Like Masterpiece Theater
927187
It's a good period piece.  My wife really enjoys it.
830192
This was off to a slow start, but I hung in there, knowing that it would not have recently been picked up for another season if it wasn't good. I personally have never seen anything on Masterpiece Theatre that was not terrific!  Of course true to form, it held up to the standards I expected.  Love the clothing, the set decoration, the impeccable attention to detail and time periods.  Really made me have an even stronger understanding of this time period.  The character development is slow going, but stick with it.  They eventually do emerge.  I have never been disappointed in Jeremy Piven's  performance, and while I think his acting is good in this, I felt he was mis-cast.  I keep thinking there is something about his voice that detracts from the character, or is distracting me. I could be wrong, I can't quite define it.
3816538
Moises Kaufman, who created the magnificent stage drama _Gross Indecency_, based on the trial of Oscar Wilde, here takes another true-life incident, the murder of Matthew Shephard, the young gay man who was beaten and left to die in Laramie, Wyoming, and applies the same documentary techniques, culling the monologues and characters from interviews with actual residents of the town and people variously involved with the tragedy and its aftermath.
I saw the play in its Off-Broadway incarnation and was overwhelmed by the drama, brought out by a magnificent cast (members of which helped write the text), many playing multiple characters. The skill and passion of the actors, I think, was responsible for much of the power of the evening, combined with a simple but effective production. Inevitably, reading the text alone will not bring out the full impact of this work. Still, it is a powerful testament and one that should be disseminated in whatever form. If it's produced anywhere in your neighborhood, I would say, run, don't walk to see it.
2676908
Music! Effects! Character Voices!! Its like listening to a play of galactic proportions! I love it!
558031
Movie could easily (well maybe not easily) be played out on a stage- and HAS been.  The point is it takes place in almost one room entirely.  Ben Kingsley and Ripley are equally great in this.
111174
Having seen this show in its original incarnation on Broadway, this production is an excellent reminder of how magically transformative live theater can be.  While the  production lacks some of the punch -- and a few of the details -- and has lost a bit of the scale of the original New York offering, it does capture the essential spirit of the play.

I'd give it 3.5 stars (out of 5) if I could.  Since I can't I'll round it out to 4.
4031860
From my Inquirer print review:

We enter actor-director Mathieu Amalric's startling, challenging, and spectacular postmodern murder mystery The Blue Room in the most intimate place imaginable: in a hotel room, in bed, in the space between two naked bodies.

A montage of extreme close-ups - her thighs, his hands, her belly, his shoulders - discloses, piecemeal, the couple whose names we learn much later are Esther Despierre (Stphanie Clau) and Julien Gahyde (Amalric).

Old friends from high school who haven't seen each other in 20 years, the lovers are married - she to a wealthy pharmacist, he to a pliant housewife eager to please him - when they reconnect for an explosive, passionate affair.

Their lovemaking is interrupted when Esther bites Julien's lip, drawing blood.

"Could you spend the rest of your life with me?" she asks as he checks out the wound at the wall mirror. Julien says yes without thinking.

And so begins the end for this doomed couple.

Suddenly, we hear the voice of an unseen man ask, "Did she bite you often?"

The man is an investigator in charge of a murder case. We realize the flashback is Julien's account of the affair now long over. And we notice Julien is in handcuffs.

Adapted from the devilishly clever 1955 novel by master crime author Georges Simenon, The Blue Room is a dazzling deconstruction of the mystery genre that turns its conventions on their heads.

Unlike most procedurals, it identifies the killer - Julien - within the first five minutes. But it withholds until its second half the nature of his crime or the identity of his victim (or victims).

We don't even know if the story we're getting is true, since the whole thing is presented from Julien's point of view. And he's a killer. Isn't he?

Amalric's brilliant conceit is to give us the story as recounted by Julien to a series of interrogators - the police, the examining magistrate, the prison psychiatrist, the judge, and so on. In turn, they size him up, judge him, determine if he is guilty or innocent, good or bad, man or beast.

In the process, The Blue Room stages a beautiful inquest into how the various bureaucracies that control our world define who we are and ought to be.

And it forces us not only to puzzle over the facts of the crime but also to rethink our assumptions about human identity. The question "Who am I?" isn't a settled affair, a matter of how I think about myself, but changes and morphs as I tell my life story to other people.

Amalric handles everything with such great control and economy, we're happy to let go of our gnawing questions and doubts and let him take us for a ride.
1946461
understand, ye who walk into this theater, that without a clear awareness of the object absurdity of human existance, you will not be amused.  this statment by one of few true masters in the art of film is a flawed masterpiece of black humor.  if you have ever looked at life around you and for a moment thought about how ridiculous it all is then i highly suggest you expose yourself to this gloriously honest manipulation of the senses.
1044401
Musically, very strong performances pretty much all around. Kristine Opolais is marvelous in a very demanding role - her singing is beautiful and her acting (important in a role so often silent) is quite good. Indeed, one of the hallmarks of this production is excellent acting without compromising on the quality of musical performances. The recording is adequate, irritating moments here and there where an on-stage actors sounds off-stage, but generally OK. The production is very challenging, which isn't necessarily bad, but in this case I think is a bit over the top. Does the performance engage the audience or distract the audience? I think, by in large, the concept might have worked but for the tendency to go overboard - I'm looking at you, ballet with eviscerated deer corpses - but I found the music and the libretto a jarring juxtaposition with the events on stage more than once. I highly recommend watching the "Making of" documentary before viewing the performance. This will help you understand the action and the choices in the production as opposed to just gawking in open-mouthed horror. And conceptually, it's an interesting interpretation. A lighter touch might have yielded something quite remarkable, but as it is, this "jumped the shark" for me. 4 stars on the basis of excellent music and vocal performance, which is, after all, what it is all about.
1194654
I loved it.  Beautiful, Masterpiece Theater quality series.  The only bad news is that it is not currently available on Amazon - it has been removed and I am dying to see parts of it again.  I called Amazon and learned that they do make regular changes and rotate items and that it will probably come back.  I will keep looking for it!  If you like BBC and Masterpiece, you will love this little four-part series.
3641252
Here is a spectacle that never fails to disappoint even in spite of certain imperfections.  Visually, it is flawless.  McTeigue certainly knows his craft and manages to use the camera in a manner that is perfectly befitting the content.  The production design is idiosyncratic but also accessible and believable, which further mesmerizes and intrigues.  The script by the Wachowskis further exemplifies their talent: they now how to use words, they know how to use ideas, they know how to build a story.

