Ooh. There’s a logo I haven’t seen in a minute. But it’s also rather surprising that a first-time director — doing a long version of Henry V — would get distribution on that level, isn’t it?

Yes, I’m continuing my Festival Of 80s Art House Movies.

So meta!

Such mascara.

Augustus!

This is good stuff! I remember the buzz about this movie was that somebody had dared make a … fundamentalist? … version of Shakespeare for the screen again. And indeed it makes it a thrilling thing to watch.

(I mean, it’s an edited text, but it’s not heavily modernised.)

THAT DARN CAT

It’s so tense!

And I love these bits, too.

WHERE”S OSHA THAT”S TOO CLOSE TO THE CLIFFS

The production is spiffy, but I don’t quite believe in Ken’s hairdo. That’s a very 1989 cut. I mean, I can see how they’ve tried to make it something else, but they’ve worked so hard at it that it’s gone full circle.

I’m gonna use that phrase more often from now on.

Heh heh this is fun.

Heh heh:

King Charles VI of France did not command the French army as he suffered from psychotic illnesses and associated mental incapacity.

And:

Henry V received widespread critical acclaim and is considered one of the best Shakespeare screen adaptations ever produced. Among its numerous accolades, the film received three nominations at the 62nd Academy Awards, two of which went to Branagh (Best Director and Best Actor). Henry V won with its other nomination, Best Costume Design for Phyllis Dalton.

Despite being nominated for the Oscars a lot, it’s a good movie. I think the scenes with Henry at night in the camp are magical. It sort of falls short of that in the final scenes. Which are cute! But they’re kinda like “er”.

So I wondered whether this movie got any votes in the Sight & Sound 2022 poll — and nope. Not a single one.

Which is understandable.

But it’s a good movie.

Henry V. Kenneth Branagh. 1989. ⚄

I’ve seen this movie many times before, of course… but now it’s in 2K!!!

But… WTF!? It’s in 16:9 now? But but but. THEY”VE CUT IT DOWN FROM 1.85:1 to 16:9!? WHILE MAKING IT 2K!?!

EWWW

This is such a brilliant movie. Not a moment wasted — it’s all full on fun. And all those novelty dance hits. It’s like perfect.

And after seeing it this time… I’m starting to wonder how the version with John Travolta in the Divine role is. It’s probably horrible? But I feel compelled to see it now.

Hairspray. John Waters. 1988. ⚅

So — continuing my Festival Of 80s Art House Movies.

I’m not sure whether I’ve seen this one before. If I did, it was probably on like a bootlegged VHS when I was 15?

All these hallways and doorways…

This is what I want my bedroom to look like!

This 4K bluray has been beautifully restored. This movie has probably never looked as good as this before. And soon, I’m guessing they’re going to stop restoring movies this painstaking way, and instead ask an LLM to do it: “Hallucinate this movie as if it were 4K” and then all movies will feature Nick Cage.

That’s the best-trained dog actor ever.

It’s so weird seeing Erland Josefsson in this — not because of the Italian that’s on the soundtrack, but because I’m constantly hearing his lines in his own voice instead of the one they’ve dubbed him into. I can tell by his mouth movements that he’s actually delivering the lines in Italian, but of course, at this time they didn’t actually record any sound on sets in Italy, so it’s all dubbed, but they’ve got a voice actor that sounds nothing like him.

It’s so weird — I’ve seen him in so many movies that his voice and very distinctive delivery is just a natural phenomenon to me, and it’s missing here.

Tarkovsky’s tableaux usually look so striking, so it’s jarring when you get something kike this, where it looks kinda like a parody of a Tarkovsky scene…

I wonder what the story behind this one is. There’s so many shots reminiscent of Tarkovsky’s previous movies — it’s like the producers told him “we really liked Stalker! Make a movie with all those scenes! But make a new story!” And so we ended up with a kind of … post-landing-on-Solaris thing, but very wet.

Ok ok, it’s probably not that at all — what with the main character being a Russian author called “Andrei”.

Almost every shot here is stunning… and the storyline kinda peters out. But it’s still a great movie.

Heh heh:

Vincent Canby of The New York Times said that Tarkovsky “may well be a film poet but he’s a film poet with a tiny vocabulary. […] Nothing happens.” Dave Kehr was mildly positive, considering it to be “packed with imagery that seems at once hopelessly obscure and crushingly obvious” while also arguing that the work “does succeed in inducing some kind of trance.

Anyway:

Nostalghia. Andrei Tarkovsky. 1983. ⚅