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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Claudius gets dosed with poisoned mushrooms. No skewering.

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.

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

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.