Could Shakespeare really have written Henry VIII? Give me rewrite!

Let's go far out on a limb here and criticize...Shakespeare. Well, he didn't write all of "Henry VIII," that's obvious. Had a rare opportunity to see Henry VIII last night, outdoor performance recollecting the many S. in the Park performances I saw as a kid in nyc, my introduction to many of the plays. Never saw HVIII before, which led me to wonder how many in the canon I've seen performed - I know I've missed a few of the giants, oddly enough, over the course of a lifetime. Hm. Anyway, parts of HVIII are typically S-ean, and you can hear when the language, obviously his language, picks up - Wolsey's last speech of course, probably Buckingham's, too, and a few other passages, during which it's not just Jacobean verse, but you start to here working metaphors and images, bringing the characters' thoughts and interior life into shape and form. I also suspect S. wrote several of the more "comic" scenes, teh taverns and the ladies in waiting. If someone else collaborated, it had to be on the long, expository court scenes in which thoughts are not dramatized but just articulated at great length (unless S. was very young when he first wrote it, or very old and mailing it in). Also surprising how S. avoids some of the obvious moral conflicts that should be tearing Henry apart - he would not be so kind to other monarchs he portrayed in the histories and tragedies (and dark comedies, for that matter) - the whole architecture of the play seems to simple for S., at least for the mature S. And of course at the end the whole play becomes a suck-up to Queen Elizabeth - either S. totally caved in (let's just forget that HVIII had a bunch of other wives after Anne Boleyn, none of whom fared well), or a hack was called in to deal with the ending. Give me rewrite!

A movie about social class that avoids all the cliches : The Maid

Among the many things I liked in "The Maid" (La Nana), a Chilean (?) movie cast with, to me, complete unknowns, is how well writer-director stays clear of the upstairs-downstairs cliches; this story about a housemaid in a wealthy South American household, family with 4 kids of a wide range of ages, and how she/the maid feels put upon, overworked, mainly lonely and depressed about her life, at 41 (it opens with her birthday) and with no family of her own and the children in this family growing up to inevitably leave - as it's pointed out to her, they will never care about her to the extent she cares about them. What's great is that the family is really nice - they're not made into cheap targets and caricatures, they try very hard to do what's right for their maid, they get along nicely with one another, their well-to-do but by no means garish or crude, but they're not sentimentalized either, they have flaws and squabbles and make mistakes as we all do. Through the course of the movie we learn more about the maid and her loneliness - she is apparently a virgin at 41 - but she, too, is not sentimentalized of made heroic, she has plenty of faults and she's difficult - you'd probably fire her, if you could. But she grows during the movie, has a breakdown and comes out of it stronger and ready to learn how to get along with others and how to take care of herself and make the best of life. It's by no means an upbeat movie, but much more positive than you think it's going to be. Very well acted and scripted, very simple, like a great play - almost all of the movie takes place inside the house, including the entire first 25 minutes.

Why Big Love does not measure up against The Sopranos

To see two episodes of "Big Love" is to see about 1.5 too many. Episode seen last night, about Bill Hendrickson's announcement of his run for State Senate, complete with about 30 other plot complications including cult happenings, kidnappings, marriages, oedipal strife, border smuggling, meth on Indian reservations, legal wranglings, INS raids, shall I go on?, this list tells you all you need to know about the series. Interesting at times, but jammed with improbable plot elements to the point where you don't understand the characters, much less believe in them. Contrast this with the HBO gold standard, The Sopranos. One of the many things that made that series so great was that it took on a unique culture and both played up the stereotypes and blasted through them. Life in a mob family was in some way completely different from anything you could imagine and in other ways was just like an ordinary American family, with the typical teenage angst, marital squabbles, family jeolousies, and so on. We believed in the more outlandish aspects of the Sopranos way of life because the story was so well grounded in a life we know and understand. In fact, we were equally interested in both aspects of the Sopranos life, and they two - violent and immoral versus ordinary suburban America - played off one another very effectively: could others really treat the Sopranos as an ordinary family? Did they try? Big Love is the opposite - it's a totally whacked out family, and our interest in the series, such as it is, lives or dies totally on the degree of our interest in the exotic. Mine is close to nil.

