Laterblogs: Pew Pew: The Best Blowy-Uppy Films of 2016: A Careless List

Laterblogs #1: I wrote this AT THE END OF 2016 and then didn't post because I didn't know how to end it. I've just re-read it though, and I think it's solid.

...

Look, there's going to be a ton of film blogs and listicles out there right now telling you how Son of Saul was incredible and La La Land is going to sweep the board at the Oscars but honestly, I just want to watch things blow up and try to forget about literally everything that happened last year. 

So here, ranked worst to best, are some of those films. Spoilers.

8) Suicide Squad

Boo-icide Squad, more like, what a terrible - no, I didn't see it. No plans to. 

7) Batman vs Superman

Look, you don't need to me to list all the reasons why this film was bad. The internet has done that again and again and again. In fact, skip all of those links and just read this open letter to Warner Bros that poses the greatest question of our times: why are you still letting Zack Schneider make films? So I won't go into great detail on this one, but for god's sake, Batman branded people. They shot Martha Wayne IN THE FACE. Which feels like some kind of harsh metaphor.

6) X-Men: Apocalypse

Oh man, this film was so bad. I straight up laughed when Michael Fassbender's wife and child got killed. I did. I laughed right out loud in the cinema. I'm not proud of it. But I'm not ashamed either.

James McAvoy, heroically flying in the face of all logic, was still having the time of his life though, so for that simple bit of human joy it ranks higher than Bats vs Supes.

5) Deadpool

Billed itself as an "alternative" Valentine's Day movie, and it sort of was but, like, in the way that Hot Topic is "alternative". It was funny and Deadpool spoke to the camera and swore a lot, and there was lots of creative violence, and at one point Ryan Reynolds regrew his hand and for a while he had a little hand like a baby, but it obviously wasn't actually *subversive* in any way. It's still basically the tale of a white man trying to dude-punch another white man while a white-passing lady (Morena Baccarin) wears not many clothes.  Also there was this whole bit where Morena Baccarin wanted to fuck Ryan Reynolds in the ass because it was International Women's Day and truly, that is what the feminists want, and then he didn't let her. Like, come on Ryan, just let Morena Baccarin fuck you in the ass.

4) Captain America: Civil War - April 29

Cap Mur Civ War was, essentially, very entertaining filler in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It does a job. It gets us from A to B. From a united group to a disunited one. From a world of structures and binaries (SHIELD v HYDRA) to a world of chaos where anyone could be the bad guy, even when - psych - they think they're the good guy. 

AND IT'S ABOUT THE TIME YOUR GAY DADS HAD A REALLY BIG FIGHT. I think at least 60% of the film was just Tony Stark and Steve Rodgers looking at each other soulfully and sometimes shaking their heads a little in a manly, soulful, world-weary way. It's actually better to think about the film as a big old domestic because if you try to engage with the politics of it (Tony wants the Avengers to sign some accords saying they'll be accountable to the fictionalised UN and Steve doesn't want to do this because...'Murica? Idk. They do debate this. They debate this thorny, complicated, divisive issue for a whole scene before the punching starts. Again, feels like a harsh metaphor.) for one single second, you end up going "wha-bu-OBVIOUSLY YOU SHOULD BE ACCOUNTABLE. YOU HAVE LITERALLY KILLED INNOCENTS, HOWEVER INADVERTENTLY. EVEN NOLAN'S BATMAN USED HIS EXECUTIVE-POWER-BUSH-ADMINISTRATION-METAPHOR-PHONE-SATELLITE-SPYING THING VERY, VERY RELUCTANTLY." But don't think that, because Cap is the hero.

Anyway, it there was a scene where all the Avengers plus Spiderman just beat the crap out of each other, so it scores higher than Deadpool.

3) Doctor Strange

*surprised Jerry Seinfeld voice* This was really good! This was a really good movie! Because the trailer looked dumb af. Actually the things about the trailer than worried me were still the things that worked least well in the actual movie (casting of Bendytoots Cumberbritches, TSwints all dressed up in vaguely orientalist garb, Mads Mikkelsen as the same character he's played since Casino Royale) but it was also offbeat and wry and trippy and seemed to hold actual levels of, like, disdain for its main character before he enrolled on A Better You Through Tibetan Magics course. 

And tbh it was worth the price of admission for the stinger alone, which promises that in the future Bothering Cummenpatch will team up with Chris Hemsworth (Thor) and Tom Hiddleston (Loki) to find Antony Hopkins (Odin or maybe Loki pretending to be Odin so maybe Antony Hopkins doing an impression of Tom Hiddleston that I hope made him cry), and my soul rejoiced.

2) Ghostbusters

AKA THE GREATEST FILM OF ALL TIME THIS YEAR. *ducks* Oh man, I do not laugh out loud in cinemas (except when Michael Fassbender's family gets it, obvz) but I was doing my embarrassing Alone Laugh through the whole of this. Look, I'm not a diehard fan of the original - it's a classic and it's enjoyable and blah blah Your Childhood but it shits on its (two) female and (one) POC characters. I inevitably here have to say that the 2016 film's treatment of Leslie Jones, both onscreen and offscreen (a thundering silence surrounding the campaign of Twitter abuse she received, orchestrated by real life B-list Disney villain Milo Yiannopoulos) was shitty. And we shouldn't be afraid to hold things we love to account, and I did love this. I loved Melissa McCarthy, I loved the smart bundling of Kristen Wiig into a straight man role so she couldn't do too much damage, I loved the world discovering a whole new sexuality in Kate McKinnon's queer-coded maverick Holtzmann licking her guns. And I loved Leslie Jones too, and it breaks my heart that there will be no sequel because I think she would have got a more central role out of it. 

1) Rogue One

ROGUE M'FUCKING ONE. Eh? EH? Yeah. Let's end this shitshow of a year with the tale of a group of *forgotten misfits* who ALL DIE in the service of a greater cause. This film should be the model for your 2017: no-one gives a crap about you but you should do good stuff anyway because you might end up taking down the Death Star, inadvertently, after you have died. And then be the subject of a movie where people come out going, "That was really good but I really thought we were going to find out about the Bothans? Where were the Bothans?" In Episode VI, as it turns out, which I obviously knew and didn't have to Google because I'm a bad Star Wars fan. Anyway, Rogue One is probably the best war movie I've ever watched.

