Buffista Movies 6: lies and videotape
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
I adore Shakespeare but can't stand Dream. Or most of the comedies, actually. My tolerance for mistaken-identity-woods-running-about is pretty low.
I adore Dream, but will freely admit that the lovers are my least favorite bits of the play. But the rest of it is so much fun, I can't not love it. Particularly the Mechanicals and their horrible, horrible production of
Pyramus and Thisbe.
After you read it aloud a couple of times, you get used to how it actually sounds, and you can play it in your head that way.
I can read it quietly, but I prefer aloud. Every now and then, S and I will just get on a tear about Shakespeare, and pull out her Big Book O' Bevington Shakespeare and just start reading great scenes aloud with each other.
This all reminds me, I've been meaning to pick up Richard III with Ian McKellen, on DVD soon. I do love that version, mostly because he's so deliciously evil.
I've enjoyed theatrical and movie versions of several Shakespeare plays over the years. Including the '30s moviie version of As You Like It starring Elisabeth Bergner and a young Laurence Olivier. The good versions are the most likely to treat the text as a play to be performed and not Shakespeare to be worshiped.
It also helps if you don't take things too seriously. One of my favorite versions was a Hamlet-as-'50s-TV-sitcom done at the Maryland Renaissance Faire one year. Gertrude stole the show by constantly announcing that she was going to "go into the kitchen and bake some cookies." Until she announced that she was going to "go into the kitchen and -- drink heavily."
I like the Reduced Shakespeare Company's version of all the history plays Shakespeare did boiled down to a football game, with the crown as the football.
I saw McKellan doing Richard III live ... terrific! I also saw him doing a one-man show on Shakespeare, talking about performance he'd been in. I think the first live Sheakspeare I saw was in college, ca. 1971 - the Peter Brooke Dream ... which was wonderful.
I like the Reduced Shakespeare Company's version of all the history plays Shakespeare did boiled down to a football game, with the crown as the football.
"King Lear?? And he's disqualified for being fictional!"
I love the McKellen
Richard III
too. That's one of my favorite Shakespeare plays, since we spent five weeks on it in my Shakespeare on Film class.
One of my favorite versions was a Hamlet-as-'50s-TV-sitcom done at the Maryland Renaissance Faire one year.
I *love* that company! Leave it to Hamlet is one of their best ("Hello Mrs. Denmark, Hello Mr. Denmark..."). I also love their Henry V (pronounced, "Henry the Vee," natch).
Shakespeare in the Park is doing Midsummer Nights Dream this year. I'm seeing it, partly against my will - I've never enjoyed a comedy, on page, screen, or stage, and I've seen good performances. But I hope to be pleasantly surprised.
I saw Othello (at the Globe) and Macbeth (Royal Shakespeare Company, in Stratford-upon-Avon) during my trip. Both were excellent.
Sweeney Todd poster is cool.
Going to see the Hairspray movie tomorrow.
At Fringe a number of years back I saw a guy do a one man MacBeth populated entirely by Simpsons characters. It was pretty hysterical.
I think Branagh's Henry V is the hands-down best movie adaptation of that play. koffunlikehisHamletkoff
The best Dream I ever saw was the Fairbanks Shakespeare Festival, done outdoors and with absolutely no regard for period. When the mechanicals screeched up in a dusty-ass Suburban bellowing "I am Henry the Eighth, I am" and with rude slogans scrawled in the dust on the vehicle, I knew it would be fun.
