Missy - As You Like It ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

 As You Like it was another comedy and as light and fluffy as you could wish for. Its the story of lovers and disguises and an evil duke and good wins the day.

We saw the 2006 Branagh version. 

It was well cast and very well acted. It had some of my favorite Shakespearean actors in it and was filmed in a cozy and pretty landscape. I do wish that they had tried this in Japan if they wanted to pursue that vibe though.

I wonder, a lot, about Branagh's choice to set it in Japan. Mostly it wasn’t Japanese enough to justify that decision, although my vote is still out on the Sumo.

It felt a little too British colonial orientalist for my comfort. Very Mikado vibes.

Also the camera filters were bad or maybe they were shooting on video? This was an HBO production. I wished for less grainy golden and more crisp HD or at least more clarity.

I wound up with one very strange highlight of the viewing.

My dog was riveted by this production.

It was bizarre. She couldn’t keep her eyes off of it. When I started it she ran into the room and fixated on the screen.

At one point she walked out to check something then turned right around and trotted back in. She got sleepy halfway through and laid down on her bed and watched the rest with one eye open.

I was slightly less enthralled.

There were some real strengths here though.

I found it impressive how straight they played it. The Rosalind as a boy trope was particularly jarring. She looked even less like a boy than Viola in Twelfth Night, but they were committed.

It was a little like watching a Superman movie where the pretense of glasses is all it takes for our suspension of disbelief. It’s fun and I’m glad they stuck to their guns on the interpretation. I do enjoy, but feel a little let down by, the modern camera winking of a lot of productions. If a thing is preposterous let it be that. You don’t need to draw attention to the fact that you the production company are also aware that it’s preposterous.

This entire play, like most comedies, is fully preposterous and it’s fun that way.

Kevin Klein was the highlight for me, close runner ups go to both Bryce Dallas and David Oyelowo for their Rosalind and Orlando  they were really enjoyable and I don’t know either of them from other works.

The play is not thought provoking in and of itself but it’s fun and this was a very well done version  

As You Like It - 3.5 stars for high watchability

Mom score- 0 no moms here this is another father daughter play

Missy - Othello ⭐️⭐️⭐️

 I am giving the Fishburne a very unfair 3 stars because I could barely get through it. 

Othello is one of the 4 great tragedies and, as the Teaching Company professor rightly pointed out, it is the only domestic tragedy. 

It was well done, well cast, beautifully shot and costumed and so painful I had to watch it in small chunks while doing something with my hands.

Ugh

Iago is easy for me and I know he’s very not easy for lots of people. He is a cruel manipulative man who ruins the happiness of others. I like the theory of him as a holdover from an older medieval morality play type.

Branagh is great here.  He is creepy and sociopathic and believable.

Desdémona is easy for me. She is a good and honest person who believes that everyone else must also be good and honest.

Othello is easy for me because he gets so in his own head that rational decision making is beyond him. I enjoyed seeing pre Matrix, young sexy Fishburne with interesting tattoos.

Rodrigo and Cassio are uninterested 2D stock parts. Ditto the Bianca subplot  

Emelia is for me the most approachable and reliable character here. Shout out Anna Patrick. She sounded modern in both delivery and perspective.

My problem is not with the movie.

My problem is with the play. I will have this problem when we get to Titus as well.

I don’t want to watch people suffer like this. 

The Nation State plays, Lear or Richard III, feel removed enough from me. Romeo and Juliet feels like a fairy tale to me. Othello feels like a claustrophobic, slow crushing under a heavy wheel. It feels like drowning.

I deeply value the Greek ideal of plays as cathartic. No part of me needs to express or experience domestic violence. It hurts me to be in that headspace.

I am so glad we are done with this one.

Othello - 3 stars for production and discomfort 

Mom score 0 stars - no moms except in Othello memory of his dead mother as related to his handkerchief and Desdemonas mom also dead.

Missy - Much Ado or A complicated number of stars

 

Our guide selected this one and I agreed right up until I saw it again and decided that I wanted to watch the Branagh even more. So I’m going to do a double review here. 

They are both fun and we have landed into the light fluffy Elizabethan plays with a light and fluffy plop. 

The Whedon is famous for being filmed in 12 days as a sort of offshoot project after one of his Avengers films was wrapped. It was shot at his house with his friends and he and his family did the soundtrack.

I used to be a massive fan of Whedon. I’m the right age for OG Buffy (even the movie before the show) and the right type of consumer for Firefly and the Avengers, I even loved Dollhouse.