Unguilty, or Five Films I Really Like That I Definitely Shouldn't Really Like But I Do

So blogging didn't really work out for me for the last, ooh, all of 2015.  But this is 2016, baby, and we're strapping the typing gloves back on and kicking things off with a good old-fashioned listicle, like what Ma used to make.  There will be opinions, and there will be capital letters.

This latest triumphant return to the blogosphere came out of a pleasant conversation on the Docklands Light Railway, which is sometimes a magical urban safari skyline, and sometimes sweaty and crowded and full of people who haven't yet learned to take their backpack off and put it on the floor, just like any other tube line, and then what is the point of you DLR just be underground think you're so fancy all up in the sky but you're NOT.

I refuse to call these guilty pleasures because to hell with the idea that a pleasure should be guilty, the mixing of high and low culture produces some of greatest cultural landmarks, namely The Muppets etc etc etc blargh blargh bleurgh starting listing the films already.  What this is instead, is a list of films that I will openly admit to liking while a deep-rooted sense of shame coils around my lower intestine. I know they are not good films, either artistically or morally. I am not proud of myself for liking them. But somewhere along the way, something went very wrong in my cerebral cortex and I wound up with a bunch of DVDs* taking up space in my life of which, whenever someone stumbles across them, I have to say, "Oh, well, yeah, y'know, but like, actually it's got this one really good…" and then trail off into justly abashed silence.

And these aren't ironic either, or films I watch to make fun of, or films I think have an unfairly negative reputation.  There are whole different lists for those. These are bad films and I really like them.

Have mercy on my soul.

5) Night at the Museum, and Night at the Museum 2: Another Night, Another Museum (or whatever) (2006/2009)

Ok.  Ok.  I know.  I just.  Bear with me here.

I know it has a 44% Rotten Tomatoes score (and that's the first one).  I know it has a scene where a monkey repeatedly slaps Ben Stiller in the face (actually, screw you, that's an entirely valid reason to enjoy a film).  I know it has Ricky Gervais putting in a level of effort that is only visible on an atomic level.

But.

I think, quite simply, the reason either of these two films are on my rainy day playlist is that they occupy the perfect centre of the Venn diagram between two things I like very much: movies with gangs where the members all have different special abilities, and the past.  All the members of the gang have special abilities, and they are all from the past.  This is not rocket science.

And the sequel, while lazy and derivative, had more people in the gang who were more from the past, and one of them was Amelia Earhart, so...feminism?

Basically, Owen Wilson is a tiny cowboy and Steve Coogan is a tiny Roman Centurion, and they're enemies and then become unlikely friends. It's both heart-warming and hilarious. Leave me alone.

SO HEARTWARMING

(Honourable Mention: National Treasure, for exactly all the reasons you think.)


4) Down With Love (2003)

Ugh. Ok, so. Ugh. Yeah.

Down With Love, a 2003 'homage' to early 60s romantic comedies starring Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor…no, I can't even finish this sentence.  There's already too much terrible. It's not that any of those things or people are terrible in themselves, exactly, but somehow when you combine them into one movie, it's a perfect storm of ugh.

Firstly, let's not forget that 2003 pre-dates the serious revival of interest in the feminist movement and things like the 'third wave' and 'post-feminism' were still grimly clinging on by their pink-painted-because-they-definitely-chose-it-themseves-and-it's-empowering-and-not-because-of-gendered-societal-norms fingertips. When you combine that with the sexual mores of the 1960s, in which the film is set, it's just a recipe for ugh, ugh and more ugh. Zellweger is Barbara Novak, plucky girl author of best-selling women's sex book about how to give up men and achieve equality in the workplace, and McGregor is Catcher Block (yep), the quickly-becoming-obsolete Don Draper-esque men's magazine journalist. Oh, but wait.

Between Renee's plan for workplace equality being 'replace sex with chocolate' (WOMEN LIKE CHOCOLATE, SOMETIMES MORE THAN SEX WITH MEN, THOSE CRAZY BROADS), Ewan's plan to nail Renee being 'lie about identity, emotionally manipulate woman into having feelings, bang', and the whole thing turning out to be an elaborate plan to ensnare Ewan into marriage, it could probably send the progress of women's rights back to the Sixties single-film-reel-edly if broadcast with enough frequency. In the name of feminism, we should be hunting it down and scouring its existence from the face of the earth.

But I really like it.

Why do I like it? It's super fun to look at and the design is awesome - it's Sixties, but it's our dumb idea of what the Sixties were like.  Renee and chain-smoking best friend/editor Sarah Paulson (of Studio 60 fame) swish around Manhattan in capes and stupid hats and I want all the things they have in this film. Renee has a remote controlled fireplace. A remote controlled fireplace.

Ahem.

And it's shot in a really fun way, with lots of split screen and simultaneous conversations and general badinage leading to the most inoffensive innuendoes a PG-13 certificate can muster.  In other words, if you've ever seen a Doris Day/Rock Hudson vehicle, then it's pretty much that, only with not quite enough irony or commentary to make it smart.

There is a part of me that knows it's not really ok to switch off your values for the ninety minutes it takes to watch a stupid film. I know the 'Battle of the Sexes' stuff on show here is retrogressive and not handled smartly enough to be a 21st century take on 20th century attitudes. But I think we're smart enough to watch problematic things, know they're problematic, and enjoy them all the same. More on that later.

Also there's a remote controlled fireplace, and David Hyde Pierce** gets swallowed by a sofa bed. Some days, I don't need much more than that.

Also Ewan McGregor makes this face.

3) Treasure Planet (2002)

Let's be clear: this is not on the list because it's a Disney film.  It's on the list because it's an utterly forgettable Disney film.  As you may be able to tell from the super cryptic title, it's Treasure Island IN SPACE.  That's pretty much it.  It's fairly faithful to the original novel - obviously not a patch on the Muppets version, but what is? - with the minor tweaks of making the ship's captain female (good), voiced by Emma Thompson (bad), and making Ben Gunn a comedy robot sidekick voiced by Martin Short (BAD BAD VERY BAD).

