Movie Review: Titus

every single time I see a movie that is based off a Shakespeare play, I think to myself “Myself: wouldn’t it be cool to be reading this?”. Every-single-time, except, that is, when I saw Hamlet. That time, I kept thinking “Myself, wasn’t this cool back when you read it?”.

It kills me that people keep trying to do these stupid, lameass adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays. Whether it be Julie Taymor/Anthony Hopkins’ Titus, Almereyda/Ethan Hawke’s Hamlet, Whatsisname/Dicaprio’s Romeo + Juliet, or hell, even Greenaway’s Prospero’s Books (The Tempest), Shakespeare adaptations STINK!. There are several things wrong with them in general, and with Titus in particular. Let us begin with the general stuff:

Shakespeare was a good writer. Hell, you can practically distill Human Emotions from his plays. Therein lies the first problem: Shakespeare’s plays are nothing but elongated, overdramatized explorations of Human Emotion. Not prime movie material, if you ask me. But then, nobody asked me, or there wouldn’t be so many damn awful movies based on the things, right? Let’s take a look at the usual turns of events on Shakespeare’s plays, shall we? Well, there’s usually a lot of different characters who engage in despicable acts regardless of whether they are the good guys or the bad guys. These two definitions are always clearly marked. There’s romance, sex, jealousy, betrayal, revenge and usually a great deal of horrid mutilation of body parts. Sounds like every movie producer’s wet dream right? Hell yes!. And therein lies the problem: I think movie producers are making their decisions to adapt Shakespeare’s plays after reading the fucking blurb on the jacket of the books.

If they took a closer look at the plots (which would involve actually opening the book), they’d realize right away that there are many problematic elements movie-wise: The overly complicated plans either side makes are just ludicrous and hang on impossible assumptions (but later they work out almost exactly as the planner intended, because, apparently, the planee’s are just plain idiots). There’s also the matter of the poetic dismemberment: As cool as it sounds having someone lose their hands and get them replaced with tree branches, those things just don’t translate well to the screen. The action ends up looking corny and weird. Then there’s the matter of the insanity: Shakespeare wasn’t just a playwright. The man was a poet (a good one, at that). His trademarked insanity is taking me over dialogs read extremely well, but I strongly believe delivering Hamlet’s To be or not to Be… dialog with a straight face is one of the greatest accomplishments any movie actor can have. Too bad I’m not buying.

There is a simple truth that every movie producer that embarks in one of these ventures ignores: Shakespeare wrote for Theater. The mannerisms, the eloquence, the whole shebang is very well suited for grandiose live acting in huge stages. These are Farces, not fucking Action/Drama blockbusters for crying outloud! Case in point: Titus, from the Titus Andronicus play. This movie tells the story of a Roman General that comes back victorious from the war, makes an ill choice when presented with the chance to decide who will be the next emperor, and from then on embarks his whole family in a tale which includes the aforementioned sex, rape, mutilation, betrayal, revenge and even some cannibalism thrown in for good measure. As usual, the dialog is kept the same as in the original play, and, also as usual, the time period/wardrobe/props are given the proverbial finger. Anthony Hopkins delivers a great performance as Titus which, although having its moments, ultimately falls short of making an impression due mostly to the points I mentioned before. Rome is moved to present day, with motorbikes and cars replacing horses and chariots. The photography is good, although I found the cutscenes that represented ignominy and insanity overly pretentious and somewhat annoying. What I felt when the movie ended is that I should now go read Titus Andronicus and enjoy that movie in my head since it will definitely be much better than this one.

— sergio at 12:22 AM  

Stop the presses! Stop them I say! I… hear this, you’re going to love it: I just got an email from no other than Wil Wheaton!!! I mean, this is Wil - freaking - Wheaton we’re talking about, for criminy’s sake!!! This is a HUGE THING, a truly momentous event!!!! Granted, the actual email itself wasn’t very long… and it was in response to my own email to him reporting a possible bug at his site after buying a TextAd to announce the comic, but still… the man had a goddamned prank Operating System named after him at April fools in ThinkGeek for crying outloud!!. That in itself must be enough to give you Geek God status or something. Wow.

For those who don’t know who this guy is, well: He used to play Wesley the wiz kid in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Ok. You know me. I know I may have come off as some kind of trekkie hater at some point or another, but there’s a perfectly good explanation for that: I am.

Ok, I’m not. Truth is, although I do think wasting your time dissecting the blueprints of a fictitious ship is a great way to excise yourself from reality and never get a Significant Other, I can maybe recall more than half of the original series’ episodes, watched most of ST:TNG and movies and I know damned well what a Tribble is. I don’t know. I guess it kind of comes with the territory. You bask in your geekhood, you read, watch, breath and live with it, so you should know not to wear a Red T-Shirt when landing on a strange planet, you recall Playing Dungeons & Dragons when you were a kid (or, um… three days ago), you used to do all those Choose your own adventure books and then try to get all the alternate endings (were those things cool or what?). So, you may understand why I like the man. He’s one of the blog celebrities on the web, posts regularly in Slashdot (I’m aWalrus there btw) and is generally held in high regard in the circle. Plus, he’s just an all around nice guy.

