Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet

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I just watched this again. After... eight years? Sounds right, but strange not remembering - that this was the film that made me, shaped what I could love. I don't know. I was... fourteen? I remember collecting things, sticking them up on bedroom walls. Like everyone, I suppose. The best things went on the door and I knew there was a theme I couldn't find, something I'd lost I was building a temple to out of scraps and cuttings.

Then this the end with them and the candles and that bronze so creamy and upsidedown, gold and wood and candles that light and glow, his blue shirt in the centre and that was it. Spent six years and how many rolls of sellotape and glue pasting a traced circle and never remembered. I'd never even kissed a girl.

#---#

So so so so much there. Every time they get in those helicopters and yr heart takes off into your mouth, the beach with the hairground and everything looking so so so right (pink hair!), ecstasy, Balthazar, the apothecary, Paris!, "Mantua Outfields", that insane pause after 'consort', Tybalt falling backwards into the fountain... You cld say that this was cinema eating everything music videos had been learning in secret public all those years but you'd lying, you watch music videos from before this and everyone is so ugly and graceless, sprayed on skin-deep glitz. Here it resounds, all of it, in the glimmering hardwoods, the religion as texture as religion...

#---#

The morning scene maybe best of all? In Shk it's one of the jokes that still really work, "'tis not the lark" and he's, like, "hey, maybe it isn't" and she's all "noooo! leave!", women be driving like this etc etc tec- Luhrmann strips all of that away and he's right because you'd resent it, you're watching a colour forming, the way their skin and hair paint a shining new bronze and I can't explain, I really just can't. Everything I've ever wanted to create had that colour. I'd forgotten that, too.

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 07:21 (twenty-one years ago)

(And how YOUNG she looks! She does it twice, in that morning scene momakeup and you expect a word, a look, and there isn't one, you draw breath. And at the end, that's the best scene too, this LOOK through the camera so accusing and unexpected, you knew this would happen all along, you knew the story, what did you do to stop it? Romeo's dead. And she's thirteen, and now she looks it, she's going to shoot herself, and you're willing her on. And maybe that's why your skin doesn't glow like suns.)

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 07:21 (twenty-one years ago)

There's a moment after he buys the poison and sez "worse poison to men's souls than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell" (abt money) and a BEAT kicks in and you really feel that that's the line with any tie to the past, from then on it accelerates like something insane, like the future, reading 5.3 after is like stepping through wax.

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 07:25 (twenty-one years ago)

This is my favourite movie. Be nice.

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 07:25 (twenty-one years ago)

(Luhrmann is gay, right? Something that struck me abt this movie is how religion is treated as something old and outdated-into-texture but still with all the old barbaric power of every story ever woven around it. And how heterosexual love is treated the same way.)

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 07:27 (twenty-one years ago)

(I think I kinda intuited this when I was fourteen and it pretty much ruined the next four years.)

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 07:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Your turn!

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 07:28 (twenty-one years ago)

I like it more than most people I know. But I never want to watch it again.

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 07:41 (twenty-one years ago)

he's not gay; i think his wife is his production designer.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 07:50 (twenty-one years ago)

it's cool to read someone so enthusiastic abt this movie, cos i found it totally unwatchable; had to turn it off. last time i saw it was in college, probably 6 years ago, god maybe when i was in the middle of my shakespeare seminar.

my problem briefly stated is/was (guess i'd have to rewatch to see if it still holds) that the cleverness of the setting (s. beach, you see) was an obstacle rather than an illumination, ie luhrmann et al have to spend most of their energy convincing you, shot by shot, line by line, that their conceit works...the DO YOU SEE moments where they (frinstance) item-zoom the brand name on their guns (SWORD) when whoever says "put up your sword," totally laborious.

meanwhile, the principals (who have trouble with the english language on good days) are left to fend for themselves. it's like luhrmann spent all this energy building a pretty facade on a structure he a) thought was too boring to stand on its own, and concomitantly b) thought would always just be there to hold him up, no matter how mealy-mouthed and cursory it was read.

― f--gg (gcannon), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 07:57 (twenty-one years ago)

"cursorily" obv

i think the ahem oedipal target of R+J is not Shk himself but the even worse franco zeferelli version; it's not a "subversive reading" but an attempted rescue!

