(no subject)
Jul. 8th, 2013 03:31 pmWent to see Much Ado About Nothing again yesterday with my mum and sister, having previously seen it with ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kerri and wanderer. Mum nodded off at one point, and I feared the worst, that she didn’t like it. But she woke herself up again eventually, and after the end credits rolled was very enthused. She said nodding off was just a symptom of her being nearly 68, not a symptom of boredom. Mind you, she was slightly astonished that an American cast could pull off Shakespeare so successfully. At times my dear mother is very insular in her Englishness, despite having lived in North America for over thirty years. My sister was less enthused. She laughed in the usual places, but she said she felt handicapped by not being familiar with the play. In retrospect, I should’ve sent her the Wikipedia summary in advance or something.
I think I dislike Claudio more the second time around. Fran Kranz still does a good job making him vulnerable and semi-human, but there was something I missed on the first viewing. In his confrontation scene with Benedick, Claudio seems indifferent to the fact that Hero has (supposedly) died. Hello buddy, this is your fiancee! Granted, your fiancee whom you think cheated on you, but you should still have some kind of reaction to her (supposed) demise. Of course, he’s pretty drunk in this scene. I suppose one *could* handwave it as drinking to drown his sorrow, and macho bravado preventing him from grieving openly for a woman who was (supposedly) unworthy of him. Patriarchy Hurts Men Too, and so on. But it’s easier to interpret it as him just being a jerk.
I downloaded the soundtrack after my first visit to the theatre, and there’s a track missing. There’s upbeat music playing at the very end, while the whole cast are dancing in a silly fashion, with Beatrice and Benedick off in a corner ignoring the music to stare at each other. Anyway, that upbeat music isn’t among the tracks in the soundtrack, which is a shame, because it’s a very hummable tune. I suspect it’s possible that Whedon didn’t actually write that track, hence it not being available to buy. But I wish it were in the soundtrack so I could listen to it. Whedon’s version of Sigh No More, however, is delightful, and justifies the price of the soundtrack by itself.
I still remember downloading the whole soundtrack to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, only to discover that *neither* of the climactic musical moments from the movie had actually made it into the soundtrack. Granted, Alberto Iglesias didn’t compose either piece (the national anthem of the Soviet Union and a disco-infused Julio Iglesias cover of Charles Trenet’s La Mer), but he did choose to illustrate two of the biggest moments in the movie with those songs. They should’ve been in the soundtrack, in my not-so-humble opinion. People are going to want to buy your big soundtrack moments, and people (meaning me) are going to be remarkably frustrated that they can’t buy them.
kerri and wanderer. Mum nodded off at one point, and I feared the worst, that she didn’t like it. But she woke herself up again eventually, and after the end credits rolled was very enthused. She said nodding off was just a symptom of her being nearly 68, not a symptom of boredom. Mind you, she was slightly astonished that an American cast could pull off Shakespeare so successfully. At times my dear mother is very insular in her Englishness, despite having lived in North America for over thirty years. My sister was less enthused. She laughed in the usual places, but she said she felt handicapped by not being familiar with the play. In retrospect, I should’ve sent her the Wikipedia summary in advance or something. I think I dislike Claudio more the second time around. Fran Kranz still does a good job making him vulnerable and semi-human, but there was something I missed on the first viewing. In his confrontation scene with Benedick, Claudio seems indifferent to the fact that Hero has (supposedly) died. Hello buddy, this is your fiancee! Granted, your fiancee whom you think cheated on you, but you should still have some kind of reaction to her (supposed) demise. Of course, he’s pretty drunk in this scene. I suppose one *could* handwave it as drinking to drown his sorrow, and macho bravado preventing him from grieving openly for a woman who was (supposedly) unworthy of him. Patriarchy Hurts Men Too, and so on. But it’s easier to interpret it as him just being a jerk.
I downloaded the soundtrack after my first visit to the theatre, and there’s a track missing. There’s upbeat music playing at the very end, while the whole cast are dancing in a silly fashion, with Beatrice and Benedick off in a corner ignoring the music to stare at each other. Anyway, that upbeat music isn’t among the tracks in the soundtrack, which is a shame, because it’s a very hummable tune. I suspect it’s possible that Whedon didn’t actually write that track, hence it not being available to buy. But I wish it were in the soundtrack so I could listen to it. Whedon’s version of Sigh No More, however, is delightful, and justifies the price of the soundtrack by itself.
I still remember downloading the whole soundtrack to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, only to discover that *neither* of the climactic musical moments from the movie had actually made it into the soundtrack. Granted, Alberto Iglesias didn’t compose either piece (the national anthem of the Soviet Union and a disco-infused Julio Iglesias cover of Charles Trenet’s La Mer), but he did choose to illustrate two of the biggest moments in the movie with those songs. They should’ve been in the soundtrack, in my not-so-humble opinion. People are going to want to buy your big soundtrack moments, and people (meaning me) are going to be remarkably frustrated that they can’t buy them.
