Bologna King

This is a recording of a performance of Romeo and Juliet on Broadway, and so must be approached with the mindset of someone attending the theatre, rather than the realism-obsessed eyes of the movie-goer. This is not an adaptation of Shakespeare's play; it is a performance of Shakespeare's play.

And what a delightful performance! The actors deliver their lines carefully but with an easy casual grace which brings the meaning out. The balcony scene in particular sparkles; both Bloom and Rashad, but especially Rashad, perform it with giddy excitement and exuberance.

The musical accompaniment, featuring a cello, is effective and inventive. The direction keeps the pace of the play moving at a breakneck speed, as it should. Cuts have been made, especially at the end, to keep the show close to the "two hours' traffic of our stage", and the audience is given no chance to get bored.

The only real downside for me was the performance of Brent Carver as Friar Lawrence. I could not help myself from yawning every time he spoke; he rattled off his lines, and frequently left no impression of their meaning.

This is the most recent in a series of Italian versions of Romeo and Juliet which starts with the 1955 film directed by Renato Castellani and the 1968 film directed by Franco Zeffirelli. They are all very pretty and this one is the prettiest, with extremely pretty scenery, a pretty Juliet and an even prettier Romeo.

That's about the best that can be said for it. Fellowes, the screenplay writer, has actually written some new scenes that are not bad examples of blank verse in the Elizabethan style, but they do not have the genius of Shakespeare, and the new scenes don't add much to the story. Replacing Shakespeare's words with his own, which he does far too often, invariably results in poorer and less interesting lines.

Unfortunately, the leads aren't persuading anyone that they are in love, and our attention is drawn instead to some good performances by the supporting cast, especially Damian Lewis's Capulet, which I think is the best performance by anyone as Capulet on screen ever.

So, generally, apart from Lewis, you are much better off watching Zeffirelli's film.

Imagine, if you will, a Shakespeare play performed by pro wrestlers, washed-up porn stars and the Rural Kentucky Trailer Park Players.

This is the film of that play. There is so much to tell about this inept production: the producers seem to have thought that "Moor" means "having a glass eye"; the director belongs to the school that holds that you can convey more meaning as an actor by waggling your eyebrows a lot; the music is provided by a cello, a bottom-of-the-line keyboard and a recording of a buzzing insect and appears to be unrelated to the action; the director seeks to set up an atmosphere of horror by having the actors laugh maniacally at apparently random moments and by having a pregnant pause after every line, even the ones without hope of pregnancy. The credits reveal that the production team consists of the actors, including the costume credit to the lead actress, a sure sign of the quality and sophistication of the production. The credit to the guy providing the gallons of fake blood ("Slaughterhouse gore courtesy of Tom Holley") is also telling (and hilarious).

Yes, folks, the fake blood is a major player in this production. There is nothing like the draw of heads and arms and ears being chopped off and blood spurting from the wounds, of people being stabbed repeatedly, and babies' heads being bashed in to gain you a faithful audience. If done realistically, this could be at least nauseating, if not horrifying, but alas there was no budget to make these effects look real so you can clearly see that the severed limbs and heads are rubber and the baby is a doll.

Mind you, they did work out a way to show a guy having his face flayed off while alive, which is pretty horrific. They were so proud of this effect they used it in their cover art. This is the culmination and climax of the blood and gore and so naturally, in order to give it maximum effect, the director put it in the first ten minutes of the film, so everything was downhill from there.

If what you demand of a film is lots of blood and over-the-top acting, you'll love this. You have the same sensibility as the groundlings who made this play, and Kyd's Spanish Tragedy, and the works of Webster hugely popular in Shakespeare's day and after. Shakespeare wrote this one for you, guys. And this production, ridiculous and inept as it is, is true to what he intended and who he intended it for.

That there are flaws in this attempt at Othello cannot be denied. Its length is not one of these--Orson Welles' Othello is only three minutes longer. Shaikh does not have Welles' genius for stunning visuals, but then, who does? However, there are some errors in the choice of setting for some of the scenes. In particular, the meeting with Ludovico is set in a kitchen--an intensely public and political scene (the public and formal nature of which adds to the outrageousness of Othello's conduct) is set in a private and domestic area.

Likewise, the story does not slow down at the moment of greatest tension (the whole scene starting with Othello's line "It is the cause . . .") Lines are cut everywhere, that is dictated by the time constraints, but it hurts to see then cut to speed up this scene. In this way particularly, the pacing of the story as a whole is off.

The most serious flaw is in the portrayal of Desdemona. This Desdemona seems to take contemptuous offence at Othello's accusations. Her demeanor reminds me of girls in high school. One might plausibly imagine a woman having this kind of reaction, and might find that the unswerving loyalty and devotion which Shakespeare wrote for this character to be implausible or antifeminist. But Shakespeare knew what he was doing. Desdemona's reaction may not represent the norm (as Emilia's does) but in the end she is right not to blame Othello because his jealousy is not natural to him--it has to be created by Iago. And her goodness makes it harder for Othello to do what Iago has convinced him he must do. The struggle between what Othello's mind (as influenced by Iago) and his heart (as influenced by Desdemona's behaviour) are telling him is the basis of the dramatic tension in the lead up to the murder. A Desdemona who blames Othello (wrongly) for falsely accusing her takes away half this tension and deflates the climax of the story.

