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Feb 10, 2015 11:34:28 GMT -5
Post by Wolfgang on Feb 10, 2015 11:34:28 GMT -5
I didn't like Throne Of Blood, but I rarely like rehashed Shakespeare. It almost always seems like Willie's version was better. Kind of like people who don't like the movies if they have already read the book. I'm in the category of people who hate movie adaptations of books I've already read. Speaking of Shakespeare, Ran was a great movie. It was based on Shakespeare's King Lear but since I never read King Lear, the movie came out awesome.
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Feb 10, 2015 11:51:59 GMT -5
Post by geddyleeridesagain on Feb 10, 2015 11:51:59 GMT -5
I didn't like Throne Of Blood, but I rarely like rehashed Shakespeare. It almost always seems like Willie's version was better. Kind of like people who don't like the movies if they have already read the book. I often find Shakespeare adaptations interesting - kind of bringing a fresh perspective to the Bard. I enjoyed Throne of Blood in that way, as I did Ian McKellen's version of Richard III in an alternative universe World War II setting. Joss Whedon did a really fun "Much Ado About Nothing" a couple of years ago, with the cast made up almost entirely of actors from his past work - Buffy, Angel, Firefly, The Avengers. I thought Scotland, PA (Macbeth, of course) was intriguing. On the other hand, adaptations can backfire horribly, like Julie Taymor butchering The Tempest, or the Baz Luhrmann/Leo DiCaprio version of Romeo and Juliet (which a number of critics liked, to be fair).
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Feb 10, 2015 11:53:22 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Feb 10, 2015 11:53:22 GMT -5
Rashomon employs one of my favorite literary devices: Telling the same story from different points-of-view.
I'm not a big fan of theater, but this is something it does very well. Experimental story-telling in general. One of my favorite plays (or series of plays) is The Norman Conquests. It tells the "same" story, but each play takes place in a different room. So when one actor exits from a scene in one play, he/she is likely to be entering a scene in one of the other two plays.
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Feb 10, 2015 11:55:48 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Feb 10, 2015 11:55:48 GMT -5
Whedon's Much Ado was good and interesting. But, man, that's one messed-up story. Not one of Will's best, imo.
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Feb 10, 2015 14:28:29 GMT -5
Post by #skoskers on Feb 10, 2015 14:28:29 GMT -5
I am a Kurasawa fan. Rashomon, Ikuru, Yojimbo, Sanjuro, Dreams, Seven Samurai, Redbeard -- these are all great films. Most of them star Mifune and also the other actors in Seven Samurai. My ex is Japanese and introduced me to Kurasawa and Ozu. Ikiru is one of my all-time favorite films!
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Post by Wolfgang on Feb 10, 2015 15:31:38 GMT -5
I have to watch Rashomon again but I remember some scenes being weird. Ghosts and stuff. But again, my memory is fuzzy on the details. I think I've seen Dreams but don't remember a single thing. The others, I haven't seen. What I hate about Japanese cinema -- and the same goes for Hong Kong cinema, Korean cinema, and stupid French cinema -- is that the acting can be way way over-the-top. The actors deliver bizarre facial and vocal expressions that border on the zany. It's something I can't get used to. Like watching Jerry Lewis over and over again. Rashomon is a story about an event that happens between three people. Two of the three are still alive, and they tell the story from their point of view. Then a mystic channels the ghost of the person who died, and we see the story from his point of view. So yeah, there was a ghost involved. Dreams is several (five, IIRC) highly visual short stories, mostly unrelated. It's more about the images than the stories -- kind of like real dreams, which usually don't make any logical sense. I know what Rashomon is. I just have this general feeling that the ghost scenes were very bizarre without remembering the details as to why they were so bizarre.
