Two More Films

Lee is a commendable biopic about the storied female photographer Lee Miller. I wouldn't normally specify the sex of the principal but it is germane in consideration of this film - Miller broke down the barriers placed in her way and produced some of the most arresting images of World War II. In the title role, Kate Winslett gives a compelling performance. Something, however, stops this from being anything more than a good film. Perhaps we are these days too inured to the horrors of the Holocaust but I found myself admiring the workmanship evident in the movie rather than, as I think was intended, being shocked at what Miller (and by extension we the audience) saw. 68/100. 

Lee has modern gloss and a big star. My second subject today is an altogether different kettle of fish. An Honourable Murder is a 1960 British 'B' feature but one that has a nice whiff of ambition. It is a reworking of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar - the action is shifted to corporate London. It is a concise adaptation, a shorter reworking of a short source. I (immodestly) credit myself with knowing a little about Julius Caesar - it was the first Shakespeare I ever studied even vaguely seriously (O Level 1976!) and a chapter of my thesis is dedicated to it. I did not resent the purloining of the plot and attendant themes (afer all Shakespeare himself liberally stole from Plutarch) and rather enjoyed the entertainment on offer. I located this film thanks to my daily checking of the listings for Talking Pictures TV - a channel that shows some right old dross but also carries gems and curios. 60/100. 

The First Thing We Do, Let's Kill all The Lawyers

The above line in Henry VI Part II always gets a laugh, even from the affluent lawyers who make up an inevitable portion of the audience at performances of Shakespeare's lesser plays. Quite right too.

Q: Why don't man-eating sharks attack lawyers?

A: It's a matter of professional courtesy.

Q: What do you have if you have a lawyer buried up to his neck in sand?

A: Not enough sand.

Q: What do you call one hundred dead lawyers?

A: A start.  

I've heard them all before and am quite happy to join in the laughter. The lot of the lawyer is often a lucrative one (not always and not to the unworthy extent of some other professions) and, done properly it is a job that can be spiritually rewarding - yes, I do mean that. Good lawyering is important labour.

But something has happened to cast us all in an unfavourable light and that is the advancement onto the world stage of J.D.Vance, Vice President of the United States. Vance is an odious bigot and a massively educated (Yale Law School no less) lawyer. This, I'm afraid, casts a shade over all of us and we must call it out. So here is a variation on yet another of those lawyer jokes.

Q: What is the difference between lab rats and J.D. Vance?

A: You can get attached to lab rats.

 

The Quality Of Mercy

A vote of thanks to ICW who stirred me from my intellectual torpor and organised our outing to the Birmingham Rep to see The Merchant of Venice 1936 last week. I like the Rep, a theatre where you are guaranteed comfort and an unobscured view.

You don't need me to tell you that The Merchant of Venice is a troublesome text. I last reviewed it in these pages on 26 May 2011 and my re-reading of that blog confirms that I enjoyed the production at the RSC. Merchant 1936 was better - a provocative pitching of the action into the East End of 1936 with Mosley's British Union of Fascists properly excoriated. even if the climactic political message goes mildly over the top. Tracy-Ann Oberman's female Shylock is forcefully rendered and I didn't mind at all the skilful editing of Shakespeare's text. At the end you are left pondering not only the disease of intolerance but also just how many wrongs can make a right.

And how nice to be in a full auditorium.   

Advent 11

Volume 11 (Gunn to Hydrox): Hackett, James Henry.

Hackett as Falstaff

Hackett (1800-71) was an American actor/impresario who achieved eminence on  both sides of the Atlantic, particularly for his portrayal of eccentric characters. He was a notable Falstaff and this he might be said to share with another American impresario, Orson Welles. For those of you who have not been paying attention, Welles is one of Big Fat Pig's favourites. Falstaff was the last part that Welles played on the stage and he later crafted a film that centred on Falstaff  and pulled together text from four Shakespeare plays and lines of Welles's own invention - Chimes at Midnight. Welles is thought to have regarded that movie as his finest though, as with all of Welles's later work, its production was shrouded in controversy and chicanery so far as the financing went. By the way, if you still haven't seen Citizen Kane - what's wrong with you?

