A Midsummer Night's Dream [2017]

Welcome back to My Year of Shakespeare. It is somehow another month where I am making apologies for how weird week four's movie was.

This was a very colorful adaptation that keeps the play dialogue, to its own detriment. I'm not sure what the ideal would be — I feel like at times throughout this project, I've complained about keeping the dialogue, not keeping the dialogue, transposing it to the present/near past, keeping it in the time and place it was made, transposing it to some other setting, and some of them are just always clunkers, some of them are always hits. This one I found frustrating. I don't think there exists a formula for this beyond what the actors are able to deliver on.

Speaking of delivering, I think this might be the first dud performance I've ever seen Hamish Linklater give. I was so excited for him specifically, he's been great in Midnight Mass, Legion, Fargo, Widow's Bay, but idk. Artsy Dirtbag Hamish Linklater didn't work for me. I think he needs to be slightly more softspoken. Lee Pace could've done this version of Lysander really well.

I thought for sure the worst musical experience was going to be in last week's "Strange Magic", but no that was in this one during the bit that reminded me of the Most Unwanted Song. Operatic Dancehall is a cursed Amanda Palmer-esque genre that I would prefer to never have to interact with again.

I guess I'm not watching any sort of baseline-understand adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream. My intent with watching this one was supposed to be a late baseline-understanding version but uh.... It isn't. It's easily the most scattershot comedy I've endured for this project; Maybe that's supposed to be the appeal. I guess this was fine. I probably would not watch it again. Not with the sound on anyway. I didn't like that they kept dropping in other Shakespeare plays, that felt like marvel-lazy writing. When you strip "out damn spot" from it's context, that's not a joke, that's just saying a thing.

Hopefully I'll enjoy King Lear month better. The tragedies and histories have, largely, hit for me, so finger's crossed. Schedule looks like the following:

• King Lear [2018] (Jul 5)
• Ran [1985] (Jul 12)
• King Lear [1987] (Jul 19)
• King Lear [1999] (Jul 25)

Thank you for your infinite patience reading along with My Year of Shakespeare.