I mean, objectively, it's just disappointing.  It has a lot of individual things to recommend it but they never quite add up into a compelling whole. The animation is beautiful - Disney finally (in 2002) getting to grips with mixing CGI and hand-drawn animation (SPACE WHALES), plus doing this create-a-360-degree-virtual-set-now-manouvre-the-camera-like-it's-live-action thing, which means that the Outer Space in question has, well, space and depth and dimensions to it. It's pretty.

Basically, this feels like an animator's pet project, a really cool art school exercise and writers, what writers? We don't need writers. Get outta here. But the art, alas, is not why I like it.

So why do I like it? IT'S TREASURE ISLAND IN SPACE.  Troubled-but-cute teenage protagonist Jim Hawkins is a junior delinquent with an Absent Father so it's also TREASURE ISLAND IN SPACE WITH DADDY ISSUES. It gives me feelings.

So yeah, if you mentally delete all the parts with the robot, it's basically Catcher in the Rye meets Star Wars, and that is just fine with me.

MUCH EARLY 00'S SUCH ANGST SO HAIR WOW

2) Sliding Doors (1998)

I actually used to hold this up as an example of romantic comedy done well.  Smart, I would say. Funny and charming, I would say.  John Hannah, I would say.  But I watched it again and ah jeez, it's just terrible.

The 'smart' 'thought-provoking' conceit that Gwyneth Paltrow's life diverges into two distinct timelines (Gwyneth Prime and Gwyneth Beta is how the film does not refer to them) depending on whether she catches a tube or not is, let's face it, the most first year philosophy undergraduate idea ever, and isn't quite rescued by the eleventh-hour magical realism of the timelines converging.  It's aged very badly, sort of an unintentional period piece, from the weird-looking London Underground trains to brandy being the casual tipple of choice for partying yuppies. Forget every BuzzFeed article you have ever read, the most 90s thing to ever happen is Gwyneth Paltrow smoking in a bar while John Hannah tells her she can easily get another job. (As if to compound this, she does. She finds it in a printed newspaper.) And whatisthedeal with the bizarrely heavy-handed product placement for Grolsh? In my twenty-five years of living, I have yet to encounter anyone who says, "Let's go out for a [brand name here]", rather than just "a beer", if they weren't being paid to do so. Not so in the world of Sliding Doors.  In the world of Sliding Doors, they drink Grolsh. And they want you to know about it.

So why do I like it? Well, mostly John Hannah. He's lovely, and your mum probably fancies him. But on further consideration, even he makes a move way too soon after Gwyneth Prime has discovered her boyfriend in bed with another woman, and actually a lot of his hilarious quips come off like someone who sits alone in a darkened room all day desperately trying to emulate human warmth.  So, a screenwriter, I guess.

What could be said, interestingly, is that he represents an early male version of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope - he drops into over-worked, straight-laced Gwyneth Prime's life through a series of seemingly magical coincidences, takes her boating and shows her how to laugh/love again. What's also interesting is that this proves the MPDG apparently doesn't work in any iteration ever, not even as a male character, since - as with John Hannah's Manic Pixie sisters from others films - the quirkiness is incredibly forced. He quotes Monty Python! He makes hilarious gags about trying to give Gwyneth Paltrow cellulite! He quips to his sick mum about moving somewhere she can buy better crack! HE'S NOT LIKE OTHER GUYS!

And re Monty Python, if such a study could ever be done, it would be interesting to find out whether the percentage of conversation made up of endlessly quoting comedians/films/television shows until you actually have to kill one of the members of your group to put an end to it has risen since pre-internet days.  Whatever the answer, today John comes over like a cross between that Daniel Radcliffe interview where he thinks he's the only person in the world to have discovered Tom Lehrer and the tedious mate of a mate that you met in the pub who, for fuck's sake, won't shut up about Monty Python, like, we've all seen the Spanish Inquisition sketch SO MANY TIMES I KNOW HOW IT GOES.

And despite all this, I still like it. I will watch it again. What can I say? It affects me. It actually (there I go) does go to a darker place than most standard rom-coms, and it's painful to watch anyone slaving away to support a partner who's "writing their first novel" while in actuality copping off with their ex. Even Gwynnie Beta. It captures the humiliation of infidelity really well and, for what it's worth, does it while avoiding lazy demonisation of the cheating boyfriend, who has several scenes talking candidly about his conflicted feelings to another male chum. I mean, he's still the worst. But that's why there's John Hannah.

The message is that sometimes we get haircuts that don't work out for us and that's ok.

1) Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)

Hahahahahahahaha you guys it's a musical about rape.  I mean, basically.  It starts when rugged tight-trousered woodsman Adam strolls down from his 1850s Oregon wood-house into town to find himself a bride (maybe made of wood).  Surprisingly Awesome Milly decides she's plucky and spunky enough to make a go of it, and weds him on the spot. So far, so consensual.

Then it all goes to shit.

S. A. Milly ends up keeping house for Adam's six younger brothers too, all of whom are also tight-trousered woodsmen.  She eventually implements a regime of starvation and occasional ladle-based violence until they begin to say "please".  They learn to dance, put pomade in their hair and meet some nice local girls, and it's all set to be lovely until Adam - who got his bride in matter of hours and thus is crushing it on the Man Leaderboard - tells his brothers the story of the Rape of the Sabine Women.  In song.  The song is called "Sobbin' Women".  It is equal parts insanely catchy and horrifyingly misogynistic.  It is the Blurred Lines of 1950s musicals.  He then encourages his brothers to follow the fine example of the Ancient Romans and erase the word "consent" from their vocabulary.