― f--gg (gcannon), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 08:02 (twenty-one years ago)

LOVE ME LOVE ME SAAAY THAT YOU LOVE ME FOOL ME FOOL ME GO ON AND FOOL ME

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 08:07 (twenty-one years ago)

i should probably lighten up... i don't think i'm doctrinaire abt Shk even tho my esteem for him is much higher than the ilx average. but all the "modernizing" productions of him (this, ian mckellan's nazified richard iii, various "sixties" version of midsummer or AYLI) rub me the wrong way. do ppl try to pull this hack shit with any other dramatist? (the greeks i guess, moliere maybe, & later restoration stuff—anything wordy and boring and just plain hard to do). let's see someone do this with o'neill: everyone is drunk and sad...but they're in space!

xpost yeah that helped out too didn't it. actually that reminds me! i haven't seen moulin rouge either.

― f--gg (gcannon), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 08:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Nono I am a total Shakespeare geek! I mostly can't stand modernised versions because they don't modernise the things that need to be modernised eg the attitudes/characters/plot, which I think is actually the real strength of this. There's a funny dialogue between the world he creates (which is SO amazing, for me, and thorough - you could call it consistency of vision but that would imply this stuff just followed logically or something) as not Verona, and as that world as being given legitimacy by R+J as a strange powerful dead story (I guess I am just saying what you said upthread but in a positive light!) (I also think Titanic really helps this film)

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 08:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Moulin Rouge is kinda awful.

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 08:23 (twenty-one years ago)

I like the Zeferelli point! And Am's clarification is useful, thanks.

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 08:23 (twenty-one years ago)

i think i get you; as a "version" (in the dub sense) R+J is well realized and seamless (but seamless against what?)

i don't consider the attitudes/characters/plot to be un-modern, or dead. ..and my problem (restated) is that if u do ur lost at the outset. quit fucking abt and just DO the PLAY man, quit stepping on your own feet!

the best Shk productions i've seen have been very pared down but more importantly take place in no-time, costume etc might have some internal consistency but don't refer to anything specific, certainly not anything as useless as the modern day; the language is done at full speed (and this is a conceit itself) as if it weren't no thing; if a joke can be played for today's valences then fine, if not, just keep going forward. "two hours traffic" is no joke; there really was no dead time in these at all, hardly any time to insert anything.

― f--gg (gcannon), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 08:46 (twenty-one years ago)

re "two hours" – that said i like the 23940875 hour branagh hamlet a lot! you maybe don't! the megalomania of it is really something.

― f--gg (gcannon), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 08:48 (twenty-one years ago)

if luhrmann is DO YOU SEE branagh is YOU'LL NEVER NEED SEE ANYTHING ELSE

― f--gg (gcannon), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 08:49 (twenty-one years ago)

but all the "modernizing" productions of him...rub me the wrong way.

g-off, did you see almereyda's "hamlet" w/ethan hawke? i thought this was an extremely successful "updating" of shakespeare on film.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 09:07 (twenty-one years ago)

but more importantly take place in no-time

I did actually get this impression of R+J: a lot of the signifiers are explicitly modern but recognisable everyday reality is not one of them: it feels much more like taking certain aspects of contemporary life and exaggerating them into some sort of dream world.

I loved this film when I was 14, too: hearts, Greg, for this thread. Also you SO need to meet Ria asap, she was obsessed as well: you can talk to each other about R+J and Gareth.

― The Lex (The Lex), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 09:29 (twenty-one years ago)

I like this film. Not only does it look cool (yes it is on occasion laborious, but crikey it ALWAYS looks cool) but I really liked the acting as well. SO often with R+J everyone's young love naivety is lost, and the grand pronouncements on love are treated like revered pearls of wisdom. Clare Danes in particular nails the youthfulness of it all - the knowing that this is something new and exciting and no-one EVER has been in love this much and OMG this is so cool, you know what teenagers are like. I've seen better productions, but I really like Clare Danes in it. DiCaprio can take a jump though, he's less good, if only for trying to look mean when he just comes across as petulant - but then maybe that's the point?

― Johnney B (Johnney B), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 10:36 (twenty-one years ago)

I love this movie, and in fact, probably all of Baz Luhrman's movies. It fucked me up to watch it again about a month ago. Not for anything worthwhile though, just noticing that the guy that plays Michael (Harold Perrineau) on LOST was Mercutio! A damned fine Mercutio at that.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 12:59 (twenty-one years ago)

I think DiCaprio coming across as petulant is part of the point: how callow Romeo is, his puppy-dog histrionics.

