We picked A Midsummer Night's Dream (2014) because it is both Shakespeare and Julie Taymor - our third time for this pairing, after Titus and Tempest. This time, it is basically a filmed stage play, which makes sense, because that’s what she’s known for.
The staging starts with a little person (Kathryn Hunter) getting into bed. Then the rude mechanicals attach lines to the sheets and hoist her up into the rafters. Then the play begins. Taymor has made many edits to the script, which you don’t notice too much, because the sound recording isn’t that good - my only issue with the way the play is staged. There seemed to be multiple cameras onstage, so we get a lot of handheld movement and closeups, without ever catching a glimpse of the cameras (the way you do in concert films, for ex). It actually was a little much in the scene where Egeus is demanding that Hermia marry Demetrius. I think this calmed down a little as the show went on, or I just got used to it.
The stage effects are the best part - billowing cloth for fog, for instance, or a projected ever-blooming flower. Black-clad kabuki-style stage hands hold pole for the forest, and use them to block or lead the poor lost lovers. And since it’s Taymor, there are puppet/costumes, deer and hounds for the hunt in the fourth act.
We didn’t recognize anyone from the cast, except David Haresden as Oberon. He is the Martian Manhunter on Supergril. Mandi Masden was great as Helena. Since she is a black woman, the quips about her being “not fair” were a little close to the bone. Most outstanding is Kathryn Hunter as Puck. She had the general feel of Joel Grey in Cabaret, but also she was a bit of a contortionist. Another sort of special human special effect.
It all ends, of course, with the craftsmen’s dramatic league performing Pyramis and Thisbe, quite humorously. But their Thisbe, Peter Flute, is played by Zachary Infante as an Italian (?) immigrant. He seems to get deeply into the role, bringing real pathos to the clownish part. A lovely way to end the play.
Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Tuesday, February 12, 2019
Strip Mall of Death
I love old movies, by which I mean black and white, pre-1960s talkies. I don’t mean “classics” - I love those too, but a movie doesn’t have to be especially good to scratch my itch. Take Seven Doors to Death (1944).
It starts promisingly - a shot rings out! A woman runs out of an apartment. She jumps on the running board of a nearby car, jams a gun in the drivers neck and tells him to drive. She directs him down a dead end alley, and runs off when he crashes! The driver, Chick Chandler, goes back to the apartment and finds a corpse. But when the police arrive, there’s a different corpse.
The new corpse is June Clyde’s lawyer. When she shows up at the police station the next day, Chandler recognizes her as the lady who made him drive his car into a wall. He has already figured out that the “gun” she had in his back was a flashlight (I had guessed lipstick, but I guess the light indicates that she was snooping).
So they start investigating. It seems that Clyde’s aunt was a rich eccentric with an Egyptian chest full of jewels that is currently missing. The suspects are all connected to seven shops arranged around a fountain. They include a shady jeweler and a creepy furrier with a line in taxidermy. It gets pretty confusing - there’s another corpse that is partially mummified, and a safe cracker who left fingerprints on the job, but was already dead. These little macabre touches give the movie an Old Dark House feel.
There’s also some comedy and romance, and it all gets wrapped up in 64 minutes flat. Not exactly memorable, but a pleasant waste of an hour.
It starts promisingly - a shot rings out! A woman runs out of an apartment. She jumps on the running board of a nearby car, jams a gun in the drivers neck and tells him to drive. She directs him down a dead end alley, and runs off when he crashes! The driver, Chick Chandler, goes back to the apartment and finds a corpse. But when the police arrive, there’s a different corpse.
The new corpse is June Clyde’s lawyer. When she shows up at the police station the next day, Chandler recognizes her as the lady who made him drive his car into a wall. He has already figured out that the “gun” she had in his back was a flashlight (I had guessed lipstick, but I guess the light indicates that she was snooping).
So they start investigating. It seems that Clyde’s aunt was a rich eccentric with an Egyptian chest full of jewels that is currently missing. The suspects are all connected to seven shops arranged around a fountain. They include a shady jeweler and a creepy furrier with a line in taxidermy. It gets pretty confusing - there’s another corpse that is partially mummified, and a safe cracker who left fingerprints on the job, but was already dead. These little macabre touches give the movie an Old Dark House feel.
There’s also some comedy and romance, and it all gets wrapped up in 64 minutes flat. Not exactly memorable, but a pleasant waste of an hour.
Monday, February 11, 2019
Ghost Story
Since we watched the live-action ScarJo version, I felt that we should watch the anime Ghost in the Shell (1996). Sadly, I think we kind of liked the live version.
