Movie/TV recommendations

[Ben X]

Dragons On A Wagon.

[Orv]

Also:

I agree, Rodi. I even wrote a short story about that particular Penny Arcade strip. I'm not sure if I have it anymore. . .

Edit: I do! It's rather shite, as it was written under insomnia conditions, but if someone wants to read it, I can likely PM it to you. The vomit bucket will be your job, though.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I saw Rango and The Adjustment Bureau today.

Rango: The beginning of this film is fucking sublime, but it turns into a standard Hollywood flick by the end. Looks beautiful, though.

The Adjustment Bureau: It really is Inception-Lite For Romantics. Which is to say that it wasn't that bad at all. Just not great.

Paul was also better than I was expecting.

[syntheticgerbil]

Rango: The beginning of this film is fucking sublime, but it turns into a standard Hollywood flick by the end. Looks beautiful, though.

I figured that was going to happen since it is a 3D animated film starring celebrity voices as talking animals, but at the very least it does look much nicer than almost all of the talking animal films from the last 10 years or so.

[Lu]

I watched the Last King Of Scotland and damn, that was pretty intense.

The way it goes from fun party time to complete scary hell hole is so nicely done.

Basically at the point you think "get the hell out boy" is where he does the same and by that time it's too late.

I give it too thumbs up. Damn intense.

[brkl]

I watched the Last King Of Scotland and damn, that was pretty intense.

The way it goes from fun party time to complete scary hell hole is so nicely done.

Basically at the point you think "get the hell out boy" is where he does the same and by that time it's too late.

I give it too thumbs up. Damn intense.

Agreed.

There's a bit in that movie where I can't even remember exactly what I saw, but I don't want to see it again, and so I'm not planning to ever watch the movie again...

[Roderick]

I saw The Merchant of Venice, the recent one with Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons and Joseph Fiennes.

I wasn't familiar with the story, but the two-hour plot is quite interesting. Though it's very messy and confusingly laid out, the tension builds dramatically as the story gets closer to the usurer Shylock demanding his pound of flesh, stricken by grief. The Shakespearian language didn't take long to get used to, but then I always do like a little theatricality.

HOWEVER. In the final half hour, things get weird, and then bad.

During the courtroom scene the love interest dresses as a man to pose as lawyer. She's apparently even good at it, stumping a full council of Venetian elders. How did that happen? The whole movie she just seems like a pretty lady waiting for some dupe to come and save her. Besides which, her disguise is terrible. This Mrs. Doubtfire plot twist deflates the whole arc.

Then there's the resolve. Shylock is completely in his right to exact his demands, but he is almost comically thwarted by some dubious bit of law interpretation at the final second. COME ON. COME THE FUCK ON. I thought Shakespeare wasn't afraid to bring the drama, so why this terrible resolution?

Then there's the undertone of anti-semitism. I'm not one to jump up and shout 'racism!' at the first convenience, but even I started to get a little uncomfortable. The film starts with a bit of background, saying that the jews in Venice weren't treated very nicely. Shylock gets spat in the face multiple times and has to wear a red cap for identification. This all sets the stage for Shylock's behavior. His demand for a pound of flesh is actually a plea for justice for all the terrors he endured in his life. So far so good, you think! You kind of feel for the guy. Then the movie (again in that final half hour) switches stances on him. Suddenly Shylock is again the Evil Jew, who receives no amount of pity from anyone. As the final insult, he is made to become a christian, breaking his spirit forever. He bends down and grovels like the jew-dog the story wants him to be, and is seen cast out from his own as well.

What gives? I don't know whether this is due to Shakespeare or the movie interpretation, but it's fucking awful. Not only from a racism standpoint, but from a storytelling one as well. You don't just abandon a carefully constructed villain that we all kind of felt for.

Edited March 6, 2011 by Rodi

[DanJW]

I saw The Merchant of Venice,

(note on anti-semitic themes)

It's the play, not the film (I'm kind of surprised they didn't try to tone it down for the film). It has always been a major criticism of the play, and it has even itself set several anti-semitic cultural touchstones (I have heard 'shylock' used as a perjorative term for Jewish people a few times).

It's a case of changing moral attitudes though. In Shakespeare's day, as in most of history sadly, anti-semitism was just taken for granted.

Mostly for the same reasons as you set out, Merchant of Venice has always been my least favourite of Shakespeare's plays. Although I do like the 'pound of flesh' twist in itself - at the time of writing it must have been a Sixth Sense level of 'whoah!'*.

*or rather, "I dost proclaim; Woe! Woe for my mine sanity!"

Edited March 6, 2011 by DanJW

[Roderick]

After writing this I read a bit more about the play and the shifting ways in which actors portrayed Shylock. Apparently in the play, Shylock was always designed as a one-dimensional bastard ('the extreame crueltie of Shylock'), with later actors from the 19th century and beyond starting to infuse the character with some motivation and pathos. This does explain the weird dissonance in the movie, its attempt to humanize him but for the end opting to stay true to the story.

All this is not the crux of my hesitance on The Merchant of Venice. Whatever the feelings on Jews the play might have, the story on itself is deflated by its strange structure and comedy overtures during the climax. I would have cut off the proverbial pound of my own flesh to have a satisfying, well-rounded movie based around Shylock and Antonio and their very gripping conflict.

