Horatio's Backpack - The National Theater's Production o Hamlet

The new production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet at the National Theater in London's Barbican is a different kind of Hamlet. I was pleased to attend the NT Live event at a local movie theater of the production.  Since many of us will never get to see theses shows, the high definition broadcast of a single production is actually a treat.

So what's different about this Hamlet? It is the theme through staging.  Olivier played up the oedipal side of the Hamlet story and cut all the political stuff.  Mel Gibson played the zaniest or most antic and possibly the worst Hamlet on film.  Derek Jacobi's Hamlet was one that actually seemed like the son of a warrior king. Unfortunately, the filming of his version makes it, to say the least, boring to watch. Kenneth Branagh brought the uncut and more serious version of Hamlet to film. His was grand in scope and occasionally over-acted with a strong supporting cast.  David Tennant's Dane mines the humor that is in the play. Ethan Hawke's is a sort of lost or even slacker Hamlet.  What is Cumberbatch's Hamlet? He is one of generational nature.  It is perhaps the way the play has been reordered slightly and cut to reflect a more political and war-like nature by director Lyndsey Turner that makes Benedict's character of Hamlet less human and more of a Millennial sort of Hamlet.  At three hours long, this Hamlet in its cutting falls closer to the complete text than the radically butchered version with Mel Gibson.

The wonder of this version is that it tends to be more statement.  The 39-year-old Cumberbatch's Hamlet is one that really tries to throw the facets of the character almost in a juggler like fashion. It has been said that no actor can hit all the dimensions of Hamlet as a character and so perhaps to the detriment of Cumberbatch's skill, the director's vision becomes a statement of Hamlet as generational representative trying to be all things. His "antic disposition" finds the wonder and humor of Shakespeare's gifted use of double entendre and puns.  The humor is a potent element.  Just as quickly, Hamlet drops the madness to show the depths of pain and despair he feels at his father's murder.  By the time the play-within-the-play rolls around, Hamlet becomes the conglomeration of these facets.  His costume has shifted from the classic Hamlet in black that begins the play to a combination of clothes from Adidas tennis shoes, a drummer's red coat under which shows a Ziggy Stardust tee.  He is a representative of having no real place in this era to call his own and being a self-absorbed member or the generation he symbolizes. He finds no real direction until his confrontation with the Fortinbras army and his realization that while he has done nothing to change his circumstance, 20,000 men are prepared to die for no reason. It is from this point that Hamlet understands that he must make a change.  He must become involved.

 

When next we see Hamlet, gone are the affectations of his wild costume and now he appears in a simple costume of a merchant sailor.  When last he faces his battle with the treacherous and misled Laertes, he wears a sparkling white fencing coat with glove opposed to the black costumes of Laertes and Claudius.  In short he is the hero his generation must become if change is to come.

I would have liked to felt more for the characters but the symbolic use of costume and set occasionally got in the way.  An example would have to be Horatio's backpack.  Every time Horatio (Leo Bill) is on stage, he wears a large knapsack and for apparently no reason.  When he arrives at the castle, he wears the backpack.  When they go to see the ghost, there is Horatio and his backpack.  When he watches the play-within-the-play, he wears his backpack.  The only time that Horatio is not wearing his pack is at the end when he puts it down during the duel. I am still not sure what the point of the pack was. Horatio is also covered in visible tattoos.  I am also unsure if they are a statement to link Horatio to the current fad or if Leo Bill just has a lot of tattoos.  Bill doesn't have a strong voice or presence to begin with and then to encumber the witness of Hamlet with a backpack and tattoos did no service to the production. 

Another example is as the kingdom of Claudius crumbles the floors are covered in black debris that clings to every actor and costume. It interferes with the performance.  Ophelia, played by Sian Brooke, has to deal with it in perhaps her strongest scene.  Ophelia's first soliloquy is extremely labored while her madness scene is strong and moving with great depth.  It would be better though if she weren't covered in the fake black symbols of a crumbling empire.

