My Favorite Julie Taymor Film

This is an interesting entry to write, because Julie Taymor is better known for her achievements as a theater director than as a feature film director, and she's only qualifying for this writeup because I'm counting recorded stage productions as  part of her filmography.  Still, there's nobody who makes movies like Julie Taymor, with her particular blend of mixed media, stagecraft influences, elaborate production design, and experimental elements.  Her film directing debut was a TV movie, "Fool's Fire," possibly the best puppet film ever made.  However, the first of her features that I saw was "Titus," a very bloody  adaptation of William Shakespeare's "Titus Andronicus."  A few decades later, I'm still processing it.

There was a resurgence of Shakespearean cinema in the late 1990s, mostly spurred by Baz Luhrmann's "Romeo+Juliet" and the Kenneth Branagh adaptations.  "Titus" is part of this trend, a star-studded, wildly over-the-top piece of phantasmagoria that added surreal "penny dreadful" fantasy sequences, a framing device from a child's POV, and glaring anachronisms to the lurid revenge story.  The setting is now a combination of Ancient Rome and the Fascist Italy of the 1930s, with gorgeous sets straight out of a Fellini film - and that's no surprise, given that "Titus" was shot at Cinecitta Studios with some of Fellini's old collaborators involved.  Despite this, "Titus" sticks very close to the original text, and retains the Shakespeare's dialogue.  Anthony Hopkins also grounds the film, giving a striking performance as Titus Andronicus with all the gravity and weight you'd expect of any tragic Shakespearean figure.  Well, until the last act, where he goes mad and gives into the camp at just the right moment.

"Titus Andronicus" has long been one of the less popular and least well-regarded Shakespeare plays because of its gruesome nature, featuring multiple deaths, maimings, sexual violence, and even cannibalism.  "Titus" leans into the morbid and prurient content, stylizing the worst acts into Grand Guignol spectacle.  The metaphorical is made literal, and the literal is often abstracted into the psychedelic.  What initially drew me to the film were the wild costuming choices, with Jessica Lange in a literal crown of kitchen knives as the spirit of Revenge, Alan Cumming in Mussolini dress uniforms and leopard prints as the smug Emperor, and Laura Fraser's brutalized Lavinia sporting tree branches in the place of severed limbs.  Anthony Hopkins appears in a chef's outfit for the cannibalism scenes, naturally.  Not all of this works, with the lengthy closing shot of a character walking off into the distance pinging as especially indulgent and pretentious, but it's a thrill to see someone engage with the play with this amount of earnest passion and rigor.  "Titus" remains the definitive screen adaptation of "Titus Andronicus," because nobody has been brave enough to try anything remotely as ambitious with it since.  I also suspect it went a long way toward popularizing and rehabilitating "Titus Andronicus" with modern audiences.

Taymor originally staged "Titus Andronicus" in 1994 as an Off-Broadway show, in the middle of an impressive run of theater projects that included the operas "Oedipus Rex" and "Salome," and the musical adaptation of "The Lion King."   The acclaim from "The Lion King" is almost certainly why Taymor got to direct "Titus," and was able to assemble such a high calibre cast and crew for it.  Nearly all of the film's defining artistic choices and imagery came from the stage production - the costuming, the video projections of nightmare imagery, and plenty of graphic violence.  Taymor has claimed that she was drawn to the play because she found it so relevant to the modern era.  Some of the characters certainly stand out as ahead of their time, especially the Moor, Aaron, played by Harry Lennix as a notably complex villain.  She also expands the role of Young Lucius, a minor character, in order to highlight the cycles of violence, generational trauma, and revenge begetting revenge.  

I've enjoyed Julie Taymor's subsequent films, especially "Frida," but none of them have resonated with me like "Titus."  I suspect it's because underneath all the extremity and the flashy visuals, there's a very solid Shakespearean tragedy here, with compelling characters and strong performances.  And deep down, I've always been a sucker for Shakespearean tragedies, and the few screen adaptations that really do them justice.   