They both start more or less the same way, with the Major, a cyborg police officer, stripping to her plastic skin and diving off a skyscraper roof. Naked, she can use the camouflage function of her skin. And falling off the building, she can crash through the window of the conference room, where a VIP is being arrested. It turns out he was being controlled through his cybernetic brain extensions by an entity known as the Puppetmaster.
Of course, the rest of the movie will be a pursuit of this Puppetmaster. And, of course, this will be difficult, since anyone you catch will turn out to be only another puppet. You can’t trust anyone’s identity, maybe not even your own. The major herself is mostly electronic, and doesn’t even know who she was before she became the Major.
There is a lot less of the Major’s search for her identity in this movie than the ScarJo version. There is also more about the team, and less about the Major. Overall, I found the plot hard to follow (OK, maybe I was just sleepy), in the way I sometimes do with Asian movies - they do less handholding than I expect. But I will say this: This is a gorgeously visual movie. Some scenes just stop and look around the city of the future, long meditative takes of a rainy city street, not moving the plot at all. Those were my favorite parts.
They both start more or less the same way, with the Major, a cyborg police officer, stripping to her plastic skin and diving off a skyscraper roof. Naked, she can use the camouflage function of her skin. And falling off the building, she can crash through the window of the conference room, where a VIP is being arrested. It turns out he was being controlled through his cybernetic brain extensions by an entity known as the Puppetmaster.
Of course, the rest of the movie will be a pursuit of this Puppetmaster. And, of course, this will be difficult, since anyone you catch will turn out to be only another puppet. You can’t trust anyone’s identity, maybe not even your own. The major herself is mostly electronic, and doesn’t even know who she was before she became the Major.
There is a lot less of the Major’s search for her identity in this movie than the ScarJo version. There is also more about the team, and less about the Major. Overall, I found the plot hard to follow (OK, maybe I was just sleepy), in the way I sometimes do with Asian movies - they do less handholding than I expect. But I will say this: This is a gorgeously visual movie. Some scenes just stop and look around the city of the future, long meditative takes of a rainy city street, not moving the plot at all. Those were my favorite parts.
Sunday, February 10, 2019
Chan the Man
On a personal note, it is my birthday month, and I am celebrating by making Ms. Spenser watch a bunch of movies from the queue that she ordinarily would veto. First up, Bleeding Steel (2017), a recent Jackie Chan movie, with all that entails.
Chan is a police officer in a near future Hong Kong. HIs daughter is in critical condition and he is racing to her side. But a call comes in that an important witness is being threatened, so he abandons his trip to see daughter.
The witness is a scientist, working on an artificial heart and some special blood, which he is testing on himself. The police arrive at the same time as a high-tech army, lead by a weird looking guy that seems to be invulnerable. Chan finally manages to blow him up - and then he gets the text that his daughter has died.
Thirteen years later, in Australia. Jackie is now working in a college food court, keeping watch over a young woman who —SPOILER— later turns out to be his daughter, resurrected with that high-tech stuff. Also watching her is a goofy blonde thief, Show Lo. Along with the bad guy Chan blew up and his army, there’s a sexy female assassin after Jackie’s daughter, and he reluctantly lets Show Lo help out.
Since this is late Chan, he does very few stunts or fights, and you can see stand-ins when he does. He still gets to demonstrate some impressive speed - there just isn’t a lot of it. There are a lot of car chases instead - Audis this time, instead of his usual Mitsubishis. I feel let down, like he sold out. Show Lo, a comedian/boyband singer, is obviously added for youth appeal, and he’s not bad. But he’s not Jackie.
The futuristic plot has a lot of odd twists - the title comes from a novel someone wrote that too closely resembles the actual mechanical heart/special blood thing, and there’s a laptop and so on. But we’ve seen worse and didn’t mind it. I don’t even mind not getting much in the way of fantastic fight scenes. But Jackie didn’t even seem to be doing any choreography. There was nothing intelligent or inventive about the fights or chases.
So the joke was on me. Ms. Spenser slept through this, and I had to watch all the way through.
Chan is a police officer in a near future Hong Kong. HIs daughter is in critical condition and he is racing to her side. But a call comes in that an important witness is being threatened, so he abandons his trip to see daughter.
The witness is a scientist, working on an artificial heart and some special blood, which he is testing on himself. The police arrive at the same time as a high-tech army, lead by a weird looking guy that seems to be invulnerable. Chan finally manages to blow him up - and then he gets the text that his daughter has died.