Nevertheless, this telling of the story is clear and won't put you to sleep. I've seen much worse. Carlo Rota's performance is commendable and Nazneen Contractor as Bianca is splendid. Everyone else is at least adequate.

I'm giving an extra star here because Othello is portrayed as a North African. Ever since Paul Robeson this play has been a vehicle for the American Civil Rights Movement, not surprisingly considering its generally favourable take on miscegenation. In light of certain racist remarks in the 19th century suggesting that it would be impossible to visualize Othello as a sub-saharan African man, it was necessary to play him as such a man.

That has been done, and many times over, with great success, and it is time to turn the page and realize that Shakespeare almost certainly intended Othello to be Moroccan. Moroccans were hot news in Elizabethan England, but nobody knew anything about or had ever seen a sub-saharan African, and were not likely to write about them. What is more, the culture clash between Islamic North Africans and Westerners is now a hot topic, and talk about "honor killings" comes to mind when we see this Othello. It is to be hoped that this is the start of a trend, and we will see Othello's otherness explored in new ways in the future.

CSI:Crime Scene Investigation was a startling and surprising television show that quickly grew a large following, and almost as quickly spawned this, another show with the magic "CSI" at the beginning. But those who might think that the two shows are related by anything more than the words "CSI" and "Bruckheimer" are not watching closely.

CSI starts normally with the discovery of a body. We don't know anything about who the person is or how they got dead. As the song says, "Who are you?". What follows is a voyage of discovery as Grissom and his team carefully examine clues and Brass, the cop, calmly asks for explanations, presenting the witness with the confusing evidence. But sometimes there's a perfectly simple explanation and sometimes the person died due to suicide, or accident or some reason other than deliberate murder.

CSI is a detective show. It is most akin to Sherlock Holmes, and the fun of the story is usually in the explanation of why the person is dead.

CSI:Miami starts normally with the scene of someone getting shot. As often as not we see who is doing the shooting. As soon as possible Horatio Kane will suspect the killer, and, not having any evidence on which he could possibly charge him, interviews him and threatens him that he will "get him" and "make him pay". And sooner and later he does, possibly giving him a well-deserved extra-judicial beating along the way.

Miami is a cop show. It is cops versus robbers (or shooters, usually) and one watches to see that the "good guys" win. It is a classic feature of such shows that the "bad guys" "get off" because of the ineptitude of the justice system, and only the unconventional cop is going to get them by ignoring the rules and trusting his instinct rather than finding evidence that might convince a jury.

I have just heard of a man wrongfully convicted when he confessed to the bloody beating death of his parents after being questioned by a policeman along the lines of Horatio Kane. Unfortunately Gil Grissom wasn't there, since he would have noticed the complete lack of blood evidence on the accused, and would have known that he was innocent.

Now for all of you who have been brought up on cop shows CSI Miami may be just what you want. It's safe and predictable and, incidentally, easier to write. You get the Horatio Kane character who is great fun (and very easy) to parody. You get to know right away who is wearing the black hats and who is wearing the white ones so you don't have to deal with the possibility that things may not be what they seem. To a certain mindset, ambiguity is anathema. This show is for that mind.

The original CSI show on the other hand is full of ambiguity. Evidence that seems to lead one way is subject to another interpretation. One has to reassess one's ideas about what is going on four or five times in a show, and the final result is usually an interesting and well-written tale. Sometimes no crime has been committed; sometimes there just isn't enough to convict even when a crime is involved. It doesn't matter. CSI, unlike Miami, is not about "getting the bad guy" but about finding the truth.

Don't confuse the two.

Measure for Measure is one of Will Shakespeare's unknown treasures, so anyone who would even attempt a screen adaptation deserves our applause. The more so when, as here, the effort is reasonably successful.

The screenplay, all Shakespeare (although not all Measure for Measure--there is a brief dialogue borrowed from Romeo and Juliet) cuts away the diversions from the main plot, which unfortunately means that we lose most of the comic relief. Everything needed to understand the story is there, however, and it gets more punch from being less long-winded. The focus on the main plot means that there is little to divert us from the main characters. Isabelle is extremely well-played by Josephine Rogers, full of inflexible moral outrage both at Angelo and at Claudio; so much so that we are the more surprised when she bends at the end. Daniel Roberts' Angelo captures both his priggish exterior and tortured interior. Most interesting is the Duke (Simon Phillips) who is clearly shown at the beginning to be as corrupt and licentious as his subordinates. His objective in seeking reform is therefore clouded with hypocrisy, a fact which dogs him to the end, making the ending unsatisfying even when it is conventional, both to the characters and the viewer.

The supporting cast is mostly solid, although the actress playing Marianna is apparently Swedish and is hard to understand both due to her accent and her wooden performance. Her makeup is also bizarrely overstated, to the extent that she might have been intended to be a goth, but no explanation is given for why she might be Gothic.

Makeup is a recurring problem. Just about everyone looks unhealthily pale and Claudio in prison is the strangest of all, having cherry-red blood smears on his pasty white face. About the only time light and makeup get together is when Isabelle in the convent receives Lucio's plea to help Claudio. The brown and gold tones of the wooden background are nicely mirrored in Isabelle's skin tones.