What I've Seen - Julie Taymor

Fool's Fire (1992)

Oedipus Rex (1993)

Salome (1995)

The Lion King (1997)

Titus (1999)

Frida (2002)

Across the Universe (2007)

The Tempest (2010)

A Midsummer Night's Dream (2014)

The Glorias (2020)

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Any Movie But "Anyone But You"

A romantic comedy is making money at the box office!  And it's one that's starring up-and-coming actors Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney, instead of way-past-their-prime stars like Sandra Bullock or Julia Roberts!  This genre isn't dead!  I was so excited to see this movie, and my expectations were, perhaps, too high.  Because I didn't like this one.  I really, really didn't like this one.

I've actually enjoyed all of director Will Gluck's prior films that I've seen.  "Easy A" is great and I think his version of "Annie" is pretty underrated.  However, after the first ten minutes, nothing about "Anyone But You" works.  We have a classic meet cute between our lovers, Ben (Powell) and Bea (Sweeney), who spend a magical night together but are driven apart by a fatal miscommunication.  Six months later, their lovely sisters, Halle (Hadley Robinson) and Claudia (Alexandra Shipp) turn out to be getting married to each other, and Bea and Ben are forced to try and get along for the duration of the destination wedding in Australia.  And if you know your Shakespeare, you've figured out by now that this is a very loose modern retelling of "Much Ado About Nothing."  It's been over a decade since the Whedon version, so I guess we're due.

Powell and Sweeney have some decent chemistry together, but Ben and Bea are very broad, very typical romantic comedy creatures.  They talk themselves into a fake romance, are both tempted by conveniently available ex-partners, and get themselves into humiliating bits of physical comedy at the drop of a hat.  This sort of thing can be fun if done right, but too much of the farce turns into cringe, and too many of the sweeter moments feel forced.  Neither Powell nor Sweeney are comic actors, and they're constantly being asked to do very exaggerated, cartoonish things, and it doesn't work.  Oddly, there aren't really any comic relief secondary characters except maybe Pete (rap artist GaTa), the matchmaker figure whose clumsy attempts at matchmaking don't actually do anything, and were maybe meant to be a Shakespeare reference?  I think Pete is supposed to be Don Pedro, but he acts more like Dogberry.

Honestly, I'm not much of a Shakespeare buff, but the movie wasn't giving me anything more interesting to focus on.  There's a very Hollywood tour of Australia, with the usual jokes about impenetrable Aussie vernacular, an encounter with a cute koala and a scary spider, and some nice shots of the Sydney Opera House.  There's the usual wedding eye candy, with two adorable brides constantly in the middle of picture perfect gatherings.  One shot of them plating mountains of food for a casual family breakfast was a reminder that we were firmly in the realm of Instagram fantasy.  The impetus for several characters trying to intervene in the Ben/Bea hostilities is the threat they physically pose to the wedding - every time they fight, something gets destroyed, because that's how physics works here.  The cast includes some familiar faces like Michelle Hurd, Rachel Griffiths, and Dermot Mulroney playing parents-of-the-brides, who are all given nothing to do.  By the time we got to the credits sequence with the cast singing along to Natasha Bedingfield's "Unwritten," I was more than ready for the film to be over.  

What really gets me is that the opening sequence with Ben and Bea falling in love is pretty good, and feels like the beginning of a much better movie.  Clearly, Powell and Sweeney are perfectly capable of starring in a charming, sexy romantic comedy.  "Anyone But You," however, is not interested in being charming or sexy.  It's interested in being funny, but isn't actually any good at being funny.  It's interested in making the audience feel good, but doesn't pull that off either.  So my recommendation is to skip this movie, watch "Euphoria" and "The Hitman" if you like the leads, watch "No Hard Feelings" if you actually want a decent 2023 romantic comedy, and track down the Branagh version if you want a better "Much Ado about Nothing."  

Exeunt Miss Media Junkie.

