Much Ado About Nothing
Oct. 21st, 2010 01:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackThe much ado about nothing film is genuinely hilarious. Further random thoughts:
* Here is a helpful catalogue of all famous actors ever
* It takes a while to become used to the language; somehow I find it easier to accept language which sounds stilted to me in tragedy than comedy
* Everyone looks the part incredibly much; the men are marvellously charactrised simply by the opening shot of them riding back from the war in uniforms, looking bold
* Poor Keanu Reeves. I can see where his character is supposed to be coming from, and he looks the part, but he sounds so much more stilted than everyone else
* Here is a helpful catalogue of all famous actors ever
* It takes a while to become used to the language; somehow I find it easier to accept language which sounds stilted to me in tragedy than comedy
* Everyone looks the part incredibly much; the men are marvellously charactrised simply by the opening shot of them riding back from the war in uniforms, looking bold
* Poor Keanu Reeves. I can see where his character is supposed to be coming from, and he looks the part, but he sounds so much more stilted than everyone else
no subject
Date: 2010-10-21 01:14 pm (UTC)But yay about people looking the part, and the funny stuff being actually funny, and the little things that add up to really memorable characterization!
no subject
Date: 2010-10-21 03:59 pm (UTC)And I liked Branagh, even if I didn't fancy him. For that matter, I felt there was a good character behind Reeves somewhere: my mind is doing the Shakespeare fanfic thing of spinning out all the possible histories and motivations for him, and the beard was very appropriate. He just wasn't _convincing_ which is obviously bad as an actor.
I was confused by Denzil Washington and Keanu Reeves being (half?) brothers. I know it's incredibly contentious whether you have play actors of different age or sex or skin colour to the traditional character, but somehow I would have found it easier to keep the characters straight if the brothers had been clearly the same race. (If they're half-siblings, I suppose it's by no means impossible, and I certainly approved of Denzil Washington -- he did a great job of giving the prince both gravitas and also a sense of fun.)
And I was really scared that Hero was actually dead, but I had a pretty good idea that in a comedy she was going to turn out not to be, rather than the other way round.
But I loved that when they were intriguing to get Benedik and Beatrice to overhear them, I was actually laughing.
I think the plot also makes sense if you imagine Hero's infidelity as a sort of crime that nowadays would be unimaginable -- certainly many people would react that way to infidelity, but the plot seems more consistent if everyone has some reason other than being complete bastards to automatically discount Hero.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-21 04:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-21 04:25 pm (UTC)