(no subject)
May. 29th, 2017 06:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatHmmm...I'm going to have to try Still Star Crossed because guess who is playing Juliet's father, Lord Capulet? Anthony Stewart Head. And Lord Montague is Grant Bowler from Defiance. It's basically what happened in Verona after Romeo and Juliet died. (Basically all hell breaks loose, not the optimistic ending Shakespeare opined.) Which is an interesting premise, just wish it wasn't adapted from a successful YA series. Although that could be a good thing, sometimes book adaptations give a series a bit more cohesion.
I was thinking about favorite Shakespearean plays, adaptations and film versions...and really the devil is in who performed it and how.
On paper? My favorite is Hamlet. It just has the best lines.
Performed? It's more of a toss-up. I've seen really good live theater presentations of
King Lear (Anthony Hopkins played Lear vis RSC in London) and Twelth Knight in Stratford Upon Avon. Not much else.
Film? Franco Zefferelli's Romeo and Juliet, and Fassbender's Macbeth, also Ian McKellan's Richard III. Kenneth Brannagh also made Henry the V very accessible.
Adapted? Harder. I think West Side Story is by far the best adaptation. The others I can't remember or didn't quite work. Romeo and Juliet really lends itself to adaptation.
Although I do have a fondness for the film Ten Things I Hate About You which is a teen adaptation of Taming of the Shrew, a bit better than the musical version Kiss Me Kate.
(You can tell I was an English Lit major and a theater geek, back in the day, can't you?)
2. There's a list of 65 television shows popping up this summer in TV Guide. 65. Half of them are game shows, which makes me nostaglic for the 70s. Half of the television series in the 1970s and part of the 1980s were unscripted game shows. I don't enjoy game shows that much, but my best bud at the time adored them. So I saw all of them. She loved two things -- game shows, science fiction and horror.
Midnight, Texas looks sort of interesting, it's another adaptation of a Charlain Harris series. (I don't understand how Harris gets adapted let alone published. Her writing is abysmal. But then I didn't understand the appeal of Twilight. So what do I know?)
The adaptations are actually more interesting than her books. This one is about a down-on-his luck medium, a waitress and a town filled with ghosts, angles, a were-tiger, and something else.
It's more about community and family then sexual relationships, partly because it is on NBC and not HBO. So, if you're curious to see what a non-cable subscription channel would do with it, check it out.
What else? I think I should try Wyonna Earp on Syfy at some point. People seem to like it.
Can't really remember anything else. Oh, Nashville and Younger are popping up again.
I'd like to try The Last Kingdom...but not sure where it can be found in US. I like Bernard Cornwell for the most part, was a fan of his Sharpe series. Everything else is on HBO or Showtime, which I don't get at the moment. Starting to wish I hadn't let go of it. Although I could always grab it back again.
Salvation is a..."meteor is falling to earth how do we stop it series". I like some of the stars.. Santiago Cabrera.
And a whole host of other things...The Sinner is an odd miniseries about a woman suddenly going nuts and stabbing someone and the detective who investigates why. The detective is portrayed by Bill Pullman.Will is basically a TNT series about Wild Man, Will Shakespeare who wants to revolutionize theater. And yes, it's the actual William Shakespeare.
I was thinking about favorite Shakespearean plays, adaptations and film versions...and really the devil is in who performed it and how.
On paper? My favorite is Hamlet. It just has the best lines.
Performed? It's more of a toss-up. I've seen really good live theater presentations of
King Lear (Anthony Hopkins played Lear vis RSC in London) and Twelth Knight in Stratford Upon Avon. Not much else.
Film? Franco Zefferelli's Romeo and Juliet, and Fassbender's Macbeth, also Ian McKellan's Richard III. Kenneth Brannagh also made Henry the V very accessible.
Adapted? Harder. I think West Side Story is by far the best adaptation. The others I can't remember or didn't quite work. Romeo and Juliet really lends itself to adaptation.