So, for an encore, get your geek on, set your phasers on “Sweet!” and check out his site. You’ll like what he has to say.

— sergio at 11:43 AM  

I know a great many of you don’t know what the hell that last quote is about. Maybe you haven’t seen Monty Python and The Holy Grail. To those who find themselves in this position, I can only say: Shame on you. If you want to know more about the actual source of the quote, go here or here. That said, I know this is a geeky reference that is unlikely to have mass appeal, but one of the nice things of having a self-published webcomic is that I have no editor to keep me from pulling this off. Then again, that may not be an advantage at all. Your mileage may vary.

By the way, the subject of this comic is exactly the sort of behavior I’m likely to exhibit from time to time in real life. And I wonder why I don’t have a girlfriend…

A bunch of webcomic people were recently at ConnectiCon and the San Diego Comic-Con. I wish I could have been there. Hope I get to meet some of the other authors eventually. We should make our own conventions. We could have secret decoder rings and everything. It would be swell…

— sergio at 08:41 AM  

Well, that certainly took long enough. Sorry for the delay. A fierce battle was fought between work and my thorough indecisiveness on what to do for this comic. Thanks for your patience and for all the messages you sent me for my Bday. I appreciate it muchly. Will work on some movie reviews and something a bit more witty to say tomorrow.

— sergio at 02:40 AM  

Today (July 14)’s my birthday and also something or other to do with the French. I think there was a Government overthrowing and a lot of killing involved. I don’t usually care a lot about these dates, but I thought I’d let you know anyway. Will update this post in case I do anything interesting today. If you feel like throwing a message in my general direction, by all means don’t let me stop you.

In other news, I recently discovered that Blockbuster has an online system that allows you to check for which Blockbuster location has the particular movie you’re looking for. And it even works in México! (that’s my nationality, for those not in the know). As soon as I saw this I proceeded to locate and rent Grosse Pointe Blank (I absolutely love this one, but then again, I worship John Cusack — you know, in a really manly, non-romantic way… err…. yeah) and The Boondock Saints. Two of my favorite movies. Seriously, you owe it to yourself to see these. I’ll write reviews during the week for your perusal so you know what I’m talking about. Cheers!

— sergio at 12:37 AM  

I think this one’s right up your alley, Brian! Let me know what you think.

Been watching a shitload of movies lately, some of which I plan on reviewing and posting about soon. The skinny: Hulk: BLEH. Le pacte des loups (Brotherhood of the wolf): Nice but looong (plus, it’s not everyday you see someone kick the shit out of Mark Dacascos). Office Space: You know I lurve this one. Some more I shall mention later.

I have started to do more frequent updates of the news box at this site’s home page. I’m mainly posting amusing links to things I find, some short news regarding myself or the site, etc. You may want to take a look from time to time to see if there’s anything you fancy.

I’m working on improving this site to provide the best possible content, and for that I need your input. Tell me what you like about what’s already here, what you dislike, what extras you think Overcaffeinated could benefit from, suggestions and whatever’s on your mind. So, any comments you may have, just let me know.

— sergio at 01:33 AM  

Me and some friends at work are starting to make a point of getting together to watch movies on Thursdays. Movie Thursdays is what we call them. We’re so clever.

Donnie Darko is a weird flick, make no mistake. Here we have this fucked up kid who happens to be a paranoid schizophrenic whose room gets squashed by a falling airplane turbine while he’s outside listening to an evil giant rabbit who’s predicting the end of the world. And that’s where it starts.

This movie could very easily fall into being a big budget episode of The Twilight Zone were it not for the little things. The nicely balanced camera panning/corny 80’s soundtrack sequences that are not done anymore just when you expect them again, the weird spiral paint on the jet turbine, the big, loud, desperate FUCK by Drew Barrymore and the little details that don’t quite fit and leave you wondering. These small things add to the whole experience. The One-Eyed Evil Giant Rabbit helps too. Overall, this is a nice, slightly upsetting movie.

Also, In case you were wondering (and I know you were):

Congratulations, you are Donnie Darko. You’re not afraid to speak what’s on your mind and tell people what you’re really thinking. You think about sex a lot and sometimes you wake up with your hands down your pants.

Which Donnie Darko character are you? by Shay

— sergio at 11:57 PM  

I’m not entirely happy with how this one turned out, but it’ll have to do.

The Top Web Comics List resets today, so this is a great time for a vote drive! I hardly ever ask of you people to click on this thing, but at the beginning of the month it means more exposure. To encourage this, I’ll show you the latest piece of fan art I’ve gotten. This one is from Peter. Thanks man!

So do it! click! =). It would be amazing if you could come back from time to time (once daily) and vote again. At least for a while. Enough to get a headstart. Thanks people!

Still working on some extras for the comic as well as some other projects I may mention soon.

— sergio at 02:48 AM