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| yambu |
 Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2017 5:30 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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billyweeds wrote: Syd wrote:
I'm having to postpone the end of the film because I'm recording Going My Way, which I've never seen. To tell the truth, The Tempest is not one of my favorite Shakespeare plays.
Word on that. If there was ever an overrated Shakespeare play, it's The Tempest. Booooring.
As for Going My Way, meh to the max. IMO.
[Tempest was very near the end for Will. It looks like one of his King's Company Jacobean performances, lacking maybe all traces of groundling humor. Still, its magic is in Ariel's song Full Fathom Five, and in just about everything that Helen Mirrin's Prospera does or says. Caliban is simply bitch awful hard to watch.
Going MY Way, and its cousin The Bells of St. Marys - Thrill to Ingrid Bergman as a nun opposite Bing Crosby the fighting priest! Those two films played very well in big cities, not so good in Kansas. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2017 10:51 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12890
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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I'm going through the BBC Shakespearian plays and reached their version of "Henry IV, Part I," which I had trouble getting into at first due to the convoluted dialogue and tons of characters introduced. But part II has three brilliant scenes almost in a row: First the scene in the tavern where Falstaff pretends to be Henry IV disciplining his son, then Hal and Falstaff reversing positions, with Hal (as Henry) playing his father, and attacking Falstaff (as Hal) as a low companion and dismissing Falstaff, a foreshadowing of the famous scene from Part II. Second, the scene with the conspirators carving up England, showing Mortimer and Percy with their wives. Percy's wife is Mortimer's sister. Mortimer's wife is Glendower's daughter and speaks only Welsh while her husband speaks only English, but they seem to get along well and she sings a lovely ballad in Welsh. This is the big confrontation between King Henry and his wayward son (who actually isn't as wayward as he appears; there's a lot of calculation involved).
I could do with a stronger cast, which the recent version in "The Hollow Crown" looks to have. Hotspur (Tim Pigott-Smith) reminds me unfortunately of Roman on Blindspot so I'm puzzled why King Henry would admire him in the first place. Maybe it's because none of the main characters are really admirable, including Henry himself (who is a usurper, after all), Hal, who's willing to participate in a theft as part of a practical joke, or Falstaff, who is truly corrupt, hiring a group of wastrels to go into battle knowing that they are going to die. And if Hotspur wins, he gives a third of his own country to Wales (including, admittedly, part of Wales itself). And Mortimer may have a sound claim to the crown, but giving up two- thirds of his country to get it is a bit much. |
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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 Jan 15, 2017 11:35 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| Is that the series with Benedict Cumberbatch as Richard III? It was playing on our PBS channels last month, and I missed most of them because I didn't realize they were new. Now I want to see the whole batch in sequence. Especially the Cumberbatch. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2017 10:05 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12890
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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carrobin wrote: Is that the series with Benedict Cumberbatch as Richard III? It was playing on our PBS channels last month, and I missed most of them because I didn't realize they were new. Now I want to see the whole batch in sequence. Especially the Cumberbatch.
Yes. Tom Hiddleston is Prince Hal/Henry V in that series, and Jeremy Irons is Henry IV (but Ben Whishaw plays him as Bolinbroke.) |
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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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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2017 1:31 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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| Time to put in my recommendation for Chimes at Midnight, if you can find it. |
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I ask you, Velvel, as a rational man, which of us is possessed? |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2017 9:55 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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BBC Shakespeare I believe is now in its second generation. The first one was all the Shakespeare we had for about thirty years. It's awfully clunky, and I welcome the subtitles.
I saw Cumberbatch play Hamlet in a very limited film release, and then Ralph Fiennes as Richard III. Wish I could tell you how to get them.
Al Pacino and Kevin Spacey do a sixty minute piece called "Looking for Richard". Lot of screwball stuff, but they finish with Buckingham pressing Richard for his promised favors. "I'm NOT in the GIVING VEIN!" |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2017 10:05 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12890
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| I remember Measure for Measure and The Taming of the Shrew with fondness. I wonder if they would stand the test of time. I like their Richard II, but I don't think I liked their Hamlet. Actually, the only Hamlet I've seen that got the themes of the play right was Mel Gibson's, though I like a lot of Branaugh's. |
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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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| yambu |
| Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2017 12:56 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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| Just a minute. I didn't know Jacoby played the roll twice, thirty years apart. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2017 2:26 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| Just got a Barnes & Noble sale email that features 400 British TV DVDs, and the more recent Hollow Crown is among them, for $31.49. There are several other items I'd like to have as well--but it'll be difficult enough to carve out the free time for that one. (My disk-making friend made me a copy of Pacino's "Looking for Richard" a year or two ago, which I like better than most of his other films.) |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2017 5:16 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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Been re-watching some classic films.