Welles as Falstaff

 

Film's Most Charismatic Actor?

I refer to Marlon Brando and I turn for evidence not to his famous turn in The Godfather (one of my favourite movies but one where Brando goes a tad over the top) but to two monochromatic performances in 1953 and 1954 respectively. The second of these even has learned nominations as the greatest cinematic performance of all time.

Julius Caesar was the first Shakespeare I ever studied seriously (O Level) and it has a chapter to itself in my doctoral thesis. The play is not, I have decided the 'broken-backed thing' derided by some critics. Yes Caesar gets bumped-off barely halfway through the text, but the play fair rattles along and gives us, particularly in Brutus and Antony, plenty of politico-drama to get our teeth into. The 1953 film is loyal to the text and James Mason makes a persuasively priggish Brutus. I am never quite sure about John Gielgud (this, I accept is probably my problem) but he enunciates Cassius's lines beautifully. It is, however, Brando who muscles his way to the foreferont as Antony. A highly resepctable adaptation. 70/100. 

Brando's work in On the Waterfront is on an altogether higher plane. This is a magnificent film, ornamented with a slew of notable method-acting tours-de-force - take your pick from Rod Steiger, Karl Malden or Lee J. Cobb, but you will eventually be brought back to Brando as Terry Molloy. It is a gift of a part but what Brando does with it is breath-taking. The movie lasts barely more than ninety minutes but satisfies on every level. 93/100.

Please Pander To My Vanity

If you type 'Shakespeare and Bagehot' into Google, the top result will take you to my doctoral thesis, now deposited in the open access area of the BCU Library. If that sounds like too much work, don't worry, here is the link https://www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/15794/

Thank you and goodnight.

Shakespeare Imagined

Sir Ben Elton? Would the reliably radical Elton accept such a gong if it was offered. He holds the Order of Australia so presumably would accept a knighthood if proffered from there. I hope so. He always made me laugh notwithstanding that we stand poles apart politically. Furthermore he is responsible for the brilliant Blackadder and the knowingly amusing Upstart Crow. 

I mention all of this apropos of All is True, a Kenneth Branagh directed film of Elton's clever script. It is a speculation on Shakespeare's last three years, spent, in the Elton version, in a haunted retirement back in Stratford. It is proper to stress the speculation element - we cannot know the full truth. However there is enough fact woven into the fictive scheme, to make this entertaining even to Stratfordian scholars. Certainly it does not remotely deserve to be cast to the waste bin of denigration that holds the truly dreadful Anonymous - a crock previously reviewed. 

This is not remotely a great film but it is a competent and clever one. There are some Shakespearean in-jokes (just as in Upstart Crow) but not so many that it disappears up its own posterior. 66/100. 

And Goodbye To All That

Alongside this text will appear rather inadequte pictures (yes, taken on my antediluvian telephonic implement) of the two books I returned last week to the university library. Their subject matter (evident from their forbidding titles) will tell you where OG was felt to be lacking in his first submission of his doctoral thesis Shakespeare and Bagehot: a Study in Drama and Politics. 

Having now kicked over the traces of the opinions of my learned examiners, I am more than happy to concede that they had a point. So what is this all leading up to? Well, I will mention this just once (not entirely sure that I will keep this promise) but my formal studies are at an end. On October 11 2023 I received an email (no snail mail I'm afraid) addressed to 'Dr David Roberts'. It took me bloody years and no small amount of doubt and panic but I got there. No more examinations for Dr. Dave. 