I remember being thrilled when this one came out because Whedon plus Shakespeare!

But then…

Per Wikipedia: In July 2020, Justice League actor Ray Fisher accused Whedon of showing "gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable" behavior toward the cast and crew of the film,[221] going so far as to invite Whedon to sue him for slander if he believed the allegations were untrue.[222]

And then: Jose Molina, a writer on Firefly, also spoke out against Whedon's behavior saying that "casually cruel" was a "perfect" description and that "He thought being mean was funny. Making female writers cry during a notes session was especially hysterical. He actually liked to boast about the time he made one writer cry twice in one meeting

And then the entire Charisma Carpenter thing.

It got to be too much. I couldn’t watch his stuff and not think about all of that. This is the first time I’ve watched this Much Ado since then and it’s downgraded the whole thing to 3.5 stars.

This isn’t entirely fair, nothing in the movie has changed.

I love the black and white, I love his character consolidation choices, I love the Beatrice and like the Benedict. I think the mafia spin is fun and love the small feel.

Special shout out to Fran Kranz’s Claudio who seemed just young enough and just dumb enough to remain likable despite his many dick moves.

I wish Whedon was a better person so that I could love his stuff wholeheartedly as I once did.

On to the Branagh.

Let me say here that I love Keanu Reeves. I love him and I feel like he was acting in an entirely different movie from the whole rest of the cast here.

QQ

BUT beyond that weirdness, this is a wonderful version. There is so much life and energy and lightness in this film that I can, easily, have it on as soothing cheering background for my life.

Emma Thompson is radiant as Beatrice and Branagh the perfect witty ass that Benedict needs.

Makes me want to watch Dead Again.

I think nearly every performance is perfect. This is how light fluffy Elizabethan should be.

A special aside for the Keaton/Fillion Dogberry parts. The clown-show that the constable storyline requires is so far outside of the mood of the rest of the play that it could feel like a failing or at least a pitfall. I’ve never seen it played as anything other than slapstick. I don’t think it could work any other way.

Keaton can be so super schtick and Fillion so thick that they just breeze through it. In both movies I have my favorites for every part, but not for Dogberry. They are both just great!

Much Ado About Nothing - 4.5 stars

Mom score - 0 no moms

 

Missy - Heck yeah Shakespeare or All the Worlds a Stage

 Despite Mariam’s generous description I am entirely an enthusiast and not a scholar. Case in point, our first selection provides ample evidence of the exceptions to my generalizations, that Elizabethan plays are light and fluffy. 

The list that we are following starts with Hamlet. Hamlet is anything but light and fluffy and it is Elizabethan. 

This monster of a play (clocking in at over 4 hours its Shakespeare's longest) is the uber Burbage, carpet chewing, philosophically drenched, power house that survived, and world toured, and kept on giving, up to this very day. 

Everyone gets a chance to see Hamlet if they are at all Shakespeare inclined and even, frequently, if they aren’t. It’s one of the plays you are likely to be assigned if you take a theater class in high school or college, it’s right up there with Much Ado. Its also a school and community theater staple. I've seen some very good and some really should have skipped it versions.

I love Hamlet and our guide must too as it’s first on his list. 

However, he has selected the Branagh Hamlet and that opulent spectacle really is  the FULL 4 hour chonky boi. 

Here is the Branagh trailer.

I think it’s too much for a diving off point, though I have recommended to Mariam that if she likes the Zeffirelli/ Gibson version (my recommended starter Hamlet) she should go back and watch the Branagh. 

The Hamlet Wikipedia article puts our fist selection in some context: “ In 1990 Franco Zeffirelli, whose Shakespeare films have been described as "sensual rather than cerebral",^[256] cast Mel Gibson—then famous for the Mad Max and Lethal Weapon movies—in the title role of his 1990 version; Glenn Close—then famous as the psychotic "other woman" in Fatal Attraction—played Gertrude, and Paul Scofield played Hamlet's father.^[257] “

I like this version, and I think it will give us an introduction to the plays as blockbusters rather than an intellectual exercises  

We are going to be audiences and not analyzers here. I think that people tend to forget or maybe gloss

over the fact that Shakespeare is fun, that his work has lasted not merely for his stunning command of 

the language but because his characters speak to us. 

Here is the Zeffirelli trailer (you will see quite a difference in mood).

I’m super excited about this project. I’ve roped some of my family into watching with me and I can’t wait to get into that headspace of Shakespearean language and wit. 

Onward to Denmark.