A thousand complications, none really believable: Big Love

"Big Love" is a totally preposterous series that is in spite of itself kind of fun to watch. This series - a very straight and ambitious Mormon businessman (Bill, running for Utah State Senate, part owner of an Indian casino) has three wives, each in a different age bracket and personality type. Lots of kids. Second wife's daughter has been raised in a Mormon cult, obviously modeled on the Texas cult broken up a few years back. She's freed, but her father is coming after her. Also some weird subplot about the cult founder who's a closet homosexual and therefore at war with himself. A thousand complications ensue, none really believable, but so what. We get the point, which is that, in an age of reality TV, when a realistic story about a polygamous Mormon family would fit right in, the only way to get extra edge is to push the plot elements way over the top, which Big Love does. As with most of the HBO series, the production values are strong, the acting is solid, the script is pretty sharp. It's just that - with so many things "on," why would you watch this one for more than an episode or two? I just don't find it compelling enough. It's a good thing it's been confined to the backwaters of HBO. I wonder how the Mormon community feels about it and deals with it. HBO was unafraid to take on stereotypes with The Sopranos, and I know the network took some heat on that, but taking on a religion is a tougher challenge, and I give them credit for believing in the show and not backing away because of the challenge. I remember a treatment I'd written about a rabbi and a cantor which was pretty roundly shunned, part of the reason being, we were told, the controversial nature of the material.

Find the original version of Cinema Paradiso and see that one

As predicted, as expected, "Cinema Paradiso," a great or nearly great 90-minute movie has no business posing as a three-hour epic - the charm and whimsy of the original is nearly drowned in the schmaltz of the great doomed love affair between Toto, the poor fatherless boy, and the wealthy banker's daughter. The director or producer or distributor or whoever it was who made him cut that material in the first instance was right. It makes the movie not only tedious but all too typical. Remove that entire plot element and you've got a charming picture about a boy from a small town, where they entire social and cultural life centered on the movie theater, who goes off to the big city and becomes famous but loses touch with his origins, and returns home for a funeral and finds that everything has changed - and then that amazing ending, amazing even in the 3-hour epic version of the picture. Stop reading here if you haven't seen it or have forgotten. Toto takes home, to Rome, an old cinema real and finds that his mentor, Alfredo, has made for him a reel of all the outtakes - the kisses and embraces that the priest required him to excise from the old films before screening. The montage is funny and touching - and meaningful, it's all the love that has in a sense been "cut" from Toto's life, and all the things once forbidden that are now sweet in their ordinariness, in other words, the entire past is there, and it moves him and us immensely. Find the original version and see that one.

How do you turn a charming movie into a bloated monstrosity? Director's cut!

How to make a charming, 90-minute classic film into a bloated 3-hour monstrosity. Two magic words: Director's cut. The cinematic equivalent of vanity press. Well, my fears were a bit unfounded on "Cinema Paradiso." The three-hour version too much to handle in one night, we broke it up and watched the first 90 minutes last night - made it much more palatable. The film still does have the charm that I remember from first viewing, the wonderful sense of the small Sicilian town whose cultural and social life revolves around the cinema, the young boy obsessed with everything about film, his touching bonding with the gruff but lovable projectionist - all a bit cornball and sentimental, even when viewed through the frame of the adult Toto, now a director, alienated, wealthy, la dolce vita - he's like Mastrioni in LDV or 8 1/2. At least the first half didn't seem too long - I'm worried about part two because what seems to have been added is Toto's adolescent love for the fair-haired banker's daughter - a completely different kind of movie, and much more traveled ground. If I'm right, that who strand of the story was wisely cut, leaving the focus on the boy/man's relation with the projectionist father figure, Alfredo, and on his lifelong fascination with cinema. We'll see how it holds up as a 3-hour show. Either way, the older scenes in the village, apparently just after the war, are the strongest and most real - at times even surreal. The burning of the cinema and its reconstruction as a modern film palace moves the film into less interesting territory, because much more explored.