Thus, the titular forest-dwelling Seven Brothers set out to abduct the titular (hee hee, titular) Seven Brides from the town - really abduct, there are blankets over heads - blindfold them and carry them off to their wooden shack, causing an avalanche on the way so that the boyfriends and families of the kidnapped girls can't mount a rescue until the snow melts in spring.   They are only thwarted in their plans by the fact that a) they forget to also kidnap a preacher (see, it's fine, because they just wanted to marry the women against their will), and b) Surprisingly Awesome Milly kicks them all out of the house and makes them live in the barn all winter, while she and the women form a happy matriarchal commune wait for heteronormativity to reassert itself.  Which it does.  The brothers come to see the error of their creepy ways - except for Adam, who storms off to have a patriarchal huff and only realises he might be in the wrong when the news comes through of his newborn baby daughter, thus suddenly forcing him to reassess his worldview that women are objects - and the town girls start doing things like walking past the window in their underwear and throwing snowballs with rocks in them (the traditional mating displays of 1850s Oregon), and it all ends happily if you don't think about it too hard.

But oh gosh, it's SO CHARMING.  There are handsome beard-men wearing plaid and dancing while they raise barns.  They jump over axes.  I don't know what the point of jumping over axes is, but it seems to prove something to them.  They sing "I'm a Lonesome Polecat", which is approximately exactly as ridiculous and wonderful as it sounds.  The backdrops are so obviously, unapologetically fake, you can see the brushstrokes on the trees.  It has that haze of garish 1950s still-overexcited-about-technicolour innocence to it that makes it extremely possible to turn off the sensible, up-to-date bit of your brain, and enjoy it for what it is.

I mean, just do yourself a favour and take three minutes to watch this:

Did you watch it? Do you see now?  Do you understand how much joy this brings me?  The flawlessly timed petulant axe swings?  The almost heartbreakingly simple insight that "a man can't sleep/ when he sleeps with shee-eep"? The one guy out to the side going full Dream Ballet? The fact that it's done in a single take?

No, I cannot, in all good conscience, hate on Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.  It is a part of my psyche, and a part of my soul, and you too are not above it.  You simply have yet to surrender.

Also there's this unintentionally hilarious bit when the girls are starting to soften towards the boys over the winter and the boys start making excuses to come into the house to fetch blankets and things to catch a brief glimpse of their sweethearts and there's one girl who just looks delighted whoever comes in from the barn, monogamy be damned.

Basically, Seven Brides is - our favourite overused word - problematic when viewed in the above terms (it's maybe not actually as bad as I suggested, the movie makes it pretty clear that the girls are into the guys too, both prior to and once they get over the whole kidnap thing).  But it's also joyous and stunningly made and excitingly danced.  It stands apart from all the others on this list because it is, actually, a great film that maybe I think I shouldn't like. But I'm also a thinking human person with a brain, and I'm not going to go and kidnap anyone to get them to marry me because of it. I might sing Bless Your Beautiful Hide as a form of courtship though. I can make no promises otherwise.


*cunning code for 'illegally torrented files on my hard drive'.
**That marks two entries on this list that feature DHP in a supporting role.  Come on, man. You were Niles Crane.

Happy Birthday, Mr Swan of Avon: And Now Some Completely Uneccessary Lists About Shakespeare

Bringing the month of 450th anniversary celebrations to a close (because we all celebrated Shakespeare's birthday for a full month, with balloons and cake and don't lie to me), today we bring you Lists of Stuff You Didn't Know You Needed To Know But Definitely Do.  About Shakespeare Characters.

Now lists of this kind are ten a farthing: Best Villains, Best Monarchs, Best Women etc (because belonging to a group that comprises 50% of the population is obviously its own genre) but we at Jane Shakespeare pride ourselves on offering you a little more Bard for your buck (not sorry).  From now on, when someone turns to you on the street, cornering you with a look that betokens literary malice aforethought, and snarls, "Quick! Name Shakespeare's five biggest hipsters or I'll slice you up so thin I could print the First Folio on you", your days of gibbering in confusion and idiocy are over.  Really, I am almost too good to you, but the general festivity and several large bumpers of wine I have been consuming daily to mark the occasion mellow my usually tyrannical mood.  "Oh, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains." - indeed, Bill, and Happy Birthday.

(A/N: I was originally going to include a 'Top 5 Characters Most in Need of an Intervention' list but a) I had trouble limiting it to five and b) most of my notes* were "ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL" written in increasingly manic handwriting.)


Top Five BFFs
There's nothing a Shakespearian protagonist needs more than a trusty second in command, someone to wipe away the tears when everyone just won't stop trying to kill you, and provide wise words of comfort when the incestuous overtones start getting a bit much.  I would personally be very grateful to have any of these at my side, and probably more than a little aroused.

5) Enobarbus (Antony and Cleopatra)
Who's BFF? Mark Antony
Why? Sometimes you just need someone to describe in fulsome terms why your girlfriend is awesome. Antony, bless him, is not the most loquacious tool in the shed, and much of his dialogue could be replaced with "totes", "STFU" and "soz babes" and you'd still very much be in reception of the gist.  Enobarbus, however, comes out with one of the most famous speeches in the canon (you know, barges, burnished thrones, that one) about his best pal's lady friend, bringing the entire Roman Empire perilously close to going "actually yeah, I'd totes provoke a civil war for her too, let's just have an amphora and call it a day". Points deducted for the fact that he eventually jumps ship for Team Octavius, who has terrible hair and his parties are lame, but he has a great speech while he makes the decision.

 4) Cassius (Julius Caesar)
Who's BFF? Brutus
Why? Every hero of a regime turned renegade needs a power behind the throne to topple that regime.  Cassius is the ideal Second in Command, the manipulator who sticks to the shadows in order to let you shine.  He's a Pete Campbell, a Littlefinger, redeemed by his totes-no-homo love for Brutus - and seriously, imagine if either Pete or Littlefinger decided to truly and deeply love another human being. Terrifying.  My version of Julius Caesar is basically called "Brutus and Cassius' Excellent Adventure", and it ends when Cassius turns to Brutus with tears in his eyes and says, "you love me not" in Act 4 Scene 3, and Brutus gives his angstful reply, "I do not like your faults", voice cracking with emotion, presumably while manfully clasping the back of Cassius' neck and peering deep into his soul. Cue Snow Patrol.

