Day: February 20, 2012

A historical drama and political thriller about the works of Shakespeare? Alright. Why the hell not.

That shit was like a rock show back then.

In case you didn’t know, Anonymous is a movie saying that William Shakespeare (Rafe Spall in the movie) did not write the works accredited to him. No, he was from a family of illiterates, and just an actor who was in the right place at the right time. No, instead it was Edward de Vere, an Earl of Oxford at the time who might have wrote them all! And he is played by Rhys Ifans.

Oh okay. Well why does it say that? Pretty much explains it over the whole movie.

According to the movie, play writes who got out of line back in the day got imprisoned. Nothing too raunchy, nothing against the crown, etc. Some guy named Ben Johnson (Sebastian Armesto) get arrested early on for being such a crude guy, I guess.

But the movie has an Earl doing all the writing, and in secret at that. Writing is also frowned upon for some reason. But he gives his plays to others to publish, under ‘Anonymous’, until Shakespeare takes credit after (Henry the VIII maybe?). Which he is fine with. Good, someone to “direct” all his works. Great.

Theres also the major plot about Queen Elizabeth 1 (Vanessa Redgrave) having sex with EVURRYBODYYY. And having secret children, even if its with people she was related to. Eventually this stuff leads to heir questions, possible revolts and mobs, and some war stuff. Beheadings too.

The movie also begins as if it was a play in front of a live theater, and ends that way too. But don’t worry, it turns into a real movie after the intro, and before the outtro.

“Your mother is an outtro.”

I can tell you I know very little about Shakespeare’s work. Never really cared. Also historically, I like ancient, but that means older than Renaissance. So any of that stuff wasn’t as interesting to me.

With all the sleeping around and fake babies, it just felt like a modern drama set in the past. I don’t even know how the movie explained that no one would be able to notice the Queen was pregnant all those times.

Also, a lot of the characters looked alike in my head. Kind of like the six fingered man in The Princess Bride. At least half of them. That made it harder for me to just follow along with the plot, which was important, given all the characters. The play also took place over 4 different years, over about 35 or 45 years though. It was more confusing, because I didn’t know when it went super far in the past. The other years at least showed “Five Year prior!”. Maybe the super far in the past one did too. But I missed it.

Shouldn’t be hiding time cues like that!

But anyways. The movie looked pretty, but the plot seemed kind of silly.

I

am surprised it took me this long to review Leaves Of Grass. I generally have a stand against downloading movies on the internet, but I took exception for both this movie and The Joneses. Why? Because they took forever to go from being made and out, to being actually out on DVD. I wanted to buy both and watch them, but just could not. Since then, I have bought both movies at least. Woo guilt!

It also features one of my favorite movie tropes. One guy playing twins.

Yep. Movie starts off with Bill (Edward Norton), a professor at Brown teaching Latin. After a student tries to seduce him (which he definitely puts an end to), and a meeting with the board about Harvard/tenure, in walks Bolger (Tim Blake Nelson) with the news that his brother is dead!

But not really. His brother, Brady (Edward Norton. Twins I tell ya. But he has long hair, no worry) is actually having some trouble with the law. He grows all natural marijuana! But he isn’t trying to get rich from it, just does a small farm, small sales, no reason to expand his market. Even if he owes money to Richard Dreyfuss. Bill of course goes back to Tulsa to visit the funeral, but en route to his home, he is mistaken for his twin and beaten up. He awakes to find, well damn it, Brady isn’t dead.

But he is getting married (to Keri Russell) and is having a baby, so Bill is guilted into staying. Especially since he too really finds the soon to be wife attractive. But Brady convinces Bill to pretend to be Brady and take care of things at the home (and his wife!) while he goes to deal with Richard Dreyfuss. And thus, alibis can be falsely made. Hooray!

After that, things go from mild comedy to real dark comedy. Shit goes down. Excessive violence, death, and extremely unlikely scenarios. None of which involve Susan Sarandon, who plays the mom, but might involve Josh Pais, a failed orthodontist.

Way too much swag for two guys from Tulsa.

Tim Blake Nelson is more well known as Delmar from O Brother, Where Art Thou? and playing “dumb characters” but he actually graduated from both Brown and Julliard. Why do I mention this? Because he was also the director of the movie, and whenever you are a character in a movie you are directing, your character is generally pretty awesome. And it is true. That characters amazingness made me enjoy the movie that much more.

I was shocked by the end how violent it actually got, not expecting it with a Edward Norton twin comedy. Shit happens, and that shit sucks. My vague descriptions might be enough to convince you to watch it, but I figure just saying Edward Norton is in it is enough for the rest of you.