leighton. I've seen Katharine Hepburn and John Colicos. I've seen Patricia Elliott and somebody whose name I can't remember. I've seen Kevin Kline and Mary Elizabeth Mastriohoweveryouspellit. I've seen people you never heard of. And I've seen Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson. And the Joss Whedon version. I have seen and seen and seen Much Ado. And yet it's still my favorite Shakespeare comedy by far. It's the only one with genuine belly laughs IMO. And in many scenes it's like an I Love Lucy-style sitcom. (The Hepburn version played this aspect up big time, as Kate hid under a table to overhear the girls' convo about how Benedick loved her. The table (with floor-length tablecloth) followed the girls around the room. Total I Love Lucy. And total hilarity.) And yet the best best best B&B were Gielgud and Leighton. Unfuckingbelievable. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Mon Jun 22, 2015 11:16 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: NYC
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It's hard to believe there could have been a better Benedick and Beatrice than Alan Bates and Felicity Kendal, though I confess I've never seen it on stage otherwise. But I saw that one four times in three days (I went to London on a long weekend just for that).
During the Saturday matinee, the actor playing Don John had a coughing fit throughout the scene in which he reveals his plot to his minions. The minion actors helped him along by taking on his lines as questions he could nod to. Sometimes it's tough to be an actor. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Mon Jun 22, 2015 11:39 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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I'm often amazed how stage actors persist and rebound from things like that. My daughter is a performing artist and she learned the hard lesson: if you screw up, just keep going, and make like nothing happened. (and the related lesson, so hard to learn for self-critical musicians: sometimes you can miss a note and nobody notices - all the more reason not to make sad/frowny faces over your mistake).
Which reminds me of "Grand Piano," a bad movie, mostly clueless about what actually happens in a concert, what pianists do and don't do, etc. The "missed note" thing is central to the preposterous plot. It's a movie I particularly loathe because 10 minutes of research by the screenwriter would have resulted in a much better movie. And someone needs to tell Elijah Wood: when a virtuoso plays a piano, HE USES THE PEDALS. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Mon Jun 22, 2015 12:19 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: NYC
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Richard Dreyfuss used to come to the film class every semester ("I always wanted to sit in front of 500 people and talk about myself," he once explained), and after we saw "The Competition" he told us he had taken lessons so that he could actually play the piano rather than bang around cluelessly while it played on the soundtrack. He said it was the toughest preparation he ever went through for a film. (And how many remember it?)
I'm also reminded of "Fingers," and Harvey Keitel's angst-ridden audition. |
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