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.

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-.

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.

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+

Six Degrees of Separation

Six Degrees of Separation was one of Will Smith's first movie roles, and certainly the one that helped him make the jump from rap star pretty boy to serious actor.  It was a good choice on his part.  He plays a young con artist in Manhattan who enchants a socialite copule.   An amazing supporting cast including Stockard Channing, Donald Sutherland, and Ian McKellen.  What makes this movie one of my favorites is the writing.  It's written by the playwright John Guare, and it still has the snappy feel of the stage play.   I hear that some people aren't into that sort of thing; the dialog is unnatural, but in a good way.  Like in Angels in America, another of my oh-so-favorite play-to-movie remakes, every word seems perfectly chosen and artfully directed.  It's a  lovely thing, a testimony to the power of language.  The acting is all great, but Stockard Channing, who is always a favorite of mine, really sparkles in this.

Borgia

Do you miss the show Rome?  The beautiful costumes and settings?  The intrigue and sexy collusion?  Borgia is a pretty good substitute.  It follows the papacy of Rodrigo Borgia, aka Pope Alexander the VI.  The girl in the white veil in the picture is his daughter, Lucretia (Lucrezia).  You've probably heard of her; there are swirling legends of her poisoning her husbands, sleeping with her brothers, and murdering a swath across Europe.

The show is well written (it's written by Tom Fontana, the creator of Oz), and the production valus are extremely high, but the acting sometimes leaves something to be desired.  This isn't the Showtime show with Jeremy Irons, it's a European production.  According to IMDB, they came out at the same time (both this year), so I don't think either is based on the other (I guess it was just in the Ether?).  I recommend this series strongly to fans of Rome or similar shows, and look forward to seeing the Showtime version when its available to stream.  B+/A-

Day Break

I started watching a really interesting series that Netflix just got (in fact, it seems like they jut got a lot of new TV, so expect a lot of new TV reviews over the next few weeks.  It's called Day Break.  It stars Taye Diggs (so, so tasty) as a police officer who's been set up for murdering a DA.  He is arrested for the crime soon after he wakes up.  Thing is, he keeps living that same bad day over and over (Groundhogs Day style).  I'm only on the 4th episode, but it's really good so far.  Very complicated plot, with lots of twists and turns, and mystery.  Every "day" you learn a few new clues.  Good cast, interesting idea, strong mystery, lots of action.  I'll keep you posted as I watch more.  B+ so far.

The Oxford Murders

The Oxford Murders was a little disappointing, but only because I got my hopes up.  John Hurt stars as a Wittgenstein-esque logician named Seldom.  Elijah Wood is an up and coming mathematics post-doc trying to convince Seldom to mentor him.  When Frodo's landlady (who is an old friend of Seldom's) is killed, they are dragged into an ongoing investigation of a logico-philosophical serial killer.  This movie has got to be good, right?  Sadly, it's a little slow, with too much talking and too little mystery, especially in the first half.  It's worth putting up with it, the second half is much better.  A solid B+ movie if you're into math, but probably only B- if you're not (but shouldn't you be?)

Agora

Here are some things I like: the Library at Alexandria, pretty costumes, Rachel Weisz, ancient Rome, conic sections (a math thing), philosophy, hot guys in togas, Christians portrayed as illiterate brutes. Turns out, if you put all of those things into a movie, you get Agora.  Rachael Weisz stars as Hypatia, a geometer and philosopher.  This movie is lusciously beautiful, costumes, settings, cinematography, all of it is detailed and lovely.  It is a little slow in the middle, and it seems pretty preachy on the whole "religion breeds violence" theme, even for me, but it's a great movie about an interesting time period.  Also, the directing is sometimes a little try-hard.  Well worth watching.  B+, but A- if you're into math or ancient Greece.