About those two books. After I had consigned them to the returns bin, I instinctively turned left to go to the literature shelves to seek more obscure tomes for my studies, only to pull myself up short - I didn't know what next to read. The necessity had gone. There was a mild tinge of regret, followed by a knowing grin. It is over. I hope I never stop learning, but there are no more badges to be won. In 1978 I failed to do myself justice in my A Levels. I think I have now, and only now, atoned. To all who kept me going and put up with me, thank you. The Nobel laureate Bob Dylan sums up my state of mind best: 'I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now'.    

The Trouble With Running Downhill

The trouble with running downhill is that, on the assumption that you are returning to your base, there is always a compensating uphill stretch. Back at Casa Piggy we are at the top of a hill so I always finish with an incline. Well we have decamped (Groupie and I) to drizzly (the forecast has it getting better as the week progresses) Cornwall, Padstow to be precise. And, what do you know, our accommodation (very nice) is at the top of the bloody great descent to the harbour. The think is that when you are on your hols and want to go running, you have to get down to the sea. There is no fun to be had in meandering around the sunlit uplands. Thus Big Fat Pig made his way down to the harbour this morning at his usual slow pace. That final push back up the hill was murderous and my thighs are protesting now. Do I feel righteous? Too bloody right. I view the whole process as generating an excuse to fill my face at every opportunity. It's my life, as Bon Jovi so rightly puts it.

Was Elizabeth Taylor the twentieth century's most attractive woman? Ava Gardner and Vivian Leigh might have something to say about that. And, yes, I do do know that the question itself betrays a shallowness on my part. It's my life. Anyway, the reason I raise the point is that I recently watched (for the umpteenth time) Cleopatra, a film that has long exercised a fascination for me, in fact ever since I read in my Christmas Guiness Book of Records about its status (long-since superseded) as the most costly movie ever made. As a spectacle it works. As serious art it does not. But who cares. Never mind Burton and Taylor, the best performance comes from Roddy McDowall as that mealiest-mouthed of mealy-mouthed pragmatists, Octavius. Best viewed at Christmas on the biggest screen you can find. 68/100. I eschew my usual  editorial practice and afford space for a larger edition of the film poster. 

In all seriousness, Taylor's physical allure raises a mildly interetsing academic point. Although the film owes nothing to Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, the Taylor effect does have an effect on how a modern audience receives the play. The expectation of arresting looks (matching Shakespeare's poetry) is not a burden that Jacobean audiences would have to bear, the part of the matchless queen being played by a boy. I know, I know, I'm being all shallow again, But scratch back that shallow surface and there is a point that bears on reception theory. OK, I'll stop digging now. 

I Went To Manchester And It Didn't Rain

All of which was a pity since after my return to good old Brum, the rain has hardly left Manchester alone. I was there for the cricket and it looks as if the destiny of the Ashes will be settled by the intervention of the weather. England have utterly outplayed the Australians in this match but you have to have a poor medium-term memory to be oblivious of previous occasions where England have got away with it. So no complaints from this quarter - those should be reserved for the gratuitous gifting of the first test to the Aussies - see earlier grumpy entry.

All is forgiven

Our day at Old Trafford was a real treat. We saw Jonny Bairstow at his pugnacious best and we saw the Aussies reduced to pleasing dishevilment. Gratifying. Sadly one has to comment on the truly shocking toilet provision within the ground. Half hour queues to avail oneself of a squalid sewer is not acceptable. I feel a strongly-worded letter coming on.

So what else? Not much to be honest. I was having what I hope will be my last examined encounter with Shakespeare and Bagehot last week and found myself mentally drained as a result. Then a day on the quasi-lash at Old Trafford left this poor little poppet physically empty as well. Time for the Pig to act his age not his shoe size.

A thought - Italian red wines. Yes please.   

From The Desk Of The Author

bloody lovely

I have spent the last couple of days here on the island (that's Mon to you and me) in confinement with Shakespeare and Bagehot, pushing through the rather tedious task of correcting the manuscript of my thesis. I never thought I would say this but I can actually tire of exposure to my own purple prose. Who would have thunk it eh? Still, my efforts have been productive and as the afternoon slips into its seventh hour I have given myself permission to open a recently purchased bottle of Basciano Il Corto 2019. I do get some things right - it's bloody lovely.

