Yesterday I watched WW84 (see my comments in a related thread).

Today I watched the Hollow Crown adaptation of Richard II. I wasn't terribly familiar with this first part of Shakespeare's Henriad, except by way of Orson Wells' Chimes at Midnight. The latter is best enjoyed with a certain sort of appreciation for the entire life of Orson Welles.

I'll pass on what I knew of the play before seeing this film as a limited sort of description of what to expect: Richard II is a bad king, but it isn't entirely clear that those who would usurp him are motivated by charity of any sort. This is also a rare treat in that it is entirely written in verse; this is essentially preserved in the adaptation. It is a decent enough presentation, but the stories (as presented) are somewhat uneven. It's also quite long at 2.5 hours.

I'm aware that the following parts of the Henriad have to be viewed to understand a greater part of the story, but even as I know where this is going I am not entirely sure that I'd recommend this folks over several other film adaptations.

Saw WW84 on Friday, thought it was delightful.

Another movie that I watched in the past week was
Extraction
I love it when stunt men direct action movies (ex: John Wick franchise, Atomic Blonde) and this is no exception. It's a very kinetic movie, the action and the camera following it. It's a movie that makes me believe Chris Hemsworth could kill a few people with his bare hands. He's a monster.

I liked it. Classic detective type stuff. My usual complaint about what I see as unnecessary bad language and vulgarity. Lots of twists and turns to keep you guessing. Disjointing to see Captain America behaving badly.

It was a sort of nostalgia for me. Like unto a death in my family.

Screaming. Check
Cursing. Check.
Hatred. Check
Mistrust. Check

DIFFERENCES:

We don't have a will read. We fight over sticks of broken down furniture.

We do not have a dignified funeral. We have an insane highly orchestrated tear jerking ceremony with typically some fathead preacher trying to preach the dead reprobate into heaven.

There are hostilities born that are likely to outlive those initially involved.

Fighting. It's often physical and can take place anytime from the death, til the funeral afterparty.

No suicides, but accidental overdose seems to be poplar

The stories I could tell, like when during a beer run, my cousin drunk drove himself and a woman he met at the beerstore into a tree.
His mom decided he would lay in state at their trailer.

So a day later, his aunt, following a beer run to the same store, returned and set her beer and a lit cigarette on the coffin. So she could scratch her lotto tickets on the coffin.
Her sister noticed and attacked. They knocked the coffin off its table. My brother and I caught it, set it aright, and got out of there before the police could be summoned.

When my cousin's mother died, both daughters showed up half hour late, highly over-medicated, and ready to fight. Police called in to restore order.

And so forth.

So yeah. I liked it. Brought back a lot of happy memories!

2:59

THE MILKMAN

POLAROID

SPEECHLESS

ALIEN INVASION

All of these shorts had interesting ideas but not enough information to enjoy them.

THE LAST STEPS

Short that made no sense whatsoever. Or maybe I am too much of a barbarian to understand.

LEFT TURN

THE RAIN COLLECTOR

INFINITY 7

I liked these shorts, but don't know what to say about them. But am sure they would not be everyone's cup of tea.

DAS RAD

SPACE CASTLE

Very clever shorts. My kind of thing.

I squeezed the animated Batman vs. Two-Face into my weekend watches, featuring the original casts' voices of Adam West, Burt Ward, Julie Newmar, Lee Meriwether with William Shatner as Harvey Dent/Two-Face. I didn't enjoy this as much as I did The Return of the Caped Crusaders.

The animation and voice-acting is excellent, but the plot goes to a weird space and the story makes a LOT of choices that are out-of-line with the 1966 series. I'm not referring to the tongue-in-cheek dialogue that make certain meta references that would have been out of place in the original show, e.g. Aunt Harriet (Miss Yvonne!) bluntly teasing the 'eligible bachelor(s) spending time with their youthful wards' with a nudge and a wink.

The items I find peculiarly out of place are odd choices that seem to have come from other Batman animated properties, including the heavy use of Bat-a-rangs, constantly swinging into the scene from ropes, and the use of a Bat-signal. My general opinion is that these choices landed in the uncanny valley of things that were never used in the show, but aren't crazy enough to need to be 'animated'. I'm of two minds (hah!) over Two-Face's constant use of guns. On the one side of the coin they are generally regarded as his 'signature weapon', but on the flip side of the coin, the Batman '66 Rogues Gallery pretty much only emphasized guns with bullets if they were part of the schtick (Shame, Ma Parker). Ultimately the coin toss lands on the side that the heavy use of guns (and to some extent explosions) was a lazy, clumsy choice. Perhaps the script laziness was due to trying to rush the feature into production?

