Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

Livestonth I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

fire_eel52 I would only recommend this movie to people who would like to see a laughably horrible version of a great play. All the actors are horrible, except for whoever plays Bottom. They deliver their lines incredibly dry. The costumes are also bad, as the female characters are in mini skirts most of the time. Surprising, considering the movie takes place in Ancient Greece, or, at least, it's supposed to, but the director decided to say it was in Athens, when all the costumes and sets look like the Victorian times. The editing in this film is nonsensical. The fairies, instead of being graceful, disappear and move thanks to the magic of film cutting. Human characters find themselves in random places in between lines of monologues, even in between lines of dialog, where it makes even less sense, when one character is suddenly up a tree. It's a funny movie, but not because the play is a comedy, but because it's all so horrible.Thumbs down, way down.

arbjones This rendition is somewhat 60ish but its my personal favorite. If you can set that aside, the acting is first rate and I think some of the best performances are delivered. Peter Hall's use of the hand-held camera keeps the movie very interesting and constantly moving.The cast is unmatched in any other Midsummer production with Diana Rigg, Ian Richardson, and Judi Dench. My favorite is Ian Holm's rendition of Puck ... truly memorable. Paul Rodgers is also stellar as Bottom and is certainly the best Pyramus and Thisbee ive seen in any of the renditions.

WeaselWoman13 This adaptation of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" seemed like it was trying to be a liiiittle too arty. It resulted in looking downright silly to me. Here's a rather lengthy list of reasons why. First of all, the male characters' costumes looked like simple modern suits with ruffly collars added. The females were all wearing extremely short mini dresses, making it very clear that the movie was made in the 60s.Puck, Titania, and Oberon are running around naked and green. I don't mind the naked part, but...must they be green? It bothered me slightly - it's a neat way to think of fairies and spirits, being green. But if they were going to take that route, they could have done a slightly better makeup job - the makeup seemed thick and shiny, stopped on certain parts of the body, and also seemed to be irritating Oberon's eyes - they looked redder-rimmed and puffier through each shot.The lovers get muddier and muddier as they go through the woods. This is slightly exaggerated. I mean, what were they DOING? It wasn't THAT muddy, and they weren't falling down on their face every few minutes! People simply don't get that muddy walking in the woods!When we did this play at the school, it was stressed that we should USE our body gestures and hands, and so after having that pounded into my mind, the actors' almost completely inanimate bodies really bugged me, and Oberon seemed to be telling himself "Must not move face must not move face must not move face..."Puck's tongue thing was really odd, and the way the spirits teleported around...priceless! And don't you love it when all the little fairies come jumping out of the trees and the camera flashes around? Deliciously weird.Speaking of the camera - how about that camera work? It reminds you a little of those "Blair Witch Project" trailers.And what kind of animals were those in that forest? Where did they get those sound effects?However, I did love the rude mechanicals. They were just as I would imagine them (and I recognize Snug from Keeping Up Appearances!). And Puck went on to be Bilbo Baggins - it's so perfect! All the actors were good - it's just that the film was put together so strangely. It was an extremely interesting approach, but they got a little too creative. 5/10.

gjf221b The Bard and the Royal Shakespeare Company fight the Swinging '60s to a respectable draw in this production, which does feature nearly all of the text of the play, splendidly _ if often frenetically _ delivered. Director Peter Hall couldn't quite come up with a film equivalent of his famous stage production, which featured modern dress, a stark white set, and imaginative use of trapezes. Instead he picked an approach heavily influenced by the French New Wave and its English imitators, notably Richard Lester. There's lots of jangly, abrupt editing _ which sometimes, as intended, captures the supernatural flitting of the fairies, and sometimes is just annoying. There's lots of talking to the camera, and a certain catch-as-catch-can attitude: shots don't match up, and, although the main action is supposed to take place at night, there's sometimes no effort to disguise the sunlight streaming through the trees. (Of course, perhaps some of this was the result not of artistic decisions, but merely of haste and a tiny budget.) It's somehow a very '60s Athens _ Hermia and Helena wear cute miniskirts, the four lovers get so twig-torn and mud-spattered that they look like refugees from Woodstock, and the fairies look like green-skinned members of a back-to-nature commune. For all the eccentricities, this festive but haunting play is done straight and done well, and the cast ranges from solid to splendid. The two standouts are Diana Rigg (Helena) and Judi Dench (Titania) _ and this is your one and only chance to see the former sucking her thumb and the latter wearing an outfit (consisting mainly of body paint and flecks of vegetation) that Blaze Starr might have found drafty.