The Taming of the Shrew (BBC Television Shakespeare)

The Taming of the Shrew
(BBC Television Shakespeare)
1980
3/5 stars


Baptista Minola (John Franklyn-Robbins) of Padua has two lovely daughters: Katherina (Sarah Badel) and Bianca (Susan Penhaligon). Bianca has many suitors, being retiring and maidenly. Katherina, on the other hand, is a shrew, short of temper and sharp of tongue. Baptisa vows that he will not allow Bianca to marry until her older sister has. Petruchio (John Cleese) comes to Padua, intent on finding a rich wife. Katherina is just such a prospect, and he quickly arranges with Baptista to marry her, and then sets about to tame her.

I truly dislike the play itself (my review here), and watched this only in hopes that seeing it staged would give me a better appreciation for it.  Unfortunately, it didn't.  However, the play was mostly well-performed, with Cleese making a surprisingly good Petruchio.  I found that some of the actors tended to speak  too quickly when the character was excited, which made it difficult to understand the lines.  Overall, though, it was generally well-staged performance of a poor play.

This can be viewed for free with Amazon Prime.

Twelfth Night (Live From Lincoln Center)

Twelfth Night 
(Live From Lincoln Center)
1998
5/5 stars


This is a tale of twins, Viola (Helen Hunt) and Sebastian (Rick Stear), who are separated by a shipwreck. Viola disguises herself as a man (Cesario) and becomes an attendant to Duke Orsino (Paul Rudd), with whom she falls in love. He loves Olivia (Kyra Sedgwick), who in turn falls in love with Cesario. The plot is further complicated when Malvolio (Philip Bosco), Olivia's steward, is tricked into believing that she is in love with him.

This production is superb, played naturally and with joy and verve, emphasizing the humor of the play.  Hunt and Rudd have good chemistry, adding spice to their relationship.  Bosco is wonderful as Malvolio, playing comedy and drama with equal skill.  David Patrick Kelly made an entertaining fool (Feste).  The best performances were from Brian Murray (as Sir Toby Belch) and Max Wright (as Sir Andrew Aguecheek); their comic timing, expressions, and gestures were perfection.

My only complaint is with the play itself: so many subplots have to be tied up in the last act that it feels unwieldy at times.  This was handled well by the director (Nicholas Hytner), so that it wrapped up smoothly.

This can be viewed on Internet Archive:
https://archive.org/details/TwelfthNightLiveFromLincolnCenter1998

Hunt and Rudd

Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night
TV movie: 1969

Raymond, Plowright

4/5 stars

This is a tale of twins, Viola and Sebastian (both played by Joan Plowright), who are separated by a shipwreck. Viola disguises herself as a man (Cesario) and becomes an attendant to Duke Orsino (Gary Raymond), with whom she falls in love. He loves Olivia (Adreinne Corri), who in turn falls in love with Cesario.   The plot is further complicated when Malvolio (Alec Guinness), Olivia's steward, is tricked into believing that she is in love with him.

This version was directed by John Sichel and John Dexter, and shows both comedy and drama equally well. Guinness is superb as Malvolio, both comedic and tragic.  Plowright, while an excellent actress, is not visually convincing, and this weakens the performance.  The other weakness is the plot itself.  As I said in my review of the play, too many ends need tying up, and it is done too quickly in the last scene.  Otherwise, this is a delightful performance of Shakespeare's light and enjoyable play.

Sangdil Sanam

Sangdil Sanam
(translation: "heartless beloved")
1994
3/5

Kishan and Sanam are childhood sweethearts, and are officially betrothed by their families.  However, Kishan's father (Alok Nath) is framed by Sanam's father (Kiran Kumar) for a bank theft, and Kishan and his mother (Reema Lagoo) are left with nothing and retire to a village.  Twelve years later, Kishan (Salman Khan) goes to retrieve Sanam (Manisha Koirala) and bring her home as his bride.  Unfortunately, Sanam has changed for the worse and wants nothing to do with him.

