Mark and Barb and Robin Go to the Movies

The Merchant of Venice (dir. Michael Radford) It's beautiful (pretty hard to make Venice look anything other than glorious and grody at the same time--like San Francisco gone to seed for 650 years with canals instead of streetcars) , and, to the director's credit, this version doesn't try to pretty up the really ugly anti-Semitism that's always spoiled my enjoyment of this play. But there's no getting around it: back in Shakespeare's time, this play was about why Christianity's emphasis on mercy (delivered by Jesus from God him/herself) was superior to Judaism's sternly legalistic approach to right living. (Which doesn't prevent the "young doctor" who gives Shylock the smackdown in the Duke's court from using exactly the same nitpicking, legalistic logic to win. Or or me from thinking that only someone like Shylock, who's right at the edge of society, where laws can be changed in a minute to put you in someone's crosshairs, would be that insistent on getting justice, however mean-assed.) I thought Al Pacino was a splendid Shylock--I always like him when he's exercising restraint. (And sometimes, like in The Devil's Advocate, when he's not!) But Lynn Collins didn't have quite the comic spark that great Shakespearean comediennes need, though she's very beautiful, and I'm getting annoyed with Joseph Fiennes' cutesy Renaissance Grunge Heartthrob schtick. And a bunch of the youngsters here demonstrate why American Method Acting-derived mumbling isn't the ideal way to deliver Shakespeare (sounds like they're speaking Norwegian). Mark's rating: **½ (docked ½ for being a nasty and anti-Semitic play)