So what (apart from the academic distractions which quite properly don't interest you) has been going on with the Pig? Well, he's strained his left calf muscle (in a new area - of the leg, not of the country) which is a pity because he's been feeling quite fit. He's played quite a bit of golf and after some encouraging signs has gone significantly backwards in the last couple of weeks, so we won't dwell on that.

Politics, bloody politics. What a shitfest. No I'm not going to depress myself by dwelling on the subject. Just for now. Oh I know what I can tell you about. You may remember that I was lamenting the deplorable adaptation of Great Expectations offered up by the BBC. Well the good news is this - the same organisation's 2011 offering of the same source material is on iPlayer and it's so much better that the it makes you suspect that someone at the Beeb left it up there because they were so ashamed of the newer pile of shite. It's teatime - spicy mussels are calling and that wine won't drink itsef. TTFN.

Sometimes The Best Cure Is To Reach For The Good Stuff

No I don't mean that I have been drinking too much Barolo, though I think I probably have. No what I mean is that high art (and indeed low art but that is not my topic today) can raise you quickly out of the slough of despond.

I don't suffer my black dog days nearly so often these days but I am still taking the pills that have been so important a part of my taming of the illness. Just as you are always an alcoholic (I'm not, before you ask), so you are always a manic depressive. I try to be open about it, without boring the pants off people. My name is David R, and I'm a manic depressive. 

Anyway, I was having one of those black dogs last week and I reached for the good stuff to help bring me out of it. No, not the Barolo. Citizen Kane. I first saw this film as a teenager and my Dad told me that it might just be the greatest film ever made. This made me watch it with interest. Well, whether it is the greatest movie of all time is, of course, impossible to tell - there will always be candidates for that accolade that I haven't seen. But I'll tell you this for nothing - if you haven't seen Citizen Kane yet, you really must get on and do so. There's no excuse - it's available for free on iPlayer.

It is an oddity of personal taste that dictates that for a middling mind like mine, sometimes art of just below the top level is more amenable. It as though the very good stuff is too rich a mixture. Hence I like Titus Andronicus. Hence also, if presssed to nominate my favourite Orson Welles film, I would usually choose Touch of Evil over Kane. But ask me which is the greater artistic achievement and I would unhesitatingly point to Citizen Kane. Watch it, re-watch it. Treat yourself. 98/100.

 

Taking A Rest From What Passes As Labour

It is fast approaching crunch time for my academic efforts. I have therefore been spending an unhealthy amount of time with my non-contemporaneous contemporaries, Messrs Shakespeare and Bagehot. After a decade (very much on and off) of being intimidated by the inadequacy of my word-count, I now find myself six thousand words over the top and I don't want to let any of my precious prose go. I'll get over it.

Having at last delivered a full draft of the thesis on Sunday (with all those offending extra words) I played golf with the lads yesterday evening and had my best round for  a year or so. Which was nice. I'm not geting carried away though - I was dependent on an outrageous slice of good fortune on my nemesis hole, the 13th at Royal Pype Hayes. I think that hole owed me mind. 

I have (undeservedly but hell, it's my life) granted myself a day away from Shakespeare and Bagehot today. Now such self-rewarding largesse can often be counter-productive as it induces a depressive tendency to guilt. But, lo, today has been fine, more than fine in fact. I went for a run this morning and both troublesome heels were in co-operative mood. Which was nice. Then this afternoon I watched a great film. More of that anon. But first my review of a lesser picture but one I nonetheless recommend.