Thirteen years later, in Australia. Jackie is now working in a college food court, keeping watch over a young woman who —SPOILER— later turns out to be his daughter, resurrected with that high-tech stuff. Also watching her is a goofy blonde thief, Show Lo. Along with the bad guy Chan blew up and his army, there’s a sexy female assassin after Jackie’s daughter, and he reluctantly lets Show Lo help out.
Since this is late Chan, he does very few stunts or fights, and you can see stand-ins when he does. He still gets to demonstrate some impressive speed - there just isn’t a lot of it. There are a lot of car chases instead - Audis this time, instead of his usual Mitsubishis. I feel let down, like he sold out. Show Lo, a comedian/boyband singer, is obviously added for youth appeal, and he’s not bad. But he’s not Jackie.
The futuristic plot has a lot of odd twists - the title comes from a novel someone wrote that too closely resembles the actual mechanical heart/special blood thing, and there’s a laptop and so on. But we’ve seen worse and didn’t mind it. I don’t even mind not getting much in the way of fantastic fight scenes. But Jackie didn’t even seem to be doing any choreography. There was nothing intelligent or inventive about the fights or chases.
So the joke was on me. Ms. Spenser slept through this, and I had to watch all the way through.
Saturday, February 9, 2019
Fountain Heads
We watched the The Fountain (2006) because one of the nephews said something like, “If I had wanted to watch something off the wall, I’d have watched The Fountain”. I’ll take that as a recommendation.
The Fountain interweaves three stories, or one story over three eras. One is set in the time of the Conquistadors, when Hugh Jackman is searching for the Tree of Life from the Garden of Eden (or the Fountain of Youth or something). He was given this quest by Isabella, Queen of Spain, Rachel Weisz. This might have been more interesting if it had been more than one or two scenes, filmed at night. There main story is set in modern times, where Jackman is a neurosurgeon whose wife Izzy (still Weisz) is dying of brain cancer, and he’s not handling it well.
The final story is set in a dreamlike future, where a bald Jackman is floating in space in a bubble that contains an old tree. This is my favorite - it is mystical and hallucinatory, and therefore fun. To tie these stories together, this space travelller might be the surgeon from modern day become immortal, or possibly the reincarnation of the other Jackmen. That would make the tree Weisz.
The fact that Weisz gets reduced to a tree in this phase is a bit of a giveaway. In the modern phase, she is mainly a manic pixie dying girl. She implores Jackman to walk with her in the year’s first snowfall, but he has to hang around in his man-cave lab and obsess about how to cure her. He even gets a little shouty about it. He’s kind of right though. Tests on a South American tree bark finally show that it can cure cancer, and just as he gets it to her - she up and dies.
But this is a Darren Aronofsky movie - you might not be watching it for the plot. It does have some beautiful visuals, done practically - stellar nebulae are created with photomicrographs of colored liquids, etc. The Cloud-Atlas-style intertwining of loosely related stories is interesting too. There were some interesting twists in the story - Weisz talking about how the Mayan hell of Xibalba was believed to be a certain star, which turned out to be the dying nebula that space-Jackman was visiting. And maybe the whole movie is the novel Weisz is writing, that Jackman has to finish when she dies. But the overall weakness of the story made this, for me, more interesting than great. Still glad we watched.
The Fountain interweaves three stories, or one story over three eras. One is set in the time of the Conquistadors, when Hugh Jackman is searching for the Tree of Life from the Garden of Eden (or the Fountain of Youth or something). He was given this quest by Isabella, Queen of Spain, Rachel Weisz. This might have been more interesting if it had been more than one or two scenes, filmed at night. There main story is set in modern times, where Jackman is a neurosurgeon whose wife Izzy (still Weisz) is dying of brain cancer, and he’s not handling it well.
The final story is set in a dreamlike future, where a bald Jackman is floating in space in a bubble that contains an old tree. This is my favorite - it is mystical and hallucinatory, and therefore fun. To tie these stories together, this space travelller might be the surgeon from modern day become immortal, or possibly the reincarnation of the other Jackmen. That would make the tree Weisz.
The fact that Weisz gets reduced to a tree in this phase is a bit of a giveaway. In the modern phase, she is mainly a manic pixie dying girl. She implores Jackman to walk with her in the year’s first snowfall, but he has to hang around in his man-cave lab and obsess about how to cure her. He even gets a little shouty about it. He’s kind of right though. Tests on a South American tree bark finally show that it can cure cancer, and just as he gets it to her - she up and dies.
