The Rest Is Silence

For those of you who know me lately, I have been on what one might call a kick. Perhaps mild obsession. Whatever you want to call it, ever since my good friend showed me this damn amazing show I have been tracking down whatever I can find starring David Tennant.

As a filmmaker, this tends to be what I do whenever I find an artist that I admire so I've been down this road before (Stanley Kubrick, Gary Oldman, Leonardo DaVinci). In some cases (not naming names), it has brought me to low and lonely places. Not so in the grand adventures of Mr. Tennant! And my latest discovery was buying Hamlet on blu-ray. This particular film is an adaptation of the stage production of the same, including original cast.

So some background: I am a huge Shakespeare fan and Hamlet is my absolute favourite of his plays. I am picky, so I prepare myself to be let down when I watch new adaptations. I don't subscribe to any of the "insanity" or "oedipal" bullshit that's surfaced in the last century and the play makes me extremely emotional. Since I am a woman, this also makes me lethal, so don't fuck with m Hamlet.

All that being said, I delved right in! There is a wonderful dark neutrality about the set, mirroring the darkness set upon young lord Hamlet. Mirrors themselves, playing a pivotal role in the stage version, are rampant throughout the set design - the broken mirror a classic representation of the fractured mind. The director utilizes the camera well with the soliloquies and asides and presents us with many interesting angles and some gloriously long takes.

But the performances, you ask! Okay, as unbiased as I can possibly be... David Tennant was absolutely stunning and heartbreaking in this. I think I would die to see the stage production, because his emotion was so incredibly raw yet subtle, cutting through the fancy words to what the character truly feels. He also plays with the comedy more than I'd seen before, and I thought that was a stroke of genius. It fleshed out Hamlet so he's not so mopey; he's lively and witty and yet full of pain. He captures the essence of the character that I related to so well upon first reading it while going through a loss of my own. Just, bravo. Bravo, Mr. Tennant!

And bravo to Patrick Stewart! I always figured that no matter what, he'd always be Professor X and Captain Picard to me, or possibly this guy. But it's now resolved - if I ever, ever meet this amazing man, I will thank him profusely for acting the hell out of Claudius. Trust me folks, it's all in the ending and the rest is a fantastic journey up to it.

And the supporting cast completely keeps up pace. Penny Downie's Gertrude made me feel for that woman for the first time ever and Oliver Ford Davies as Polonius was charming. Basically, I have no complaints in the acting at any point in the film. I can't even say that about Branagh's version!

Not to gloss over it too much because these guys do hard work, but briefly I have to acknowledge the other departments. The DP did a great job with lighting and handling all the mirrored sets. I thought the editing was great! I did notice a few hiccups in the sound, but I'm overtrained and overlistening for the most part.

10/10

Sir, There's a Firefly in My Soup

Okay, so I realize I'm late to this whole Firefly thing. The show was cancelled way before it's time by this crackerjack organization, and my friends have been bugging me for probably about four years to check out the show. Well, now I finally have decided to see what all the gorram fuss was about.

So by the end of the first episode, I was entertained but not blown away. But entertained is certainly enough for me to stick with it so I had the joy of watching these characters develop over the next fourteen episodes. There was clearly a lot of thought put into the creation of this "verse" - backstory leaks through constantly, peaking curiosity and embedding this sci-fi world into a reality.

China and the US merged to form one ginormous superpower, where you're either apparently high class society or a cowboy. The melding of the two societies was done very well and we come into the story quite a bit down the line. Earth that was has long since been uninhabitable and so the US/China Alliance went out into the galaxies and found new planets for everyone to exist all happy-like. They use a process called terraforming to convert the new rocks into environments as close to Earth as possible, but they can't seem to make much more than water and desert.

Our characters are fronted by the snarky (Joss Whedon specialty) but likeable Captain Malcolm "Mal" Reyonds, who fought against the Alliance in a great war. Zoe, Mal's Amazonian-esque righthand woman, fought with him and has stuck by his side ever since. Her husband, Wash (my personal favourite character), pilots Mal's ship, Serenity. He is aided by engineer, Kaylee, a sweet young thang who has a crush on Simon, an uppercrusty fugitive. Simon constantly nurses his sister, River, who's brain has been addled by the Alliance in a way nobody is quite sure of. The main gunslinger of this band of misfits is Jayne, played adorably by Adam Baldwin (NOT a Baldwin brother, I might add). And where would they be without god? Shepherd Book is this future's version of a priest, though there are hints he may be something more. Meanwhile, Mal rents out one of Serenity's shuttles to a "companion," Inara, who seems to be a futuristic version of a geisha.