Do you get what I mean when I say a film is a nice weekend film? Of course you do. Well, Dream Horse is just such a film. Yes, it is a tad soppy but it is based on a true story that rather defies belief. You don't have to have an interest in horse racing to enjoy it but bringing sucha predilection to the party will not do any harm. Its cast of familiar British support actors are joined by two rather grander stars, Toni Colette and Damian Lewis, who both do creditable Welsh accents. This does not masquerade as anything it is not - it is good old-fashioned entertainment. 60/100.

And now for something completely different. Nashville is not a film to be taken lightly. Insofar as it has a plot, it rambles all over the place. Characters weave in and out of shot and conversations intrude with, overlay and generally fragment each other. This is viewed by some as Robert Altman's masterpiece, by others as self-indulgent tosh. I love Altman. This is his masterpiece. 89/90. 

I May Just Have Been A Very Small Bit Wrong ... Perhaps

You have to admire (well almost) our shameless politicians and their inability to admit any error. I, you will be relieved to hear, am not cut from that cloth. No, the Pig is wrong quite a lot and, if forced/shamed to do so, will admit as much.

And no, I am not about to ask forgiveness for my failure as a tipster on the second day at Cheltenham. Put it this way, you have been very lucky that I didn't belabour you with my selections for the final two days of the Festival. Thanks to that semi-stellar first day, I finished well up on the whole thing but we were playing for small stakes so my lifestyle (already rather cavalier) hasn't changed.

The Pig in academic mode

As I said above, that was not the subject of my confession. The true subject is Cymbeline. I have been reading, watching and thinking about this play a lot for the past few weeks and I must recant of my view (expressed here and elsewhere I am ashamed to say) that is not a very good play. You already knew this but the Bard of Avon deserves a better critic than the Pig. It may be the least satisfactory of the five Roman Plays on stage but it rewards careful attention. Here's the shocker - it's a good play. Now all I've got to do is to redraft the chapter in my thesis and put the record straight.

Don't you just hate it when I'm wrong.

A Rainy Day At The Seaside

Well actually the closest I got to the rain-lashed reality of the beach was the car park at the Co-op. I spent the rest of the day closeted here at Plas Piggy drinking a 2019 Catena Malbec (92 points from Parker - this is apparently a good thing) and rather enjoying myself. I am here without the Groupie for an extended stay built around the need to do some work on the thesis and the absolute necessity of watching Six Nations Rugby and, tonight, the Super Bowl. These are all selfish activities, well perhaps selfish is the wrong word, solitary might be better.

Anyhow yesterday turned out to be one of those days that went well. I had endured a fractured drive up here on Friday night (A55 closed for works) but slept well enough. I got the work on the thesis out of the way first of all. I'm really not sure that it's any good but I've come this far so I might as well finish it. My latest surprising discovery is that Shakespeare's Henry VIII (actually it was co-written with John Fletcher, but it's in the First Folio so that's good enough for me) is rather good. I re-watched the ancient BBC production last week with a new eye and, yes, it's nicely provocative. 

On next to the Six Nations. I don't know if it's me mellowing with old age but there still hasn't been a viable candidate for a Ronan O'Gara Gobshite Award so far this seasoon. Given that O'Gara has now emerged as a multi-lingual and brilliant coach, we may even have to think of a new name for the award. A previous recipient, Stuart Hogg, came the closest yesterday but no anti-cigar. Scotland manifestly failed to repeat the control of the breakdown that so illuminated their win over England and they lost narrowly to Wales. Most notable for this critic was the refereeing of Aussie Nic Berry. I thought he was excellent, and given what I think of Australians' general grasp of rugby union, this was quite something. And then lightning struck again with a similarly assured display from Angus Gardner in the France v Ireland fixture. France won a high-octane encounter in which the proper ferocity of both sides induced understandable errors. Despite those errors this was a match played at a higher plain than anything that had preceded it.

I passed my evening well. I watched Sam Mendes' brilliant 1917. Much has been made of the technical trickery that allows this to unfold as if a single two-hour tracking shot. I think that in fact it would be truer to say that it is a distinct pair of long tracks but that is to quibble. The technical achievement is arresting, if at first rather giddying. The whole is underwritten by Thomas Newman's score. This is high-grade film- making. 83/100.

