To quote that great authority on Shakespearian acting, Withnail’s Uncle Monty, “it is the most devastating moment in a young man’s life when he quite reasonably says to himself ‘I shall never play the Dane!’” Shakespeare might have ascribed seven ages to man in As You Like It, but as […]
William Shakespeare
Roger Bacon’s Robot Head – Literary Loitering 113
Ugetsu (1953) Mizoguchi, Japan’s most elusive master director (Review)
For all that Kenji Mizoguchi tends to be introduced as one of Japan’s post-war triumvirate of great filmmakers, along with his younger contemporaries Yasujiro Ozu and Akira Kurosawa, the evidence for such claims has been poorly distributed. This is partly due to the majority of the prolific director’s films being […]
Twin Peaks The Return Episode 18 (The Rewatch)
Twin Peaks the Return Episode 18 MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS WHAT IS YOUR NAME? LA-based viewers of the Twin Peaks finale felt unsettled when Dale Cooper drove up to Eat At Judy’s. This isn’t an unusual feeling when watching Twin Peaks: rewatching this episode, I felt deeply uncomfortable waiting for the […]
Looking for Richard (1996) Al Pacino of the creative process and Shakespeare (Review)
Play On! Shakespeare in Silent Film (2016) Pulls off the Impossible (Review)
Richard III (1995) Ready to be reclaimed as a masterpiece (Review)
Literary Loitering 41 – The Siege Weapons of Outrageous Fortune
Cinema Eclectica 66 – The Biscuits for Movies Initiative
Everything can be justified if you’re rewarded with biscuits. Off The Shelf features the new (and classic), Takashi Miike film “Yakuza Apocalypse”, Akira Kurosawa’s Japanese Shakesperean epic “Ran”, and “Innocence of Memories” – an essay film from Grant Gee. We also have a minority report on “Captain America: Civil War” […]
Akira Kurosawa’s Ran (1985) Home to one of the greatest battle scenes of all time (Review)
Shakespeare’s stories, character and language might be what reel us in, but it’s the mysteries that can engender an obsession. From Sigmund Freud, who famously pored over a psychiatric diagnosis of Prince Hamlet, to John Sutherland and Cedric Watts, who published an entire book (Henry V, War Criminal?) on the […]