A Midsummer Night's Dream Movie

I missed the first two days of watching "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in class, but there were some things in the movie that confused me. 

The play was set in Ancient Greece, yet I saw that the clothes the people were wearing looked more like something from turn-of-the-century (or sometime before that) England. 

Also some of the characters were riding bicycles with electric lights on them, and in Ancient Greece they had no bicycles or electricity. The decor of the buildings also did not fit in with it very well. 

Who else noticed this, and why do you think they did this?

A Midsummer Night's Dream: Act V

When Act V starts, Theseus is asking Philostrate, the director of the entertainment for his wedding, what different acts there are to watch. The only one he seems interested in is the play about Pyramus and Thisbe, performed by the craftsmen. Philostrate is trying to discourage him from seeing it, saying it's a waste of time and all the actors are talentless, but Theseus wants to watch it anyway. 

Through the show, Theseus and everyone else watching are commenting on the poor grammar and bad acting. Everyone feels the need to announce what character they play and what they are going to do as soon as they come on stage. Though the play is bad, they seem to find it amusing anyway, while they're pointing out all of its stupid mistakes. After the play is over, Robin, Oberon, Titania, and their servants come to the palace to bless it and make it peaceful.

They leave, and Robin is the last one on stage. He tells the audience that if they did not like the play, they should pretend that they saw it all when they were asleep, it was just a dream.

A Midsummer Night's Dream: Act IV

Act IV starts while Demetrius, Helena, Hermia, and Lysander are still sleeping and Titania comes in with Bottom. Bottom is ordering the fairies Titania assigned to be his servants around, and Titania is madly in love with him. She goes to sleep next to him, and Oberon puts a potion on her eyes that will cause her to stop loving Bottom. He wakes her up after that, and they go off together. Robin then removes the donkey's head from Bottom. 

Then, Theseus comes in with Egeus, Hippolyta, and his servants. They come across Helena, Demetrius, Hermia, and Lysander all asleep, and wake them up. Demetrius explains to Theseus that he no longer loves Hermia, he loves Helena. Theseus, after hearing all their explanations, decides to let the two couples, Demetrius and Helena and Hermia and Lysander, get married at the same time as him and Hippolyta, later that day. They all leave to go to the temple.

After this, Bottom wakes up. He thinks that he just had a crazy dream that he had a donkey's head and Titania was in love with him. Meanwhile, the rest of the craftsmen are looking for Bottom, saying how their play will be a complete failure without him. They are very sad that they can't show it. Then, Bottom comes along, and tells them to get ready to perform the play for the duke.  

Demetrius and Mel

I think that Demetrius from A Midsummer Night's Dream is a lot like Mel from Flight Of the Conchords (A TV show.)

Mel is madly in love with the two main characters and is always following them without their consent. She waits for hours by the bus-stop or the stairway to their apartment just to see them. Also, she is completely oblivious to how much they don't like her and are scared of her. She is also married to Doug who actually loves her, but she just brushes him off.

In a similar way, Demetrius chases after Hermia, not caring that she has no interest in him. No matter how many times she says she doesn't love him, he still follows her. Helena, like Doug in Mel's case, is also in love with him, but he doens't care about her, only Hermia. 

Image from: http://bigscreenlittlescreen.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/mel.jpg

A Midsummer Night's Dream: Act III

In Act III of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Puck runs into the craftsmen practicing their play. When Bottom is waiting to go on stage, Puck sees how annoying he is and takes the opportunity to give him a donkey's head. When the other men see Bottom, they run screaming. Bottom is wandering in the woods, and is right by Titania when she wakes up. She falls madly in love with him and orders four fairies to be his servants. Oddly, Bottom is not at all surprised by Titania's strange love for him. 

Later, Oberon realizes that Puck put the love juice on the wrong man, Lysander's, eyes, causing him to fall in love with Helena. Puck then makes Demetrius fall in love with Helena, so both Lysander and Demetrius are following her. Helena thinks they are both playing a mean trick on her and lying about their love. When Hermia runs into them, shocked to see her faithful boyfriend suddenly hates her, Helena thinks Hermia is in on the joke too. 

However, Lysander and Demtrius are very serious and plan to fight. Oberon does not want them to fight, so he has Puck trick them into going far away from each other then falling asleep. He then puts a different potion on Lysander's eyes to have him in love with Hermia again. 

A Midsummer Night's Dream: Act III

Act 2 opens with Titania and Oberon, the Queen and King of the fairies, in an argument. Titania has kidnapped a young boy who she intends to raise as a son, but Oberon wants the boy to be his own personal soldier. He makes Titania even angrier by interrupting her and her followers' fairy dances. Oberon sends Robin Goodfellow (AKA Puck) to fetch a magic love potion flower. When the flower's juice is squirted on the eyelids of a sleeping person, hey fall in love with the first thing they see when they wake up.  He plans to use it to make Titania fall in love with something very nasty. 