If anyone hasn't seen Battle of Algiers, do so. It does a great job of both showing the small human side of the conflict and the bigger scale colonial situation. The camerawork is excellent and I wondered how they managed to organize a number of scenes. It really feels like a documentary with excellent access. Just a tremendous accomplishment.
I followed that up with DeSica's Umberto D. Such a simple film, yet very affecting. What's interesting is how this film also makes use of the documentary possibilities of film in much the way B of A does.
I really admired the young girl/maid and her role on this viewing. How she remains positive and honest despite her stressful circumstances. Even while her fate is as uncertain and precarious as Umberto's. I also liked how U D's room becomes a metaphor for his life, as it first gets stripped of its outward appearance/dignity, then has a hole torn into it exposing it, and finally will cease to exist.
The dog is pretty damned cute and talented as well.
I also liked all the small touches of the period, from the police dispersing the pensioner rally to the overcrowded Christian hospital. |
Last edited by gromit on Sat Feb 25, 2017 12:48 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2017 11:56 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6944
Location: Black Hills
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Funny, just saw Umberto D in the "new" rack at the PL and couldn't remember if I'd seen it at the arthouse when I was in college. Seeing it ASAP. Grazie.
Sure I haven't seen Battle of Algiers, so it's on my list now. Merci.
I saw "The Cat from Outer Space," the first 50 minutes of it, for reasons whimsical and hard to explain. A 1978 Disney film with the usual 70's cast - Sandy Duncan, Roddy McDowell (the leading competitor with Peter O'Toole for phallonymicity), Ken Berry, Harry Morgan, and McLean Stevenson (two MASH colonels, hamming it up to the maximum). Nice meow-se-en-scene with the talking cat, but couldn't sustain interest once the basic jokes were delivered. That said, any 50 minutes spent not watching the decline and fall of the Republic is pleasant. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2017 12:40 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: NYC
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bartist wrote: That said, any 50 minutes spent not watching the decline and fall of the Republic is pleasant.
Too true. Escaping CNN and MSNBC this morning, I discovered "Stagecoach" on TCM and ended up watching it. John Ford sure knew how to build an icon--you'd think any actor who played the Ringo Kid would be a star for life. But then I tried to remember who played him in the 1966 remake. The only cast members I could recall were Ann-Margret and Bing Crosby, though I made a vague guess at Ringo, and found I was right when I checked the IMDb. He didn't exactly make icon status.
Which made me wonder again about charisma and what makes a star. I never particularly liked John Wayne, but he was great in "Stagecoach" and definitely had charisma. It was fascinating at our film class--Robert Redford had more in person than he does on screen (we all wanted him to run for president), but Warren Beatty came across as more of a businessman than a movie star, and seems to save his charisma for the camera. James Earl Jones and Burt Lancaster could blow you away with their charisma (Lancaster took over the class, to our professor's annoyance). Richard Dreyfuss and Mel Gibson had abundant charisma as well. Darn I miss that class... |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2017 1:43 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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I should mention that Battle of Algiers was directed by an Italian, Gillo Pontecorvo, and is definitely and intentionally in the post-war neo-realism tradition. I had forgotten this when I tossed it on, and only realized after I was struck by the similarity in approach/style with Umberto D.
I doubt there's a better film on colonialism than Battle of Algiers. I especially like the way it shows the brutality and violence employed by both sides, which is presented as a necessary component of colonization.
I had largely forgotten the powerful Morricone score for the film. I hadn't seen B of A in 10 1/2 years. The reason I know that is I coincidentally first saw it on the day the director died. Certainly the Bush/Cheney war on terror made the film seem up-to-date and highly relevant. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2017 8:02 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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| Did anyone see Queen of the Desert (2015). Werner Herzog film on the life of Gertrude Bell, played by Nicole Kidman. I remember hearing a bit about it upon release, but it seemed to have sunk quickly. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2017 8:27 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Carol--John Wayne in Stagecoach was everything he wasn't for most of his career--incredibly charismatic, likable, and--this is the most amazing--chock full of sex appeal. Wha'???? |
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