I recently saw
The Tempest (Taymor, 2010) which I went into expecting it to be gaudy and cinematic but also found it very entertaining; for example Russel Brand is really funny as Trinculo. My admittedly simplistic reading of the play (based mostly on this and several viewings of Peter Greenaway's adaptation) is that it's focused on Prospero's obsessions and powers to the exclusion of most of the other characters, who become his pawns. I expect this view to be challenged but it's important to note that the difference between Prospero's white magic and the dark magic of his predecessor Sycorax is that at the end Prospero sets everyone free after seeing his daughter married to the prince of Naples. So ultimately his magic is benevolent and playful (literally putting on a play) wherein his performance of revenge gives way to a final act of forgiveness.
In Julie Taymor's version Prospero becomes Prospera (Helen Mirren). I'm not sure what purpose Taymor had in this alteration but it seems like it effects her political power. Rather than being the Duke of Milan Prospera is the former Duke's widow. On the other hand she's still a powerful sorceress and scholar who tames the spirits on her island, bends the
tempest to her purposes through the service of Ariel, and uses a magical orrery to create illusions. Even if she doesn't literally write everything we see and speak everything we hear (as in Prospero's Books) she still seems to be as in control of her play as Taymor is.
I liked this cast a lot. Chris Cooper plays Prospera's scheming brother and David Strathairn is the king of Naples.
Another thing I liked about this movie is how it uses rich and ambiguous imagery to seemingly create a counter narrative to the one I just described. This version opens with a tiny sandcastle resting in the palm of Miranda's hand, already implying the creative potential of someone else in the play. That's a very powerful and visual introduction to this world. I'm starting to ramble so I'll just give the movie my rating and move on. If this goes into wide release I'll see it again.
Here's the rest of what I saw:
King Kong (Jackson, 2005)
(deserves its own post but I'm not up to it right now)
The Man With Two Brains (Reitman, 1983)
(a lot lower than the last time I saw it, I still thought a lot of it was pretty funny, particular these bits: Indian rubber vase, "into the mud, scum queen", "oh, just some scum queen", citizen's divorce, "that must have been some other guy with a brain in a jar", "pointy birds", "that's a statue of my wife" -- those parts almost feel like enough to raise this rating so maybe I was just in a bad mood when I saw it. On the other hand a lot of the self-aware movie-type jokes felt a little forced to me this time around. The "murmur" bit at Steve Martin's speech just felt like Mel Brooks at his most obvious.)
Holiday (Cukor, 1938)
(very theatrical and sentimental film in three acts which seemed to focus too much on sympathizing characters through speeches and wound up feeling cloying and artificial. If you really like classic Hollywood romances or Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant I could see raising this popcorn score by as much as a box and a half, but I still probably wouldn't go for an "average" rating because its storytelling felt bogged down in dialog without being all that interesting or cinematic.)
It Happened One Night (Capra, 1938)
(This one has beautiful cinematography, particularly in how all the important scenes take place at night and under moonlight. There's a strong sense of composition in many of the sets and locations as well, and unlike in the above movie the romance here didn't feel forced or overly sentimentalized to me. I may be underrating it slightly.)
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (Scott, 2009)
My Blue Heaven (Ross, 1990)
Fearless (Weir, 1993)
Star Trek V The Final Frontier (Shatner, 1989)
A Night at the Roxbury (Fortenberry, 1998)
G.I. Joe (Sommers, 2009)
(Dumb plot and characters but I really enjoyed the special effects and action.)
The Big Sleep (Hawks, 1946)
A Streetcar Named Desire (Kazan, 1951)
(Amazing performance by Brando in this very dark adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play. This came out before the other Williams adaptations I have seen (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Suddenly, Last Summer) but feels much newer and fresher than either of them.)
In Old Chicago (King, 1937)
(eventually builds to a compelling spectacle in the burning of Chicago but otherwise it's a rather slow melodrama with several unappealing characters)
Serpico (Lumet, 1973)
Pokemon 2000 (could write a whole post on why I kind of like Pokemon, but it's probably not all that interesting.)
Zombieland (Fleischer, 2009)
Ball of Fire (Hawks, 1941)
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.Still if you are a fan of the genre and like dark humor it's worth spending 90 minutes 