While Puck is gone, Oberon observes Helena and Demetrius in the woods. He sees how much Helena loves Demetrius, and how mean Demetrius is to Helena. When Puck returns, he send him to use the flower to make Demetrius fall in love with Helena. However, Puck accidentally puts the potion on Lysander's eyes, when he is asleep next to Hermia. When Demetrius abandons Helena, she sees Lysander and wakes him up. He then falls madly in love with her, but when he tells her this she thinks he is taunting her. 

She goes off to follow Demetrius, and Lysander runs after her. Hermia wakes up and Lysander is gone, so she goes to find him.

I think Act 2 was very funny because now there's a "love square," Hermia loves Lysander, Lysander loves Helena, Helena loves Demetrius, and Demetrius loves Hermia, but none of them love the person who loves them. 

A Midsummer Night's Dream: Act I

In the first act, we learn that Thesius, the Duke of Athens, is marrying Hippolyta, the Queens of the Amazons, in four days. We also met Egeus, who wants his daughter Hermia to marry Demetrius- if she doesn't she will have to become a nun. Hermia doesn't love Demetrius, she is in love with Lysander, but her best friend Helena is obsessed with Demetrius and is extremely jealous. When Hermia tells her that she and Lysander are eloping, meeting in the forest that night, Helena plans to tell Demetrius and foil their plan.

At the same time, a group of craftsmen is planning a play to perform at Thesius' wedding. The director is Peter Quince, but he is pushed aside by the over-confident Nick Bottom. Bottom thinks that he is the best actor, and the smartest person (which he isn't) and wants to play all the parts. The craftsmen plan to practice that night in the same forest that Lysander and Hermia are meeting in.

I wonder if the craftsmen will run in to Hermia and Lysander. If they do, will they know who they are, or will they let them go? What will happen to Helena and Demetrius if Hermia and Lysander leave?

A Midsummer Night's Dream

I think that so far, A Midsummer Night's Dream is very interesting. The relationships between Hermia, Demetrius, and Lysander are very funny. It's ridiculous that Egeus either wants Hermia dead or a nun if she doesn't marry Demetrius. He says that it's the law that she is his, but he's treating her like he owns her. Hermia is a person, she should be able to make her own decisions instead of being forced into everything by her father. 

I can't wait to read more!

Biopoem

King Henry V

Conceited, confident, emotional, unrelenting

Son of Henry IV of England

His Entourage: Princess Katherine, Bardolph, Nym, Pistol, and the English army

Who loves England, fighting wars, and making speeches

Who feels self-confidence, self-entitlement, and a little fear

Who needs an army, to conquer France, and maybe some anger management

Who fears defeat, the Dauphin of France, and his army disliking him

Who gives fighting, death, and leadership

Who would like to see himself on the throne of France, married to Katherine, and winning all battles

Resident of England and France

I think that the actor playing Henry V was very enthusiastic about his role, he sort of got carried away with his emotions. 

Henry V

I thought that the show was very hard to follow, especially since we came in late. I was jealous of the deaf children, they seemed to be the only ones who got it because they could easily hear, well see, their translators who were signing in plain English. It was hard to hear the actors sometimes, and their dialogue was very complicated.

I am glad that we read the synopsis in class, so I wasn't totally lost. But in some scenes I had no idea what was going on. I was asking myself, "Why are those guys all hugging each other?" "Why is the woman dressed as a boy lying in the doorway?" and "Why is the man with a strange accent hitting another man in the face with a vegetable?"

The actors' body language made up for what I could not understand, although it didn't tell much about what was going on it was very entertaining. 

I think I'd rather read Shakespeare than watch it, that way it is easier to understand and you can go at your own pace.

How about you?

Coraline

Coraline, which you all know is a semi-new movie, was also an amazing book. It used to be my favorite book back in third and fourth grade. 

I haven't seen the movie yet, but the book is wonderfully creepy.

The author, Neil Gaiman, at first describes a magical, seemingly perfect world, that by the end of the book would give me chills. 

People with buttons for eyes, singing rats, and the delicious image of the Other Mother extracting a key from her throat never fail to give me the good chills. 

After reading this delightful book, I can't wait to see the movie, especially since it is directed by Henry Selick. He directed my favorite movie, "The Nightmare Before Christmas."

If you haven't read the book yet, it's great even though it's short. 

Please comment about the book!

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie was an English author, who wrote tons of mystery books and plays. She actually wrote the longest-running play in history, called "The Mousetrap." 

My dad thinks I should read some of her books because they are "classic." Surprisingly, they are actually really interesting for old books. All of them that I have read so far are murder mysteries; The ABC Murders, Cat Among Pigeons, and Murder on the Orient Express.

If anyone has read any of her books, you can talk about them here. 

Photo from: flickr.com/photos/aroberts/3032490151