3) Poins (Henry IV Parts 1 and 2)
Who's BFF? Prince Hal
Why? Poins is kind of a weird anomaly in the Henry IV tavern scenes - he appears to belong to some kind of aristocracy but, like Hal, spends his time hanging around with lowlives and drunks.  He and Hal seem to have a closeness to rival Hal and Falstaff, tag-teaming each other for a series of hilarious public-schoolboy-style practical jokes (public humiliation of the elderly, torment of minimum wage service workers etc), and Poins is never around when Hal isn't, leading to the inevitable conclusion that Poins is desperately in love with Hal and follows him everywhere trying to pluck up the courage to tell him.  (This is a recurring theme in the selection of this list.)  Hal also unburdens himself to Poins in Part 2, when everything is going a bit mopey and minor key, and Poins gives him a sharp "suck it up, Crown Prince of all England" talking to, which is only slightly undercut by the revelation that Poins has been telling all and sundry that Hal is going to marry his sister, but I won't insult your intelligence by pointing out how obviously that's a displacement tactic for unrequited homoerotic yearning. Like Cassius, the relationship breaks down with Poins' armour-piercing line, "My honey sweet lord, you love me not." Not in a gay way though. (Totally in a gay way.)

2) Celia (As You Like It)
Who's BFF? Rosalind
Why? Celia wants to jump Rosalind's bones. Yes, I know they're cousins, and yes, I know she ends up married to a man, but these are minor details on the road to pastoral sapphic bliss.  There is no way Oliver is anything other than a beard, and perhaps a way to spite Orlando-obsessed Rosalind by stealing her thunder for continuously and concertedly ignoring the woman who has been at her side from Scene 1. Celia loves Rosalind more than her own father.  More than she loves sleeping in a soft bed, or having nice things to wear, or not smelling like sheep all the time. When people point out that Rosalind overshadows her, she does not give a single solitary fuck. She dreams of being overshadowed by Rosalind, ifyouknowwhatImean, andIthinkyoudo.  She is her friend, her constant companion, her support, her conscience and, admirably, survives the extreme sexual confusion of seeing Rosalind dressed as a boy.  When asked to perform the marriage vows for Rosalind and Orlando, she says simply, "I cannot speak the words." I will brook no other interpretations, though I admit it is entirely possible that I should have called this list 'Top 5 Cases of Unrequited Homoerotic Longing'.

1) Horatio (Hamlet)
Who's BFF? Hamlet
Why? Oh, everything.  Everything about Horatio is precious and understated and we should celebrate him like the special sunflower that he is.  It cannot be easy being the best friend of an emotionally fragile bereaved philosophy student, but somehow he manages. As with the best of Shakespeare's supporting characters, he has his own quiet arc happening in the background of the play, going from enlightened man of reason who politely exposits on Denmark's political situation to Captain of Team Hamlet, supporting him through shipwrecks, funerals and sword fights alike. He is the Agent Coulson of the Shakespeare universe. He is not afraid to call Hamlet out on his bullshit ('no, buddy, you just murdered two of our best friends, that's totally what you did') or express uncharacteristically instinctive concern for his wellbeing ('I just have a really bad feeling about this duel thing'), and even tries to die with his friend but ultimately agrees to live and honour his memory by telling his story, when, like, literally everyone he knows is dead.  And I hope you appreciate that I made it this far without pointing out, once again, that Hamlet and Horatio are totally gay bones for each other.



Top 5 Hipsters
Whilst we tend to think of hipsters as a modern invention, along with selfies and emoticons and all the loud music the kids listen to these days, Shakespeare is, as always, ahead of the game.  These five would not be out of place sporting ironically nostalgic t-shirts featuring 8-bit video game characters whilst shuffling through the Shoreditch night as the music of plastic-framed glasses clacking sounds in the background, the mating call of the hipster.

5) Edmund (King Lear)
There is no doubt in my mind that Edmund spent his school days carving the anarchy symbol all over the desks and going to detention for wearing non-regulation skinny jeans rather than school trousers.  Do not talk to Edmund about legitimacy because legitimacy is, like, so mainstream.  Edgar is legitimate and Edgar probably listens to Coldplay.  Give Edmund half a joint and ten minutes and he will be expounding his complex socio-political theories about why the system is totally fucked, man, and the only thing to do is tear it down and start again.  Later though, because there's this band playing but you haven't heard of them and you wouldn't know where.

4) Apemantus (Timon of Athens)
Timon of Athens is not performed often because it is, essentially, not a very good play.  Timon is a man who has lots of nice things and then gives them all away and then is very surprised when this leaves him with no nice things.  Timon is not very good at maths.  In the second half of the play, mostly spent wandering a wasteland that is conveniently near Athens, the only character who joins him is Apemantus.  Apemantus feels the same towards Timon now that he's poor as he did when he was rich, because he hated Timon when he was rich and he still hates him now he's poor because he hates everybody because fuck society man.  It is one of Nick Hytner's greatest failings as artistic director of the National Theatre that in his production last year, Apemantus did not sport a deep vee and unimpressive moustache. And that is all there is to be said on the matter.

3) Beatrice (Much Ado About Nothing)
One cannot deny that there is more than a touch of the black-rimmed specs about Beatrice.  She definitely has a moleskin journal, and she definitely uses it to write performance poetry about why the patriarchy means the institution of marriage is inherently corrupt and also stopping her from getting a boyfriend.  She has many impressively insensitive speeches about why everyone around her is stupid and tedious and marriage is for mainstream idiots, which she then follows up with various weakly delivered lines that amount to, "Not you though, Hero.  I just meant people exactly like you."  As with most hipsters, her presence is politely tolerated by family and friends until she can be foisted off onto another of her kind.  After that, she and Benedick write each other ironic love poetry on their typewriters.

2) Hamlet (Hamlet)
Prince of Denmark, Prince of the Hipsters.  An interesting case, this one, because almost every generation has given forth a production of Hamlet in which he embodies a predominant teen stereotype of the day - grunge, emo, public school, and now hipster.  Perhaps this is because there is a certain type of studenty pretentiousness that never really dies (it just comes at the cost of crippling debt now), but nor would we want it to.  Hamlet scores pretty high on this list because he is quite a loveable hipster, really, and also has somewhat more cause than most other entries here.  Having said that, I do not want to think about how many scarves he and Horatio had in their shared student flat in Wittenberg.  Also, they definitely used to invite Rosencrantz and Guildenstern round for ironic board game night and then always pick Articulate and always win.

