Review: Hamlet 2

The first joke in Hamlet 2 was on me.


When I sat down to watch this highly buzzed comedy I actually worried that I wouldn’t get all of the jokes. It’s not that I’m not familiar with the Bard — in fact, I’d just seen another production at Shakespeare in the Park — it’s just that with Hamlet, there’s so much to get. But I was in good company. Dana Marschz (Steve Coogan), the drama teacher hero of this demented farce, understands even less about Shakespeare than I do. He’s as adorably clueless about the Bard as I was about this movie.

No, Hamlet 2 is not the inappropriate sequel riff I thought it might be on Hamlet. Nor is it a classic in modern day comic drag a la Clueless’s take on Emma or, to keep it Shakespearean, 10 Things I Hate About You’s reworking of Taming of the Shrew.

I bring up these movies because I think Dana Marschz might like them, even if he didn’t respect them. He prefers “inspirational” movies like Dead Poet’s Society or Mr. Holland’s Opus, which he hopes to restage at West Mesa High in Tucson Arizona with his drama class...

Read the Rest... Elisabeth Shue, Get Thee to a Nunnery!

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What I Learned on My Summer Vacation - Rob

Wow, what a summer. I've laughed, I've cried, I've seen The Dark Knight far too many times for someone who thought it was good but flawed. And I've learned so much.

This is the first part in a series this week of random musings on the Summer of '08.

I've learned:

If you don't have a supernatural superpowers, this is America, being independently wealthy works just fine.

Blackface, smoking pot, and illegal wiretapping are all fine, but suggesting people are getting too fat and will need an adorable robot to save them will ignite massive controversy.

The Wachowski's may, in fact, be completely insane.

This year's Hulk is better than Ang Lee's Hulk. Never mind that the critical response is the same and the box office is worse... somehow it's apparently better.

A movie can be made where Jason Bateman and Charlize Theron play spouses, and a character has a hook for a hand, yet not be the Arrested Development movie.

M. Night Shyamalan may, in fact, be completely insane.

Brendan Frazer can have 2 movies in the Box Office top 10 at the same time and it will not bring on Armageddon.

And just when you think studios have learned that movies geared toward women or families can make money, something comes around to make the Male, 13-35 years old, king again. Nothing changes... not really.

This Summer We Loved:
Pixar.
Robert Downey Jr. x2.
The Dark Knight.
R-rated comedies.
Colin Farrel (because we didn't see In Bruges when it was in theaters).
Meryl!
What's happened to Woody Allen's career.

This Summer We Hated:
George Lucas.
What's become of M. Night Shyamalan's career.
What's become of Mike Myers's career.
People who loved The Dark Knight.
The idea that Maria Bello can replace Rachel Wiesz.
George Lucas.

This Summer We Felt Ambivalent About:
Edward Norton's Incredible Hulk.
The land of Narnia sans James McAvoy.
What's become of Eddie Murphy's career.
Old T.V. shows being turned into movies.
Steven Spielberg.
Christian Bale.

The New Lulu?

Did Johnny Depp unknowingly start a new Lulu trend when he did Willy Wonka a few years ago? Hmmmm.... We'll keep an eye out. (Jonathan)

Kate's Oscars... 1,2,3,4

Adventures in DC #1

<--- Katharine Hepburn in Morning Glory (1933) as depicted by artist Joseph Grant

I thought I should take in some of the sights while I'm here in DC. So today I briefly ventured into the rather schizophrenic National Portrait Gallery with a little time to kill before hitting a screening of Hamlet 2. Maybe I was moving too quickly through the museum but it seemed very erratic: hip hop artists here, political historical presidential types there, Judy Garland by Warhol, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young (!!! and ???) were suddenly there without warning, Queen Elizabeth (before she was Cate Blanchett), and then a lengthy series involving The Civil War. What an odd collection.

I felt as if I had stumbled into Oscar's wet dream edited by the folks who brought you La Vie En Rose: biopics were everywhere! All those Important Lives™ flashing before my eyes in no discernable order ...certainly not chronologically. Naturally the one thing that stopped me dead in my tracks was the Oscars themselves. Four of them to be precise...