This romantic drama/comedy starts off well with a great premise, but dissolves into a ridiculous slapstick in which Kishan ignores the fact that "no" means "no"; the film then becomes serious again, and quite interesting (despite the Stockholm syndrome plot line), but even the solidly good songs can't make it better than average.

Mujhse Dosti Karoge!

Mujhse Dosti Karoge!
(translation: "will you be my friend")
2002
5/5 stars

As a young boy, Raj moves with his family to London.  He asks his crush, Tina, to write to him.  She says she will, but as she has no interest in so doing, their mutual friend Pooja writes to him instead, and in Tina's name, for fifteen years. After these fifteen years,  Raj (Hrithik Roshan) returns to India, halfway in love with the writer of the letters.  When Tina (Kareena Kapoor) turns out tobe  so beautiful and bubbly, Raj is certain that he loves her, not realizing that Pooja (Rani Mukherji), who loves him, is the letter writer and the one he truly loves.

The plot is standard Bollywood fare, but is good nonetheless.  The chemistry between Roshan and Mukherjee is excellent--so good it's palpable at times.  The loves songs were good, and the group choreography pleasant to watch. Kapoor's costumes, while fitting for her character, were so skimpy as to be almost painful to see.  This film works it way up to a tremendous ending, but instead it ties up too nicely and quickly.  This keeps it from being an exceptional movie, but it is overall good entertainment.

August 2020: After rewatching this, I have to up the rating to five stars.  Yes, it wraps up quickly, but it is effective, nonetheless, and a truly greet movie.

This movie is available on Amazon Prime.

Bombay Talkie

Bombay Talkie
1970
4/5 stars

Lucia Lane (Jennifer Kendal), self-absorbed and demanding, is a British author who has come to Bombay to research her next novel.  She falls in love with Vikram (played by Kendal's real-life husband Shashi Kapoor), a younger, popular Bollywood hero. The already complicated relationship is worsened by the fact that Vikram's wife (Aparna Sen) knows of the affair, and that his friend, Hari (Zia Mohyeddin), is in love with Lucia and roiling with jealousy.

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala has written a screenplay that is both credible and compelling, with dark undertones. One simply can't like Lucia and Vikram, and yet one must continue to watch as they head towards disaster.  As with many Merchant Ivory films, this one relies heavily on the actors' facial expressions to show emotions and set the mood, and these four main actors do an excellent job.  Overall, it's a rather unpleasant movie that will simultaneously grip and repel, and keep the viewer watching till the very end.

(Cast also includes Nadira, and  a cameo by Helen.)

Kapoor, Kendal

This movie is available on YouTube:

Judaai

Judaai
(translates as "separation")
1997
5/5 stars

Kajal (played by Sridevi) is obsessed with money, and as a result begins to disrespect her upstanding, honorable husband, Raj, (Anil Kapoor) for not giving her what she wants.  When rich Janhvi (Urmila Matondkar) falls in love with Raj, Kajal bullies him into marrying Janhvi in exchange for a large sum of money.  Kajal soon discovers that the wealth she has so desired will not bring the happiness she expected.

The incomparably beautiful Sridevi gives an outstanding performance as Kajal, easily working the audience for and against her as the scene required.  Matondkar is also excellent in her role.  Kapoor, though playing his part well, is overshadowed by the two strong performances by the actresses, but that is as it should be for this film.  The direction is superb, the music is good, the choreography average, the traditional costumes stunning, and the supporting cast some of the finest.  I was surprised at just how fantastic this movie was, and it is written well enough that I was uncertain as to how it would finally end.  I highly recommend this film, if for nothing else than Sridevi's performance.

The star-studded cast also includes Kader Khan, Farida Jalal, Johnny Lever, Paresh Rawal, Upasana Singh and Saeed Jaffrey

Sridevi, Kapoor, Matondkar