naringc

I love Elizabethan drama. I had been on a Kenneth Branagh and William Shakespeare kick(and I guess I still am)when on a whim I bought this film based on the play of the same name by Shakespeare-contemporary Christopher Marlowe. I am very glad I did. Edward II(Steven Waddington of SLEEPY HOLLOW) ditches one icey, repressed Queen Isabella(Tilda Swinton) for another hot and uninhibited queen, gay lover Gaveston. But the romance is doomed when the nobility rises up with Isabella to end the affair. Director Derek Jarman's adaptation is one of those rare films that succeeds set in a time other than in its original setting. He moves the setting and action of the movie to the modern era, and this serves as a more timely backdrop for the movie's pro-gay stance, which seems to me to be its central theme. I really liked Steven Waddington, who was very, very good. And an unexpected surprise came from Tilda Swinton, an actress with whom I am not familiar but whose other work I'd like to see, based on the quality of her performance here. Strongly recommended!!!

somewhat more highbrow, but I guess you can file this one under "guilty pleasures." Meg Tilly(brilliant only 3yrs later in AGNES OF GOD) stars as a teenager who must spend the night in a mausoleum to complete her initiation into one of the social cliques of her high school. Unfortunately, one of the recently interred corpses is a man who, while alive, was a madman who had been dabbling in "PSYCHIC VAMPIRISM" (yes, thats right, psychic vampirism-hahaha). This is lightweight mindless entertainment starring a largely generic cast doing it by the numbers in a film in which production values are low . There is even a cameo appearance by a boom-mic. My comments, however, are not a slap; rather, watching films such as this makes me feel like THESEUS, from William Shakespeare's "A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM". I watch the players and imagine no worse of them than they of themselves. And the climax was genuinely scary with better than average special f/x. Call it so gleefully bad, that it's good.