The performance by Claudius, played by Ciarán Hinds, is a good one. He has just the right amount of smooth-talking slimy villain to make his relationship with Cumberbatch's Hamlet a potent conflict. The casting, overall, was an interesting choice. Karl Johnson who plays the ghost and the grave digger is a fine actor but is a far better grave digger than warrior king.  Laertes really seems to labor with his speeches.  In the defense of some of the speeches appearing labored, it could be because of the closeness of camera to the performer in the "live theater" experience.  

I liked the show.  It moved well and delivery was, for the most part, clean.  While a few of the casting choices were weaker than other actors I've seen in the roles, most of the time, if the set, symbolic nature, and costumes didn't get in the way, the actors worked well on stage.  The line interpretations gave me some insight into meanings that I had not thought of.  It had energy.  So when it comes out on DVD, if it does, give it a shot.  It may not become as iconic as Olivier's Hamlet, but it will give some new perspective.

Now if I could just figure out the reason for Horatio's backpack.

Of Mountains and Molehills, Much Ado

A few are horribly upset that Obama renamed Mt. McKinley. He did and he didn't.  For a party whose advocates supposedly believe state rights, it seems to me that a number of right-wing pundits and a few in the conservative wing, are awfully upset over which flea owns the dog. I should point out that many elected Republicans also support the return of Denali.  One friend said it was a clear abuse of Obama's executive powers and went on to say this is one example showing  Obama as a dictator. This, of course, is the red meat fed not from the party but the right wing media. Strong stuff for a mountain that accidentally, more or less, got its name changed. The story of Denali vs. McKinley is the story of accidentally renaming a mountain, Ohio wanting a mountain in Alaska named for a native son, Alaska wanting to name its own mountains, a park named to honor an assassinated president and a law passed shortly after a World War.


Mt. McKinley's original name by the indigenous people was Denali which means literally Big or Tall or Great Mountain.* The first European to see the mountain was George Vancouver who called it a "distant stupendous mountain," but Vancouver left it unnamed. Ferdinand von Wrangel was actually the first person to give it a map name, Tenada, and I have no idea what that means. When Alaska was owned by Russia, it was commonly called Bolshaya Gora which means enough Big Mountain. Given the fact the natives also called it that, it seems kind of appropriate.

In 1897, a prospector named William Dickey named it in his journal as Mt. McKinley.  So in 1900 a government geologist named Josiah Spurr listed the name of Denali, as everything but Denali.  His list included a bad spelling of the Russian word for big, Mt. Allen and Mt. McKinley.  In geological reports, it was subsequently referred to as Mt. Mckinley.  After President McKinley was assassinated in 1901, congress created Mt. McKinley National Park in 1917 thus by default making the official name Mt. McKinley.

Alaskans, however, continued to refer to the area and the mountain as Denali.  In 1975, the Alaskan legislature officially requested the US government return it to Denali.  The U.S. Board on Geographic Names, who govern the naming of locations and was created in 1890, agreed but were blocked.  A single congressman, Ralph Regula, from Canton, Ohio, from where President McKinley hailed, used his influence to block the renaming. In 1980, McKinley Park was made a part of the much larger Denali National Park, leaving only the issue of the name of the mountain.

Ralph Regula

Regula used congressional procedures which basically killed any chance of actually changing the name. He would periodically introduce legislation into the budget or in separate legislation directing the name of McKinley be used.  Even if the legislation failed, as long as there was a bill on the agenda of congress, the Department of the Interior who oversees the recommendations of the Board on Geographic Names, could not meet the request of the Alaskan Congress and Governor because they cannot change a name while there is legislation pending.

Regula retired in 2009 and once again there was a move in the Alaskan legislature to change the name. Two more Ohio representatives, Betty Sutton and Tim Ryan, took up Regula's cause.  Regula is a Republican while the two new fighters for McKinley are both Democrats.