Illusion and reality in Curb Your Enthusiasm

Finally the Seinfeld reunion story within the story of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," and the story of both revolves around the same theme: will George/Larry get back the girl (i.e., estranged or ex wife). I won't give it away. It's a good episode, though by this time in the series we're pretty used to the Seinfeld cast ten years down the road of life and we don't have the same frisson on seeing them for the first time in an earlier episode. In fact, by the time we see them on set and in character, they look pretty much the same as we remember. The Larry David insanity of this episode involves an extended debate/running gag about the contours of the word "favor": when does it require a tip, when must you return a favor, what's the difference between a favor and a chore, etc. That's the kind of riff he does so well, playing around with the nuances of language, culture, modern life. It must make it hell to be him or to be around hm, but like the best comedians he's always pushing you to think about things in new ways, to see the ordinary in a fresh light - artists do this, too. So much of the show, of this whole season of the show, is about illusion: we really see that the whole Seinfeld show is an illusion, filmed on a set, in Los Angeles, by actors who are by no means anything like the characters they portray, what a shock!, but the beautiful trick of this is we're seeing it within a frame of another comedy, which in its own right is filmed on a set, played by actors, etc. He creates the illusion that he, Larry, is real because the Seinfeld cast is "acting," when of course it's all acting, all illusion - Hollywood.

Why a TV show about a TV show is not a TV show about nothing: Curb Your Enthusiasm

The real fun in watching "Curb Your Enthusiasm" as it winds toward its Seinfeld-reunion conclusion is to see how a TV sitcom is actually managed. It's a real kick to see the Seinfeld set - and watch the cast members look at it in awe, as if it's some kind of national monument (maybe it is). And to watch them read the script of the reunion episode - have to wonder whether it's actually a first read-through or if they did a read-through to prepare for the filming of the read-through. Watching the rehearsal is great, too - again, it seems as if they really are working through the material for the first time, so it's either very well directed to look like a rehearsal, or it really is. The plot is again very clever, but some of the crude sexuality is to me out of place - as if David thinks part of the mission is to make this an x-rated pay cable version of Seinfeld (maybe it is). Well, I guess without the crudity it would be just another Seinfeld episode but without the commercials. How does the cast look? Jerry and Jason have put on pounds, Julia L-D has not - she looks great. Richard (Kramer) looks the same and Newman actually looks a little more svelte. He plays a great cameo in this episode. Lots of fun to watch, as the series builds toward its inevitable conclusion, with the question left unresolved so far: will Larry get Cheryl back? She's cast (in the reunion show within the show) as George's ex, and seems to be playing the part well - I thought they'd have her screw up in some way, but no, at least not yet.

Watching Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld riff: Curb Your Enthusiasm

The Bare Midriff episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is entirely ridiculous but funny nevertheless. You can't buy into the premise, nor are you meant to do so. Larry is writing the Seinfeld reunion, with Jerry, in one of the studio lot offices - actually, this is some of the most interesting material in the series, as it does give you a pretty good idea as to how these shows are written and it seems to be filmed on the real studio lot. A couple of guys sit in an office with a big whiteboard and riff off each other for hours. A good life - but only a handful of people in the world are good enough to do it well, and of course, their very wit and eccentricity, will constantly keep them on the edge and get them into trouble and ruin their relationships with others, even with other show-business eccentrics. This episode, unlike some of the others, takes a turn toward high camp, as Larry reminds a woman of her exhusband killed in a road rage incident many years back (this is comic, actually), Larry accidentally sprays a Jesus picture with piss that looks like a teardrop, leading people to believe there's been a miracle, and Larry ends up on a rooftop, about to fall from the ledge, saved by hanging onto a woman's fleshy "bare midriff" - well, you can see that this episode pushes the comic high jinx a bit past the breaking point. Best scenes are watching Jerry and Larry play off each other, arguing (in whispers) as to who's going to tell the secretary/assistant to dress properly. They're like a couple of little boys - which is what comics do best. They don't grow up.

