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lyonessNYC
Reviews
Fantasy Island (1998)
Daring, dark, brilliant
I'd caught a couple of episodes of this when it was on network TV, but it kept being moved around, and was tough to catch.
SciFi Channel shows it, and I find I adore this twisted version of the classic I loved as a child. It's darker, edgier, has a bit of a mean streak at times, but there's just something I love about it. Not quite sure what it is, but I could start with Malcolm McDowell's Mr. Roarke. I have to wonder if his first name is Prospero, considering all the other _Tempest_ parallels...Ariel, Cal(iban), even Miranda.
Nothing ever quite goes as planned in the guests' fantasies, but it's not always bad -- oftentimes they discover that what they wanted would not have satisfied, and the new solution is *far* better, even if it means major disappointment to start. Sounds treacly, doesn't it? Nope. There's a healthy dose of reality in this _Fantasy_ -- Roarke doesn't let guests get away with simply living out a dream. There's always something...extra. [wicked grin] Lessons to be learned.
It's not that Roarke's *always* mean -- there are guests he seems to genuinely like and takes care of accordingly. But there's also an angle of "Be careful what you wish for" that makes this version a cautionary tale as well as a fantasy. It does seem that he has his guests' best interests at heart, when it comes down to it. Realistically benevolent, as it were.
The bits about the budget are pretty funny too -- adds a touch of amusing realism to the fantasy angle.
It's a shame this show didn't make it. Sure, it wasn't the original. I liked the original too, for its own merits. But I really love this one, and wish it had stayed around longer.
Julius Caesar (2002)
They came to praise Caesar, then bury him...
I'm a big fan of Roman history. I'm also a big fan of Richard Harris, Christopher Walken, Chris Noth, and any number of the interesting actors in this production. But that fandom was not enough to make me really love this uneven, choppy, and incredibly inaccurate portrayal of Julian Rome. Was this *supposed* to be "Julius Caesar, the Good Parts Version* (*with just enough bad left in to make him seem human and not perfect)" ?
It felt like the writers desperately wanted to make Caesar a good guy and not deserving of the murder plot ultimately hatched against him on the Ides of March. Don't get me wrong -- Julius Caesar had many good points and did a lot for history. But he was also a womanizer, despotic at times, and many other sins too numerable to mention in this review, any of which make more sense as to why the Senate would want to murder him than the reasons shown in this miniseries.
That is the worst crime in this series, I fear -- it makes no sense as to why so many would hate him enough to murder him. What they showed was he was doing many *good* things for Rome, with a few mistakes (like his affair and child with Cleopatra) thrown in to make him look a bit more human.
Anyway. I enjoyed parts of this mini-series. Ultimately, I was disappointed on both a historical level and a dramatic level. The second part felt extremely choppy, and the last 45 minutes were extremely rushed -- they HAD to get Caesar to the Senate so they could stab him, after all, of course they had to rush. IMHO, better to have taken an extra hour or two to tell the tale properly than to try to fit it into the time they allowed.
Hmmm...and thinking on it, this miniseries was decidedly written by someone who adored Caesar, and preferred to praise him, not to bury him.