Comments on: New Look At Julie Taymor’s ‘The Tempest’ https://staging2.theplaylist.net/new-look-at-julie-taymors-tempes-20100616/ Fri, 13 Nov 2020 09:01:53 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.2 By: Anonymous https://staging2.theplaylist.net/new-look-at-julie-taymors-tempes-20100616/#comment-20089 Fri, 18 Jun 2010 00:52:55 +0000 http://theplaylist.wpengine.com/?p=2664#comment-20089 Disney would be in their right mind to either shelve this forever or dump it direct to video. I was in a market screening in Cannes that began with about 20-25 acquisitions executives and by the time I walked out some 40 minutes into the film (just after an incomprehensible Russell Brand got under a blanket with fish-handed Djimon Hounsou and Alfred Molina stumbled around a sand dune drunk and singing), there were about 6 or 7 people left in the room. It was an unwatchable disaster, and the only reason I stayed that long was because I was so stunned that there seemed to be nothing redeemable in it at all. Shakespeare is rolling over in his grave. So those reading at home can quantify my opinion, I thought TITUS was fascinating, visually stunning and wonderfully performed; FRIDA was average at best w/ occasional flurries of visual genius; her theatre work has been lately undercooked and repetitive (though I would never argue against the technical accomplishments of "Lion King" being her crowning achievement); and found ACROSS THE UNIVERSE to be woefully tired, visually obnoxious and nothing more than a trite reminder that The Beatles wrote really some great pop songs.

As you might guess from above, TITUS is my favorite of her work so I had high expectations that this would be a similar treatment for TEMPEST, which has never been a favorite of Shakespeare for me anyhow. Unfortunately, it was all half-though out style and absolutely no substance and the only "revolutionary" thing you could say about it was that it cast and then wasted the incomparable Helen Mirren.

]]> By: Greg https://staging2.theplaylist.net/new-look-at-julie-taymors-tempes-20100616/#comment-20063 Thu, 17 Jun 2010 16:53:11 +0000 http://theplaylist.wpengine.com/?p=2664#comment-20063 I thought "Frida" and "Titus" were wonderful, and that and "Across The Universe" was one of the worst films I had seen. But I'm pretty excited about Tempest.

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