Midsummer Night's Dream

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted.  Life and such.  Today, I'm very strongly recommending this version of a Midsummer Nights Dream.  It's also available on Hulu here.  Oddly, Netflix is wrong about which version this is.  Although it says its this one, its actually this Royal Shakespeare Company production.  This is very much a theater production, with limited (and somewhat surreal) sets and costumes and .  If you're looking for a movie style adaptation, try this one.  If you enjoy theater, you'll like this production, I think.  The sets I liked, but the costumes were boring and ugly.  The acting is very good, and the direction innovative without being too pretentious.  It's faithful to the spirit of the play, but makes significant changes, some of which are questionable.  In particular, it cuts some scenes that help the flow of the play (like the hunting scene near the end). I wouldn't recommend this if you're unfamiliar with the story, or if you don't like theater, but it's highly recommended for Shakespeare geeks.  It's very original and really feels Shakespearian to me (whatever that means).  A-


ps: Although it's not available to stream, go out of your way to see the recent Helen Mirren version of The Tempest.  I LOVED it.

Kings

First off, Kings isn't available to stream on Netflix, but it is on Hulu (and you don't even need Hulu Plus to watch it).  Kings is a 13 episode modern retelling of the story of King Saul's fall and King David's rise to power.  It covers much of the events recounted in the fist book of Samuel, starting with David & the goliath and ending shortly before the whole witch of Endor thing.  However,  the story is a very loose retelling; even a good knowledge of the biblical version doesn't provide much in the way of "spoilers".  It would be more accurate to say that it is "inspired by" the biblical material, rather than being a retelling of it.

The biblical Saul is here renamed Silas, and is inhabited very, very well by Ian McShane, whom I know from Pillars of the Earth and you probably know from Deadwood.  Also excellent is Eamonn Walker from Oz as the Reverend (prophet) Samuel.  The other acting is also good.  The writing is solid; it moves at a good clip, the characters mostly seem believable, and there is an interesting pseudo-biblical lyricism to many of King Silas's speeches.  Jonathan, the gay heir apparent, is an interesting character of whom I would have liked to see more.  He's played by Sebastian Stan, who played Bucky Barnes in the new Captain America movie.  I'm told he was also in Gossip Girl.

I was worried about the religiosity of the show, but it's not religious in that ABC Family way at all.  It's religious in the same way Big Love or Battlestar Galactica are religious.  I wish they'd done a better job of promoting this show when it was on TV.  I didn't watch it because they promoted it as a soap opera, and totally left out the sci-fi aspects.  It's a shame, because I think a lot of people would have watched this if they had promoted it to the right sort of watchers, and I really wish there was a second season of it.  Oh well.  :(

The production values are very high.  It's clearly shot in NYC; several landmarks are recognizable in Shiloh.  It's set in the modern day, so there's nothing fancy in the way of costumes or sets, but it is very well directed, and the scenes are always beautifully and evocatively lit.  Overall, I'd give it a B+, with some early episodes rating A.

Sundance on Hulu

I just noticed that Hulu has about 50 Sundance favorite movies curated in a new collection here.  I've already reviewed several of them (Long Life, Happiness, and Prosperity is a favorite of mine, as well as Clerks, Trembling Before G-d, and Wristcutters), and many of them are available on Netflix (which, in my experience, has better video quality and much better audio quality) but its nice sometimes to have them all gathered up in one place.

Some Stuff on Hulu

Here's a two excellent things available to watch on Hulu Plus:

Journeyman was a casualty of the writers' strike, but it's worth giving it a shot.  It's about a newspaperman (that guy from Rome) set adrift in time, solving mysteries and righting wrongs.  In many ways, its very similar to Quantum Leap, but with much more of an ongoing story-arc.  Also, unlike Quantum Leap, there's a lot of "love triangle" plot (I'm not sure if that's good or not).  This show is well written, and the acting is good, but its nothing extraordinary.  B+ if you like sci-fi.  Probably only B- if you don't.