Perhaps the unhealthy pallor is to underline everyone's unhealthy lifestyle.

The setting at a modern army base is intriguing, and perhaps was chosen to contrast a lack of discipline with an institution in which discipline is traditional and important. However, Shakespeare's setting in a red light district made the depravity seem natural whereas here it was a bit strained.

Thoughtfully written and directed, and acted with passion. It's worth a look if you can find it.

One might prefer Branagh's Iago, or Imogen Stubbs' Desdemona, or Olivier or Robeson's Othello, but word for word, gesture for gesture, and character for character, this is the finest production of Othello one can find. Janet Suzman, the director, has done a meticulous job of reading the text and of making every word count, without ever losing track of the main story. In particular, the relationship between Iago and Emilia is fully explored, making her final outburst an explosive mixture of an attempt to atone for her silence and the release of pent-up emotions arising from her abusive marriage.

Every single actor and actress hits his or her mark and invests every word with passion. There are no weak links here. Richard Haddon Haines' Iago is smooth and conciliatory with the characters on stage but sneering and hateful in his soliloquies which are delivered not as musings but as intimate confidences to the audience. His offhand and unprovoked destruction of Bianca underlines his randomly destructive nature. John Kani is a powerful Othello, despite being quite a small man compared to the other actors. His beautiful Bantu accent emphasizes how much of an outsider he is in the Venetian world. The searing pain he suffers as he is torn apart by conflicting emotions is exposed as a raw and bleeding wound.

This is a film of a production staged at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg before the fall of apartheid. The story of a black and white couple who ought to have had a joyful and perfect marriage being torn apart by vindictiveness, jealousy (for Iago is jealous of Othello), and racism resonated strongly with that audience. It also heightened the awareness of the actors of the emotional stakes being played for. But even without knowing why, it is apparent on the face of the play that the actors have invested it with the deepest possible significance.

As a play, this production was well-designed for an open thrust stage with a sparse multi-level set which conveyed the various scenes effectively. When filmed, the set was sometimes used to even better advantage, especially in suggesting the fleet at sea. However, the sound recording is quite uneven with some lines sounding as if they are being delivered from the bottom of a well or so muddied that it is difficult to make them out.

One small cavil--Suzman has Othello do himself in by stabbing himself in the neck. Such a wound would result in blood spraying everywhere, something neither practical to imitate nor satisfying artistically where it is desirable to keep Desdemona as white as possible. The lack of blood was not believable with that kind of wound. She should have had him stab himself somewhere further removed from main arteries.

Small objections indeed. This is far and away the most moving Othello going and is strongly recommended. The 9 out of 10 rating is really 9.5.

There isn't much call for the Merry Wives out there, and this is one of your few options. The makers have just filmed a stage performance with no audience (too bad--an audience would have helped get the viewer into stage mode). This is apparent from the sparse mock-Tudor set, the overblown makeup (Slender's makeup looks like he's been hit in the face with a bowl of porridge and Bardolph's supposed pockmarks look like a deep tan) and the exaggerated acting. With one notable exception, the actors all seem to be playing the part of actors playing at Shakespeare. Granted, it's low comedy with plenty of slapstick but even at that, there is very little convincing performance. The director has worked very hard at thinking up little bits of business which provide amusement, and the fight choreography is wonderfully ridiculous, but this does not cover the fact that the actors frequently don't know how they are supposed to be reacting to each other. There are some very odd accents going on here: Dr. Caius is clearly French, but you would be hard pressed to spot the Welsh parson Sir Hugh as a Welshman The exception is Lisa Barnes as Anne Page, who is very persuasive at all times.

The editing, such as it is, is crude, with the actors' faces noticeably changing expression from one shot to the next.

An introduction and conclusion by John Houseman was included with my DVD. I strongly recommend skipping this completely.

All in all, it could serve as an introduction to the play and is not unwatchable. That's as excited as I can get about it.

Norm Foster is Canada's most popular playwright, and The Foursome one of his more popular plays. It's a play that presents a good opportunity for a screen adaptation, but is a challenging play to adapt. The play takes place exclusively at the tee of each of the eighteen holes of a golf course, involves only four characters and consists almost entirely of dialogue. A film using the play as a screenplay would be dull indeed, as the audience expects the film to use its ability to show us different scenes and more complex action to tell the story.

This screenplay fails to translate the play effectively to the screen, and for two main reasons. First, the play is an ensemble work--the merciless macho banter of the golfers touches nerves in all four characters and forces them to justify their lives. Here there is a focus on the character of Rick which skews the balance among the characters. Second, the adapter has added the characters of the golfers' wives and invented subplots and interactions among them, added a gay course marshal, added a chase scene involving golf carts and added an extra 18 holes of golf. None of these additions help the real point of the story which is the exposure of the reality of the golfers' lives (often kept as carefully guarded secrets). While making room for all of this rubbish, the screenwriter has cut away plot point after plot point from the stage play, effectively gutting the characters, especially Ted, Donnie and Cam, and leaving empty caricatures. At the same time the carefully laid foundations in the play have been so eroded that the characters' actions (and especially the denouement) seem arbitrary rather than natural for them. For an example, in the play we hear that Rick gave Donnie a wedgie at the reunion. Instead of showing us this incident, which tells us a lot about Rick and Donnie and their relationship, and which would be effective cinematically, the whole event disappears. Bits of Foster's dialogue float to the surface from time to time but usually missing context and sometimes missing the punchline. An exception is Rick's plan to sell Brazilian Pepper Trees which arrives intact and hilarious.