Where the actors in wheelchairs disbled actors or just playing them on TV?: Curb Your Enthusiasm

"Curb Your Enthusiasm" continues to be funny in the most surprising, totally un-PC ways, but the humor is always generous and uplifting, you're never laughing at characters, it's never mocking - except for the central character himself, Larry David, who can certainly take it, with his success and prowess. Episode I saw last night - Larry meets girl in coffee shop, asks her out, as she moves around the table he sees to his surprise that she's wheelchair bound. This leads to dilemma for him, but he comes to realize that it will be a great asset to his character to show that he's broadminded enough to date someone "handicapped" (he doesn't quite know how to address this issue: are you handicapped? disabled? challenged? - I am right now, she says). Again, the plot clicks beautifully, with the subplot - his public tiff with Rosie O'Donnell leading to a takedown in a fight over who's picking up the tab for lunch, merging with the main plot, in which Larry invites two "wheelies" to the same private party and both show up - so pushes one date into the coat closet - the two "wheelies" chase him through the house while a classical recital takes place (shades of the Marx brothers), he thinks he'll evade them by going up the stairs, but Rosie picks up the pursuit. Insane, very funny in a wholehearted way. I wonder if the two beautiful women in wheelchairs are actually disabled actors. I hope so - not that I wish those two to be disabled of course, but I think it's great that casting is now seeking disabled actors to play the roles of the disabled - old high-school friend Henry Holden leading the charge on that issue.

The Great Danes: Her perfect portrayal of Temple Grandin

This year's crop of HBO movies far, far surpasses the lame and dispiriting efforts of 2009. "Temple Grandin" may be the best of the bunch - in any case, I found it totally enthralling for its nearly two hours, interesting both because of Grandin and who she is and how effectively this tightly directed film captures the way she thinks, the struggle she had to find a place in the world, her fine accomplishments, the complexities of her condition (autism), and the difficulties she faced growing up in the 50s and 60s that are somewhat alleviated today, thanks in part to her. The film is not in the least mawkish, it's sometimes funny, often sad, has moments of triumph without being overly sentimental, and doesn't overstate the claims for Grandin. She's not superhuman. She's real, with strengths and flaws like all of us. We see how autism is something of a spectrum diagnosis, and she's pretty far out on the edge of the spectrum, but because of her mother's determination and refusal to accept the limited medical advice of the era, she made the most of her life. The scenes of her trying to socialize and to "fit in" at school are vivid and painful. Can't say enough about Clare Danes's portrayal, funny and vivid and completely believable, through a whole range of emotions - all while not being able to protray emotions through traditional means of social interaction. The only weakness of the film is the totally opaque Julia Ormond, who once again show that a pretty face is not enough if you can't show anything beneath the surface. Another film that could never have been made for commercial release but finds a great venue through HBO.

A little postmodern music box a show : Seinfeld Reunion episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm

