(no subject)

[proximoception]

No idea what to expect from Taymor's Tempest - all I can tell from the trailer is a lot of CGI is happening. Titus was not only a near-perfect movie, it achieved that despite the (probably deliberately) abominable source material. She made what should be impossible look easy. In Frida some things were great, others sucky - a lot of false notes, somehow; in Across the Universe next to nothing was great, next to everything even suckier, even falser, despite the fact that there should have been no way to fail with that material. I mean, come on. A musical about the '60s made of Beatles songs? Give that opportunity to any of the ten, twenty other living name directors, they'd hit it out of the park. Hell, many hacks would. Lars von stupid fuck narcissist TRIER would. Such a massive disappointment.

I don't even know how you'd begin to film The Tempest, so maybe difficulty plus Shakespeare will prove to be her comfort zone again.

Comments

[consonantia.livejournal.com]

I will take this opportunity to link to a funny LJ post, though you and cija apparently differ on Titus:

http://cija.livejournal.com/198469.html (<-- contains spoilers for Never Let Me Go)

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

My wife can't abide the twig hands either.

[toctoc.livejournal.com]

Have you seen Prospero's Books? Lugubrious yet strangely compelling...

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

Love it. It didn't really film The Tempest but did manage to film a lot of the Renaissance.

[wolodymyr.livejournal.com]

It was being shown at UCLA my senior year of high school. My HS was across the street, and I was taking classes at UCLA. Which privilege I largely used to encourage fellow HS students to ditch class and see movies with me. (And after this and Jarmusch's Night On Earth, I had few takers.) I saw this a few times. I was not only mesmerized by parts of it straight-out, I was also intrigued by how I'd wobble between utter captivation and annoyed boredom. There's that part near the end, with the endless procession? And I'd just sit there and be like, My god, this is ridiculous, surely he's kidding, and then in seconds be whisked back again away, utterly in it. And I thought that was beautifully the point, that it couldn't sustain, that one's experience would be so variable.

Oh, Titus, and in it, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers. He's like an incarnation of the broken social contract. Absolutely savage, and just about the only thing anyone's managed to do with it is pretend it's sexy.

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

Greenaway's clearly a grand mal narcissist too at the end of the day, and yes, half of even his best movies are excruciating.

Apt

[toctoc.livejournal.com]

"and just about the only thing anyone's managed to do with it is pretend it's sexy."

As is true of Rhys-Meyers himself.

In total agreement about the finale of PB, which you articulate marvelous well, an unsustainable immersion in a color too rich for use.

[thelican.livejournal.com]

A musical about the '60s made of Beatles songs?

But isn't making the musical superfluous? Isn't that the failure of any filmmaker who takes it on to begin with?

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

I'm fine with superfluity, just down on sucking. I don't understand why I do it myself. Sucking is a major, unexamined problem.

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

I remember liking this one back when: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_%281982_film%29