Fact is, NOVA is awesome.  If I need to tell you about NOVA, you're not the sort of person who would like it.  There are almost 50 episodes of NOVA available on Hulu.  I haven't seen all of them, but I particularly recommend Becoming Human, Mind Over Money, and Hunting the Hidden Dimension.  You can also watch several episodes on PBS.

Downton Abbey

I know that I'm late to this party, but Downton Abbey really is as good as you've heard.  You can watch the entire first season on Netflix, and season 2 is available (until March 6th) at PBS.org.  I'm generally not a big fan of the Upstairs/Downstairs sort of thing, so I took awhile to try this show out.  That was a mistake.  What really makes this show great is the writing and acting; every single character (and there are a lot of them) is a complicated, troubled, messy, real human being with their own motivations, ethics, and beliefs.  In addition, the production values are very high, the sets and costumes are Edwardialicious.  A+ for Season 1.  I haven't finished season 2 yet.

The Life Before Her Eyes

I just finished watching The Life Before Her Eyes, and I'm not really sure how I feel about it (which, I think, is sometimes the sign of a really good movie, and sometimes just bad writing).  It's hard for me to review it without giving away the ending, but I'll try.  It's the story of Diana, who is terrorized at a school shooting as a teenager.  She and her best friend Maureen are an unlikely duo.  Diana is something of a "girl in trouble" whereas Maureen is a christian good girl.  (The movie tries to be aware enough to see how obvious this is; at one point the characters remark "virgin and the whore...we're like the whole of art history in one package") The context of their unlikely friendship unfolds in a series of flashbacks while the gunman, a freak-friend of Diana's, holds them at gunpoint, demanding that they choose which of them he should kill.  In addition to flashbacks of Diana and Maureen's past, we also see flash-forwards to Diana as an adult (played by Uma Thurman).  Until the last 10 minutes of the movie, I would have rated it as a B-, ok but nothing special.  The direction is kind of pretentious, and, while the acting is good, it's nothing special.  There were some things that didn't really make sense, and I had trouble following some of the timeline.  The ending cast the whole movie in a different light.  Having read some other reviews, I think a lot of people didn't get it.  I really think it might benefit from a second watching.  If I do that, I'll come back and update this.  A-.

As Far as my Feet Will Carry Me

Let me begin by saying I never thought I would like a movie with a Nazi solider as the protagonist.  However, in the first scene of As Far as my Feet Will Carry Me (So Weit die Fusse Tragen) we meet a young German soldier getting on a train to ship out.  His wife and young daughter make it to the train station just in time; they've come from the doctor.  They're going to have another baby.  They hug and cry, and he ships out.  The next thing we know he's on a train to a Siberian POW camp.  He escapes, and from that point on, the story is mostly him vs the wilderness.  In many ways, this movie is very, very similar to The Way Back.  However, unlike in that movie, our relationship to the main character is complicated by his Nazi past. The scenes of him in the camp become complicated ruminations on man's inhumanity to man.  It is impossible to watch gaunt men in prison stripes lined up to do hard labor without thinking of Auschwitz, and yet Stalin's death camp is filled with Nazis.  This irony is somewhat lost on the film, and it comes to an unsatisfying conclusion later on in the movie.  Aside from that, this is a good movie about surviving in the wild, but I greatly preferred The Way Back.  As a side note, because there are few native German speakers in the movie, the spoken German is slow and uses small words, which made it excellent practice for my German (and some Russian too).  (It's subtitled in English)  C+.

Endgame

I've just discovered an awesome Candian show called Endgame on hulu.  If House and Monk had a baby, it would be Endgame. (That is to say, it's another Sherlock allegory).   Here's the setup:  Several months before the show begins (maybe a few years even?), a brilliant world-champion Russian chess star is staying at a Vancouver hotel with his fiance.  She was gunned down right outside the hotel, while he watched.  He now has agoraphobia, and can't leave the hotel.  He's been living there, in a suite, ever since.  His money has run out, and he's about to get evicted.  There is a kidnapping, and he cracks the case.  The grateful father pays his hotel bill.  Thus starts his new career, solving detective "puzzles".  At first, he's just in it for the money, but soon it's all about solving the puzzle.