1) Jaques (As You Like It)
If Hamlet is Prince of the Hipsters, then Jaques is their king.  Jaques is such a hipster, any production that does not costume him in red trousers and have him entering the Forest of Arden on a fixie bike is…well, probably making the right decision, but you know.  Jaques is so hipster that laughing is too mainstream for him, unless it's laughing ironically with hollow, detached hauteur at the accidental poignancy of the hilarious peasant who probably eats fast food and likes reality television.  Jaques claims the top spot because all his problems are First World Problems in the Firstiest Worldiest way possible.  He has enough money to travel around at leisure, spending an indeterminate period of time hanging with a banished duke and ordering buskers to play weird genre mash-up music that he wrote.  He is, essentially, on a perpetual gap year, forever seeking solace in his own misery, pointing out doomed couples at their own wedding, and refusing to stick around for the disco.  Jaques, he would have you know, does not do disco.

(Honourable mention: Prince Hal. Rich kid, hangs around in East London to annoy his father. Case closed.)


Top 5 Badasses
Joss Whedon once pointed out that Shakespeare kills his characters off all the time and he gets way less flak for it (but then again, Shakespeare didn't kill off Wash). It's a dark, dark universe out there, and only the fittest/least conventionally Tragic survive.

5) Achilles (Troilus and Cressida)
For the greatest warrior ever born, Achilles sure spends a lot of his time avoiding doing any actual warrior-ing, choosing instead to lounge upon silk sheets with snarky boytoy Patroclus (this one is canon, guys, I swear), encouraging him to do impressions of his bosses.  Occasionally his bosses turn up at his tent to ask him to fight and he says something like,"Hey. Hey. How's that war going without me? Never mind, I can't hear you over the sound of me not giving a single embattled fuck." Achilles is essentially every teenage douchebag ever, but with the ability to kill a man with his little finger. Then again, such is the force of his warrior-ing that a little bit of it actually ends the play so maybe he was just being considerate.

4) Lady Macbeth (Macbeth)
Lady M scores low on the list because, despite being indisputably terrifying, she is very much all talk.  We can blame this on Ye Misogynistic Olden Dayes, of course, but we still cannot place her any higher until she actually does some killing, rather than just saying repeatedly, "I TOTALLY WOULD BUT YOU ARE THE ONE WITH THE PENIS HERE". I don't make the rules.** Also you get the impression that maybe if she'd had an actual career, she wouldn't have turned to murder and treason as a funtime hobby.  Despite this, she's still a force to be reckoned with, and thus deserves her spot (hee) for being a badass by proxy.

3) Coriolanus (Coriolanus)
Coriolanus is kind of the explicit badass of the Shakespeare food chain. He captures a town single-handedly and spends most of the first two acts wandering around wearing clothes made of blood (and then, according to some interpretations, takes a sexy shower of angst while ripping his shirt off manfully in a moment that totally contradicts every single other aspect of his character contained in the rest of the play but hey, you got to sell tickets somehow).  He doesn't score much higher though because he is the easiest unstoppable killer to manipulate in history.  The majority of the play is people telling him what to do and him saying "that sounds legit", whether the instruction in question is to don sackcloth and humble himself before the proletariat, or turn around and march on said proletariat.  Unsurprisingly, this ends with arch-nemesis/make-out buddy*** Aufidius getting so pissed off he stabs him in the heart.  Which is maybe overkill, but he was being super flaky.

2) Portia (The Merchant of Venice)
Let's change it up a bit here.  Portia might not fight any physical battles but she is scarier than everyone else in the entire play put together.  The Victorians loved her because she's wise and virtuous and blah blah blah, forget all that, she's a hideous racist bitch, basically.  She's casually xenophobic about nearly everyone who tries to hit on her who isn't the colour of cottage cheese, and completely destroys Shylock's life because JEW (this may also be why the Victorians loved her).  But what makes her most terrifying is her sheer balls.  I don't know if you've noticed, but even by the standards of Shakespeare's day, everything she does in the courtroom scene is hideously illegal.  Impersonating a lawyer, pointing out loopholes that aren't really loopholes, turning the proceedings back against Shylock (who is not, after all, the one being tried) - at the very least, he would be a due a re-trial.  Perhaps this is the point - the court is already so inherently biased against Shylock that they'll allow Portia's shenanigans, but I like to think it's also because she stared the Doge in the eye while running a knife along her teeth.

1) Henry V (Henry V)
As with Portia, there's a lot of bollocks going around when it comes to Henry V.  And as with Portia, he claims the top spot amongst Shakespearean badasses for having pure unqualified moxy.  Where guys like Achilles and Coriolanus know they are top of their game, King Harry plays russian roulette with not only his own life but the lives of an entire army.  He marches a pitifully small force over to France and plays the underdog-iest away game in the history of ever, and all because the French did some French sneering, because they are French (Shakespeare is a balanced and objective historian). At Harfleur, he never has to make good on his threats to let his soldiers rape the women and murder the children of the town if it doesn't surrender, but the jury's out on whether he would or not, had push come to naked infants spitted upon pikes.    At Agincourt, the moment that tips the battle in his favour comes just after he orders the execution of his prisoners of war (straight up war crime, in case you weren't sure).  All in all, Henry wins against extraordinary odds through a combination of fierce chat, strategic ruthlessness and a willingness to play dice with a whole lot of lives.  But I don't know, actually, maybe that doesn't make him a badass.  Maybe that just makes him a dick.



Top 5 Sexiest Characters
I once had a dream that my job was to describe attractive celebrities in entertaining ways.  Until I work out how to monetise this skill and make my dream a reality, I'm just going to write more about which fictional characters I would totally do.