I guess it's no news that "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is consistently funny and well-written. I won't have too much to say about each episode, but the Seinfeld reunion episode, aside from blowing me away once again by the clever plot construction, is an amusing little postmodern music box, as we watch a show about characters talking about a Seinfeld reunion, but of course to bring the actors into the show to talk about the reunion show, which they may never do, Larry David does in fact create the (nonexistant) reunion show. And we experience exactly the kind of displacement that the character, Larry David, frets about: oh, he's gotten fat, she still looks great, he's much more sedate in real life, etc. We're watching the aging actors, not the show. All that set off against the subplot of the head of NBC, based on someone of course (Jeff Zucker?), offers comped Lakers tix but they end up being nosebleeders, which drives Larry D crazy. Most viewers should be pissed off at that - what makes you so special? You, can afford the best seats - you ought to be made to sit in the rafters with the rest of us. What a penance! But it's funny nevertheless as he sees the studio head courtside, with David Spade, and feels slighted and calls him on his cell and, through binocks, watches the exec screen the call. Show is building toward Larry (maybe) getting back with Cheryl, who wants a part in the reunion show. Funny dialogues about type of apology - somewhere between grudging and sincere - and about coordinating the tip when you split the tab.

We know it's funny, but the plots are also so well designed: Curb Your Enthusiasm

"Curb Your Enthusiasm" is, as M notes, an R-Rated Seinfeld. Extremely funny, clever, well written or sketched, and, perhaps surprisingly, well designed. The plots are like tight little well-made plays, every element and shtick introduced in the first moments will come back and play a role. Last night watched episode called vehicular fellatio - i don't need to say more about that - but in addition to loving the humor I greatly admired the construction of the story, the craft: Larry can't open a vacuum-packed package (stabs it, stomps on it, etc, who hasn't done that), goes to his current girlfriend (black woman like a young tina turner improbably moved in with him), she bosses him around, he's got to get out of the relationship, he sees a Dr. Phil show in which the guest is a psychiatrist who counsels cancer patients to leave their toxic relationships, Larry gets his girlfriend (a ca patient) to see this doctor, he acts like a jerk in her office, hoping she'll counsel his girlfriend to leave, on the way to a lecture they see the psychiatrist giving a blow job to her husband, girlfriend repulsed refuses to go to the lecture, Larry disappointed, when he goes to the psych office to pay a bill (don't ask - another funny plot twist) she calls him into her office, he tells why his girlfriend dropped out, dr. denies it, hits him, he goes home - oh, god, i'm not going to explain everything - there are more twists and turns - and it loses everything in the telling. It's all worth it for the crazy arguments he gets into about the most mundane things (who should pay for a pair of broken sunglasses), great show.

Only weakness in this film is its ridiculous title

So often an HBO/Showtime movie nabs a major star for the lead role (often sharing exec producer credit) and the star wins an Emmy for a routine performance, but because the TV industry is honored to have a Paul Newman, e.g., step into its milieu. Al Pacino's going to be the exception - his performance in the HBO "You Don't Know Jack," as Dr. Jack Kevorkian, is amazing, transformative. I know that sometimes it's easier to portray a character in a biopic than to create an entirely fictive character from the whole cloth, but Kevorkian - well, it's not like Dennis Quaid playing Clinton (The Special Relationship), when we're constantly comparing him with the real guy. Most of us don't know anything about what Kevorkian was like - so we're just judging Pacino on his tremendous evocation of a character, obsessed, self-righteous, brave, eccentric, ascetic, principled, pig-headed, emotional, and caustic. It's a really smart movie, the best of this waning genre to come along in a few years, I think. Really makes you think about the issue and totally draws you in with strong character portrayal, smart writing, good supporting cast - though a bit long, took up my whole evening at 2+ hours. Pacino's argument with his/Kevorkian's sister in the diner is a tremendous scene, and the many interviews with the dying patients are all very powerful - wonder if they used some real documentary footage, there or with the TV appearances or the court appearances? This is a great use of cable medium, as the material deserves a feature-length treatment but it's obvious no studio would ever take on this subject for a commercial film, probably correctly - the topic would never draw a crowd to the Showcase. Only weakness of the film is its ridiculous and inapt title.