Oddly, this time around, I didn't like the priest as much.

― lundy fastnet irish sea (cis), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 13:17 (twenty-one years ago)

I remember thinking that Claire Danes was the most beautiful woman in the world when I saw this, and it re-confused me as I'd just figured out the whole gay thing and I was like 'oh no! but she is a woman!' She also convinced my best friend that she was bisexual for about five years.

― The Lex (The Lex), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 13:19 (twenty-one years ago)

i'm quite amazed to hear that Luhrmann is not gay.

― jed_ (jed), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 13:41 (twenty-one years ago)

i agree with kyle, it's good but i had to turn it off after a few minutes when it was on TV a few nights back. i could never watch it again.

― jed_ (jed), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 13:42 (twenty-one years ago)

I too loved loved loved this movie when it first came out and remember learning how to drive to the soundtrack. I liked the glitter and the style of it then, and when I tried watching it a few months ago with my friend K, who was my partner in crime in this movie at 16, we were both sorely disappointed. As f--gg says above, all of the effort seemed to go into set and little into pushing the actors. Claire Danes is luminous, but now that I am old and jaded their love seems so childish and hysterical. K, who is now a classically trained actress, said all she could focus on was the mistakes in intonation, dialogue, and how difficult it seemed for the actors to speak the lines where the mark of a good actor is that you shouldn't be distracted that it's Shakespeare. I have nothing against modernizing Shaks. but I hate it when the "concept" takes over the acting and language. But the Mercutio in Baz's version is miles better than any other I've seen, esp. the weak Zeferelli one (Peter York?)

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 14:00 (twenty-one years ago)

their love seems so childish and hysterical

Um...I kinda thought that was the point.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 14:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh I agree, it's just that when I was younger I didn't notice so much how foolish they were.

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 14:09 (twenty-one years ago)

his name is "baz" = we should be discussing this

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 17:15 (twenty-one years ago)

no, i haven't seen the almareyda hamlet; i also haven't seen the welles othello, or the koscincev (sp) lear. i've seen west side story done by high schools and that's it. i've never seen tromeo & juliet either.

i think i had to watch the zeferelli r&j more than once in high school, and with a STERN WARNING abt the TEEN TITTY each time.

― f--gg (gcannon), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 20:19 (twenty-one years ago)

But no warnings about Romeo's ass?

― Doobie Keebler (Charles McCain), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 20:24 (twenty-one years ago)

this was post-caruso-nypdb, the world totally changed.

― f--gg (gcannon), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 20:38 (twenty-one years ago)

julie taymor's titus andronicus isn't so hot, either.

― f--gg (gcannon), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 02:42 (twenty-one years ago)

You can't compare an adaptation of Titus to one of Hamlet! They are totally different things! Shakespeare plays are, sometimes:

1. Thematically resonant/modern, today (Othello, Troilus!, R&J, Hamlet, to some extent A&C and Lear, not really the comedies or histories, definitely not Titus)

2. Dramatically, resonant/modern, today, as films judged against films, in terms of how the story is actually told. (Othello, Comedy of Errors, probably nothing else?)

3. The cultural artifacts around which western culture is built (The "great tragedies" and R&J, and to some extent Ceasar and Anthony, less else than one might think).

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 04:11 (twenty-one years ago)

The man had a completely inexplicable number one single, lest we forget.

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 04:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Not Shakespeare.

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 04:14 (twenty-one years ago)

I am always doubtful of the "no place" ideal that f--gg suggests, it seems very unfaithful to plays, more so than a "modernisation" in a way. Two Gentlemen of Verona isn't set nowhere, it's set in a very specific Renaissance idea of Italy, and this is important for what happens.

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 04:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Lex's first post is spot on, also.

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 04:19 (twenty-one years ago)

(Actually thinking about it non-polemically I think "no place" is a very good thing for a performace of some (most?) of the play to aim at, but I wish they would admit that it was a fiction!)

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 04:21 (twenty-one years ago)

cis is right, about both things. Priest: R+J loses a bit of what it gains from Titanic, to Brassed Off, maybe.

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 04:23 (twenty-one years ago)

i know, ~~the thread~~ i was wandering a little.

xpost bbbut this "very specific R. idea of italy" would not have been conveyed in any physical sense in the orig productions! so what do we do to be faithful? (not being stroppy with you here; it's an interesting question)

doing shakespeare in contemp (or even 19th cent) theatrical conventions (the proscenium, lights, sets) is as much an adaptation as doing a film really.