Considering the weak script, the actors made a reasonably good job of this. I was particularly impressed with Paul Jarrett's Ted (the role Foster himself played in the theatrical debut) and with Nicole Oliver as Cam's wife Lori. Production values were mostly solid throughout. I thought the opening titles, though clever, were a little hard to read.

Generally this was a squandered opportunity to do a really good adaptation of a very good play. A pity.

Gloria (Kristin Scott Thomas) is a woman with problems. Her clergyman husband seems not to notice that she's there, and she resents his job, her daughter is sex-mad and her son is being bullied, and she is deprived of sleep by the incessant yapping of the neighbour's dog. Then into her life walks an angel in the form of a new housekeeper, Grace.

Thomas does very well with the central role in the film, Rowan Atkinson is absolutely brilliant as the mild-mannered clergyman Walter, and Maggie Smith is amazing as always as Grace.

This is not a side-splitter comedy but it is certainly a comedy, as it deals with a number of serious issues of religion and morality with a light touch. Primary among these issues is the age old question of "whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings of arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing, end them." Gloria's approach to her "sea of troubles" is the approach of Job, and sure enough we hear echoes of this as Walter composes a sermon referring to the Book of Job. Grace has another approach.

Having a character who is a vicar enables the filmmakers to slip such Biblical references naturally into the script. It is a definite treat to hear Atkinson read the Bible (and in circumstances which make the viewer actually listen to what is being said!). Even with the Bible-reading, though, do not make the mistake of thinking that this is a film for young kiddies or prudes.

The film is so deftly made that there is always a lighthearted tone no matter how dark the subject matter, and the acting ranges from solid to exceptional. It's not the greatest film ever made but it is engaging and enjoyable.

The viewer would do well to compare this film with Frank Benson's British film of the same play released in 1911, one year before Warde's. Both the similarities and differences are illuminating. The costumes are of course very similar--it would be years before modern dress Shakespeare would get onto film. The way the scenes of Edward's court are set are very similar. Such scenes were the staple of Victorian Shakespeare. Both films use narrative title cards to explain to the viewer what is going on; later in the silent era they would contain dialogue more than narration. The similarities show us what was the state of Shakespearean production and cinema standards at the time.

The major difference that one sees is that Benson tries to put you in row fifteen of the Drury lane theatre during one of his performances. The camera never moves and every shot is a long shot. You can't see Benson's face in any of them. All have what is clearly a stage set behind them, and the actors move from side to side primarily because they feel constrained by the backdrop and the footlights.

Warde's approach is best shown in a scene where Richard is riding to the Tower to do in Henry VI. It is shot outside on location. The camera is raised above head level. Richard rides from the distance toward the camera passing behind the camera to the right. It is a scene only possible in film; you could never see such a thing on stage.

Warde's camera is consistently closer to the action than Benson's so that the actor's faces are usually visible. He makes use of high level cameras to see Richard on a balcony and a crowd below and intercuts these with interiors so that one imagines the balcony to be attached to the interior.

In other words, the scenes here are conceived cinematically not theatrically. Warde was not the first to do this even in a Shakespeare film but it does make his film easier and more interesting to watch than his contemporary's.

Alas, his characterization of Richard leaves something to be desired; he stomps about like a troll from a Brothers Grimm story. Before closeups became standard, the only tool an actor could use in a silent film was his bodily movement, and Warde's lacks the subtlety to convey anything more than a caricature. As a result the film, despite being of historical interest, reasonably well paced and shot with a cinematic eye, will fail, I think, to really grip most modern viewers' interest.

There are two plots going on in this film. The first is like the movie Clockwise or a bad dream which you have probably had in which you have a deadline to meet in some other place but every possible obstacle seems to prevent you from getting there. Part of the dynamic is that at every stage the protagonists are faced with the choice: do I keep trying to get there or do I give up now. Every time you choose to keep trying the stakes are raised, so that eventually the incentive to quit, no matter how strong, cannot outweigh the investment made in carrying on. "We've come this far; we can't quit now" trumps every objection, even those based in breaking the law or standards of propriety.

Once the Hoovers reach their destination, a new plot situation takes over. Now we are at the competition where our hero (or in this case our heroine Olive)is the underdog facing overwhelming competition. Ah, we've seen this situation before, haven't we? Rocky, Cool Runnings, The Mighty Ducks, Seabiscuit, Sister Act II?

The thing is that while the road part of the plot was going on the assumptions which support the competition plot have been steadily undermined. At the start the father Richard represents the hackneyed standard American attitude to winning and losing: life is about winning and losing and if you're a loser you have only yourself to blame. Again we see this in Frank's suicide attempt because he might not be the number one Proust man in America. We see it also in Dwayne's love of Nietzsche (the philosopher who said that winners have the moral high ground) and his determination to cause himself pain in order to get into flight school. Richard supports Dwayne, but it doesn't take long for us to start to really dislike Richard and what he stands for. Our dislike for Richard makes us like the grandfather more (more than we probably should, as we ultimately realize) because his character is so strongly contrasted with Richard's.