...all of them belonging to one Katharine Hepburn, the most decorated of all Hollywood thespians. They had a whole exhibit dedicated to her which is up for one more month. I snapped this photo (my phone is old and weak) to show you her golden boys in chronological order for Morning Glory (1933), Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), The Lion in Winter (1968) and On Golden Pond (1981). The 30s Oscar is shorter than the rest but strangely it's the 80s Oscar that looks the most worn. The ones from the 60s are still sparkly. Did she manhandle it a lot or was the gold plating just much cheaper by the 1980s?

Will that four statue triumph of a record ever be tied... let alone broken? I once though Jack Nicholson would do it. He still could. Just one shy... and if he could win for As Good As it Gets he could probably win for something heftier again should he choose to push himself. (That pass for The Departed sure was weird though given their usual nutso devotion to him).

I used to strongly believe and hope that Meryl Streep would do it --being halfway there and because I prefer her to Hepburn --but I often doubt that that will happen now. Then I stop to remember: Kate didn't even win her second golden boy until she was 61. Meryl turns 60 next summer! Wouldn't it be something if she won two in a row, like Hepburn, as she entered her 60s. She could start with Doubt.

Movies About Movies. Love Them

Timetables have conspired against me. I really wanted to participate in Goatdog's Movies about Movies Blog-a-Thon which is now in progress. The entries so far cover a geographically wide and artistically varied array of cinema... everything from Federico Fellini through Spike Jonze and even Blake Edwards. My three favorite Movies about Movies are Singin' in the Rain, Sunset Blvd, and Purple Rose of Cairo and so far only Blvd has a write up. Right about now I'm pretending I just wrote "Don't Turn the Projector Off" (two year old post. Wheeee) so that Cairo could have been celebrated at this particular blog party.

Do you love movies about movies or do you think Hollywood ought not to be so self involved?
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20:08 (Gotham City Zip Codes)

Screenshots from the 20th minute and 8th second of 2008 films.
I was missing my 20:07 series so I'm bringing it back in an altered form.

The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan). Released July 18th, 2008 to become the 2nd highest grossing film ever --or 35th if you adjust for inflation but the mainstream media doesn't like to adjust for that. That would force us to remember that the movies existed before we did [GASP] and were even more popular in olden times.

Is Wayne Manor in the city limits?

Curiosity Killed The Bat. The other day I decided to take a peak at one of those film piracy sites. A new co-worker kept bugging me to sample. I don't really believe in piracy and after briefly sampling the goodies I have to say that even if I had no qualms about it ethically (and I do --except when it comes to things like "fair use" and time frames for "public domain" which the major corporations are always trying to distort legally) shouldn't the quality of the image be sacrosanct?

If you watch a pirated version of The Dark Knight --which I didn't. Don't sue -- Aaron Eckhart and Maggie Gyllenhaal look like this (left). Unless they're appearing in INLAND EMPIRE where smeary faces might actually be saying something about disintegration of identity, doppelgangers and psychological breakdowns (ummm wait. Maybe David Lynch should be directing Batman movies?) it seems a great disservice to both of them. On account of you know: pretty.

Pirated movies make all movies, no matter how expensive, look like early no-budget digital indies. They make all movie stars, no matter how gorgeous, look like someone's cousin acting for free for the very first time.

Harvey Dent's much ballyhooed Thesis quote also arrives in this scene

You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain

It's a nifty line but I can't see that it's explored in any relevant way later in the movie (Two Face's transformation not being all that satisfying in execution... save for the technical make up and Batman's transformation being completely external and indirect: we're told that the public will think he's the villain after the credits have rolled). But mostly this scene bugs me for a nit picky reason: It introduces us to a busty Russian ballerina. Later there's that yacht shot wherein Bruce Wayne has taken her whole company of dancing girls out on his yacht... it's over in an instant but I could have sworn that yacht was filled with surgically enhanced bimbos from Central Casting rather than the traditional lithe tiny graceful anorexic ballerinas that we were supposed to be seeing. I'm not really into ballet. I've only been thrice in my life. But maybe that's three more times than Chris Nolan.
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Wake Up! Wake Up! Wake Up!

