'o' - remake of othello with josh hartnett and julia stiles

[cimorene]

it seems like you can't go wrong with shakespeare, but for some reason, something was just giving me a bad feeling about 'o' from the moment my mom bought it almost a year ago. the fact that they wrote their own script for the modernization further endangered their quality, like think ten things i hate about you instead of romeo + juliet (and don't think clueless because i don't want any rule-disproving here).

the first ten minutes was enough to tell me how awful this movie is. it jumps in with stiff acting, weird setting, predictable plot and no exposition beyond martin sheen favoring othello over josh hartnett to explain the latter's evilitude. julia's acting might have been alright, but it wasn't shining in the midst of the dross. the badness overpowered even her--even martin sheen! my god. i had to stop watching after othello was accused of raping julia and she didn't actually deny it, and then we found out he was a druggie, and then he went and beat up josh's henchman. please, people. the pain.

wax_jism recommended the bounty, but nothing except someone i really, really like is worth watching mel gibson for me. if mom hooks the dvd player back up, i have bonfire of the vanities and cleopatra and south pacific to watch (not to mention the ever-present alternatives singin in the rain, pirates of the caribbean and finding nemo.)

Comments

Re:

[bookshop.livejournal.com]

you know, i sort of set branagh aside because i don't know what to do with him--he's not *quite* hollywood but then he's not exactly merchant ivory either.

I think his adaptations of Much Ado About Nothing (oh, how i love that film!) and Henry V are amazing. But then there's his tragedies and how

I've been keening to see the late 90's adaptation of Twelfth Night again. It's my favorite play, ever, so of course it was impossible to find the movie version quite as sparkling as I think it should be, but I'd love to see it again just for Ben Kingsley and Nigel Hawthorne and Helena Bonham-Carter, and especially for the not-slashiness.

and, um, I am hideously ashamed and embarrassed to admit this, but i've never seen or read rosencrantz and guildenstern.

Re:

[cimness.livejournal.com]

oooh, you must!

i love hamlet--the play--it's not my favorite evah, but i'm not sure i have a favorite. i love hamlet, and r&g is like the best fanfiction imaginable of it, although in a way it's literature in its own right. you should read it, cause there's stuff that won't fit in the movie; but stoppard directed it, and the movie is excellent. gary oldman and tim roth are both terribly, shockingly brilliant, i think. it's a comedy that puts a lump in your throat, and makes you ache for them! and it's slashy.

it's hysterically funny, but it's sort of wistful and serious--poignant--at the same time. and i don't know if you like or dislike meta, but it's rather meta. you know, what is literature? and what are secondary characters doing when they're not on stage? since shakespeare writes his disposable characters with a wink and nod at the audience it's a particularly good place for doing that. there's a point where one of them talks about how they exist just to play their parts--not in those words exactly.

(i've never seen or read twelfth night--even though it's my mom's favorite! so perhaps we're even.)