By the time they get to the beauty contest Richard's philosophy has been beaten to bits. Both Dwayne and Frank have come to the fore as spokesmen for a new philosophy which we hear in the line, delivered to try to persuade Sheryl to pull Olive from the contest, "I don't want THEM judging her." There is no reason to submit yourself to the judgment of others, especially as their qualifications to judge may be dubious. In the face of the new philosophy, we are not rooting for a cliché ending.

Clearly, this film is not a typical comedy; indeed, I would recommend that people go into it not expecting any humour at all. People who are painfully struggling with the fundamental principles of their lives are not all that funny. The characters are dealt with more thoroughly, the themes considered more fully, than we usually get in comedies. The solid acting throughout keeps the viewer interested in the people, especially the heroes Frank, Dwayne and Olive. I don't think that it should be ranked as one of the top 250 films of all time, but then isn't the IMDb top 250 just another beauty pageant? Does it matter whether this is number 251? Not really. I think the film tells its story and makes its point which is all that should matter. Check it out.

The proof of the pudding, they say, is in the eating. The proof of the movie is in the watching. Most of the top 250 IMDb movies have kept me glued to my seat--with this one I found my mind wandering to that jigsaw puzzle I hadn't finished or the possibility of some popcorn. I found I had very little interest in the characters or in what was going on.

I asked myself why. Technically the film is very good. The actors all hit their marks and Samuel L. Jackson is particularly outstanding. I liked Maria de Madeiros also as Bruce Willis' wife Fabienne. The camera work is occasionally interesting, as the long scene where we watch Bruce Willis listen unemotionally to Marsellus go on. Interesting, certainly, but rather pointless.

Indeed, that's the problem: so much of what goes on is pointless. It's a big long shaggy dog story, told by one of those irritating people who can't get the story straight and have to keep going back: "Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you about that. Well, you know what I was telling you before . . ." I tried to find some justification for the higgledy-piggledy way in which this story is told. It does result in the best scene being the last one. But if this scene was the point then why not design the script so that the action is seen to be moving toward this goal and cut out everything that happens afterward? In the end I don't think Tarentino knew what story he was telling and that's why so much is so pointless.

The scenes of Butch attempting to control his temper, of his dilemma whether to help Marsellus, and the final scene in the restaurant are all good and entertaining as far as they go but they don't fall into a coherent framework. And the rest is quite dull.

The dialogue is not witty or clever although it occasionally has its moments. The constant profanity is as pointless as the rest; the point of profanity is presumably to emphasize what one is saying, but if everything is emphasized, nothing is. The mind becomes numbed by it. It's like someone who shouts all the time. Eventually you stop listening. The quotes give you a pretty good idea of what the dialogue is like: when "Shut the f*ck up, fat man!" is listed as a memorable quote, you know how inane the conversation is.

That this poorly composed script should have won an Oscar is a pretty clear indictment of the Academy.

It is a characteristic of great art that it gives one a lot to think about. This film is no exception. There are reflections here of 1984, Brazil, and the Phantom of the Opera, but the story told here is not any of the above. It is also highly literate with constant allusions to and quotations from classic writers (especially Shakespeare). Here are some of the points to ponder: 1. What does the mask represent? Is it V's persona as a terrorist? Is it to make him an abstraction or an embodied idea? Or an Everyman? (Evey's comment at the end of the film reinforces this) A romantic relationship with a man in a mask (as in Phantom) probes questions of how much you need to know about someone before making an emotional commitment.

2. How do fascist states work? We see a lot of familiar themes here: the brutal secret police, torture, restriction of civil liberty, censorship and propaganda. All very intentionally topical and a comment on the rise of fascism especially in the US. But behind that is the reiteration that the basis of the fascist state is fear: fear of terrorists, epidemic diseases and so on, that allow the government to justify using its repressive means and to perpetuate the fear. How does one escape the domination of fear? What kind of personal apotheosis is that? What does it enable one to do?

3. What is a terrorist? How does that differ from a freedom fighter? Is terrorism acceptable in some cases? Is hijacking a television network in order to bypass censors and make a speech a terrorist act? What is the difference between justice and revenge? Which one is V after?

4. Stephen Fry's character Gordon is a lot like V but a lot different as well. The contrast is interesting.

Aaah, this sounds too much like school notes; see the film--it will raise all of these issues and more in a much more interesting way than I could.

This is certainly not a great movie. It's not even a good movie. But it is an entertaining movie which is fun to watch.

Here's some reasons you might want to watch this: 1. It's fun, in a crazy way. The director's choices are so weird that they can be funny and it is entertaining just to see what he'll come up with next.

2. If you find inept film-making charming or amusing this will be worth it.

3. If you're open to new outlooks on Christ and Christianity, you might find it interesting.

Here's some reasons you might want to stay away: 1. If you can't stand bad film-making this will drive you nuts. The script is terrible, the concept is goofy, the acting (except Phil Caracas and Maria Moulton) is awful, photography and editing are dreadful.