But this is a Darren Aronofsky movie - you might not be watching it for the plot. It does have some beautiful visuals, done practically - stellar nebulae are created with photomicrographs of colored liquids, etc. The Cloud-Atlas-style intertwining of loosely related stories is interesting too. There were some interesting twists in the story - Weisz talking about how the Mayan hell of Xibalba was believed to be a certain star, which turned out to be the dying nebula that space-Jackman was visiting. And maybe the whole movie is the novel Weisz is writing, that Jackman has to finish when she dies. But the overall weakness of the story made this, for me, more interesting than great. Still glad we watched.
Thursday, February 7, 2019
Oh Nurse!
Hotel Artemis (2018) is a very zeitgeisty movie. It is about a hospital for criminals, based in a hotel, like the Continental of John Wick, but has more of the character-driven indie feel of Bad Day at the El Royale.
It is set in future dystopian LA, where the whole city is wracked with water riots. Sterling K. Brown and brother Brian Tyree Henry are robbing a bank when it all goes sideways and they have to get to Hotel Artemis, which is a cover for a high-tech underground hospital. The Nurse (Jodie Foster) has been drinking all night, but her orderly, Dave Bautista, gets her to admit them. They are put in adjoining rooms Waikiki and Honolulu, which will become their pseudonyms. Charlie Day (Pacific Rim), a sleazy arms dealer, and Sofia Boutella, an assassin, are already in residence in Acapulco and Nice, recuperating. The hotel has a nice rundown Deco feel, with huge murals of the tourist locations the rooms are named after. Then, they are fitted with modern, but slightly junky, nanotech medical equipment, including 3-D organ printers.
But the power keeps going out, and Bautista has to go to the roof to fix it, because the Nurse won’t go outside. When someone comes to the door, hurt in the riot, it looks like she’ll have to go outside to bring her in, because it’s someone from her past - Jenny Slate (Venom), a cop. Of course, it is very much against the rules to let a cop into the Hotel Artemis. What’s worse, the hotel’s funder, the meanest mob boss around, the Wolf King of Los Angeles, is coming, and he’s Jeff Goldblum.
Jodie Foster’s nurse is a great character, drunk, broken, tottering along with tiny steps (I bet her feet hurt), but full of strength. Bautista, who goes by Everest (due to his size?), is another - very powerful, but always deferring to Foster with “Yes, Nurse”. The hotel itself is a great character, although it’s only sketched out with 5-6 sets. I didn’t really buy Goldblum as a dangerous criminal - he’s too Goldblummy for that. But he always welcome.
As for the plot, which I haven’t spoiled at all, I was just glad it wasn’t about fathers. In fact, it was about mothers - something a lot of scriptwriters don’t seem to care about. I guess the Artemis in the title should be a clue that this is a movie about wisdom and craft and women. Now, it isn’t exactly a great movie. Like El Royale, some parts seem sort of random or diversions. I don’t think the Acapulco/Nice characters did anything but supply atmosphere. But they were fun. I’ll take it.
It is set in future dystopian LA, where the whole city is wracked with water riots. Sterling K. Brown and brother Brian Tyree Henry are robbing a bank when it all goes sideways and they have to get to Hotel Artemis, which is a cover for a high-tech underground hospital. The Nurse (Jodie Foster) has been drinking all night, but her orderly, Dave Bautista, gets her to admit them. They are put in adjoining rooms Waikiki and Honolulu, which will become their pseudonyms. Charlie Day (Pacific Rim), a sleazy arms dealer, and Sofia Boutella, an assassin, are already in residence in Acapulco and Nice, recuperating. The hotel has a nice rundown Deco feel, with huge murals of the tourist locations the rooms are named after. Then, they are fitted with modern, but slightly junky, nanotech medical equipment, including 3-D organ printers.
But the power keeps going out, and Bautista has to go to the roof to fix it, because the Nurse won’t go outside. When someone comes to the door, hurt in the riot, it looks like she’ll have to go outside to bring her in, because it’s someone from her past - Jenny Slate (Venom), a cop. Of course, it is very much against the rules to let a cop into the Hotel Artemis. What’s worse, the hotel’s funder, the meanest mob boss around, the Wolf King of Los Angeles, is coming, and he’s Jeff Goldblum.
Jodie Foster’s nurse is a great character, drunk, broken, tottering along with tiny steps (I bet her feet hurt), but full of strength. Bautista, who goes by Everest (due to his size?), is another - very powerful, but always deferring to Foster with “Yes, Nurse”. The hotel itself is a great character, although it’s only sketched out with 5-6 sets. I didn’t really buy Goldblum as a dangerous criminal - he’s too Goldblummy for that. But he always welcome.
