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.

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-.

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.

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+

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-

The Way Back

As you know if you've read this blog, I'm a fan of survival movies and TV shows.  I have a new one to recommend.  It's called The Way Back, and it's about a group of men who escape from a Soviet gulag in Siberia and walk to freedom in India.  The sweeping vistas of Siberia, the Gobi desert, and the Himalayas (it was produced by National Geographic) would have been enough for me to watch this, but it was also beautifully written and acted.  Ed Harris, in particular, is amazingly understated and perfect.  A+

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+.

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.

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+

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is a story about a traveling magical street circus?  Count me in!  Heath Ledger, Jude Law, Johnny Depp...sounds good so far.  

This movie is beautiful.  The effects, the acting, the script, they're all beautiful (except maybe for the midget).  It's magical, and astonishing, and all about using art and magic to bring about liberation from social norms.  You would think that this would be an A+ movie, but it's kind of preachy, and its ideas about "right" and "wrong" are much less Luciferian that I would like.  


That being said, if you love Terry Gilliam, you'll love this movie, and if you hate Terry Gilliam, I imagine I just don't like you.  A-

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+

Ponyo: A Cliff by the Sea

I love this movie.  I first saw it in theaters, and then again on Netflix.  The animation is stunning, and the story is simple, sweet, and moving. It's by Hayao Miyazaki, who also made Spirited Away and  Princess Monoke (and a bunch of other stuff you've probably never heard of).  It's a little heavy-handed with the environmentalism (a flaw in several Ghibli films), but it really is an amazing movie.  Ghibli movies are one of the delightful things my live-in-animator has introduced me to.  While Ponyo isn't my favorite (that's a tie between Spirited Away and Kiki's Delivery Service), it's the only one I've seen in theaters. A strong A.


http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Ponyo/70106454?trkid=2361637#height2018