Well-made, well-scripted, well-directed - but you finish The Special Relationship feeling puzzled

"The Special Relationship" is another in the long line of well-made BBC/HBO movies, well acted, well-scripted, well-directed, nothing wrong with it, but it doesn't have a great interior life. Like The Queen, like Frost/Nixon, like many others, it's a gloss on history, a reminder of a time we lived through, and, for Americans, a different perspective on familiar events. You have to like the film - an examination of the working friendship between Blair and Clinton - but you also leave it feeling kind of puzzled: how much is based on the historical record (even on memoirs), and how much is purely fictional? It's not quite a documentary, though it does effectively use documentary footage, especially at the end when we see (the real) Blair with (the real) George W. Bush, and it's just painful to see that stilted and unpleasant partnership after the intelligent and edgy friendship between Blair and Clinton (very well acted by Dennis Quaid). Very interesting to see how the two men used each other from time to time to build domestic support - Blair getting help from Clinton regarding N Ireland, at no apparent cost and to no apparent, immediate, benefit for Clinton, the favor later returned when Blair stood up for Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal. The film is primarily from the British POV of course, but for an American viewer the interest level, no matter what, will still be focused on Clinton, or actually the Clintons, because some of the best scenes are the domestics between Bill and Hillary (Hope Davis).

Why Yesterday Girl is an obscure film

Who knew that in the mid-60s there was a German New Wave as well? The wave petered out, I guess, before rolling into shore. One of the few examples, or one of the few I've ever heard of, is the now-obscure "Yesterday Girl," directed by Alexander Kluge, and starring his sister Alexandra. All of the techniques that Truffaut and Godard, et al., explored from the mid-50s on show up here - the break with conventional narrative, the interpolated dream or fantasy sequences, the odd moments of addressing the camera, the quick jump cuts in space and time, the incredibly long langourous post-coital discussions about art and life, the "text cards," the bandit on the run, the glamorous low-lifer, the long panning shots in open space - but when seen through a German lens, surprise!, they're not as funny and full of verve, but more heavy-handed and portentous. Still, even after 40 years, Yesterday Girl is fresh in many ways, it still has the fresh-air spirit of young filmmakers in love with the medium and willing to try any technique to tell their story. And by the end you do fell that you get to know this sad character, Anita G., an E German struggling to get a footing in the West but with no chance. The trenchant critique of the German justice system and university system is still powerful (and funny) today. I wonder what happened to Kluge (or the Kluges) - he never emerged as a recognizable cultural figure, as so many of his European contemporaries did. Perhaps he was just a bit too derivative. Yesterday Girl is a good film that would be much more widely seen and appreciated if the director has developed an entire auteur corpus.

A great indie film that sets modest goals and achieves them: Old Joy

If you could combine, say, Sideways without the sex, My Dinner with Andre without New York, Deliverance without the violence, and Blair Witch without the witches you might have something like "Old Joy," a buddy movie that has essentially two characters only, two guys in late-20s, friends who've grown apart as one, Mark, has moved on with his life, married, wife expecting, and Kurt is still locked in their old days as late-vintage Portland hippies. The two guys go off for a weekend of camping, and it becomes more obvious as it proceeds that Kurt is a deeply troubled young man and unlikely to get along with his life, and that Mark is humoring him or carrying him, out of old loyalty, but Mark has moved beyond those days - the pull of responsibility, his guilt about leaving his pregnant wife back at home, is a torment to him that he can't shake. It would be harder for him were there anything appealing about Kurt, but there isn't - as Mark is well aware. The movie is very simple, based on a short story, and it speaks volumes about friendship and time and maturity, as much by what it doesn't say as by what it does. Also very beautiful shots of Oregon in its grandeur (their trip through the Cascades culminates at a hidden, kind of spooky hot springs spa) and its decrepitude, impoverished small lumber towns and the dreary gray outskirts of Portland. It's kind of a guy movie, though not in a macho way at all, but I think women would not completely "get" Mark's ambivalence and his struggle - though I'm pretty sure the writer/director, Kelly something, is a woman, so go figure. A great indie film that sets modest goals and achieves them.