Drusilla ,'Conversations with Dead People'
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 love Lost in Translation, Magnolia, Trainspotting and American Beauty. I generally don't like Rom Coms.
I saw (but didn't hear) Leap Year on the flight to Venice. It looked okay, but Amy Adams played a ditzy, clumsy, incompotent woman, and I just don't beieve Amy Adams in that role.
Several years ago, a local theatre did a gender-neutral concert-style production of 1776 which had a female John Adams and a male Abigail which got rave reviews. If I had heard about the production before the last week it was running, I would have made sure to have seen it.
I've seen multiple productions of Taming of the Shrew that made Kate and Petruccio likable and sympathetic, so it's very possible, even within Shakespeare's original text.
I've seen multiple productions of Taming of the Shrew that made Kate and Petruccio likable and sympathetic, so it's very possible, even within Shakespeare's original text
It's not making them likable that's the problem, it's getting away from the message that good women are doormats.
Jonathan Miller did a Taming for the BBC with John Cleese as Petruchio. I really liked that version. I can't remember who Kate was off the top of my head though. Cleese was quite good, as he generally is in serious roles.
I liked the atypical-for-Meg Ryan Addicted to Love. Bitterness helps.
That movie was awesome.
Creepy stalker rom-com for the win!
I think more romantic comedies need guns and stuff blowing up. Or the unlikely pairing of creepy stalkers. You know. Mix it up a little, people! Otherwise it's all blah-blah-blah, whatevercakes.
it's getting away from the message that good women are doormats.
Yeah. The speech Petruchio makes Katherina perform near the end is pretty vile. I can't recall how the BBC remake version dealt with that, actually.
it's getting away from the message that good women are doormats.
Yeah, Kate was no doormat in the all-women production we saw.
it's getting away from the message that good women are doormats.
To me this is the difference between the text and the subtext. Kate is not a doormat. That is not how you think of her or remember her.
I often feel like conventional endings which tie things up in neat audience pleasing packages are seen as "the message" but the rest of the text and subtext subvert that message. Kate is memorable and likeable because she's a shrew. And Shakespeare obviously doesn't think she is a shrew. And to me her compliance at the end doesn't mean she's a doormat but rather that she's discovered sex and somebody worthy of her. She's happy; she didn't get a lobotomy.
I think more romantic comedies need guns and stuff blowing up.
See also, Mr. and Mrs. Smith.