― f--gg (gcannon), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 04:26 (twenty-one years ago)

xposts there.

― f--gg (gcannon), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 04:27 (twenty-one years ago)

the "places" were always semi-abstractions, some more than others (illyria). Shk never left england! (hence everyone's favorite factoid that the actual balcony in the actual verona was built in 18whatever for the British tourist trade!)

― f--gg (gcannon), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 04:30 (twenty-one years ago)

I like it wandering! This is virtually revision!

I think one way (and this is not at all a conclusive answer) people have sensibly-ish dealt with the "very specific idea" is by 'diffrent-historical-period'-style adaptions (eg Ren. audiences know Italy is full of poisoners and creeps, where is the equivalent to the imagination of now?) (haha Italy), and for me the strength of BL's R&J is that it addresses this in a very very clever way - ie saying that what we need to equivolate is as much the sense of Italy as strange magical, a place of dream and intrigue and legend experienced only onstage, as the sense of it being violent, full of poisoners etc...

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 04:39 (twenty-one years ago)

If that makes any sense.

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 04:40 (twenty-one years ago)

no that's a good argument. goddammit i'm going to have to watch this again aren't i.

― f--gg (gcannon), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 04:42 (twenty-one years ago)

I only like it because of the colours really!

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 04:44 (twenty-one years ago)

well to come around to my complaint one more time: yes BL is good at coming up with this amped-up mythic Florida, where all the details line up like "f:x Shk thing --> my thing." but the Shk things were different in kind and not just degree. film design is opaque, solid, visual, a little fussy, where location in Shk* was auditory, imagined, and transparent.

*but not costume! but these were all anachronistic as well ie no togas in julius caesar etc.

― f--gg (gcannon), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 04:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Skipping 38 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

Strictly Ballroom is actually pretty good.

― Alex in SF, Monday, 9 March 2009 22:35 (seventeen years ago)

i'm quite amazed to hear that Luhrmann is not gay.

He was, one understands, gay before the marriage. And still declines to identify as straight.

― Bernard's Butter (sic), Monday, 9 March 2009 22:56 (seventeen years ago)

He was, one understands, gay before the marriage. And still declines to identify as straight.

Actually I find this radically defensible.

― Nurse Detrius (Eric H.), Tuesday, 10 March 2009 15:41 (seventeen years ago)

Which means I am all the worst qualities of gay males without any of the good ones.

― Nurse Detrius (Eric H.), Tuesday, 10 March 2009 15:41 (seventeen years ago)

Baz is the Tom Robinson of Aussie auteurs

― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 10 March 2009 15:43 (seventeen years ago)

i like the idea that there is a difference between people who saw this and knew what florida was, so that it felt like a "modernizing" production, and people who saw this but really had no idea about florida and so the setting was as imaginary as Verona had been to shsksp's contemporaries

I know where Florida is, motherfucker.

― The Screaming Lobster of Challops (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 10 March 2009 15:45 (seventeen years ago)

Strictly Ballroom is actually pretty good.

cosign, easily my fave of his movies

― Wes HI DEREson (HI DERE), Tuesday, 10 March 2009 15:50 (seventeen years ago)

Moulin Rouge! has some great set pieces but doesn't hang together for me.

― Wes HI DEREson (HI DERE), Tuesday, 10 March 2009 15:50 (seventeen years ago)

I suspect I wd prefer the Ethan Hawke Hamlet (which really is good)

― Dr Morbius,

omg gtfo

― elmo argonaut, Tuesday, 10 March 2009 21:18 (seventeen years ago)

It is!

― Nurse Detrius (Eric H.), Tuesday, 10 March 2009 21:38 (seventeen years ago)

it is pretty good

― been HOOS, where yyyou steene!? (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Tuesday, 10 March 2009 21:58 (seventeen years ago)

one year passes...

Leo as Gatsby in 3D, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1655573/baz-luhrmann-considering-3d-great-gatsby.jhtml

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Monday, 10 January 2011 17:52 (fifteen years ago)

I suspect I wd prefer the Ethan Hawke Hamlet (which really is good)

― Dr Morbius,

been wanting to see this for so long, really must get round to it

― zvookster, Monday, 10 January 2011 17:54 (fifteen years ago)

that Baz Luhrmann can get anywhere near The Great Gatsby seems like a terrible thing

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Monday, 10 January 2011 18:03 (fifteen years ago)

Leo as Lassie.