The Motorcycle Diaries

The Motorcycle Diaries is a lovely movie about youth and idealism.  I saw it in theaters many years ago.  It tells the story of two well-to-do Argentinian friends, Ernesto, a medical student, and Alberto, a "wandering scientist" who decide to go on an 8000 km motorcycle trip across South America in 1951. On their long journey, the pair encounter real poverty and injustice for the first time, and political ideologies start to take shape. The word "romance" actually means "adventure", and this is a very romantic movie. The acting, music and directing are all excellent, and the settings are astonishingly beautiful. Based on Ernesto's diaries of the experience, his is a slow, subtle, introspective movie that tells a romantic story of Ernesto becoming the man history knows him as, the communist revolutionary Che Guevara.  A+

One complaint: the subtitles go very fast sometimes.

Angela

My friend Meghan introduced me to this weird awesome movie many years ago.  Angela is the story of a strange little girl trying to make sense out of a senseless world. Angela is very worried that the Devil might come to take her little sister away. The girls mother is seriously mentally ill, and the girls are mostly left to themselves to find their way through a confusing world. I don't really know what else to say without giving hings away. The movie is beautifully directed and both the little girls are excellent in their roles. It's slow paced and a little creepy, but very moving and sad. This is for the sort of person who likes indy movies. It's not a horror movie or a blockbuster, just a small movie about how minds work. A-

It's not available the stream instantly, but if you like this, you'll also really like Innocence.

Into Eternity

I just saw this amazing documentary. It's not yet available on Netflix, but you can watch it on YouTube. It's about building an underground repository for nuclear waste in Finland, but it's really about the philosophical implications of trying to make something that will last 100,000 years (that's more than 5 times longer than the cave paintings at Lascaux; 20 times as long as the pyramids at Giza). It's haunting and beautiful, and everyone has these Finnish accents, which makes it seem extra ethereal. Highly recommended. A+

Immortality

I have a strange fondness for fiction about immortal creatures.  Preferably, not vampires, just humans that happen to live forever.  One of my very favorites  is Jerome Bixby's The Man from Earth.  It's a lovely, small movie that seems like it was probably written as a play.  It's entirely driven by dialog and good acting.  It takes place almost entirely in a small cabin.  A group of friends who are all academics are sitting around chatting, wishing their friend John a fond farewell.  He tells them an amazing story.  I can't really say more without giving anything away, but I've watched this movie several times, with many different people, and it's always been a hit.  (With my weird intellectual friends....this isn't a movie for everyone)  A+

 Tuck Everlasting is a cute kids movie based on a book I haven't read.  It stars that girl from Gilmore Girls.  It also features Ben Kingsley and Sissy Spacek.  It's a pretty straight-forward story about a girl whose over-protective parents keep her locked away.  She gets lost in the woods, and runs into an immortal boy.  Teen romance ensues.  B for adults, but probably A- for kids.











Highlander: Season 1 

When I was in high school, this was my best friend's favorite show (although, I think the tastiness of Adrian Paul had more than a little to do with that.) The show is interesting, but I don't feel like it does a very good job of capturing the crushing ennui of immortality.  The show goes downhill after season 2.  B  













The Fountain

I love this movie so, so, so much. The Fountain is hard to describe. First, it's beautiful. BEAUTIFUL! Second, it's by Darren Aronofski (Pi, Requiem for a Dream). It's about love, and the power of fiction, and the quest for immortality. A lot of reviews of this movie claim that it's about reincarnation, but it's not.  It is, no doubt, a little hard to follow.   It's one of those movies that you have to give yourself over to, and let it wash over you. It benefits greatly from a second viewing. It stars Rachel Weiss (Darren Aronofski's long-term partner) and Hugh Jackman, who are both excellent. A+

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



Being John Malkovich

Being John Malkovich: This is the weirdest, coolest, most inexplicable movie ever.  It's about a puppeteer/temp office worker who discovers, and then rents out, a portal into John Malkovich's brain.  It stars John Cusack (whom I nearly always like)  I don't know what else I can say, except that you should watch this movie.  A+