It's still worthwhile to see, if only for the beautiful language. In Belmont is a lady richly left, and she is fair.

[Kolzig]

I saw Black Swan on saturday.

Liked the movie a lot and I know now why Natalie Portman got so many awards for the role. She was perfect.

One thing that makes me wonder about Darren Aronofsky, he has always been a different kind of director who makes movies that really make you think. Why is it then that he wants to direct a REMAKE of Robocop and his next movie is a comic book hero movie about Wolverine?

I don't get it.

[Hermie]

I got really excited when I heard about both those projects, because if there's one thing Aronofsky is good at, it's writing/directing a really deep, conflicted main character, that usually has to face themselves, what they are.

Robocop and Wolverine are both characters that are primarily known as ass-kickers, but their "thing" both contain themes that can be mined for really compelling character studies. Retaining your humanity while in a cyborg body, or what does it mean to be "human" at all, dealing with immortality and the solitude it brings with it, and so on.

[edit]That said, I am also a little disappointed that it will be a while before we get another story that lives completely inside Aronofsky's head.

[MrHoatzin]

Worth noting is that the Merchant of Venice is considered one of Shakespeare's comedies and that particular movie tried to humanize Shylock—in spite of itself, in a way.

[Roderick]

Ahhh, the classic 'I'll demand a pound of your living flesh' routine!

I did read it was a comedy, and that sort of places the weird Mrs. Doubtfire bit. Perhaps later generations emphasized the drama of the situation instead of reading the lines with a trifle of irony, as they were perhaps intended? I can see Shylock being quite funny actually, if he's played as a stubborn little wretch. The grotesqueness of his claim would become quite a sharp mockery of the real world.

[juv3nal]

I did read it was a comedy, and that sort of places the weird Mrs. Doubtfire bit.

It's worth noting that originally in Shake's time, all the female roles were all played by men (or boys). Which makes the crossdressing more easily "convnincing" to an audience, at least, if not plotwise.

[Roderick]

It also just occurred to me that 'comedy' in this case might be meant in the Greek sense, which would have little to do with any farcical qualities that we seek in out modern comedies. Any story ending marginally positively for the protagonists (i.e. not death) would be labelled a comedy.

I still would've loved a tragic version of the Merchant of Venice. It might have had the same incredible power Romeo & Juliet has. Imagine THAT story ending with both lovers alive...! It irks me to no end that Antonio's life was spared after all that build up, and by such nonsensical means.

[MrHoatzin]

Yeha, that is what I meant.

[Thyroid]

It irks me to no end that Antonio's life was spared after all that build up, and by such nonsensical means.

Isn't his life spared legally, in a court of law? Sorry; haven't read Venice in over ten years. Shylock wants a pound of flesh; they tell him he can have that, but no blood, which is an impossibility. That's a clever plot twist.

Anyways, one very plausible reading of the play is that it is actually a tragedy. Give Shakespeare his due: there's more to Shylock than first meets the eye.

I don't get it.

Hollywood has gotten kind of shit.

[Ben X]

I still would've loved a tragic version of the Merchant of Venice. It might have had the same incredible power Romeo & Juliet has. Imagine THAT story ending with both lovers alive...!

I bet Jayel can imagine that.

[Moosferatu]

Sweet Smell of Success got a Criterion release!

[Roderick]

Isn't his life spared legally, in a court of law? Sorry; haven't read Venice in over ten years. Shylock wants a pound of flesh; they tell him he can have that, but no blood, which is an impossibility. That's a clever plot twist.

Interesting reads, Kroms. Days after seeing it, the Merchant of Venice still doesn't let me go.

The legal trickery is clever in a legal sense, but horrible in a storytelling sense. It is indeed what it is: a trick. In the story, it heralds up the unfortunate negation of all that is really at stake (the discrimination of the jews, the hypocrisy of the upper class christians). It diminishes all the characters from that point on: Shylock becomes a one-dimensional wretch, all the so-called protagonists become spiteful, airheaded dicks (where first they pleaded for mercy).

[Thyroid]

It diminishes all the characters from that point on: Shylock becomes a one-dimensional wretch.

I don't remember anything about anyone besides Shylock (I read Shakespeare's work when I was eight; it was the only fiction we had in the house), but I disagree that he becomes one-dimensional. His monologue is easily read as sympathetic (

's Orson Welles doing it). If anything, he becomes less of a bad guy; it's easy to see him as a Jew trying to survive in an anti-Semitic world.

[brkl]

And here's Mel Gibson:

HWfsnxQHI34

[Roderick]

I swear that sounded more like Jack Nicholson's Joker at times. Creepy!

[Scrobbs]

Those pricks over at Universal have canned Del Toro's 'Mountains of Madness'. Why? Because he wanted it R rated, and they wanted it PG-13

http://mobile.salon.com/ent/movies/film_salon/2011/03/08/mountains_of_madness_derailed

Edited March 9, 2011 by Scrobbs

[Kolzig]

Hollywood

I was really hoping to see that movie. Del Toro had been dreaming of it for years and years.