Although I do have a fondness for the film Ten Things I Hate About You which is a teen adaptation of Taming of the Shrew, a bit better than the musical version Kiss Me Kate.
(You can tell I was an English Lit major and a theater geek, back in the day, can't you?)
2. There's a list of 65 television shows popping up this summer in TV Guide. 65. Half of them are game shows, which makes me nostaglic for the 70s. Half of the television series in the 1970s and part of the 1980s were unscripted game shows. I don't enjoy game shows that much, but my best bud at the time adored them. So I saw all of them. She loved two things -- game shows, science fiction and horror.
Midnight, Texas looks sort of interesting, it's another adaptation of a Charlain Harris series. (I don't understand how Harris gets adapted let alone published. Her writing is abysmal. But then I didn't understand the appeal of Twilight. So what do I know?)
The adaptations are actually more interesting than her books. This one is about a down-on-his luck medium, a waitress and a town filled with ghosts, angles, a were-tiger, and something else.
It's more about community and family then sexual relationships, partly because it is on NBC and not HBO. So, if you're curious to see what a non-cable subscription channel would do with it, check it out.
What else? I think I should try Wyonna Earp on Syfy at some point. People seem to like it.
Can't really remember anything else. Oh, Nashville and Younger are popping up again.
I'd like to try The Last Kingdom...but not sure where it can be found in US. I like Bernard Cornwell for the most part, was a fan of his Sharpe series. Everything else is on HBO or Showtime, which I don't get at the moment. Starting to wish I hadn't let go of it. Although I could always grab it back again.
Salvation is a..."meteor is falling to earth how do we stop it series". I like some of the stars.. Santiago Cabrera.
And a whole host of other things...The Sinner is an odd miniseries about a woman suddenly going nuts and stabbing someone and the detective who investigates why. The detective is portrayed by Bill Pullman.Will is basically a TNT series about Wild Man, Will Shakespeare who wants to revolutionize theater. And yes, it's the actual William Shakespeare.
no subject
Date: 2017-06-01 04:52 pm (UTC)I think theatre styles have changed a lot in the last thirty years and anything that old seems very clunky and over the top to me.
They were definitely over the top. I love Judi Dench, but she over-acted this role back in the 1980s.
no subject
Date: 2017-06-01 05:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-06-01 07:38 pm (UTC)Well, it was theater, so a certain amount of that is admissible. I didn't like it at the time though - so it's not really in retrospect. Also, to be fair, I don't like that particular play. So it well could have been a combination of the two.
Meanwhile, I loved Hopkins in Lear. He was busy that year, he was doing Anthony and Cleopatra and King Lear with RSC.
no subject
Date: 2017-06-02 05:53 am (UTC)Maybe. Alternatively, have you seen and liked Dench in any other Shakespearian roles? Because I think some actors can be wonderful in normal roles and then utterly wrong in Shakespeare. I have that problem with Patrick Stewart - I have seen him live as Macbeth and on DVD as John of Gaunt and both times I thought he was absolutely dire but the critics raved about him. And yet I like him in other roles, it is just his Shakespeare I can't stand. He seems to take all the major speeches and kills them dead by removing any expression whatsoever. I can only assume he is frightened of over-acting the famous bits. But clearly most people rate him very highly and he is classed as one of the greats like Dench.
The reverse is also true of course. I saw Toby Stephens do a mind-blowing Corriolanus on stage, but I have never seen him do anything good on screen.
I have never seen Hopkins on stage. It is hard to imagine actually since his style on screen is so quiet and restrained.
no subject
Date: 2017-06-02 12:38 pm (UTC)Hopkins was very good in Lear, more restrained.
But here's the thing movie acting and stage acting are so different. You can't be too quiet or restrained on stage -- or the back row will go to sleep. That's why so many screen actors can't do stage, and stage actors struggle on screen.