I've just had my first beer of Super Bowl Sunday - there's ten hours to kick-off. Pace yourself Dave.    

Twelve Films At Christmas - 10, 11 & 12

A mixed bag today but that rather fits the bill for a modern Christmas, that provocative mixture of God and Mammon. On the train to a sparsely attended (the majority of ticket holders presumably scared away by the dread Covid) but magnificent Maddy Prior/Carnival Band concert I observed less than sanguinely the painful and foul outpourings of the unmasked. I have no scientific standing to support or condemn the wearing of masks but once a duly elected authority has recommended donning the wretched things, it seems to me to be the decent thing to put up with it. And don't fuck about on trains - it's ill-mannered. But any discontent was dispelled by the talent on display on stage and the sheer decency of the company we kept that night. A man is blessed who has such friends.

Anyway, those films. A very worthy movie to kick us off. Worth asks the supremely difficult question - what is a life worth? I won't spoil it for you but I will simply say this - this wizened old lawyer was sufficiently moved to feel that all young lawyers should be made to watch this film. If they did they might  better understand the importance of doing their job with humility. 73/100. 

Next a supremely silly film but one that wears its silliness well. Unlike the similarly plotted but earnest Olympus Has Fallen, White House Down metaphorically winks at its audience even as deadlier and deadlier weapons are unleashed by the military-industrial complex. It's pointedly daft but nicely done. James Woods chews the scenery to good effect as the sort of security chief you are grateful was not around on January 6 when a whole slab of America got divorced from its senses. It is directed by Roland Emmerich and it goes some (but decidedly not all) of the way towards making up for his delivery of the specious pile of crap that is Anonymous. White House Down - despite myself I enjoyed it. 60/100.  

Finally, another Aardman Animation (we have already had Arthur Christmas), in fact their first feature-length effort. It's not Toy Story but then very little is. Chicken Run, a plasticine pastiche of The Great Escape (a joke which will of course have been lost on its target child audience but which will bring them back to the film in later life - quite likely at Christmas) is charming and funny. I didn't set out to watch it when it screened earlier this week but caught the beginning and found myself staying to the end - I have seen it before but the humour remains winning. 70/100.    

Same As It Ever Was

Sorry, I have gone through an inactive period blogwise. I have not been entirely lazy, rather I have been waging my ineffective war with my chapter on Antony and Cleopatra. Still mired in that task though an end (or more exactly an interval - there will have to be substantial revision) is in sight. Great play, as yet a patchy chapter only.

Enough of my problems. How have you been? Are you yet vaccinated against Covid? That seems to be the key to getting out of this bloody lockdown. Waiting for a Covid-free world will be stupid. Within reason, we have to live with it as we do with other ailments. I find the cozy stupidity of those who think we can all live at the cost of each other the most frighteneing aspect of current thinking.

Aren't the Tories a shower? The sheer blind stupidity of Matt Handjob takes some believing. And isn't Dominic Cummings quite simply the nastiest, most odious, disloyal little shit you have ever seen? These bastards drove me into a position I never want to be in - I found myself agreeing with that shit of all shits, Alastair Campbell. I got over it but please never again.

More tee shirts sold than records?

So why today's title? Well, I was going to go (yet again) with my favourite 'Pop Will Eat Itself', but I thought you might be bored with that. You know what I mean by now. That lucky phrase comes to mind again as Sky flood the sporting airwaves with advertisements for the Hundred - cricket designed for people who hate cricket and find Tweny20 too boring. The same weary sentiment is reinforced by the news that Premiership Rugby are increasing the size of the league and imposing a moratorium on relegation. Watch this space - the rich will get richer. And what about the complete charade of the group stages of football's Euros. Thirty-six matches to accomplish the minor task of eliminating only eight of the twenty-four teams. Stultifying. Greedy. Mind you I ask you to give me credit for having backed the nil-nil draw in the England v Scotland match. I'm sorry but it was as obvious as Scotland's failure to garner any other points. 

