Friday, June 4, 2010

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Undead

Jordan Galland’s “Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Undead” has one great idea (and it’s not the title). An Off Broadway production, the film tells us, might actually be a vampire play — written and produced by bloodsuckers to gather an unsuspecting audience of potential victims. Now we know why sitting in a downtown theater can feel like living death.
Sitting through the film isn’t as unpleasant as that; it’s more like suspended animation. A toothless satire whose targets include vampire mania, low-rent theater, indie romantic comedies, Scorsese, Shakespeare and “Law & Order,” it plays like a Web series expanded to feature length, or an adaptation of one of the Naked Angels’ staged serial soap operas. There are many jokes, the best of which elicit a knowing smile or maybe a mild chuckle; the one that’s been used to publicize the film during its year and a half on the festival circuit involves not letting your ex-girlfriend suck the life out of you.

read on

* that's Jake Hoffman on the left, he's son of Dustin

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