In 2015, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced that the name would be made Denali using a power given to the Secretary if the Board on Geographic Names failed to answer a request by a state in a reasonable amount of time.  Citing the Board's failure to meet the request of the name change for 40 years as being more than enough reasonable time, the name of Mt. McKinley became Denali. The law that gives the Secretary of Interior that power was passed by Congress in 1947.

As one Alaskan senator, Lisa Murkowski (R) put it, "There's a lot of things in Ohio that are already named after McKinley. This is no affront to our former president; this is all about ensuring that respect for the land and respect for the native people of the region is afforded." The current Governor of Alaska,  Bill Walker (R) was glad the name would now "reflect and respect the rich cultural history of our state..." President Obama made the name change even more official, if there is such a thing, by Executive Order in September of 2015.


So McKinley, which was basically accidentally named by a prospector and sloppy surveyor, has been returned to its original name as requested by Alaska.  No, Obama cannot rename other landmarks. In all this much ado, there is still a magnificent mountain that will be here long after we are all dust.  Now you know that it is just a tiny bit ridiculous for fleas to argue over who owns the dog or build a mountain out of a molehill.





*Thanks to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denali%E2%80%93Mount_McKinley_naming_dispute for much of the well-documented historical information that I am too lazy to look up elsewhere.

Bring Him Home

No not this Martian

Believe or not two years ago to the day, I posted my review of Gravity: a thrill ride movie.  The review for The Martain is a short one so I am just going to post a whole bunch of pictures.  The Martain is vastly superior to Gravity.

This review is spoiler free except for one thing, so let's get that out of the way first:
Sean Bean does not die in this movie.

The rest of the review goes like this:

The Martian is an extremely solid movie.  It is well-acted.  It has a tight plot.  It has strong characters.  It has plenty of very cool action that is not over the top nor do we ever get that feeling of "How much stuff can  go wrong?" in the sequences, which is so often the case of these movies.   It is worth it in 3d.  It is easy to watch.

If anything, The Martian reminds us that we need to go back to exploring space with more than probes.


It is, in fact, one of the best films I've seen in a while.

Go see it.

Everest: I wish I read the book first.

According to history and climbing mythos, George Mallory in 1923 when asked why he climbed Mount Everest replied, "Because it's there." It would seem no one who climbs mountains actually is able to describe why they do so.  In Jon Krakauer's book about his climb of the world's highest peak, Into Thin Air, according to someone I know who has read it, Krakauer agrees that there is no real good reason to climb particularly Everest.  In an interview on Huffington Post, Krakauer stated that it was the worst mistake of his life and that he is still haunted by the events on Everest in 1996.  He is also not happy with the adaptation of his book in the movie Everest.

So with that in mind, I offer you my little review of the movie Everest, based on the book Into Thin Air.  I have not read the book but my wife, who went to the movie with me, has and although she did not know when we went in that it was based on the book, she instantly recognized the movie was an adaptation of Krakauer's book.  My wife liked the movie better than I did.  I liked it okay, but I felt like I was missing something or more aptly somethings.

The movie's photography is breathtaking especially in 3D.  Honestly though, it can only hold attention for so long.  The movie has some moments of tense excitement.  I didn't know who died originally, so I didn't know who would die in the movie.  The issue for me is  that I didn't really become attached to any of the characters save the leader of the group Rob Hall played by Jason Clarke.  I became a little attached to Doug Hansen played by John Hawkes but the rest, I really didn't connect with, and this was despite a stellar cast that included Josh Brolin, Jake Gyllenhaal, Keira Knightly, Robin Wright, Sam Worthington, and Emily Watson.

The problem was that the movie needed to be built around understanding the lives of a couple of characters instead of around the events of the climb.  I also felt like I was missing an understanding of the steps of the climb.  These events were touched on like I should understand the different bases, the different approach, the rope issues, the climatizing issues, the importance of teamwork and why the lead sherpas would care if they worked together or not.  You see all those things are mentioned, but nothing is ever really made clear.  For example, there is a good deal of discussion about where extra oxygen or "o" is stashed.  I have no idea where the south pole is or the distance that the climbers had to go to get to it.  I actually still have no understanding of the distances involved.