2. Avoid if you're squeamish about lesbians or blood and gore.

3. If you're looking for a film that makes fun of Jesus, this isn't it. At the beginning there are perhaps a few laughs from a guy looking like your stereotypical Jesus doing kung fu but for most of the film the stereotype is jettisoned and the character of Jesus is rebuilt from scratch (good thing too, as the joke would have become old really quickly). This new Jesus is a sympathetic enough guy and the juxtaposition of his new persona with elements of the stereotype can be quite funny. Personally I'm fond of the nightclub singer Blind Jimmy Leper pointing out "our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ" as a celebrity in the crowd, followed by polite applause.

Don't expect too much, and you can have a good time with this.

Shot on video to save money, Richard the Second shows many signs of a filmmaker dealing with inexperience and a low budget. The sound is inconsistent, sometimes being so muddy that it's hard to hear, sometimes disappearing when an actor turns his head to where there isn't a microphone. The editing has similar problems: there are way too many fades to black, one leading to about six seconds of silent blackness. One scene begins with a freeze frame; there are changes to slow motion out of nowhere. You can often see cuts between a wobbly hand-held and a dolly camera.

And yet if you can get beyond these superficial problems, there is much to enjoy about this film, even technically. The lighting is all natural- sunshine and firelight, and this turns out to be a bonus. In one scene Richard speaks in his cell as a beam of sunlight slices through the dark and illuminates part of his face- an awesome image. There are some great shots of sunrises over the ocean including the splendid ending.

The intelligent use of the location, an abandoned WW II fort near Boston, now overgrown, together with costuming everyone in Army Surplus fatigues (including a West Point cap for a crown), and supplying them with a broad array of weapons, gives the sense that this is some modern banana republic. It neatly ties the military coups of today in with the military coup engineered by the future Henry IV in the fifteenth century.

The screenplay is all Shakespeare, but ruthlessly cut to remove the blither that slows this play to a crawl. Even the most famous speech from the play (John of Gaunt's "this earth, this realm, this England") has been cut and the scene has much more energy for the lack of it. Within the corners of the Shakespeare play, the director finds a moving and even exciting story of the loss of authority by an indecisive monarch who appears to suffer from bipolar disorder, as it's now called. Richard's arrogance collapses into self-doubt as he questions the nature of kingship and his own personal destiny as a king.

Matte Osian's Richard is understated but moving and he gets good support almost all of the time, particularly from Kadina Delejalde's Isabel, Frank O'Donnell's Gaunt and Robert McCafferty's sinister Northumberland. Also very impressive in a small role was Neil Tadkin as Ross.

This is an interesting movie if you are not a Shakespeare buff and a fascinating one if you are.

There are two reasons why you might want to watch this version of Midsummer Night's Dream. One is Helen Mirren. She is lovely and perfect as Titania throughout and her delivery of the long monologue to Oberon in Act 2 Sc. 1 does not lose the viewer's attention for a moment. That is an awesome feat considering what a difficult passage it is.

The other shining moment occurs in Act 3 Sc. 2, starting about when Demetrius wakes up to find that he is in love with Helena. The ensuing lines are delivered over top of each other, as the lovers engage in a confused quarrel. The actors add to this by pushing each other, trying to get around or over or under to talk to someone other than the one that's talking to them. Great directing and perfect timing make this scene race by like I've never seen it before.

These two shining moments hardly make up for the rest of the performance which lacks sparkle. Some parts are sung (Puck's "Jack shall have Jill" speech) which is just incongruous. Perhaps the fact that Starveling sings his part as Moonshine is a bit of self-satire.

Which brings me to the rude mechanicals who are particularly lacklustre. Geoffrey Palmer is absolutely wasted here. "Pyramus and Thisbe" is absolutely boring. There are exactly two bits of comic business (Bottom steals food from the wedding table on the line "'Deceiving me' is Thisbe's cue" and Starveling as Moonshine tries to upstage Bottom by hanging the lantern in front of his face) and they aren't exactly hilarious. If it's not funny, it should at least be moving, but although Flute (a very feminine Flute) tries, the director has cut most of the wedding party's backchat and they seem to have little interest in what is going on on the stage. Small wonder really.

There's nothing about the sets and costumes, which suggest the English Civil War, to get us excited. The entire first scene is set in a library against a background of a ticking clock. What a great way to remind us how slowly the scene is moving!

I had considered writing this review in French as it is a French-language film, but I chose English instead because I think this film should be brought to the attention of a wider audience. (si vous êtes francophone, vous devez le voir. Il n'y a pas d'excuse.) It is, of course, a wonderful tour de force for actress Claudine Mercier who plays the roles of all four finalists in a reality-type talent show, as well as the previous winner. All characters are well drawn and strongly delineated. The pacing and plot structure which moves from one contestant to another in rotation never loses its ability to draw us on while making us care more and more about these women and their situations. Little jokes and asides arise at every turn to keep us chuckling and before we know it, we are facing questions of what it means to be successful, what spectators of these shows are thinking, and what the real reality is behind "reality television." So far, unfortunately, it has been issued on DVD without English subtitles. If you don't speak French, watch it anyway with a French-speaking friend. The acting and cinematography is so good that it will tell you most of the story without translation

The best children's literature is deep enough that it is really adult literature. The best children's films contain thought-provoking material for adults. This is one of those films.