The Two-Face plot and dialogue is also disappointing, as it has essentially been lifted from a number of obvious non-Batman '66 sources... and viewers familiar with the canon will see these 'twists' coming from a mile away. William Shatner is quite good in the dual role. King Tut has a significant role, but unfortunately Wally Wingert's in unable to channel Victor Buono as well as he does Frank Gorshin's Riddler. Similarly, Jeff Bergman's Bookworm is as disappointing as his Joker is acceptable.

Clearly: compromises were made for this production. On balance this isn't as bad as it is disappointing. I'd suggest reading any of the Batman '66 comics ahead of viewing this movie. The final (non-crossover) issue of that comic featured many Batman villains who did not appear in the TV series, and IMHO does a better job of fitting them into that universe.

I've watched The Hollow Crown adaptations of Henry IV parts 1 & 2. I won't be able to add much to the canon of critical analysis of the plays themselves. These two plays continue to build to the story of England's great king (Henry V, here Prince Hal), but first we have to revisit his father: a good king but one whose role as usurper has left political wounds that have never healed. The King does offer some clever words to his heir about how to avoid such problems... TBD in Henry V!

This particular production goes out of its way to emphasize that Prince Hal is playing the rogue with a deeper purpose, and so cuts against some of the disappointment expressed by the Henry IV. This emphasis does sidestep what sometimes comes across as a complete change of Prince Hal's character in some other productions. Tom Hiddleston is very good in the role of the Prince.

This production also emphasizes the base nature of Falstaff (played well by Simon Russell Beale); he is mostly pathetic, but since we (folks familiar with the story) know how this is going to end it makes a few of his scenes truly bittersweet. I have to admit that much of the "comedie" hasn't aged particularly well over the centuries; quite a lot of it is kept intact (as near as I can recall) but I think the off-putting nature of the comedy (to modern ears) well contributes to this tragi-comic interpretation of Falstaff.

I'm looking forward to Henry V, as that considered to be among the strongest of the history plays and I want to see how this production spins the moral complexity of that story. I would recommend watching the Hollow Crown adaptations of Henry IV (both parts) for limited and diverse, reasons:

1. For folks with a genuine curiosity of Shakespeare's historical works, the Henriad is a must see, these productions have been very good.
2. For folks who want to experience an odd, out-of-place feeling about how "sequels" and "franchises" worked four centuries ago
3. For folks that want to have a very good sense at how clever Orson Welles was in stripping the Henriad for his Chimes at Midnight.

On point (3) above: I felt that Netflix's Mank definitely left the impression that Welles was stealing the writing credit for Citizen Kane, but nobody whose seen Chimes at Midnight believes that Orson Welles wrote the Henriad, yet Welles' adaptation is brilliant.

PRISONER X

Interesting. There could be a more interesting sequel

I completed my watch of The Hollow Crown adaptation of Shakespeare's Henriad with Henry V. Tom Hiddleston continues in the title role.

I was disappointed with this adaptation. It appears to this observer that the production didn't know what it wanted to do with this telling, and made more than one incorrect, and in one case problematic, choice. The problematic choice was in casting a rare actor of colour in the role of York... who is famously one of the very few casualties in the battle of Agincourt. York gets to volunteer for a rather risky part of the battle stratigem, but having him stabbed in the back in a moment of quiet contemplation robs the character of any agency in his own death. This is a particularly weird choice because this production opts to show much of that particular battle (in stage productions the scene is designed to be narrated)... so the miraculous nature of the English victory is even more unbelievable.

Another odd (to my mind choice) is that the self-interactions among both the nobility and lower classes are equally dull... the crucial scenes of the King passing among the common soldiers is devoid of charm. I was also non-plussed with the scenes involving (future queen) Katherine... I acknowledge that her appearances can be somewhat disjoint in the productions, but I expect that there are some excellent imaginative presentations of her scenes that I wish had been included here.

Unfortunately, this rather dull presentation of Henry V has soured me on this entire Hollow Crown production. The acting in this finale was also pretty dull in comparison to the earlier entries. I didn't think I'd end here... but I'd recommend watching the first three parts of Hollow Crown and then skip the finale.

Had the family watch Summer Rental and was not disappointed. I remembered it well from my youth and it holds up pretty well despite being so totally of its time.

I don't know if John Candy and Rip Torn were friends, but I really hope so because they seemed to be having a great time.

Ever have your family watch a movie with you that you loved very much in your youth only to have them be as unamused by it as you now are?

PRECIOUS CARGO

i found this movie quite boring. Made it 28 minutes.

A rare shared punishment? Oh, it happens!

My wife is trying to convince me to put on Popeye and I'm resisting with this potential experience in mind.

HAMLET'S GHOST

Showed such promise many times but most of the actors were just not believeable to me. And I do believe that it was either horribly written, horribly directed, or much that was needed to make it an actual story would up on the cutting room floor, or perhaps all three.
May make sense if I watched it again, but I doubt I will invest that time

ED AND HIS DEAD MOTHER

I made it 28 minutes and 23 seconds? Beat my time?