Movies

Wow this is one of those movies that I am completely baffled about the low ranking on here. I agree with some of the critiques that the sound mixing could have been better but overall the film was gorgeous, overall well acted and very understandable for such a difficult play.Someone mentioned poor special effects...I thought they were wonderful. Clearly the big money goes to plenty of trite blockbusters leaving little for pieces of art and beauty such as this. But what they lacked in money they made up for in creativity....I absolutely loved the rendition of the spirit Ariel. There was plenty of gorgeous scenery both real and mixed with CGI.Julie Taymor never disappoints me and this is no exception!

I saw The Tempest (2010 ) at the Berlin International Film Festival. It was a terrible film.Julie Taymor is not a very proficient film director, of course she has talent to make a few segments stunningly beautiful, as if in a play or a theatrical performance, but the severity of William Shakespeare's play is lost in a muddled and fabricated palette of inconsistently stupid and vapid CGI. William Shakespeare does not need elaborate and idiotic fake graphics to tell his stories. His words are as powerful as when they were written.Stick with the superb Ran (1985) by Akira Kurosawa. It sill holds up after all these years.

but impossible to understand. Saw this at the New York Film Festival tonight and must assume that the soundtrack was unfinished because I was able to understand about half of the dialog. It sounded like a mono mix, so maybe it was a temporary soundtrack or was projected incorrectly. The opening scene: completely unintelligible. Nearly every word spoken by Djimon Hisou: completely unintelligible. Hope they fix this because there is much to admire in the film: Helen Mirren's marvelous performance (most clearly spoken and reproduced), the great Ben Wishaw as Ariel, the beautiful music, magical settings, visual effects and the beautiful costumes.