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Rank 'Em: The Phase Two Marvel Movies

I wanted to write up a post about the "Phase Two" Marvel Cinematic Universe films now that we're moving into Phase Three, and I think a "Rank 'Em" post makes the most sense so I can talk about all six films in relation to each other.  The last time I ranked the Marvel films was in 2013, after "Iron Man 3" but before "Thor 2," so there's not going to be much crossover.  Here we go, from best to worst.

1. Ant-Man (2015) - The more I think about this film, the more I like it because it gives us something different.  The hero is an ordinary guy with a different set of concerns than any of the other heroes we've met so far.  His shrinking powers open up a whole new visual landscape.  We've also got a real mentor-student relationship going on between Scott and Hank, which is an interesting new wrinkle.  There are some serious flaws, and I maintain that it's not the film that it could have been in different hands, but "Ant-Man" is more than good enough.  They didn't solve the villain problem, but they did offer a fantastic new variation on the third act final battle sequence, which I appreciate so much.

2. Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) - Come and get your love.  I was pretty harsh on this one last year when I found out it wasn't kid-friendly, but I have to give it due credit for its wildly imaginative sci-fi universe and a strong cast of characters.  Chris Pratt's dudebro Star Lord, Rocket Raccoon, and Groot are especially fun additions to the Marvel pantheon, and the retro soundtrack is priceless.  If the rest of the offworld Marvel movies look like this, fans shouldn't have anything to worry about.  Again, points get knocked off for poor villains, poor treatment of the female lead, and a couple of jokes in poor taste that I'm not sure how they got away with under Disney's nose.  It's a fun movie, but one that left me with my guard up.

3. Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) - I came away from this one so impressed with the direction of the Russo brothers, and I can see why they've been chosen to helm the upcoming "Avengers" movies.  The nods to political thrillers of the '70s were nice, and it was good to see Robert Redford, but this was still a superhero movie through and through.  Having action scenes more reminiscent of the "Bourne" series was a welcome change of pace, but we still ended up with the same, dull world-in-peril finale we've seen so many times before.  Also, I came away with no particular attachment to either the Falcon or the Winter Soldier, which is probably going to be a problem for the upcoming "Civil War" storyline.

4. Iron Man 3 (2013) - I'm surprised that I liked this so much more than the majority of viewers.  Maybe it's because I actually prefer Tony Stark out of the suit, and I really enjoy Shane Black movies.  The Mandarin bait-and-switch worked fine for me.  So did the kid sidekick and superpowered Pepper.  I actually like "Iron Man 3" about on par with "Winter Soldier," except that I didn't buy Tony's character arc or the ending of "Iron Man 3" at all.  Seriously, we all knew he was going to be Iron Man again for "Age of Ulton."  No, it doesn't live up to the original and I would have much rather have had a straight adaptation of "Demon in a Bottle," but after "Iron Man 2" I wasn't expecting this to be nearly as good as it is.

5. Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) - So many things here just didn't work for me: smarmy Ultron, underdeveloped Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, and most of the business with the Vision.  Joss Whedon made a valiant effort, but this movie was too long and overstuffed with too many characters and obligations.  It felt like an entire series of a television show crammed into a single feature.  Individual sequences were great - I loved everything involving Hawkeye's family and many of the action sequences - but I don't think this works as a film.  I'm hopeful that a stronger villain and a two-part structure will alleviate some of these problems for "Infinity War."

6 Thor: The Dark World (2013) - The first "Thor" was near the bottom of my previous list.  The sequel didn't manage to improve on it in many ways, and in others is quite a bit worse.  Some of the Thor and Loki friction is enjoyable, but the main villain is a terrible waste of Christopher Eccleston, the romance is as tepid as ever, and the humor continues to fall flat.  This movie exemplifies all the common complaints about filmmakers trying to use copious amounts of CGI destruction to hide the lack of interesting characters and a decent plot.  It feels like they weren't even trying this time.

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Who is This Laurence Olivier Guy?

Sir Laurence Olivier. The name still conjures images of theater acting at its most erudite and unapproachable. This was the man responsible for making Shakespeare a mainstay of the silver screen as well as the stage, undeniably one of the most important figures in the history of Western cinema. And up until recently, I had no clue who he was.