Sorry, I couldn't resist. (Jonathan)

Day of Rest

Shhhhhhhh. Eric & Scarlett and I are just going to stay in bed today. Consider this a 'Do Not Disturb' sign. You've heard that Scarlett is into threesomes now, right?
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Linking For Mr Goodbar

MNPP Ewan MacGregor six times
People congrats to Portia & Ellen on their wedding
Socialite Life Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams are back together. Yes.
Rod 2.0 Jada Pinkett Smith's eyebrow raising Advocate interview
Lazy Eye Theater shares a message from Thunderous Tom Cruise
Are You There, Blog? It's Me Stephen thinks Sharon Stone ought to throw her new man back into the dating waters


Bubblegum Aesthetics thinks on recyclable Pixar and WALL•E
From the Frontline a trailer for TIFF entry Blood Trail, a documentary on a war photographer. That'd have to qualify as the most depressing job on earth I think.
Just Jared That People mag with Brangelina's twins = big big sales.
Cinema Styles Laurence Olivier @ 16. Well, no, not really... pre-Heights at any rate.
MNPP Looking for Looking for Mr Goodbar on DVD. I want this movie in high res, too. Keaton is superb in it. Even if Annie Hall hadn't arrived that same year she was still Oscar worthy.
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Olympian to Silver Screen (Beefcake)

With the gymnastics portion of the Olympics completed I've started to lose interest. But as the games wind down I've been wondering: Will any of the Olympians get TV or movie gigs to go with this new rush of fame?

Some of you will be too young to remember the 1984 Olympics but basically what happened was that Russia didn't show (we traded Cold War based boycotts in '80 & '84) and the USA, without that formidable competition, were golden. America went even crazier than usual for the medalists. Mary Lou Retton became an instant household name and at least one of the 84 Olympians got a movie built up around him the way every standup comic eventually gets a sitcom named after themselves. That lucky gymnast was Mitch Gaylord (left) the "perfect 10" gymnast. He was beloved by everyone for a moment (especially everyone who beloves a little beefcake). Mitch's movie was called American Anthem. Remember that one?



It's a Bad Movie People Love. Janet Jones (his co-star aka Mrs. Wayne Gretzky) often looks like she's auditioning for Showgirls rather than doing floor routines and Mitch is content to just, well, be Mitch. He stares at other gymasts doing routines a lot. The camera ogles his musculature when it's offered up. There are worse things movies can do.

Gaylord starred in a few more cheapie movies, also torso focused, and now he hawks fitness products. None of America's subsequent gymnast champs have had movies built up around them that I can recall. But when I was watching diving events the other night I suddenly was obsessed with imagining a movie wherein Jamie Bell interprets Chris Colwill.


You can see it too, right? And no, it's not because that'd put Jamie in positions like this.


This isn't that kind of blog! (what. shut up!)

We might play more co-ed casting games when the Olympics wrap in a couple of days (Beijing 2008: The Movie! coming soon) but today let's keep it in that Gaylord realm and skip real actors altogether (Jamie Bell fantasies excepted of course). Which hunky athletes should have a quickie bad movie starring him or herself rushed into production? This is a random sampling. There's so many Olympians to choose from.


And I wonder. Would Phelps Phans rush to see a lazily scripted flick starring the super fast swimmer... or maybe the whole men's swim team?


It could be an On the Town type of three men lady-hunting comedy without the showtunes --- more of an At the Pool thing.

Would anyone pay to see that?
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Summer's Winding Down

Jonathan here and a little nervous. Nathaniel decreed all posts must get comments in the double digits and my posts run hot and cold. Sometimes double digits, sometimes a lone pity comment from Nathaniel (thank you for your pity, kind sir). So I uncovered this old poster from a movie Nathaniel did years ago with Maureen O'Hara in the hopes I'm not the only one who's seen it (and thought Nathaniel was wonderful in it --- Today is "Suck-Up to the Host Day," right?). Fabian wasn't bad either but Nat totally stole the show.

So is Nat's adventure the best summer movie ever? Nah. Summertime? Maybe. Endless Summer? If you're into surfing. A Summer Place? If you like the music. Summer of 42? It's a contender. Dirty Dancing? Wait a minute, I think we've got it. There's no "summer" in the title but I'm told that nobody puts baby in a corner so I think we have a winner. Surely you don't disagree.