― Gus Van Sotosyn (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 10 January 2011 18:04 (fifteen years ago)

one year passes...

all i needed to know about this film was: benny blanco from the bronx =/= tybalt from verona ... and i was not disappointed.

― wad of baloney (Eisbaer), Wednesday, 1 February 2012 01:40 (fourteen years ago)

this movie isn't good but leo and claire are both gorrrrrrrrrrrrrrgeous and do good jobs; every time the movie takes a fucking breath to let them hang out and speak actual full lines it's better than the zeffirelli. pete posthelwaite's good too i seem to remember.

― the "intenterface" (difficult listening hour), Wednesday, 1 February 2012 01:46 (fourteen years ago)

oh and yeah leguizamo.

― the "intenterface" (difficult listening hour), Wednesday, 1 February 2012 01:47 (fourteen years ago)

i still wanna play tybalt. peace?

― the "intenterface" (difficult listening hour), Wednesday, 1 February 2012 01:51 (fourteen years ago)

leguizamo kills it

will never really be able to separate "this movie" from "seeing it at age 11"

― max, Wednesday, 1 February 2012 02:39 (fourteen years ago)

or from "wearing the CD soundtrack out in 6th grade"

― max, Wednesday, 1 February 2012 02:40 (fourteen years ago)

cast of upcoming adaptation by carlo carlei

Hailee Steinfeld ...
Juliet
Paul Giamatti ...
Friar Laurence
Ed Westwick ...
Tybalt
Douglas Booth ...
Romeo
Kodi Smit-McPhee ...
Benvolio
Christian Cooke ...
Mercutio
Lesley Manville ...
The Nurse

― max, Wednesday, 1 February 2012 02:43 (fourteen years ago)

chuck bass at tybalt is kind of inspired, he will be "good" but not good, or good but not "good" or whatever

― max, Wednesday, 1 February 2012 02:43 (fourteen years ago)

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTQ4NzExMjA4NF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNjE3NDMxNw@@._V1._CR0,0,1365,1365_SS99_.jpg Part, fools! Put up your swords; you know not what you do.

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTY2OTEwMDUzOV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwODU1NTQwMw@@._V1._CR0,0,333,333_SS99_.jpg What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds? Turn thee, Benvolio, look upon thy death.

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTQ4NzExMjA4NF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNjE3NDMxNw@@._V1._CR0,0,1365,1365_SS99_.jpg I do but keep the peace: put up thy sword, Or manage it to part these men with me.

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTY2OTEwMDUzOV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwODU1NTQwMw@@._V1._CR0,0,333,333_SS99_.jpg What, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word, As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee: Have at thee, coward!

― max, Wednesday, 1 February 2012 02:47 (fourteen years ago)

have never seen this film, but Baz's Gatsby is gonna make it look good.

I saw R&M at the Public Theatre about 25 years ago w/ Cynthia Nixon, Peter MacNicol and Anne Meara (aka Ben Stiller's mom) as the Nurse.

― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 1 February 2012 03:10 (fourteen years ago)

i love leguizamo inordinately. this isn't a terrible film, it's just one of those things made more terrible by a cohort of its fanbase

― summer sun, something's begun, but uh-oh those tumblr whites (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 1 February 2012 03:15 (fourteen years ago)

the production & costume design on this movie is crazy good

i love leguizamo in it, and also harold perrineau's mercutio, though despite all this i'd say simply ballroom is the only luhrmann i really like

― Hungry4Ass, Wednesday, 1 February 2012 03:17 (fourteen years ago)

Leguizamo claims to be 47

HAHAHAHA

― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 1 February 2012 03:20 (fourteen years ago)

I love him. I feel like 47 could be right, no?

― wolf kabob (ENBB), Wednesday, 1 February 2012 03:26 (fourteen years ago)

I know people who did downtown improv with him in '79, and he was out of high school

― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 1 February 2012 03:34 (fourteen years ago)

52 if he's a day

― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 1 February 2012 03:35 (fourteen years ago)

if only yer taste in politics and baseball teams were as good as yer taste in films, morbz ;_;

i despise baz lurhmann's films generally.