Sure, I'd seen him in films before, usually as the villain. There he was in "Spartacus" as the evil Roman general, and in "Marathon Man" as a nazi dentist. He was one of the leads in the original "Sleuth," one of my favorite crime films, and a strong supporting presence in Alfred Hitchcock's spectacular "Rebecca." I'd come across plenty of references to Olivier when reading up on the lives of Vivien Leigh and David Niven. And his influence, of course, is inescapable. Kenneth Branaugh's career, for instance, often seems to be patterned directly after Olivier's. Yet I'd never seen the films that Olivier was best known for, the Shakespeare adaptations.

I decided to fix that. I recently sat down with "Henry V" (1944), "Hamlet" (1948), and "Richard III" (1955), the famous Shakespeare trilogy that Olivier directed and starred in. All three films are currently available on Netflix Instant Watch. I know I'd seen "Hamlet" a long time ago in an English class, but didn't remember much, and I've seen several other versions of "Hamlet" since then. Better to start over from the beginning. I spaced the films out over a couple of days - they don't run much longer than two and a half hours apiece, and significantly abridge the original plays, but the text is dense and I'm not as familiar with Shakespeare's "War of the Roses" tetralogies as I should be.

So, what do I think of Laurence Olivier now? As Bette Davis is rumored to have said of Errol Flynn, "Damn, he's good."

My biggest surprise was that Olivier turned out to be a tremendous director. His "Hamlet" is a moody, gothic piece, where the camera skulks around a chilly Elsinore Castle with the tormented Danish prince. "Richard III" makes the viewers complicit in the machinations of the murderous hunchback, as he has a habit of addressing the audience directly. And then there's "Henry V," which starts in the famous Globe theater with a lively period performance of the play, that slowly transitions into a full-scale epic cinematic retelling. Far from being the stuffy, formal, overly faithul adaptations I was expecting, the films livened up the material with plenty of action and a few gory killings here and there. I can see why they were so popular when they first hit theater screens in the 40s and 50s.

As an actor, Olivier lives up to his reputation. His performances as Hamlet and Henry are big and exciting. His thunderous Saint Crispin's Day speech in "Henry V" is the best one I've ever heard. And he doesn't just stab Claudius at the end of "Hamlet," but leaps off a platform and tackles the evil king to floor before running him through. I preferred his quieter moments though, getting existential with Yorick's skull as Hamlet, and delicately wooing the French princess as Henry. This is where he gets to be funny and subtle and charming, and he's terribly good at all of it. There isn't a moment where Olivier doesn't seem to be giving these roles everything he's got.

But far exceeding either of those previous outings is Olivier's transformation into Richard of Gloucester, one of Shakespeare's great misanthropic bastards. With a fake nose, affected limp, and some good costuming, suddenly he's unrecognizable. And oh, the odious ambition and the twisted jealousy and the seething self-loathing coming off of this man! Sometimes Olivier goes well over the top, but he is so much fun to watch as Richard. It's no wonder that everyone wanted Olivier for villain roles in his later career. "Richard III" was the hardest of his films to get through, but it was worth it for the finale, where all of Richard's bad deeds finally catch up to him on the battlefield, and Olivier gives him a really great death scene.

And now I want to see his King Lear and his Othello and his Shylock. I want to see his Mr. Darcy in the 1940 "Pride and Prejudice," and his Heathcliff in the 1939 "Wuthering Heights." Because now I know what Laurence Olivier is capable of. Now I know what Kenneth Branagh and every other Shakespeare-loving actor out there has been trying to live up to for the last six decades, with varying degrees of success. I've seen better Hamlets. I've seen better Henrys. But there's no question that it was Olivier who set the bar, who was the touchstone and the starting point for so much of Shakespeare on film. That's why he's important. That's why he's remembered.

I'm so glad I finally got to know him.

A Modern Take on the Melancholy Dane

The only reason I watched the new TV adaptation of the recent Royal Shakespeare Company's staging of "Hamlet" was for David Tennant in the title role. I'm glad I did.