And what a story it is.  I was uncertain how to feel the first time I viewed the film.  Certainly, the movie must breed controversy, and I didn't know which side of that I fell on.  I've come to endorse the film but only after careful reflection.  The issues are contemporary and touchy, but the movie offers enough ambiguity to permit the viewer his own interpretation.  Certainly, one cannot mindlessly interact with this film; only catastrophe could ensue as a result.  Patience and contemplation are required here, and I fear that in the wrong hands, this form of content could be inflammatory.  But then all good art is.

There's nothing to complain about with Natalie Portman, but it's a sheer miracle that Hugo Weaving can continuously steel the show from behind a mask--what a voice!  Another component on which I must comment is the use of editing and music.  Dario Marianelli's score is superb, and listen to the way he subtly incorporates Tchaikovsky into the quieter moments!  Scattered throughout the film are several intriguing and wonderful montage sequences that create a marvelous flow to the narrative and are wonderfully accented by the pulse of Marianelli's music.  At times the film makes awkward pauses, the dialogue waxes melodramatic, and the pacing seems forced, but these faults are inconsequential to an overall brilliant film.
1951443
I haven't seen the show Wicked yet, bit I am aware that the show is currently playing in Chicago, at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre, my family actually did have tickets to see this show, but we coudln't go the night that we had tickets for, and still haven't see it sinmce, so I don't know when I will see the show, even through I won't see the orginal cast, but it opened here, with the idea to keep it here as long as people liked it, and didn't get tired of it playing here, it actually opened wqith a different cast, that plated until mid June, which then had closed for 10 days, and opened with a Chicago cast. Kristin Chenoweth was apart of the orginal broadway cast, when it opened in New York, at the end of 2003, and they recored this cd and brought it. I bought a copy, but let me warn you that while the is 2 hours and 43 minutes, with a 15 minute intermission, the cd is 71 minutes long, but I also own a copy of Monty Python' Spamalot, and All Shook Up, and both are shorter then 60 mintues, so if you are in a hurry and want to hear the orginal broadway cast, those 2 cds will be better to listen to if you only have an hour to listneing to a broadway show. Stephen Oremus, who later did All Shook Up, that played in Chicago in Previews before oepnning offically in New York, is the Conductor and Director, but I think he is the musical director of the show, but I bet it would have been nice to see the broadway show with the orfinal cast, but it opened in New York, and that would be a far place to see the show. If you can spear 72 minutes of your life, then I urge you to take a listen to this show. But if you are in that much of a hurry then I reccoemend Spmalalot (if you also wanted to hear famous people's voices) or All Shook Up, Spamalot is almost 53 minutes long, and All Shook Up is almost 59 minutes long. But these are some good cds to listen to of the broadway cast, and that would be the orginal cast.
2348661
One wouldn't think that I would want to watch ANYTHING on Masterpiece theater, but with all hype put up around this show, I thought.....why not try it out?

At least with this show, I've been made a believer.  Great acting, and while it's very soap opera-ish, it just......works.  Give it shot.  My wife wasn't sure either but after the first episode....she was hooked.  Now it's our guilty pleasure to watch as often as we can between wrangling 4 kids and a crazy life.
2073817
Old school drama.  Classic special effects like little model boats in a bath tub.  i like this type of stuff.
2684175
So there is a lot of wit and witticism here.  Ho hum.  Tim Allen is witty; his books aren't classics.  The plot, too, is rather ho-hum.  What makes this work a classic is the interaction between subtle characters, and what makes it a great play also makes it difficult to relate to on the page.
An explanation. In my opinion, the best stage plays often don't make very good reads.  They leave a lot of room for an actor or actresses' interpretation, and respect that a few words said(acted) properly on a stage are more effective than lots of words.  None of us talk like the characters in a novel, yet they must talk like that for us to understand them: all we have are their words.
Thus I think it is with this play.  Especially in the final act, which seems to be the most important (and what raises this above the level of, say, the Princess Diaries)  I have a hard time following the movement of the characters and the dialogue.  Not a hard time making sense of it, not anything that straightforward, but a hard time following it intuitively, understanding the progression and movement of Eliza and Henry from one page to the next.  As a sometime-actor, this intrigues me.  As a reader, it leaves me unsatisfied, wanting to see it done: see how it flows and makes sense.
The part that reads best is Eliza's father: he's a delightful embodiment of Nietzchian ethics and speeches more than he talks.  He's fun and pretty quotable.
Just a note: I don't think this is exactly based upon the Greek legend of Pygmalion and Galatea.  It seems more likely to me that Shaw had the idea, wrote the play, looked for a title, and found it in mythology.
I hope to see it performed someday.
3168586
No doubt about it.  Masterpiece and all its shows are the best high quality.  I just love the British movies and TV shows and series.
975854
Outrageously beautiful and vigorously  charming. There is so much artistry to make a simple movie that is so complex. I think it is well worth watching. It is a sensory overload.