― wad of baloney (Eisbaer), Wednesday, 1 February 2012 03:37 (fourteen years ago)

moulin rouge shares honors with napoleon dynamite as the worst "good" film that i turned off well before the halfway point b/c otherwise i would've hulk-smashed the DVD player.

― wad of baloney (Eisbaer), Wednesday, 1 February 2012 03:44 (fourteen years ago)

at least i made it through romeo + juliet ... and was rewarded with radiohead at least.

― wad of baloney (Eisbaer), Wednesday, 1 February 2012 03:48 (fourteen years ago)

"rewarded"

― wolf kabob (ENBB), Wednesday, 1 February 2012 03:51 (fourteen years ago)

Douglas Booth ...
Romeo

That's just good twink-casting right there.

― dead-trius (Eric H.), Wednesday, 1 February 2012 04:02 (fourteen years ago)

"rewarded"

― wolf kabob (ENBB), Tuesday, January 31, 2012

I thot we were agreed on politics, Eisbaer? fuck em all

― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 1 February 2012 04:13 (fourteen years ago)

ten years pass...

Just wanted to share this glorious pan of ELVIS
https://www.indiewire.com/2022/05/elvis-review-baz-luhrmann-1234728121/

― assert (matttkkkk), Thursday, 26 May 2022 01:35 (four years ago)

one year passes...

Watching this for the first time in foreverrrrrr and

- had forgotten how good the opening brawl is
- I always remember how great Harold Perrineau’s Mercutio is, Leguizamo’s Tybalt also incredible
- soundtrack remains on point, Talk Show Host for that initial scene with Romeo is so great
- I have NO memory of this sauna with Juliet’s father and Paris
- you really get the textual sense of “These are two stupid and overly dramatic teenagers” in this adaptation, I was laughing at Romeo scribbling in his diary while sulking on the beach
- what was going on with Juliet’s mother and Paris like

― Roman Anthony gets on his horse (gyac), Saturday, 16 March 2024 16:20 (two years ago)

Luhrmann's first couple of films are really good including this one

Leguizamo same, sadly misapplied talent

― Morris O’Shea Salazar (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 16 March 2024 17:06 (two years ago)

WHY UNCLE, TIS A SHAME is a fucking banner of a line

Also, “give me my sin again”

― Roman Anthony gets on his horse (gyac), Saturday, 16 March 2024 17:22 (two years ago)

Banger *

― Roman Anthony gets on his horse (gyac), Saturday, 16 March 2024 17:22 (two years ago)

MAKE A MUTINY AMONG MY GUESTS?

Also love how Leguizamo delivers the 'peace? Peace?' line.

Seen this so many times through teaching the text that I have no distance from it at all. Love it. I must say 'the boys the boys' a couple of times a week.

― I would prefer not to. (Chinaski), Saturday, 16 March 2024 18:44 (two years ago)

Yeah that’s a superb delivery and the pause & crunch is insanely great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ux2FgZizcrc

― Roman Anthony gets on his horse (gyac), Saturday, 16 March 2024 22:36 (two years ago)

So great, lurzman struck serious gold here, everything else he’s done has been completely not my thing at all, this is so weird and dreamy and sensational

― brimstead, Sunday, 17 March 2024 00:15 (two years ago)

Yeah, he’s such a hacky vulgarian, no idea how he had it in him to make this.

― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Sunday, 17 March 2024 00:46 (two years ago)

otm to everything in the revive except nv's lament for leguizamo who has had imo a very interesting time of it

― close encounters of the third knid (darraghmac), Sunday, 17 March 2024 09:42 (two years ago)

he may have continued to be really good in stuff i'm not interested in tbf

― Morris O’Shea Salazar (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 17 March 2024 10:16 (two years ago)

what a great film
ages well
time to rewatch

― Swen, Monday, 18 March 2024 07:25 (two years ago)

two months pass...

I was out walking today and heard sheep for the first time in a while and, well, they sound a LOT like Jamie Kennedy/Sansom doing his 'blaaah' sound. Poor bastard had essentially the worst part in the film - licking a nipple, getting hit repeatedly in the head and saying 'blaaaah' a lot.

I taught the play last term to two classes *and* watched it with my daughter, who's doing the play for GCSE. Three viewings and loved them all. I find myself saying 'be satisfied' way too often. And 'Roh-may-oh!'.

― I would prefer not to. (Chinaski), Wednesday, 29 May 2024 19:49 (two years ago)

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