5) Hector (Troilus and Cressida)
Troilus and Cressida takes place in a terrible world full of terrible people.  Shit is just constantly going down over there.  But in the midst of the carnage and betrayal and venereal disease and fedora-wearing Trojans, there stands a beacon of honourable hotness, a bright spot of old-fashioned hunkitude, one DILF to rule them all.  Go thy way, Hector, go thy way, indeed.  Hector will fight your morally dubious war and put up your shelves just because you asked nicely, probably with his baby son in his arms at the same time.  It is but one illustration of how soul-destroying Shakespeare wished this play to be that Hector meets his end at the ignoble hands of Achilles' Myrmidons hiding in ambush.  Let us take comfort, friends, in the fact that even Achilles required back-up to kill Hector, such is the force of his unadulteratedly righteous bodaciousness. Here endeth the lesson.

4) Prince Hal (Henry IV Parts 1 and 2)
I am aware that people do not always share my high opinion of Prince Hal, but then again, people are not always as naturally blessed with such inherent and unwavering rightness as I, and also people can suck it.  Moral ambiguity.  Quick wit.  Desperate craving for fatherly approval complicated by deep love for a surrogate father figure he knows he will ultimately have to reject. Symbolic defeat of his foil in single combat, complete with knicker-dropping Shakespearian smack talk ("I am the Prince of Wales, and think not, Percy,/ To share with me in glory any more./ Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere,/ Nor can one England brook a double reign/ Of Harry Percy and the Prince of Wales." PHWOAR.)  Hal is a sexy little bundle of angst and quips.  He is, essentially, a Joss Whedon character.  And I can give no higher praise than that.

3) Rosalind (As You Like It)
I think I can best sum this up with a line from The Mighty Boosh: "They call me the Confuser. Is it a man? Is it a woman? Ooh, I'm not sure I mind." But before there was Noel Fielding, there was Rosalind.  Rosalind, let us be clear, will mess you up in the head.  She is a magical fantasy androgynous wizard coquette, and she waltzes through the Forest of Arden like she owns it, leaving a trail of sexually confused hysteria in her wake.  The worst one can say of her, perhaps, is that she bestows herself upon a man not worth her time and who can bring little to the relationship besides some terrible poetry and light vandalism of trees, and perhaps also that she fails to notice Celia waiting patiently at her side (see above).  Whilst in Twelfth Night, Orsino has a visible moment of heterosexual relief upon the revelation of Viola's identity, Orlando - one suspects - is easy either way.  And so, undoubtedly, is the audience.

2) Edmund (King Lear)
If there's one thing we love here at Jane Shakespeare, it's a rebel with a cause.  And Edmund is the rebel-iest cause-iest rebel with a cause that ever did rebel, with a cause. As with the best of his kind, he flits back and forth across the line of the redeemable, not so much immoral as twistedly amoral, but (BE STILL MY HEART) in the end, just wants to be loved.  In a play full of world-beating lines, his dying words - "Yet Edmund was beloved" - go straight to the below stairs area as a simple statement of fact from someone who still can't quite believe it.  And when the Marvel films wheel out their Loki version during his inevitable redemption via death (for nothing is truer than the fact that Thor is King Lear In Space), I will cheer out loud in the cinema.  Edmund beat out Hamlet for this list for several reasons (see here for details), but mostly because you get all of the moody introspection coupled with the remarkable ability to get shit done (shit, in this case, is usurpation and eye-gouging by proxy).  Brooding and motivated? Get it, Edmund. Get. It.

1) Cleopatra (Antony and Cleopatra)
There is only one character in the canon whose sex drive starts an actual war (shut up yes also Helen of Troy) and only one character who can justly wear the crown of Shakespearian Bangability. Cleo is not only one of the greatest roles maybe ever, she's also an indisputable MILF.  Part of her appeal is her capriciousness - imperious and coquettish by turns, all throwing shade about Antony's boring wife one minute, and threatening to stab up unfortunate messengers the next.  If 30 Rock's 'MILF Island' was an actual thing, she would win by a landslide.  (New idea. MILF Island: Shakespeare Edition.  NO WAIT - THE HUNGER GAMES: SHAKESPEARE EDITION.****)  But Cleopatra wins mostly because, while she is undoubtedly slammin' of mind and body, all the descriptions of her seem to revolve around the aura of awesomeness she carries with her into the room.  Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety. Cleopatra has sexy in her soul and that, ladies and gentlemen, is something to which we can all aspire.


And that's it. Much as I tried to keep it to one entry per character, Edmund wangled two (he's like that) and looking it over, some of my favourite plays are glaringly, painfully apparent (haha screw you Othello).  All that remains to be said is that, of course, these are only a matter of personal opinion and completely open to debate so feel free to put your own suggestions in the comments.  No, go on.  Really, I would love that.  Disagree with me.  I dare you.

*Yes, I make notes.  These poorly-structured over-emotional outbursts don't just spring into being fully-formed.  (Actually they mostly do, but sometimes I need to procrastinate.)
**Lies.
***No seriously, Aufidius has this whole speech when the two enemies join forces that basically says, "I have such a hate-boner for you.  No seriously, I have dreams about this. Sweaty dreams."
****It cannot be just me that routinely assesses the room they are in by determining the order in which its inhabitants would die in the Hunger Games.

Theatre Director Confessions, or How to Sabotage Your Career in Fourty-Four Easy Steps

As the more astute amongst you may be aware from the subtle hints I have dropped from time to time in this blog, my chosen career is that of theatre director (also it's in the sidebar).  I don't often delve into the world of theatre here - this is a sacred space reserved for vital and pressing journalism about which Batman is best, after all - but sometimes the muse pipes a tune and I must dance to it.  To put it in a way that is slightly less absolutely appalling, as the amount of time I spend doing my job increases, the amount of time available to spend thinking about Batman decreases.  Since I am unwilling to give up the one dominion in which I occupy the role of benevolent dictator, I thought I'd try combining the two.

The following is a sum total of all the things I will one day end up proclaiming loudly at the Oliviers at the same moment the room goes unexpectedly quiet.  Howard Davies will shake his head in dissapointment.  Rufus Norris will delicately avert his gaze.  Thea Sharrock will make an awkward face to her left.  I will drink champagne with great dignity, and trip as I leave the room. Thus:

Theatre Director Confessions, or How to Sabotage Your Career in Forty-Four Easy Steps

1) Sometimes when I watch Mark Rylance act, I hear Liz Lemon’s voice in my head saying “Nope. Hipster nonsense.”