Since he can't leave the hotel, he has to convince others, including the gruff hotel security chief, a smart, witty maid, and a chess-groupie (math!) grad student to do the legwork for him.  I'm on episode 4 right now, and I'm really enjoying it.

The main character's name is Arkady Balligan, and he's brilliant, funny, playful, but kind of an asshole (very much like House) and tormented by the death of his fiance (like Monk).  He's convinced that he was the real target of the assassination (maybe for murky Russian political reasons), and is consumed by guilt about it.  Other characters include the lovely well-connected bartender and Pippa, the dead fiance's sister (who is angry that Arkady is working on other cases, but not her sister's).

The acting is good, but nothing special.  The writing is the real star; the mysteries are crisp, and the dialog (at least Arkady's) is sparkly sharp.  It was nice to see (and a real contrast with American TV) in the first episode, the kidnapper's parents are a gay couple, and nothing is made of it at all.  The fact that it's two men instead of a man and a woman is completely irrelevant to the plot, and no one suspects them of being child-murderers just because they're gay.

In an interesting mechanic, when Arkady is working through scenarios in his head, we see his thoughts as series of different scenarios for the crime with him talking to the people while they commit the crime.  It's a nice glimpse into his thought process, and adds a unique touch.

B+ so far (based on 3 episodes)  There are 5 episodes available right now (2/1/2012) and new ones come out on Mondays.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, etc

 I recently saw new David Fincher version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo in theaters.  I highly recommend it.  Given the option between seeing the American verison in theaters or the Swedish one on Netflix, you should drop the money to see it in theaters.  Among other reasons, this is the kind of smart, sexy, grown up movie we want to see Hollywood make, but only stupid schlock for kids makes blockbuster money.  Send a message to Hollywood, pay some money to see this movie.

After I got home, I watched the original on Netflix.  The acting is perhaps better than the American version, and the direction is good (but its no David Fincher).  Also, bonus, there's three of them.  Generally I don't mind subtitles, but because the action moves so fast in this movie (which is a great thing), there were a couple of times I had to rewind to catch some dialog.  The movie is different enough from the American version that it wasn't a waste of time to see them both.

The first movie was better than the sequel (The Girl Who Played With Fire), but #2 was still very entertaining.  The acting and script were tight and gripping, but not as "edge of my seat, come home from the theater and watch it in Swedish" gripping as the first one.  I haven't watched the third one yet.

A+ for the Fincher verison of Girl With the Dragon Tattoo in theaters.  A for the Swedish version.  A- for The Girl Who Played With Fire.

The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret

The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret is a weird little British show developed jointly with IFC starring that guy from Arrested Development with that other guy from Arrested Development.  It's about a bumbling nice guy who "accidentally" gets a job distributing a (possibly toxic and/or radioactive) Korean energy drink.  Wacky hijinks ensue.  The show starts in media res with Todd on trial for a litany of crimes, including terrorism, kiddie porn, and other horrible things.  Ove the six episodes that follow, we see just how a ridiculous series of increasingly poor decisions led to that predicament.  It's well written and acted, funny often, and stupid almost as often.  It wants to be Arrested Development, but it needs a more convincing straight man and to take itself much more seriously.  That being said, it's funny enough.  A solid B.

The Colony

So, faithful readers know that I have an embarrassing prediction for post-apocalypse fiction.  Recently, I ran across a post-apocalypse "reality" TV show called The Colony.  About 10 people are stranded in an abandoned urban-blight warehouse/industrial compound and have to forge a new life.  There's no "game show" aspect to it.