Still, no matter. I'm enjoying golf with the lads and it's QMT tour in three weeks time. Glorious stupidity. I had a particularly joyous outing at Forest of Arden last week with CC and BH. The greens were an eye-opener for those of us who are used to the speed-bumps on the greens at Royal Pype Hayes.

England v Germany tonight. I'm not sure I can stand to watch it. 

Round The Coast Towards Moelfre

I have been suffering with writer's block. That is putting it rather grandly - what I mean to say is that, rather to my surprise, my chapter on Antony and Cleopatra has got me stumped. I love the play but finding anything cogent to say about it is proving a horrible challenge. It is having too many ideas rather than none, which is, I suppose a good thing. Oh well, sod it, the sun's out and the red wine is chilled. Yes, I did say chilled red wine. If it's good enough for the Spanish, it's good enough for me.

It's renovation time here at Plas Piggy. I spent the morning ripping up the flooring I laid twenty plus years ago in the front bedroom. My handiwork will be replaced by a more professional product. Sad to see the last vestiges of my DIY efforts being consigned to the scrapheap but I have to admit that those few remaining features of my work are looking tired. 

After loading the old flooring into Canyonero (if you're not a devotee of The Simpsons and don't get this reference, I'm afraid I haven't got time to explain) I treated myself to a walk around the coast path towards Moelfre. The sun is out with only a slight breeze and the beach is crowded with happy noise. Life's been good to me so far.

I have been listening to the test match but have now given up on England. Is there a worse top three currently playing in international cricket? I know there probably must be but surely we can find better than this. Technique seems to be an optional extra these days. Pop will eat itself - see earler blogs for an explanation.  

Tonight I will mostly be eating meat pie.

The King

 When I grade films these days, I think in terms of the gradings for university degrees. 60% gets you a 2:1, 70% indicates a First  and anything over 80% means it is seriously good.

In my last entry I gave Turks and Caicos a marginal 2:1. I just can't get past my problem with David Hare, although I am forced to concede that the good and great of British luvviedon disagree with me and seem to utter 'genius' as soon as the man's name is mentioned. Oh well, I don't suppose that Hare will be troubled by my indifference.

And so to a slightly better 2:1 - The King masquerades as an adaptation of Shakespeare's Henriad, concentrating on the kingship of Henry V. That description does the film a minor disservice - it is more accurately a reimagining of the gruesome history. Timothee Chalamet is a slightly fey Henry who learns that being king is tough - I believed in this character. Joel Edgerton (who co-wrote) is a gruff Yoda-like Falstaff, given a rather different ending from the one the Bard allowed him, Merry Wives aside. Definitely worth the deviation into Netflix. 65/100. 

Titus Andronicus

Not bloody Titus Andronicus again, I hear from the chorus. I have to admit that I stand guilty of proselytizing for this glorious mishmash of dodgy history, bitter violence and madcap comedy. It is Shakespeare's first tragedy and is still recovering from centuries of squeamish neglect. 

Trust me, give it a go. Try Julie Taymor's high-energy film version, Titus, a take on the play that manages its own anachronisms with aplomb. If you want a less adventurous (but still commendable) adaptation, the BBC production starring the recently deceased Trevor Peacock (best known as Jim in Vicar of Dibley) fits the bill. I'm not entirely unconvinced that this play isn't the best introduction to Shakespeaerean tragedy - no come to think of it that would be the far better engineered Macbeth. But you see what I'm getting at.

If you do get to see both of these versions, note the differing dramatic treatments at their respective conclusions of Aaron's baby. This is a key to how one views the carnage that has preceded.  

Next up in the OG sprint through Shakespeare will be Richard III.