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Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead - 1990

What It Is: Tim Roth and Gary Oldman in the untold story of Hamlet's most minor characters.

Why I Watched It: Recommended by a trusted friend.

What I Thought: I'm fairly certain that this very funny movie would have been even better if I went in knowing something about Hamlet. I have no aversion to Shakespeare, but Hamlet is one of his works I never got around to seeing/reading.

Roth and Oldman are as fantastically excellent as you would expect. I believe this is only the second time I've seen Oldman in a comedy role and the guy's really fucking good.

The plot is lots of fun because it follows the existentialist misadventure's of Hamlet's minor characters and enlightens us on all their ridiculous activities between their appearances in the Hamlet story proper. The very best of which is a Question Match they hold on a tennis court involving a sort of debate following tennis scoring. It sounds weird, but it's amazingly awesome to watch.

Highlights: Roth and Oldman succeeding marvelously in comedy roles, an excellent performance by Richard Dreyfuss deserves mention as well, the Question Match, and the general level of philosophical absurdity throughout the whole picture.

Who Should See It: Fans of Shakespeare, Roth or Oldman. Fans of existential comedies like I Heart Huckabees and Being John Malkovich.

How Soon: Next time you want to do some thinking with your laughing.

1 comment:

Brandi said...

I've read both Hamlet and this play and I'm so excited that it seems to have translated well to the big screen. If you ever get the chance you really should try to read it, it's rather short and even though you get more out of it if you have read Hamlet, it is a really great read within itself. :)