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.

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+.

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.

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.

Vision

Sorry for the long hiatus.  I temporarily had a life.  This week, I'm recommending Vision, a German movie about St Hildegard. It's beautifully produced, with lovely sets and costumes (you know how much I love that!). The lead actress is very good, and St. Hildegard is an interesting character. She was a 12th century christian mystic who taught a life of harmony with nature, scientific learning, and an omniscient, all-loving, Living Light. I wish there had been more of Hildegard's art and music, but it was overall entertaining. The first half is better than the second, which gets a little slow. If you, like me, love sets and costumes and beautiful shots of sunlight filtering through trees, you'll like it. If that's not enough, you should probably look elsewhere. Visually: A-, plot-wise, B+.

Possession

Possession: This movie is based on a book by A.S. Byatt, one of my very favorite authors.  She also wrote the book on which Angels and Insects is based.  It's about two literature scholars who are investigating a possible relationship between two British Victorian poets.  The movie cuts between the developing romance between the two scholars in the modern day and the romance between the two historical poets, which comes to light through their letters and poems.  (It isn't quite as pretentious as it sounds, but it's pretty pretentious.)  It stars Aaron Eckhart (who I LOVE) and Gwyneth Paltrow.  B