Grudge Song, Sympathy for the Devil, As You Like It, & Bob Saget: That Ain't Right

Grudge Song, the fourth and last in the Female Prisoner Scorpion series, wasn't directed by Shunya Ito, the director of the earlier ones, and had a clearly lower budget. The first wasn't particularly impressive, but the second and third were quite excellent J-sexploitation flicks, with great visuals and a strong performance from Meiko Kaji. This one misses most of the impressive visuals, except for the final scene (with the black coat), and though it keeps the theme song, there's little else to recommend it. Unless you want gratuitous Asian nudity.

Sympathy for the Devil is a very interesting look at the creation of the best Stones song, starting from the much less complicated and building up. Unfortunately (or fortunately), the scenes about black power and the fascist porno shop can be skipped very easily. The other issue is the narration of a pornographic novel that frequently obscures the soundtrack. Also, pretty much every shot is extremely long with lots of camera movement and crane moves. But the non-Stones scenes were like Week-End without making any sense. I felt like I was in a Marxist lecture and had serious problems paying attention. Possibly had something to do with my warm apartment and my comfortable couch. May also have had something to do with its extreme boringness whenever the Stones aren't on screen.

As You Like It is seriously designed for me to love it. Except for Love's Labor's Lost, Kenneth Branagh's Shakespearean adaptations are quite possibly my favorite versions of those filmed. Much Ado about Nothing is the first of those I saw when I knew what the hell was going on (an early watching of Henry V was before I knew what was up), but Henry V, Hamlet, and even In the Bleak Midwinter (about the production of Hamlet) are all quite excellent. As You Like It is not a play I was particularly familiar with before watching, having only read it, and that back in high school, and I have never liked his comedies as much as his tragedies. I saw A Midsummer Night's Dream (in a park in England at the age of 8 which has forever colored my opinion as his best comedy) and Twelfth Night (the movie by Trever Nunn), and I find that this is fairly similar to the latter, due to the crossdressing. Of course, in this case, it was a red-headed Bryce Dallas Howard as Rosalind, who was about the only good thing in The Village. And she was absolutely gorgeous in this performance. Far stronger than Romola Garai (although with a far better character to work from), she was perfect, and enough for me to almost not notice the lack of Asians in the film (with the notable exception of Jade Jefferies, who has never done another film, but has done many plays). The conclusion was a little rushed, without making explicit the agreement of Phoebe to marry Sylvius if she couldn't marry Ganymede. Everyone in the film is quite good, especially Alfred Molina, Kevin Kline, and David Oyelowo. Certainly a highly recommended film, and I thank Branagh for making them, even if he did misstep with LLL as a 30s musical. The forest scenes were gorgeous, and the choice to film the epilogue, even with a woman playing Rosalind, was great, with Bryce wandering through the set and the trailers, and the final word from Branagh himself. I loved it, and it's a frakin' shame that this great film couldn't get theatrical distribution in this country when far worse "arty" films make it there. And I love that Branagh doesn't seem to be bothered by interracial relationships on film, but could that have had anything to do with it not being picked up for theatrical distribution here?

Bob Saget: That Ain't Right is a new standup special from him, and when he's actually capable of not going off on multiple tangents within a single joke, is quite funny. And some of his tangents are quite funny. But the problem is that much of his humor is about finger banging various people and having sex with animals. Funny the first couple times, but it kept going. Even the songs were constantly interrupted by tangents. And his constant harping on an audience member just got on my nerves.