Dude, trust me—I'd be the first in line to crucify a Steve Carell comedy if it weren't good. This is almost like me recommending a Will Farrell movie

Dude.

It can wait for DVD though, right? It's not run-out-and-get-a-sitter-good, is it?

It's not run-out-and-get-a-sitter-good, is it?

It's not going to lose anything on the small screen, no.

Damn. From the trailers, I didn't really think it was that hysterically funny, but everyone's been saying it...is.

It really is. I just got back from seeing it with Z, and we were both crying with laughter at various points.

I also watched Julie Taymor's Titus today. It was interesting. Very pretty, and kind of cold. I know a certain distance is required from the script, but I think Taymor's too in love with her visuals. Still, interesting.

Ooh, I really liked Titus. Very cool movie.

Concur on the 40YOV love. Funny funny funny. Seth Rogan TOTALLY reminds me of my BF.

Seth Rogan TOTALLY reminds me of my BF.

I had to look up which part he played (Cal), but wow, you're lucky. Though I'd be slightly disturbed to learn Robin=Beth.

I agree with Jessica that it won't lose anything in transition to DVD, Plei. But if you have one of those days where you just have to get out and do something cathartic, I think spending two hours laughing uncontrollably at the movies is a good option.

I really liked Titus.

What worked for you and what didn't? I don't think I liked the framing story, especially the very last minute or so.

I LOVE Seth Rogan. He reminded me of Abe Benrubi.

What worked for you and what didn't?

Well, let me dig up what I wrote about it for my Shakespeare on Film class:

Part I

Some adaptations of Shakespeare choose to use the time period he delineates, like Olivier’s Richard III. Some choose to update it to modern times, like Loncraine’s Richard III. Taymor with Titus, however, does both. She creates this trippy surrealistic world where soldiers wear Roman armor…but ride motorcycles. I really loved the opening scenes with the soldiers, and they’re mechanical movements. Very cool. This kid is really strange, though. I’m not exactly sure what she thinks she’s doing with him. Obviously, he’s supposed to young Lucius, but what is up with the beginning? Him destroying toy soldiers, pouring ketchup on them which looks like blood, that’s all symbolically obvious, but then the explosion and him carried out into the coliseum…it’s really, really weird. And he doesn’t look like he knows what’s going on at first, and then he adapts. What’s his deal? Anthony Hopkins is great as Titus. He’s got the look and the voice for him. Saturninus is hilarious. I love what they’ve done with him. What’s funny is his supporters wave suspiciously German-looking flags, and you can see what looks like a big swastika (at least when framed in the shots with Titus) in his throne room. Lavinia was also well cast. She’s lovely, innocent and beautiful, and she plays the contrast between Lavinia at the beginning, sprightly and full of life, and Lavinia after the rape very well. You can see what it’s done to her. But what were they thinking when they cast Jessica Lange as Tamora? She’s not at all what I imagined. I imagined a raven-haired sexual being. Jessica Lange isn’t, well, sexy, really. She doesn’t have that seductive look about her like, say, Angelina Jolie. And well, what is up with that family? She kisses her son full on the mouth, and her sons engage in obtrusively homoerotic behavior. What fun. Oh, Aaron is awesome. He’s just right. I love his outfit: it’s a business trenchcoat. There’s a shot of him walking where the camera’s at his feet and you see his trenchcoat flowing, which reminded me of The Matrix. He talks to the camera a lot. The first time he says anything, it’s a voice-over, very narrator-like, and he’s perched high above the action. Damn, is Shakespeare obsessed with godlike figures? They’re bloody everywhere. I just like his attitude; he does the “I’m evil as hell, and it’s fun!” thing very well, and he’s all business. It was hilarious when Tamora tried to kiss him and he kept on talking.