I don't dislike Shakespeare, and I've seen "Hamlet" performed live before, as well as about half a dozen filmed adaptations. The trouble is that it's always been out of a sense of obligation. I read the play in class during high school, playacted a few scenes for assignments, and watched film clips for reference - none of them very engaging for an adolescent viewer. The Mel Gibson, Niccol Williamson, and Laurence Olivier versions were too remote in the past, and the Ethan Hawke version was still to come. The five-hour 1996 Kenneth Branagh production had just been released, I think, though I don't remember if I watched it in theaters or on video later. I do remember that Branagh's "Hamlet" came off as overly grandiose and stuffy, though I did appreciate the celebrity cameos by Robin Williams, Charlton Heston, Gerard Depardieu, Jack Lemmon, and Billy Crystal as the gravedigger. But for a play where the hero shouts accusations of incest and murder, and the last act features about half-a-dozen onscreen deaths, it was a remarkably tame experience.

So roughly fifteen years later, after reading a lot more Shakespeare in college and becoming mildly infatuated with Julie Taymor's spectacularly bloody "Titus Andronicuis" adaptation along the way, I was ready to give the melancholy Dane another go. The new RSC version version that aired on many PBS stations last night was a modernized update in all respects except for the original language, and trimmed down to a brisk three hour length. And I loved it. Not only was it gratifying to see the play again, but I realized that I now understood nearly all the language, the puns, the wordplay, the humor, and the naughty bits that had been too obtuse for me to grasp as a teenager. The dialogue was rattled off in conversational fashion instead of recited, mostly, which made it far easier to grasp. I could remember sitting in English class, listening to my fellow inmates droning through the then-impenetrable lines with all the vigor of boiled noodles. And what an amazing contrast to hear the same lines again as natural speech, shrieked or sighed or simply thick with sarcasm. You could understand what was going on from the characters' behavior even if you couldn't decipher the words.

David Tennant might have come acoss as too manic for some, but he brought an energy and a vitality to the role I thought was sorely missing from most of the other versions I'd seen. His Hamlet broods only briefly, before throwing impulsive temper tantrums and aggressively pursuing his reputation for madness. Maybe it's because I'm older now, but Hamlet as a character never seemed younger, a grieving son called home from school to the unpleasant shock of his mother's remarriage. In one act he pads around the set barefoot, in a printed orange T-shirt and skinny jeans, and then totes around a camcorder in another to record his uncle's response to provocation - no doubt to be subsequently uploaded on Youtube. Most of his later scenes result in physical altercations of some sort, including the confrontation with Gertrude that ends with him sobbing into her lap. English teachers everywhere are likely thanking their lucky stars to finally have a decent Hamlet their students may actually be able to identify with. No, Ethan Hawke doesn't count.

The rest of the cast suffers a bit in comparison to Tennant, but certainly holding his own was Sir Patrick Stewart as an excellent, enigmatic Claudius. He also doubled as the Ghost, which added some interesting dimensions to the filial and marital relationships. Mariah Gale as Ophelia and Penny Downie as Gertrude both had strong moments, and Oliver Ford Davies' played his Polonius as more broadly comic than I remember the character being. Considering the intensity of the rest of the cast, though, it was a welcome addition. Most of the minor character suffered from the cuts to the play, which excised nearly all the political intrigue involving Fortinbras, the pirates, and even the famous declaration that Rosencranz and Guildenstern are dead.

As for the presentation of the film, it was about on par with most British television productions. The set design was clearly transplanted almost directly from the stage play, with various props like the shattered mirrors and omnipresent cameras providing odd distractions. However, I have to give kudos to them for pulling off an oppressive modern setting that wasn't overly utilitarian, and all of the modern costumes worked with a minimum of clashing. Though the director was good about keeping the pace brisk, there were some odd cuts and strange shots that I could have done without. Whenever the POV would switch to that of a security camera or the Ghost, I felt like I had been plunked down into an episode of "Doctor Who."

Is this new filmed version of "Hamlet" one for the ages? Maybe, and maybe not, but for this age, it's not a bad one to have.