The first season is made awesome by the presence of not 1, but TWO mad scientists. The first is a gray bushy-haired computer engineer named John.  Not too much of a spoiler:  at one point he builds a bad-ass fire-thrower.  The second mad scientist is even more awesome:  his name is Vlad.  He's a Croatian mechanical engineer, who's quite the woods-man.  He escaped from Communist Croatia when he was a teenager. Bonus: a second middle aged Croatian, a grumpy green contractor named Michael.

The show isn't intended (I hope) to be a "real" post-apocalypse scenario.  It's more like Mythbusters crossed with The Real World.  It's good fun, and has lots of awesome engineering porn.  (How to make wood gas, how to build a solar array, etc)

The second season, peopled primarily by attractive young people, is not nearly as good.  I stopped watching after the fourth episode of season 2. B+ for season 1, C for the first part of season 2.

Practical Magic

Practical Magic is one of my favorite movies ever (although the book is much better, darker and stranger).  It's the story of two adult sisters, Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock, who happen to be witches.  Sandra Bullock, the older of the two, has renounced magic, and is trying to live a sedate, normal, suburban life, but the world has other plans.  This is technically a romantic comedy, but the real sparks come from the completely believable sister relationship between the two leads.  Stockard Channing and Dianne Weist are fantastic as the elderly aunts.  Aidan Quinn is a very good as the romantic lead, with a folksy, down-home, protective vibe that I don't really find appealing, but I imagine is very sexy for middle aged hausfraus.  Mostly what I love about this movie is the magical realism and the awesome sets and production design.  Also, keep an eye on everyone's hair; the more magic they do, the thicker, wilder, and more awesome the weaves get.  Bonus: a tasty fine, very young Goran Visnjic in a sexy role as a "vampire cowboy" bad-boy love interest for Nicole Kidman.  I think this was one of his very first American roles.  A- for witches, probably B for anyone else.

Strange Days

Strange Days (no longer available to stream) is a weird, awesome, compelling movie.  It stars a very wide range of people before they came to wider attention.  Ralph Fiennes (excellent as always), Vincent D'Onofrio (creepy and convincing), Juliet Lewis, Angela Basset (smokin') , etc.  It came out about the same time as Johnny Mnemonic, and it's a lot like that movie would be if it didn't suck.  Set 5 minutes in the future, on the eve of Y2K, I really love all the small background details.  Ralph Fiennes is an ex-cop who now deals black-market VR disks.  It's a little slow at the beginning, but don't give up on it until the who-dunnit kicks in around the half way mark. B+

Brother Born Again

Brother Born Again is a documentary by a late thirties lesbian Jewish woman.  Her younger brother, about 10 years ago, ran away from their family and its complicated New-York/Jewish/intellectual drama, and joined a fundamentalist Christian community in remote Alaska.  Although they've been estranged for a long time, she sets off to visit him, and try to, if not reconcile things, at least try to understand.  Because my own younger brother escaped our family to move to Europe (although we're not exactly estranged, we're not tight the way we used to be), the movie was particularly touching for me.  It's a sweet, fair look at a man who just couldn't handle the world, and fell into religion as a crutch.  B+

United States of Tara

The United States of Tara is one of the few shows I discovered on Netflix that really surprised me with how good it was.  Netflix has been recommending it to me for a while, but the premise seemed so hokey, I couldn't bring myself to watch.  A while ago, I was home sick from work, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I'm glad I did, and you will be too.  The show focuses on a woman with multiple personalities, played beautifully by Toni Collette, who I've been watching for a long time.  It was great to see her in a long-term role like this;  she really dug into it.

I know it seems like this show must be stupid, or even offensive, but it's not.  The writing (by Diablo Cody) is tight and sparkling, and all the actors are very good, especially John Corbett as the husband and some kid I don't know the name of as the son.  It's particularly nice to see teenagers represented as actual fully-developed people who, despite not quite knowing who they are yet (and who does?), have consistent personalities that make sense.

I really like the family dynamic on this show, and how sensitively (but hilariously) it treats mental illness.  I rate it A-, with some A+ and some B episodes.