So this cuddly band of thieves get themselves into all sorts of adventures. And here's what I'll say about them. I do not think this was the best show ever, as many claim. I do think it was a great show, a show that should NOT have been cancelled (remember, retarded company), and it's a show with great characters and a lot of emotion.

P.S.
SPOILER ALERT

All that said, one thing really bugged me. They cancelled this damn show before we got to see Mal and Inara get it on, and that's just not cool. That damn sexual tension was practically fogging up the inside of my tv. Also, major spoiler for the Serenity movie here, they killed Wash. He was my favourite. He played with dinosaurs and was freakin' hilarious. Joss Whedon, take note, you are officially on my shit list. But you're also damn talented, so cheers.

A Change of Pace

I've been using this blog mostly to rant. I have good reason to want to rant but haven't posted in a while because I felt ranted out. Now, at the encouragement of someone close to me, I'm going to try my hand at being an amateur movie critic.

I've always prided myself on being able to make recommendations for people that they might never have thought of before but are sure to love. If things pick up, I might go into full time critic mode and post my opinions on all the latest flicks. But for now, we'll start small.

I will post my first review tomorrow, and I'll be just tickled if anybody who reads this blog has even heard of it (me telling you previously does NOT count).

Anatomy of a Brain

...And beneath all the mud and the screaming, there was a city of forgotten children. They stood thick, like a forrest. And like a forrest, made no sound and did not move. They simply looked on, pale ghosts, condemning the world which left them behind, doomed to a life of solitude. Trapped in their own silence.
And should one fall through the mud, past the screaming, and beyond death, the children would surround them and gaze. They would see past the skin, through the eyes, and into the soul, and that one should cry out with all the rage and fury of a dying star. But the sound would be dampened by the masses...

**

DARKNESS! DARKNESS! Make it stop! A black cloud in my brain brings the thunder and the lightning. It pulls me from this world down to the next. The nether. I can feel the demons' claws 'round my brain, gripping tight and scratching down. But I can not see them. I can not name them, but in my mind. To give it a name gives it credence. To give it credence makes it real. To make it real is unbearable.

Now alone and naked, I lie, fetal, in the forrest. I move not, except to breathe. Fear seals my eyes. I hear a noise like the noise that began it all. A noise like despair hiding in the pit of your stomach. A noise with no echo. A bump in the night.

I spring from my bed of dirt, desperate to stop the noise. This time I will solve it. This time, but what if...What if the noise is a shadow which takes me deeper? Fear seeps even further as I run, cutting my bare skin on the claws of trees. I run and run until I stop before the cause. And it is a joke, played by Puck. Just a noise, vanished in the night. And once again, I curl on the dirt-woven floor. And I cry. And I sleep.

It's Not Emo If it's Real

as dusk breaks day

and night swoops in

it's dark cape twirling 'round,

the village it sleeps

as the sky above weeps

for you are not here to be found.

toll the bells high

and search the ground low

surely you have not yet fled.

but as dawn does approach

and the sunlight encroach

it seems certain to all - you are dead.

so now there is pain

there's an ache in my soul

i swear you have left me too soon.

for as wise men can say

and fools squander away

our love was just beginning to bloom.

Fire Sign

Holidays are the Hardest, Or So They Say

Happy 4th of July. Relatively. Not to complain. Not to mope. Not to...whatever you're thinking. But they do say the holidays are the hardest to deal with after a loss. You might think that the 4th of July isn't a big deal - not like Thanksgiving or Christmas - but in my town, we go all out for the 4th of July, and I had plans...we had plans. And honestly, that's one of the most difficult things for me to deal with - all the plans I had to give up on, all the dreams, and hopes that centered around that one person being alive still.

None of this is meant to belittle or negate the pain that I know many of us are feeling right now. Pain. Anger. Sadness. I know we are all going through something. I also know we're all going through something different. And for some reason, I'm not really able to talk about it, so I write. Part of me hopes that me writing all of this comforts the rest of you. But most of me just needs to get it out.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Doesn't that feel good? Even just in your head?

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH! FUCK! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!

Yes. That helps doesn't it? That helps me when I see the fireworks and think of his smile. That helps me when I think of his ears and his nose. It helps when I think of his kindness, and his laugh. I yell and I curse and it helps. Not much helps but that seems to.