So I e-mailed you before about my friend’s complaint that this whole thing was “intellectual masturbation,” and she later explained her comment. She felt it was all style with no substance. The visuals were there for the sake of being cool without any real meaning. I can see some of which she means. Taymor had a field day with this movie. For instance, why exactly is she being so brazenly anachronistic? She can’t pick a time period and stick to it. In the first scenes, the soldiers are Roman and Titus wears his armor; in later scenes, he wears a modern general-type outfit. Demetrius goes from having dyed-blonde hair to having bleached white hair. The cars in the parade are, well, I don’t know enough about cars to guess the decade, but they’re classic cars. Saturninus has a rather modern lighting system. So maybe Taymor’s deal is she’s trying to be all metaphorical and saying that Shakespeare’s plays are timeless or something. And then there are those random interludes of fire imagery and disembodied limbs and angels with horns and lambs and whatnot. To be truthful, I really don’t have a problem with a director doing cool things for the sake of it being cool. I am a simple man. You know Taymor died laughing when she thought of making the podium microphone say “SPQR” in silver letters. Making a movie should be fun, and she’s definitely having fun.

Part II

So, well, perhaps Jessica Lange was the right choice since she’s playing not so much a sexy siren than a Freudian mother. She plays the motherly side well. Aaron, similarly, plays a very fatherly figure, especially towards his son. The sense that he is a teacher to Demetrius and Chiron is also emphasized. I liked that they’re playing games in their little den of iniquity (I can’t remember where that phrase is from. I know I’ve heard it somewhere else.), Aaron pool and the kiddies arcade games. Well, only Chiron plays arcade games, but Demetrius has that pumping music he flails around to in his cage. I may have just misidentified them although Taymor goes to great lengths to distinguish the two, giving each a different hairstyle as well as a different manner of action. Demetrius, the long-haired one, representing the more animalistic one, acts so, while Chiron, short-haired, is more the Ryan Phillippe in Cruel Intentionskind of guy. But I think it was Demetrius who recognizes the words of Horace, which really seemed out of character. I’m really split on Taymor’s use of weird surrealistic thought sequences. We get another one, when Lavinia madly writes her rapists’ names down, blue images of Chiron and Demetrius morphing into tigers with Lavinia as a doe flash, set to the pumping music Demetrius had been listening to. While I can see her motivations in doing it, and I like the music she uses, because it’s the kind of music that appeals to me, I can’t help but feel like it’s a bit overdone. It’s just so…out there. I can hang with the “brilliant” crowd on this, or the “what the hell?” crowd as well. At this point, I would like to point out that Saturninus’ hair is very reminiscent of Gary Oldman’s in The Fifth Element, and his character is reminiscent of his as well. Kind of a kooky villain. The way Taymor handled the Revenge bit was kind of odd. At first, it was in that red dream world of Titus (Titus is red, Lavinia is blue, hmmm), and I thought she was doing it so that Titus was mad and imagining the whole thing. When the camera panned away as he was looking outside, I was very sure that there would be no one outside at all. It seemed like what was being set up. But then Tamora and sons were actually there, so I guess Taymor wanted to use her dream world one more time. And oh dear, the cut from the sons’ bodies to the two pastries cooling by the window… absolutely hilariously gruesome. Here, Lavinia actually offers herself to Titus, making it more apparent that this is what she wants, it’s what he must do for her. And the final death scene, set to that wonderful pumping music, can be described in Clue terms. Tamora: Titus, in the Dining Room, with the Knife (butterknife, that is. Yum.). Titus: Saturninus, in the Dining Room, with the Candlestick (three of them, and not exactly the way used in Clue, either). Saturninus: Lucius, in the Dining Room, with the Revolver (and the Spoon, let’s not forget that). But what was with that revolving spittle shot? Oh, well, it was cool, and I’m one for cool. And suddenly we’re back in the Coliseum, where we began, giving the impression that this whole deal was just one big show for the audience. The dead bodies are covered in plastic. The camera lingers on Lavinia for longer than any of the others, moving in a bit closer; she was the most horrid victim in all of this. And then young Lucius walks very slowly out into the New World carrying Aaron’s son. Very slowly. It was like a Gladiator ending. So, all things considered, this movie is definitely very visually interesting. Taymor does a lot of cool things because they’re cool, some for reasons I can discern, but I can tell she really enjoyed making this movie, and that’s something.