What I do know, is that it is dangerous, hard, painful, and many die trying to climb.  My wife liked the movie better than I did for one simple reason.  All those gaps, like the different base camps and their importance, had been filled in by Into Thin Air.  She was revisiting people she had come to know from the book.  She understood them.  She understood what it meant to have climbed all seven summits (it means a climber has reached the summit of the highest peaks on seven continents). She understood the significance of their deaths or survival and the extremity of climbing Everest.  My two hours on the mountain lacked all that information.

I liked the movie for its intensity and astounding vistas.  I was frustrated by its weakness in telling what was and should be a moving and intense story.  It is well worth the watch, but it is not as strong of a  film as it could have been.

The 60's in Style with the Return of The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is a 60's period, action/comedy based on the television series that ran from 1965 to 1968 and starred Robert Vaughn as Napolean Solo and David McCallum as Illya Kuryakin with Leo G. Carroll as the boss of U.N.C.L.E., Alexander Avery. U.N.C.L.E. stands for United Network Command for Law and Enforcement.

The original spun off twenty-plus novels, comic books, and a series called The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.  with Stefanie Powers as April Dancer (a direct nod to Bond) that was cancelled after one season.  There was also a release of eight feature films which were actually TV episodes that were re-edited with more adult themes, and there was at least one reunion TV movie made in 1983.  In pop culture, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was conceived, in part,  by Ian Flemming so Solo's James Bond-like appearance, the wild contraptions, and the beautiful, "high fashion" women are no accident.  The pop culture realm of the 60's and early 70's were marked by shows and movies similar to The Man from U.N.C.L.E.  from Bond - James Bond to The Avengers to Derek Flint to I Spy to Matt Helm.

It is rumoured that the original Kuryakin character was supposed to be  a "one episode" character, but McCallum was so popular that he became a series regular and Solo's eventual partner.  There have even been a couple of references to McCallum's Ducky character looking like Kuryakin on NCIS.

So it is little wonder that Guy Richie, who directed the new movie version, had some hopes in resurrecting the series?  That probably won't happen since the new movie looks as if it is going to lose money.  This time round Solo is played by Henry Cavill and Kuryakin by Armie Hammer with Hugh Grant as Avery.  All fit their roles pretty well although McCallum was nowhere near the size of Hammer and Cavill is far better looking than Vaughn. The movie is a clear tribute to the original series.  It is over-the-top and the period look is near perfect.  Richie has even stylized the movie with the look of the 60's style cinema photography.

From the outset, if you didn't like the original series, you are probably not going to like the new movie.  It has all the pacing and some of the fun gadgets of the original.  I personally liked it, but I liked the original too.  Cavill even goes so far as to do a sort of original Napoleon Solo line delivery that was also used by Vaughn.  With the inclusion of the Girl from U.N.C.L.E., now named Gaby and played by Alicia Vikander,  the new U.N.C.L.E. is set to go.  Yes, I know.  Some aren't going to like the movie because of its very sixty's style, feel and cutting.  I admit, I found the split screen  a bit annoying in some of the action sequences, but I found them annoying when they were popular.  The movie has some great moments of tongue-in-cheek humor that were also the hallmark of this genre. One more thing...it's not a superhero movie.

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation - A Glorious Chase

It's hard to believe that Mission Impossible movies started in 1996 and Rogue Nation is number five in the series with Tom Cruise as IMF team leader Ethan Hunt.  The best thing about Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation is it does not pretend to be anything more than it is. Rogue Nation is a great action movie with wild chases, fun plot twists, a hero the audience likes, and exotic locations.