We are introduced to Sarah (played to perfection by Jennifer Connelly--I have never seen a more brilliant representation of a teenaged girl) as a girl whose fantasy life, based on a book "Labyrinth", so engages her that she forgets about her babysitting obligations. She views her stepmother as a "wicked stepmother" in a fairy tale. Soon she will wish that the goblins (representing her fantasy life) will take away her brother (representing her real-life responsibilities) altogether. As King Lear says, "That way madness lies." She enters the fantasy world to recover her reality.

What ensues is a lot of fun, and is as amazingly imaginative as one would expect with such names as George Lucas, Jim Henson, Brian Froud and Terry Jones in the credits. The fantasy life, represented by the Goblin King (The understated menace of David Bowie's performance as an actor is underrated) appears as a labyrinth trying to divert Sarah from her goal. The labyrinth becomes less literal as her journey continues and the diversions include a romantic (not sexual) fantasy with the Goblin King and the temptation to lock herself into her room and to keep the world outside.

THIS MAY BE A SPOILER: Finally the Goblin King explicitly offers the comfort of abandoning her real-life responsibilities to embrace her fantasy life: "Obey me, and I will be your slave." She responds to this paradox by expressly accepting responsibility for her own life. By doing this she has attained adulthood by putting fantasy into perspective. Adulthood does not mean abandoning fantasy (the fantasy characters are still alive) but keeping it in its place; Sarah can now address her duties as a babysitter, a sister and a daughter.

END SPOILER The movie would have been much better if the whole "Magic Dance" sequence were cut. The song isn't that great, Bowie looks like a git prancing around (spoiling his performance elsewhere), it slows the action down and moves the plot forward not one whit. The ballroom dance segment is also quite long; guys will tire of it much more quickly than girls and young women.

Notwithstanding the serious issues dealt with in the film, it is just plain fun. So much attention is paid to details and incidental characters that they steal the show: the next time you feel like you're talking to someone who's asleep, use the line "It's so stimulating being your hat!"

This movie looks like it was hastily committed to film by high school students. The lighting changes constantly so one is never sure whether the scene is intended to be at night or during the day. The fairies appear to be various shades of green at different times. The lovers get muddier and muddier as the story progresses, and the stains migrate around their clothes and faces. The sound is exactly the same wherever the action is. There is a frequent use of jerky stop action to move the scene from place to place and to show fairies moving at the speed of light. The dreadful music is earnestly trying to be avante-garde and succeeding in being cacophonous and out-of-place. The costumes were trendy then but look rather silly now.

The virtually uncut script, an advantage for students, has the disadvantage of occasionally slowing the action to a near stop.

It's a pity because these are great performances by an amazingly talented cast. Helen Mirren's Hermia, less strident than most, Ian Holm's doglike Puck and Judi Dench's near naked Titania are standouts certainly. Best of all for me was Derek Godfrey as Theseus. He brings a lot of dignity and urbanity to a part often played as a pompous bore or a chump. Theseus is given a lot of lines, sadly cut in many productions, which comment on literature and drama. "The best of this kind are but shadows, and the worst no worse, if imagination amend it." You need a fair bit of imagination to amend the shortfalls of this film, but the effort is well worth it.

When you go to watch a stage show, you expect to see the action from one viewpoint, you expect the action to be confined to a limited space (the theatre at least, and probably the stage), and you expect the actors to enunciate extra-clearly and move using broad dance-like movements so the audience can hear and see them.

Not on film. Wheareas in a theatre you might create an ambiguous set which imagination could transform from an interior into a forest, in a film you'd just shoot one scene indoors and the next in the forest. Whereas an actor on stage might spit out his t's and roll his r's so he can be heard 30 rows back, a film actor only needs to be heard by a boom mike. Whereas often all you can see of a stage actor are body movements, all you can see in a film closeup is the actor's face.

All of this argues that a successful stage production does not necessarily translate into a successful film. Such is the case here.

Daniel Evans must be the worst Lysander ever to appear on screen. He uses all of his stage mannerisms but no facial expression so the performance is highly unconvincing. Puck also suffers from mime-like movement. The young women are better and Kevin Doyle as Demetrius is quite good. The rude mechanicals take themselves too seriously.

Some attempt has been made to use Osheen Jones as a framing device by suggesting that the play is all his dream (a device stolen, actor and all, by Julie Taymor in her Titus) This idea is not carried through rigorously: we have no idea of what his relationship is supposed to be with the characters--do they represent figures in his waking life? Does the doubling of parts suggest a correspondence in character between Theseus and Oberon, or Puck and Philostrate? Is the fairy story a dream of the human characters who are themselves a dream of Osheen Jones? Who knows? What is clear is that on film a stage with hanging light bulbs looks like . . . a stage. Not a dream landscape. In the end, this version of Midsummer Night's Dream is unconvincing and doesn't know where it is going. It should have been left on stage.

