Gunn: The final score can't be rigged. I don't care how many players you grease, that last shot always comes up a question mark. But here's the thing. You never know when you're taking it. It could be when you're duking it out with the Legion of Doom, or just crossing the street deciding where to have brunch. So you just treat it like it was up to you—the world in balance—'cause you never know when it is.

'Underneath'


We're Literary 2: To Read Makes Our Speaking English Good  

There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."


P.M. Marc - Jun 16, 2004 9:05:48 pm PDT #3379 of 10002
So come, my friends, be not afraid/We are so lightly here/It is in love that we are made; In love we disappear

I used to watch Henry V, the One True Branagh version, about once a fortnight.

This was nine years ago, when I was in an odd headspace that required a lot of soothing repeat viewing. I'd read along as I watched.

Also on repeat that year: The Young Ones: Oil, Boring, and Flood; Sleep With Me; Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle; and Orlando.

Oh, and I was *reading* R&GaD all the time, but watching it only a few times a year.


P.M. Marc - Jun 16, 2004 9:07:13 pm PDT #3380 of 10002
So come, my friends, be not afraid/We are so lightly here/It is in love that we are made; In love we disappear

Derek Jacobi as Claudius. Growf.

See, I just giggled and giggled and giggled at his Big Death Scene, because it was SO the repeat of the Big Death Scene from Dead Again.

Which I should add to the above list of movies on repeat, if I switch the year from '95 to '93.


Connie Neil - Jun 16, 2004 9:08:05 pm PDT #3381 of 10002
brillig

Mentally editing the thing for clarity, I mean.

I'd read the play, but nothing was making sense. I kept being amazed during Branagh's Hamlet that all the subplots really were interconnected with each other. Yes, expendable if really necessary, but the added dimension to the main story left me, well, amazed. And I felt sorry for Hamlet.

Ophelia's graveside, where the Queen says she wanted Ophelia as Hamlet's bride, when at the beginning Polonius is telling Ophelia that she should stop dreaming of Hamlet, because they would never be able to be together ... gosh.


deborah grabien - Jun 16, 2004 9:08:34 pm PDT #3382 of 10002
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.

because it was SO the repeat of the Big Death Scene from Dead Again.

Backwards! Claudius predates!

But Dead Again was a perfect little injoke on Jacobi's part, right down to the stammer.


Connie Neil - Jun 16, 2004 9:10:03 pm PDT #3383 of 10002
brillig

Big Death Scenes--it's a fair cop. Sigh.

I've read and re-read "I, Claudius" and "Claudius the God," but I've yet to see the mini-series. It's probably at teh library, but I'd want to sit down by myself to watch it, so I can mutter to myself without having to explain things to Hubby.


P.M. Marc - Jun 16, 2004 9:10:05 pm PDT #3384 of 10002
So come, my friends, be not afraid/We are so lightly here/It is in love that we are made; In love we disappear

Backwards! Claudius predates!

I haven't had TIME to watch the DVDs!

Is Claudius skewered? Because it's the skewering that makes me giggle. If so, that's a three-fer!


Connie Neil - Jun 16, 2004 9:11:13 pm PDT #3385 of 10002
brillig

Claudius gets dosed with poisoned mushrooms. No skewering.


deborah grabien - Jun 16, 2004 9:12:45 pm PDT #3386 of 10002
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.

Connie, see, I always read Hamlet with an eye toward the history he was playing with. So the subplots there - the Players just kill me, and the incredible layers of hoyay in there - were never really more than a mild distraction to me; of course, the play itself needed an editor, I thought (waits to be struck by lightning for heresy).

My problem with Ophelia is that I never once bought her as in love with Hamlet, or Hamlet as in love with her. It was the one of Shakespeare's "great" tragedies that I thought got away from him, in a lot of levels.

But the core - murder! ghosts! implied son-mother incest longing! impled hoyay between Hamlet and (insert young male character of choice here!) obsession! - is just a great little chunk of melodrama. I wish he'd left it that way, and trimmed it up a bit.


Connie Neil - Jun 16, 2004 9:13:51 pm PDT #3387 of 10002
brillig

dammit, past midnight. Unfortunately, once I passed 40, sleep no longer became optional. Good night, all.


deborah grabien - Jun 16, 2004 9:16:17 pm PDT #3388 of 10002
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.

Is Claudius skewered? Because it's the skewering that makes me giggle. If so, that's a three-fer!

Bad fungi, which he basically knows is coming. But he plays it exactly as he played Claudius, right down to the stammer. Perfection.

Dudes, you have GOT to see the miniseries. There has never been anything quite like it. I mean, ever. Period. It's fucking brilliant and totally nuts and the scene in which John Hurt's barking mad Caligula reaches out and kisses his grandmother Livia goodnight - with one hand on her breast and his tongue down her throat and Sian Phillips' eyes (she played Livia) going wide with shock, because Hurt hadn't told her he'd be doing it - oh, lordy, lordy.

edit: OH! And I mustn't forget: Patrick Stewart, with HAIR! Playing Sejanus, and talking sexy-dirty.

When we wrote our ST:TNG teleplay, "Guinan in Wonderland", we had the head of the Romulan fleet confronting Picard. And we called him Sejanus.