Okay, so maybe it is more than that.  Or maybe it is a little less than that.  I suppose  we could accuse the series of being a bit formulaic.  Ethan Hunt will get in trouble with our government.  Ethan will have to go it on his own.  Someone in the IMF or outside the IMF is trying to stop it.  Ethan will assemble his own crack team.  There will be THE woman for Ethan to understand, protect, and/or save. The fact is most movies of a particular genre or name are formulaic be they Marvel comic book movies, DC comic book movies, Bourne movies, or Bond movies. If you are going to condemn a big summer movie on that basis, you might as well quit going.

What make many, if not most of these movies work, is that they get their audience involved.  The fun thing about action movies is, duh, action.  Good action movies give us characters we love and root for. Great action movies even have stars who frequently do their own stunts. According to Simon Pegg who plays Benji in the movie, Cruise did the hanging on a flying airplane stunt not once but four times.  It is, by the way, the opening sequence of the movie and has little to do with the main plotline.

The cast of the movie is solid.  Ving Rhames returns a computer wiz, Luther Stickell, and Simon Pegg turns in his usual fun performance. Sean Harris is the perfect sociopathic villain.  Jeremy Renner as the head of the IMF plays well against his foil CIA head Alan Hunley, played by Alec Baldwin, who wants to end IMF and especially Ethan Hunt.

Most importantly though is THE woman, Lisa,  played by Rebecca Ferguson. What makes the character is more than the gratuitous swimsuit and underwear scenes that were included.  Lisa is smart, capable, and one tough agent.  While one of the twists is whether she is a good guy or a bad guy, she is Ethan Hunt's match in every way.  She is a great, action hero.  And, no I am not going to tell you if she is good or bad.

Go see Mission Impossible; Rogue Nation.  It's a genuine thrill ride and a solid genre movie.  It's just plain fun.

An Ant, A Wasp and A Hornet...It's Another Marvel Movie

Without too many spoilers, thought it might be time to review Marvel's newest release, Ant-Man.  To put simply, it is another comic book movie.

Time for full disclosure.  I know next to nothing about the Ant-Man comics that inspired the movie. I don't even recall reading an Ant-Man comic. I know the original Ant-Man in the comics is Hank Pym.  I know that he was founding member of the Avengers.    I also think he was a crime fighter with his wife The Wasp.  I do not know if she died in the comic.  I think Ant-Man became the Yellow Jacket for a time.  I also know that he was replaced breifly by Scott Lang in the late 70's. Ant-Man can also control insects, and that eventually, having used the Pym particle for many years, his ability to become smaller and larger comes to him at will without the aid of the suit.

So I went into the movie knowing only a little about what to expect.  Ant-Man, the Scott Lang incarnation, is play by Paul Rudd.  Like many of the Marvel heroes he tends to be wise-cracking, super-intelligent, and somewhat broken as an individual.  While Marvel was clearly hoping for another breakout character like Star Lord and The Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man doesn't quite hit that mark.  There are fun moments and an exciting final battle involving a Thomas the Train but like other comic book movies, the CGI battle sequence seems a bit too long.


Just as other Marvel movies have tried to give the characters a very human backstory, Ant-Man tries to do this with Doctor Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and his daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly) by running a parallel story with Scott Lang and his young daughter.  We also have a villain who, like most of the Marvel villains, is basically a psychopath.  Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) becomes the The Yellowjacket that Ant-Man must stop. The stronger themes that I've noticed in Captain America, does not run strongly in Ant-Man.  It is the basic good vesus evil theme.

What the movie does do is expand the Marvel movie universe in much the same way that Guardian's did.  It seems more off-the cuff and irreverant than the Avenger films.  It still has references to the Avengers and the evil Hydra, and it is clear that Ant-Man will become a member of the Avengers.  Paul Rudd has already been signed for the up-coming Captain American: Civil War and the next two Avenger movies. Ant-Man is a fun and well-acted movie. It is worth the watch even if it suffers from the same over-use of CGI action sequences from which many other action movies also suffer.  I liked it.