Notes from the Cinematic Fringe

hanging low the fog coming off the ocean miles off it smells like salt a salty rain that smell of rain just moments away chilling a hot decemeber day hot in december 80 + degrees  i miss colorado decembers hot on the sunset gower lot and an endless meeting endless list of games but tonight a walk a walk through a salty low lying fog headlights blooming im relaxing 915 walk to landmark theater anticipating Kings Speech with much hype they always hype everyone hypes i despise overhyping a film nothing ever lives up to the hype but excited to see firth and rush and carter and the house of leder and the worlds worst vegan for free he donates blood at ucla with movie ticket voucher rewards that i cannot get because of a bone graft less than a year before tonight i am walking through salty low lying blooming beautiful late night la fog to a landmark with the worlds worst vegan and the house of leder to see the king give a speech

ALACK! deception the man in a horrible shade of burgandy cries out this theater is screening the taymor adapted shakespeare finale The Tempest SPRING! up my head and wide  my eyes look to W.W.V and the house is laughing but jokes on him the language of elizabeth will spin his head and how does he a man that loves nothing but bourne agree to this he loves the action the quick dialogue landing firmly on the nose wont watch a black and white and now a psychedelic trip navigated by the woman that helmed titus that i never finished nothing spectacular couldnt hold my interest and frida that somehow bewitched me on first viewing and lost it lost it lost it on each subsequent dvd attempt despite naked selma hayek then the public raping of the beatles anthology jumping from decent segment to atrocious so why not      why not turn prospero into prospera why not see caliban as merely a black slave caked in mud and not the deformed monster that i once while in undergrad envisioned when reading the tempest for the first time i saw caliban a foolish naive villain of sorts that wants nothing more than to reclaim a throne he has rightful claim to but will never sit where his mother sat for he’s a slave to prospera still doesnt sound right and played well by the djimon hounsou from the slave rebellion aboard the amistad amazing but was not directed as the villain that i always hoped to see caliban nor were there any true villian AH! the heart of the issue with this film it is a lack of true conflict conflict being the catalyst of drama conflict being the impetus to story so why ignore conflict ms. taymor why oh you must be distracted think you can distract us with onslaught of visual stimulus my phone vibrated i check Ooo email why not not into the story i lean to the leder he leans to me and i what do you think and he i  forgot how much talking is in shakespeare and i that is sort of his thing and he just laughs goes back to not paying attention to why is ariel now a blue genderless spirit how is prospera this omniscient omnipotent being omnipotent only by commanding ariel who can do anything so why not break the bonds of slavery and suddenly Distraction! russell brand comes not so nimbly over the rocks and spastic and drunk and slurring and aldous snow speaking in iambic pentameter is still aldous snow

a visual barrage an intellectual bore and everything goes exactly to prosperas plan and what conflict what interest what drama what its hardly even a story the way its presented shakespeare must be pissed as i think of it days later it gets worse or maybe i just romanticized the tempest when i first read it and would be just as disappointed if i revisited but i cant no i wont believe that i liked the tempest before i can like it again despite taymor despite aldous snow and despite oh wait there was a shining star in the thats a song by the manhattans by the way the shining star here is that felicity jones  where has she been my whole life she a beauty she that handles the shakespearean prose with a masterful tongue nibble lips and possesses the innocent curiosity that i wanted to see in miranda she matches blow for blow with veteran actors no doesnt match outshines those veterans perhaps im too harsh on the movie perhaps it could be enjoyable if i suspend disbelief suspend thought suspend intellect simply enjoy the spectacle enjoy the prose enjoy felicity because how beauteous this film is o brave new tempest that has such felicity in it