Comments on: There’s a Place for Us (but damned if I can find it).

By: PhDork

PhDork — Tue, 05 May 2009 23:42:10 +0000

Kivrin, regarding Shakespeare in Love: one part of the suckitude is that mixed in with lot about accurate info about playhouses and people and such are huge, stupid errors like:
–Viola is supposed to go with her soon-to-be-husband to grow tobacco in Virginia, which didn’t exist yet. Jamestown was founded in 1607; the events of the film are in 1593.
–Will at one point speaks lines from Hamlet, which wasn’t written until 1601.
–Good Queen Bess would not/did not appear at a public theatre during her reign, nor did she request “something cheerful…perhaps for Twelfth Night.” Gawd.

The other part that makes me nuts is the relentlessly twee, too-clever gags spread thickly over it all. Will has an off-stage girlfriend named “Rosaline”! John Webster loved violence as a boy! Will has a shrink who keeps time with an hourglass! The play was originally called “Romeo and Ethel the Pirate’s Daughter”! A lot of my colleagues at the time about broke their arms patting themselves on the back for getting all the jokes.

By: Pilgrim Soul

Pilgrim Soul — Tue, 05 May 2009 22:45:33 +0000

emilyanne: I would say less-interesting Woolf about covers the writing. The performances are fabulous though, and you don’t usually get four people like that onstage, alone, to fight out their differences.

By: emilyanne

emilyanne — Tue, 05 May 2009 22:36:46 +0000

Kirvin, I’ll let someone else weigh in on SIL but Braveheart – well where to begin – with the fact that William Wallace never met Isabella of France, who would have been eight years old at the time she’s supposed to have slept with Wallace in the film? And didn’t depose her husband until 1327, oh and didn’t marry Edward until 1308 three years after Wallace’s death.

This is just the tip of what’s wrong with the film, which is pretty much wrong on all counts.

By: PhDork

PhDork — Tue, 05 May 2009 22:20:05 +0000

emilyanne: God of Carnage is Albee redux, AFAIK. I saw it in German in 2006, so I missed the finer points, but made notes on my program like "WOOLF!" and "Albee again!" at the time. P.Soul saw the NY production, too, so she could weigh in. And I'm sure Billy Elliot both sentimentalizes (and naturalizes/justifies) poverty, because Billy can still succeed, rise above, class transcendence is possible, cream rises to the top, etc. If I can get a cheap ticket, I'll see it here, but if it cleans up at the awards, that won't happen any time soon.

By: Kivrin

Kivrin — Tue, 05 May 2009 22:07:45 +0000

@PhDork, kelsium, & emilyanne: Of course I could run off and Google the historical inaccuracies in Shakespeare in Love, Braveheart, etc. — but it sounds like y’all would gladly expound upon the subject with a little prompting. So please, fill me in! (Assuming it wouldn’t be too much of a threadjack!)

By: emilyanne

emilyanne — Tue, 05 May 2009 22:01:07 +0000

Kelsium, PhDork, i am permanently scarred by the fact that i had to watch the appalling thing subsequently known as the not-Scottish film in the US where people actually stood and cheered at the climax of the film. To be honest I’m not sure to this day why I went to it.

That said it does not get me as irrationally annoyed as the fact that Matt Damon’s character could not possibly know what happened in Saving Private Ryan unless Tom Hanks wasted his last five minutes alive filling him in and thus the ending of Saving Private Ryan makes NO SENSE AT ALL.

Anyway back to the theatre – Billy Elliot also annoys me for its overt sentimentalising of poverty, and i haven’t seen God Of Carnage because it sort of seemed like a less interesting version of Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

By: kelsium

kelsium — Tue, 05 May 2009 21:45:21 +0000

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! It was rocketing around my brain but not landing anywhere where I could retrieve it.

By: PhDork

PhDork — Tue, 05 May 2009 21:43:25 +0000

kelsium, you're thinking of the Bechdel Test (also know as the Mo Movie Measure and The Rule). The DTWOF strip where it first popped up (though not under that name) is here. ETA: I cannot even bring myself to name the fetid celluloid wank-rag that rhymes with "cave-fart."

By: kelsium

kelsium — Tue, 05 May 2009 21:36:32 +0000

@PhDork, emilyanne: I’ve not seen it, but I’m glad to know that it is not as terrible as she made it out to be, because I find the concept very interesting. She also saw it opening night, so it’s entirely possible that things have changed/improved, as they usually do.

By: kelsium

kelsium — Tue, 05 May 2009 21:34:47 +0000

@emilyanne: I have never even made it all the way through Braveheart. I've tried a couple of times, but I just can't bring myself to care about any of it.