James Marsters actually explained it in one of his interviews/Q&A's on youtube really well. That he'd watch Anthony Stewart Head - - who seemed to be doing nothing, yet it's all on the screen. But in theater, Head knew you have to exaggerate gestures a bit more. Pitch your voice. I saw Head on stage long before I saw him on TV, and he blew me away...because he was able to pitch to the back row, yet be restrained at the same time.
Hopkins was good in both Anthony & Cleopatra and King Lear -- similar to Head in his performance. While Dench - I think overcompensated. I've only seen her in that play though, so not sure if she had an off night, if it was the play or what.
Agree on Patrick Stewart -- I don't like his Shakespearean performances. He tends to put me to sleep or my attention wanders.
no subject
Date: 2017-06-03 06:02 am (UTC)I find Head a bit uneven on screen. But that is partly the roles he takes. Never had teh chance to see him on stage. Does he still even do stage work, I wonder?
So glad I'm not the only one. It is unnerving to dislike someone who is being celebrated as a genius. But I had him about three yards from me when he was doing 'Is this a dagger I see before me' and frankly he could have been describing a cornflakes packet.
no subject
Date: 2017-06-03 01:57 pm (UTC)James Marsters came from a stage background himself, didn't he?
Yep, heavy repertory theater background. Even owned and ran his own repertory theater up in Seattle or Portland, somewhere like that. Has done a lot of Shakespeare. Still does stage work.
Like most stage actors, he doesn't have a lot of respect for the television medium. I can't say I blame him.
I find Head a bit uneven on screen. But that is partly the roles he takes. Never had teh chance to see him on stage. Does he still even do stage work, I wonder?
Agreed. He's had a lot of bad roles. Similar to Marsters in that way. I haven't liked Marsters in anything but Buffy. Head has had a bit more luck. But most of his recent stuff I haven't liked that much. (Haven't tried Still Crossed, yet.)
He does some stage, I think. Just not high profile. Although he never really did high profile. I saw him -- because he was subbing for his brother Murray Head, a major musical theater actor in London, for Chess.
no subject
Date: 2017-06-03 04:41 pm (UTC)Of course his real claim to fame was as the guy in the coffee advert ;)
no subject
Date: 2017-06-04 01:26 am (UTC)Oh, I liked that episode. They were good in that together. Worked very well off each other. I'd hoped they'd bring them back. Marsters is very good in certain roles. Not so much others. (I followed him around and saw him in pretty much all his tv roles. He's only down two I liked Spike and that one.)
I have watched Supernatural. Made it sixth seasons...then sort of lost interest. It pulled me in with the brother relationship and the whole urban legend thing. (I studied urban legends and folklore in college, so most of the ones they referenced I'd actually read and studied. Hence I was intrigued.)
But I'm not really a horror fan, and the Christian mythos got on my nerves finally...also after the 6th season...I began to just not have the time.
Anthony Stewart Head, while known for Taster's Choice commercials, won me over when he subbed for his brother Murray Head on stage in Chess, and then later played a very dark mysterious mentor figure in VR5 - a sci-fi cyberpunk series that was on the WB prior to Buffy. It got cancelled, and Head jumped to Buffy, so I followed him. I remember being disappointed that he didn't have a bigger role, then got intrigued by the Angel character.
Buffy and her friends grew on me.
no subject
Date: 2017-06-04 04:32 pm (UTC)Yes! I'm still hoping :D
Yes, I can fully understand many people would hate it. I think they do try to stay the right side of insulting, but they walk a very fine line. I like the basic idea of heaven and hell being run by bureaucratic angels and demons engaged in power struggles (I loved Good Omens as well) so that is a big hook for me.
That sounds interesting! Most of them have been new to me. I mostly value complex world building, so the show has actually increased attraction for me since they moved away from pick and mix legends and into a more coherent created mythos.
I have known many, many Buffy fans over the year and never met anyone who followed Head to find the show!
I am sadly conventional because I wasn't really hooked until S2 when Spike appeared. Before that I found it fun, and Buffy was very cute, but the show as a whole was not worthy of obsession.