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Post by Wolfgang on Feb 10, 2015 15:51:47 GMT -5
Rashomon employs one of my favorite literary devices: Telling the same story from different points-of-view. I'm not a big fan of theater, but this is something it does very well. Experimental story-telling in general. One of my favorite plays (or series of plays) is The Norman Conquests. It tells the "same" story, but each play takes place in a different room. So when one actor exits from a scene in one play, he/she is likely to be entering a scene in one of the other two plays. This is one of my favorites, too -- all under the "unreliable narrator" heading. You could argue that the New Testament uses this technique. The four gospels. Families and friends tell Rashomon-type stories all the time because everyone's memory is inherently unreliable or biased. I also just remembered a famous Maurice Chevalier song, "I Remember It Well," that employs this technique (although in the song, there are only two characters):
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Feb 10, 2015 17:47:18 GMT -5
Post by mikegarrison on Feb 10, 2015 17:47:18 GMT -5
I didn't like Throne Of Blood, but I rarely like rehashed Shakespeare. It almost always seems like Willie's version was better. Kind of like people who don't like the movies if they have already read the book. I often find Shakespeare adaptations interesting - kind of bringing a fresh perspective to the Bard. I enjoyed Throne of Blood in that way, as I did Ian McKellen's version of Richard III in an alternative universe World War II setting. Joss Whedon did a really fun "Much Ado About Nothing" a couple of years ago, with the cast made up almost entirely of actors from his past work - Buffy, Angel, Firefly, The Avengers. I thought Scotland, PA (Macbeth, of course) was intriguing. On the other hand, adaptations can backfire horribly, like Julie Taymor butchering The Tempest, or the Baz Luhrmann/Leo DiCaprio version of Romeo and Juliet (which a number of critics liked, to be fair). I loved Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing. But that was because he didn't screw with it (much, anyway). I enjoy interesting casting and interesting cross-time setting with my Shakespeare -- I just usually don't want the words changed. I have to admit, I haven't seen Throne Of Blood for about 25 years now. Maybe I would like it more if I saw it again ... but I doubt it.
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Feb 10, 2015 17:49:04 GMT -5
Post by mikegarrison on Feb 10, 2015 17:49:04 GMT -5
Whedon's Much Ado was good and interesting. But, man, that's one messed-up story. Not one of Will's best, imo. Those are fighting words ... it's my favorite Shakespeare play!
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Feb 10, 2015 17:54:15 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Feb 10, 2015 17:54:15 GMT -5
You don't have to like the characters in literature, of course. But Claudio and Leonato are such jerks.
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Feb 10, 2015 17:56:10 GMT -5
Post by mikegarrison on Feb 10, 2015 17:56:10 GMT -5
Rashomon employs one of my favorite literary devices: Telling the same story from different points-of-view. I'm not a big fan of theater, but this is something it does very well. Experimental story-telling in general. One of my favorite plays (or series of plays) is The Norman Conquests. It tells the "same" story, but each play takes place in a different room. So when one actor exits from a scene in one play, he/she is likely to be entering a scene in one of the other two plays. This is one of my favorites, too -- all under the "unreliable narrator" heading. When I was but a young lad, I read almost every one of Alistair MacLean's novels. They fall into different groups, but several of the best are written from a first-person perspective and yet the point of view character is an unreliable narrator. It was an interesting technique. Years later, Timothy Zahn wrote a science fiction homage to Alistair MacLean where he used the same trick.
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Feb 10, 2015 18:06:57 GMT -5
Post by mikegarrison on Feb 10, 2015 18:06:57 GMT -5
You don't have to like the characters in literature, of course. But Claudio and Leonato are such jerks. They are generally not bad guys, just very shallow. The wedding scene, though, is a bit of pure meanness. But they have to do something like that so that Benedick can prove to Beatrice (and us) that he is really in love with her, as opposed to Claudio and Hero who are merely infatuated. He's willing to duel Claudio to the death to stand up for Hero's honor, but only because Beatrice needs him to do it. Don John is also a rather interesting character. He's not trying to get anything from anybody with his tricks, and they cost him dearly, but he just can't stand to see other people happy.
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Feb 10, 2015 18:12:22 GMT -5
Post by Wolfgang on Feb 10, 2015 18:12:22 GMT -5
I just saw Blue Ruin, a low budget revenge film. Really really good film. So, Hollywood revenge films are very fake and stupid and outlandish (See, e.g., Kill Bill), but this one takes the Hollywood out of the revenge genre. I was riveted the whole time.
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Feb 13, 2015 13:52:23 GMT -5
Post by #skoskers on Feb 13, 2015 13:52:23 GMT -5
Went to a private premiere of 50 Shades of Grey last night. I was the only guy in the audience, too. LOL
As a gay man, I thought it was pretty vanilla. The actor who plays Christian Grey, Jamie Dornan, is SPLOOSH! gorgeous! I never read the books (not my genre), but I'd probably see the next two films in the series just for Dornan.
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Feb 13, 2015 14:54:11 GMT -5
Post by azvb on Feb 13, 2015 14:54:11 GMT -5
Hoping 50 Shades is a flop. Porn with an R rating. Sheesh
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