As for the plot, which I haven’t spoiled at all, I was just glad it wasn’t about fathers. In fact, it was about mothers - something a lot of scriptwriters don’t seem to care about. I guess the Artemis in the title should be a clue that this is a movie about wisdom and craft and women. Now, it isn’t exactly a great movie. Like El Royale, some parts seem sort of random or diversions. I don’t think the Acapulco/Nice characters did anything but supply atmosphere. But they were fun. I’ll take it.
Monday, February 4, 2019
Suckers
I’m not sure how, but somehow we discovered that there are a ton of heavy-metal horror comedies. Many are now in our queue. Suck (2009) is the first one we saw.
It’s written and directed by Rob Stefaniuk, and he is one of the stars: the leader of the punk(ish) band, the Winners, which includes his beautiful ex-girlfriend Jessica Pare. Setting up for a gig, Stefaniuk gets waylaid by creepy bartender Alice Cooper, who lays some cryptic banter on him. He also meets with their manager, Dave Foley, who recommends that they fire him - because he’s too chicken to fire them. But they are still on for the big festival in New York, where there are a lot of execs who might discover them.
But Pare goes to a party with a weird guy named Queenie after the gig, and comes back the next day different. More glamorous, hypnotically attractive. People are digging the band now. At first, Stefaniuk thinks she has started using, but it finally comes out. She’s been turned into a vampire. This leads to a little trouble at the US/Canada border, since she looks pretty bad during the day, but fortunately, the customs agent is Alex Lifeson of Rush. He says he was in a band and understands. Rock on.
They hang out with Beef, the lead singer for the Secretaries of Steak - played by arch-vegan Moby. He’s a bit of a jerk, so they feed him to Pare. Later, they go to record with Iggy Pop, a reclusive producer, who immediately knows what’s going on - he’s seen stuff. That’s most of the cameos - there are a few more, but I didn’t recognize them.
Wait, one more - Eddie Van Helsing is on their trail, and he’s played by Malcom McDowell. They do some flashbacks to his younger days by cutting in shots from O Lucky Man! Soderbergh did this with Terence Stamp, so it isn’t quite an innovation, but it is fun.
There’s a lot of cheepnis in this movie - mostly manifested by cheesy models shots for transitions. Also, they used a lot of dive bars for the dive bars the bands played in. I’m not too sure about the music - it isn’t very punk or metal. Some of it has an edge, but a lot is pretty “indie” sounding. You know, sensitive singer-songwriter stuff. Stefaniuk does do his own singing and it looks like he wrote a lot of the songs. He might have done better with some help.
But not on the comedy. This was funny and satisfying. We’ve got a bunch more queued up.
It’s written and directed by Rob Stefaniuk, and he is one of the stars: the leader of the punk(ish) band, the Winners, which includes his beautiful ex-girlfriend Jessica Pare. Setting up for a gig, Stefaniuk gets waylaid by creepy bartender Alice Cooper, who lays some cryptic banter on him. He also meets with their manager, Dave Foley, who recommends that they fire him - because he’s too chicken to fire them. But they are still on for the big festival in New York, where there are a lot of execs who might discover them.
But Pare goes to a party with a weird guy named Queenie after the gig, and comes back the next day different. More glamorous, hypnotically attractive. People are digging the band now. At first, Stefaniuk thinks she has started using, but it finally comes out. She’s been turned into a vampire. This leads to a little trouble at the US/Canada border, since she looks pretty bad during the day, but fortunately, the customs agent is Alex Lifeson of Rush. He says he was in a band and understands. Rock on.
They hang out with Beef, the lead singer for the Secretaries of Steak - played by arch-vegan Moby. He’s a bit of a jerk, so they feed him to Pare. Later, they go to record with Iggy Pop, a reclusive producer, who immediately knows what’s going on - he’s seen stuff. That’s most of the cameos - there are a few more, but I didn’t recognize them.
Wait, one more - Eddie Van Helsing is on their trail, and he’s played by Malcom McDowell. They do some flashbacks to his younger days by cutting in shots from O Lucky Man! Soderbergh did this with Terence Stamp, so it isn’t quite an innovation, but it is fun.
There’s a lot of cheepnis in this movie - mostly manifested by cheesy models shots for transitions. Also, they used a lot of dive bars for the dive bars the bands played in. I’m not too sure about the music - it isn’t very punk or metal. Some of it has an edge, but a lot is pretty “indie” sounding. You know, sensitive singer-songwriter stuff. Stefaniuk does do his own singing and it looks like he wrote a lot of the songs. He might have done better with some help.
But not on the comedy. This was funny and satisfying. We’ve got a bunch more queued up.
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