2) Every time I try to read a Beckett play I giggle uncontrollably and have to put it down because it’s so very Beckett. Consequently the only Beckett play I have read is Waiting for Godot and it took me three goes to get past the first page.

3) I like Tom Stoppard. Haters to the left.

4) It is ridiculous that any high profile production directed by a female director should have to represent all work by female directors but I am irrationally panicky when such productions are anything less than flawless and I read the reviews poised in a state of hyper-tense paranoia, scouring them for anything that would not have been said about a male director.

5) I am more angry than I let on about the fact that Michael Grandage was allowed to spunk an astronomical amount of money on a season of work that never rose beyond “okay, I guess”, simply by virtue of being Michael Grandage.

6) I have only ever seen one Katie Mitchell production but sometimes I lie and say I have seen others.

7) I lied to Ben Whishaw about being a fan of Katie Mitchell.

8) I have never read Katie Mitchell’s A Director’s Craft.

9) I have never read Peter Brook’s The Empty Space.

10) I own both, and still believe that I will read them one day.

11) I have an irrational fondness for female directors who swear a lot.

12) I get uneasy when directors are criticised for having gone to Oxbridge because I went to Oxbridge and I try and calculate how much my level of privilege is offset by being female and always conclude that it is not enough.

13) I am far too easily influenced by other people’s opinions. I no longer know how I feel about London Road, having heard it praised and eviscerated with equal ferocity.

14) I sometimes have trouble telling Simon Stephens plays apart, which feels a bit like being racist.

15) I believe that everyone has the right to fail, and fail big time, at least once, but I am scared that the reality is such that I have to be hitting home runs from the start.

16) Sometimes my attention wanders in rehearsal. I am secretly convinced that no other director has ever let their focus slip, ever.

17) I would like to be able to point to a defining incident in my childhood that explains why I decided to become a theatre director, like a supervillain origin story. Sadly, I can’t get beyond ‘I like plays and I like being in charge and I have no transferrable skills.’*

18) I can, however, pinpoint the moment when I acknowledged to myself that I wanted to be a theatre director. It was New Year’s Eve 2009/2010 and after repeatedly being turned away from the club my friends were in for being too drunk, I was eventually allowed access, belted up the stairs just in time for the countdown and looked out through the floor-to-ceiling windows to see the National Theatre lit up across the river. “In ten years’ time,” I slurred to the assembled party, few of whom were paying attention, “I’m going to be on the other side of the river.” Four and a bit years later, I no longer retain the same sense of certainty, but have at least never been clubbing on New Year’s Eve since.

19) The best thing anyone has ever said to me over the course of my fledgling career is, "I'm not scared of Nick Hytner.  I'm scared of you."

20) The worst thing anyone has ever said to me over the course of my directing career was not actually a comment but they laughed openly at a play I had spent six months working on.  The play was not, per se, a comedy.

21) I am sort of waiting for a certain generation of theatre makers to die out.

22) I am definitely waiting for a certain generation of audiences to die out.

23) I will always rather go and see a Shakespeare play than any other writer, and I believe he is objectively the best playwrighdt in the English language. Fine if there is someone else you prefer, but do not fool yourself that there is someone better. There isn’t.

24) Equally, I sort of wish the RSC was just Greg Doran directing and no-one else.

25) I feel slightly sorry for the Marlowe Society. I feel like they sit around pretending Shakespeare doesn’t exist and if someone says the word ‘Stratford’ the room goes silent except for the sound of a single glass shattering on the floor.

26) I think less of people who dismiss Sarah Kane.

27) I worry that ‘edginess’ is going to become the defining factor in how well a play is received amongst my generation of theatre practitioners.

28) I feel like I should feel like more of a nonsense about using the word ‘practitioners’ but I don’t.

29) I feel guilty that I am more likely to remember young male actors I like than young female actors.

30) I find actors easier to get along with than playwrights, which is why I prefer working with dead ones.

31) I am a bit sad when actors like Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hiddleston find international film and television fame because it means I am less likely to see them in the theatre again and, probably, less likely to see performances as good as the theatre ones I saw at the beginning of their careers. Andrew Scott, stay with us.

32) I have invented a fictional Royal Court playwright whose work includes such plays as 'Savage Genuflection' and 'The Quiet of Skin'. The title of the play is said in context approximately two-thirds of the way through each.  I am not sure to what purpose this imaginary person exists but I'm sure I’ll find out in due course.

33) I’m pretty certain I’ll write a humorously personal yet insightful collection of essays about Shakespeare plays one day and when I do, I’ll probably call it ‘Lear’s Button’. It will have moderate success, read mostly by dramatically minded English undergraduates, being too academic for most theatre-goers and too silly for most academics.

34) I once had a whole conversation with another theatre director I was trying to impress that I thought was about the Marvel Comics Avengers but was actually about the 1960s television series Avengers.

35) I once thought my cast had locked me in the lighting booth where I was doing some work so they could order pizza without me.  It later transpired they were writing individual thank you cards.  I still would have liked some pizza though.

36) The fact that I will now never direct Richard Griffiths as King Lear almost makes me not want to bother directing King Lear at all.

37) I think anyone who actually likes Titus Andronicus will grow out of it.

38) If I were offered a choice between running any theatre building I wanted or being the next companion on Doctor Who, I am genuinely unsure what I would say.

39) Everyone always uses the example of a Shakespeare play 'on the moon' to denote ridiculous relocations of classics.  I have never seen a Shakespeare play set on the moon.  I would like to.

40) I thought Joss Whedon's Much Ado film was better than Kenneth Branagh's.

41) There is no role I would not like to see Cush Jumbo play.  Literally no role.

42) Going to see a high-profile production of a play you know and thinking to yourself ‘I could probably do that better’ is one of the most enjoyable feelings you can have in this business, and you must never ever tell anyone about it out loud.

43) I genuinely don’t understand why Hamlet at least is not played equally by male and female actors now. (Hedda Gabler is not the female equivalent of Hamlet. Hamlet is the female equivalent of Hamlet.)

44) Jerusalem wasn’t all that.

*Slightly disingenuous, but I don’t think you want to hear the long-winded, over-earnest version I save for job interviews.