This week’s Rhapsody is Rhapsody for Baritone Saxophone and Wind Orchestra by Mark Watters. I’m enjoying this I don’t think I’m that familiar with the baritone saxophone (beyond Lisa Simpson). It’s almost reminding me of a bassoon but without the “wooden” quality I attribute to the Bassoon. Or perhaps it’s just a case of I’m not used to hearing the saxophone in a non jazz context and in the process I’m finding it exotic
For this week was a bit of a puzzler what I was going for was really interesting non traditional non western versions of Hamlet but I had absolutely no luck with finding andy of the other films on my list. So finally I had to five up and settle for doing Chinese Tragedy. Specifically two Wuxia films taking place in the Tang Dynasty.
The film that started this quest was the first on my list Curse of the Black Scorpion also known as the Banquet, by Feng Xiaogang . This is a wonderfully loose and subtle take on Hamlet stripping down the Shakespeare to it’s bare essentials to the point that you barely notice many of the elements of the play unless you are especially looking for them to this respect I especially liked this films version of the Mousetrap sequence as well as the way it changes the interplay between the Polonius and Ophelia characters (Polonius lives). But what really makes this film fascinating is how it changes the role of Gertrude.
Here she was the Hamlet’s character former lover before she married his father cranking up the incestuous subtext from the original play up to eleven. From there this is all Gertrude’s film as she moves her way up the ladder using both Hamlet and Claudius as her unwitting pawns.
All in all this is a beautifully filmed plays with many of the fight scenes almost feeling like complex dance routines.
Curse of the Golden Flower (which for reasons I’m not sure of I keep calling Curse of the Golden Lotis) directed by Zhang Yimou and starring Chow Yun-fat and Gong Lis an even darker story. Dealing with family conflict, dynastic politics and civil war this a gorgeous film that deals with the royal family gathering to attend the Golden Chrysanthemum festival while everything falls apart around them. What especially fascinated me about this film was the upstairs downstairs vibe showing an army of servants behind the scenes making everything in the palace work, maintain the facade of stability and most importantly in the films bloody climax cleaning up the mess as if none of it ever happened.
This week’s Rhapsody is Rhapsody for Orchestra by Andrzej Panufnik
I thought doing a Thanksgiving theme considering the holiday would be a good idea, but in the end I really didn’t get into my selection. Nothing against the films themselves, perhaps I wasn’t in the mood or perhaps it was a sore spot I wasn’t aware of, Considering I haven’t really had the option for several years perhaps it’s something I’m no longer familiar with.
The first on my list, John Hughes’ Planes, Trains and Automobiles, is a buddy film starring Steve Martin and the late John Candy featuring a race to bet back home for the holidays as Murphy’s Law has a field day with them. Starting with flights being canceled due to the snow, trains breaking down and after that anything else that can possibly go wrong while at the same time two completely opposite personalities being stuck together all the way.
I’ve never been the biggest fan of John Hughes’s work but this is different enough that it’s not really an issue. Martin and Candy have pretty good chemistry with Martin playing one of the ultimate tightness and Candy playing a genuinely nice but annoying salt of the earth type. Watching the two bang heads together is half the fun watching how they react to the latest bit of bad luck is the takes care of the rest.
You’re expected to love your family… liking them is optional. Jodie Foster‘s Home For the Holidays is an ensemble piece ably led by Holly Hunter. Hunter plays a divorce single mother who is having a horrible day. On the day she is heading out to visit her Parents in Baltimore for Thanksgiving she is fired from her job and her daughter wants to stay (and have sex with) boyfriend which leaves her alone for a weekend with her eccentric mob of a family. Mostly the story serves as a way to tie together a series of vignettes of human interaction and showing off all of the outrageous cast members for all they were worth. Special credit goes to a very young Robert Downey Jr as her younger gay brother.
So after two sessions of binge watching courtesy of a friend with a Netflix account I have seen all of the first season of Jessica Jones.
This is an adaptation of the series, Allias by Micheal Bendis about a cynical, bitter and hard drinking ex-superhero making a living as a private investigator. I can’t say I was much of a fan of the original comic, (some people liked it a lot of my friends hated it, personally I thought it was competent but I didn’t particularly care for the way they retconned her into the continuity of the Marvel universe.) so I can’t really couldn’t judge it as an adaptation of said comic but I can say that this is one of the best examples of how the genre can be taken seriously and go into the market with the assumption that all of the people who are watching this are grownups.
All in all, as far as the Marvel cinematic universe is concerned, this works just fine with Jessica Jones only being part of the “community for about as long as anyone else in the setting and hadn’t crossed anybody’s radar. That is until she accidentally encounters a mysterious mind controlling psychopath called Kilgrave who kidnaps her for several months destroying her life complete. A year later she making ends meet as a private investigator in New York suffering from severe ptsd, depression and alcoholism. And to make things worse Kilgrave is back
From here we start with a seat gripping cat and mouse game between Jessica and her former abuser. A situation where due to Kilgrave’s powers, nobody can be trusted and everybody is a potential victim.
Krysten Ritter plays Jessica Jones as a terribly damaged young woman who is tough enough to survive what she’s going for but at this point she’s still taking it one day at a time. While she still has friends she is still pushing them away to minimize the risk of being hurt again.
David Tennent is great as Kilgrave. I knew Tennent could do bad not just from the edge his version of the Doctor has but also from his brief but riveting performance as Barty Crouch Jr. In Harry Potter and the Cauldron of Fire and his Hamlet while not technically evil is very much an insufferable jerk. His Kilgrave, is a hedonistic sadist who, if he is to be believed, does not know he’s doing anything wrong. To a slight extent I found him scarier in the beginning of the series in a less is more kind of way where he is almost more of a terrifying concept than a concept, but Tennant’s performance, deceptively charming at one moment than breaking down in a temper tantrum ordering crowds to commit suicide the next, is what really makes this work and as we get to know the character and what he is capable of feel almost lucky that he is only motivated by his own self gratification.
All in all this one is the top of my list for best entries of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I liked the supporting cast especially Mike Colter as Luke Cage and Rachel Taylor as Jessica’s best friend Trish. My only problem with it was the darkness of this story came a little close to the edge of my personal sketch and I got a little tired of a handful of characters being designated victims but all in all this was sixteen hours well spent. (Yes I know it was only thirteen episodes, I’m including commute time to the friend’s apartment. )
Well I finally got to do what I got my zoo membership for… Drawing Gorillas!
The first time I went was a nice Saturday and it was packed and while I’m not going to begrudge people the right to go to the zoo I have trouble getting into my zone if there’s more than ten people around. The second time I tried the last hour of the day… Regrettably the flaw in that plan is thatit turns out we’re not the only hominid species that takes quitting time seriously.
Finally I chose a weekday and it was nicely dead and I got plenty of Gorilla sketches and probably could have gotten more. I had a few with the Orangutans as well but they didn’t come out quite as well. They were moving around too much. Two of them came up to see just what I was doing… even tapping the glass to get my attention!
So anyway enjoy these sketches of a couple residents of Phinney Ridge!