Compared to other efforts to bring Shakespeare to the screen in the '30s, this film has aged remarkably well. This is chiefly due to the efforts of James Cagney and Joe E. Brown who are as fresh and funny today as they were 70 years ago. All scenes involving Bottom and crew, despite being cut, re-arranged and ad-libbed upon are hilarious is a broad sort of way.

The rest of the cast is, sadly, less inspired. Jean Muir as Helena and Victor Jory as Oberon deserve commendation; Olivia deHavilland, despite being artificial and mannered at times, brings a lot of life to Hermia. The rest are write-offs and Mickey Rooney delivers an agonizingly awful performance as Puck. When Puck brays more than Bottom does, you know something's wrong.

Reinhart's approach to Shakespeare is almost Victorian. A lot of time is spent on pageantry, ballet numbers and musical interludes not contemplated by the original play. Some of the lines are sung, not spoken, which creates a very bizarre effect indeed. All of this is quite distracting and many modern viewers will lose patience.

The word I would use to describe this film is "amusing", not "hilarious"; "amusant" rather than "rigolo". It gently charms a smile onto your face. Only rarely does it bring out an actual guffaw (when M. Hulot is faced with his sister's kitchen, for example). Tati refuses to impose his own ideas of what is important on the viewer, which is usually done by spending more screen time on them or zooming in. The title (usually considered to be important) is a scrawled piece of graffiti which stays on the screen for less than 1/2 second, but there are long sequences showing M. Hulot's apartment. The viewer has to work to see Hulot appearing (apparently randomly) in the various windows of the building as he walks through it. I love the window which is inexplicably at foot level in which you can see Hulot's feet turn to the wall as the feet of a woman dressed only in a slip appear.

In other words, this film is a stroll where, if you keep your eyes open, you will spot some amusing things going on. And France is a great place for a stroll.

Two more things. While the comparison to Chaplin is apt, I was led to think of later characters, particularly Hrundi Bakshi in Blake Edwards' The Party and another almost silent character, Rowan Atkinson's Mr. Bean. Indeed I'm sure Atkinson stole ideas from this film.

Also, I think it is misleading to focus too much attention on M. Hulot's struggles with modern tech. The title, Mon Oncle, should direct our attention to the nephew, for whom Hulot is a parole from the prison of his sterile house, enabling him to run with the kids, get dirty, buy doughnuts from a grubby vendor who applies the icing sugar with a bare hand and play practical jokes on passers-by (with Hulot ready to cover for him if need be). Fifty years later these comments are even more biting as we look at a whole generation of children raised in this kind of inhuman antiseptic environment: overweight, with eating disorders and allergies, socially inept with only a TV and a video game for a friend. Makes a dachshund in a red coat want to run with the mutts and tip over a garbage can or two, doesn't it?

I intend to deal explicitly with the ending of this film. Be warned.

Many comments have dealt with the gradual build-up of tension and character which makes this film so riveting. They are all true. But a lot of people cannot understand the ending, and therefore condemn it. The ending is, however, integral to the meaning of the film as a whole. These four men are warned that taking this job, no matter how much it pays, will cost them their lives. We understand that they are in a situation where one mistake will cost them their lives, and only fearlessness can save them. We see that M. Jo, a bully who gets what he wants by pushing people like Luigi around, turns into a snivelling coward when faced with a couple of tons of nitro he can't bully. His fear causes him to lose others' respect, his self-respect, and eventually his life. But our hero has no fear, and so of course he must survive, right? Wrong. Fear protects us, keeps us from endangering ourselves. Without fear, our hero cannot keep himself out of danger. Therefore he dies. Stupidly. And it's his own fault.

Think about what was going on in 1953; millions of people had eight years earlier come out of a situation as nail-biting as driving a truck full of nitro. They talk about the "lost generation" being the survivors of the First World War, but the same happened in the Second. The ending makes sense of the title; not only the wages of sin but the wages of fear (of having to face extreme fear, that is)is death. It is brilliant how a film which is so entertaining on a superficial level is also so deep.

This smooth and well-crafted production makes no bones about being filmed theatre as opposed to a film adaptation. The viewer is reminded by stage hands changing props and intermittent audience applause that stage and not screen conventions apply. At the same time closeups and changes of viewpoint enhance the theatrical experience.

Costumes, sets and incidental music suggest a setting in Mussolini's Italy.

The principals here are backed by a strong supporting cast, especially Colm Feore as Mercutio and Barbara Bryne as the Nurse. If there is any flaw it is in the principals themselves. Cimolino's Romeo is played as a wimp and Follows' Juliet as a child, frequently shown holding dolls and toys as if she were eleven rather than thirteen. Perhaps this was done to allow the characters room to grow and mature over the length of the play (as they certainly do) but for this reason or some other the scenes between R and J are curiously devoid of passion.

Follows' Juliet seems to be terrified by the approach of Romeo, and her banter at the Capulets' party feels like an excuse to get away rather than flirtation. She plays her way to her doom with an air of resigned dread which is frequently effective (her scene as she debates whether to take Friar Lawrence's potion is particularly brilliant) but not when she's anywhere near Romeo.

A real plus is that there are no cuts to fit the cinematic mold--you therefore get the play as Shakespeare wrote it. This, together with the fine performances all round would make this an excellent version for school use.