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New Escapist Column! On How “The Black Queen” Captures the Inevitability of Political Violence…

Posted on October 24, 2022 by Darren

I am doing weekly reviews of House of the Dragon at The Escapist. They’ll be dropping every Sunday evening while the show is on, looking at the Game of Thrones prequel as it progresses from one episode to the next. This week marked the season finale.

One of the interesting tensions of the first season of House of the Dragon is the way that the show has somewhat weighted the audience’s sympathy. The show is undeniably in favour of Queen Rhaenyra’s ascent to the throne. However, what is interesting about The Black Queen is the way in which the episode is built around the idea that the individual intent of any one individual, no matter how decent or how powerful, is not enough to stop the mechanisms of state violence. Rhaenyra may not want a war, but what Rhaenyra wants may not matter.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Television | Tagged: emma d'arcy, house of the dragon, monarchy, Queen, queen rhaenyra, royalty, the black queen, the escapist, the green council, westeros | Leave a comment »

192. Hamilton: An American Musical – This Just In (#20)

Posted on July 26, 2020 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guest Deirdre Mulomby, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users.

This time, Thomas Kail’s Hamilton: An American Musical.

Reconstructed from a pair of live theatrical recordings and additional material compiled in June 2016, Hamilton features one of the last performances from the original Broadway cast of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s record-breaking smash hit cultural sensation, available on streaming for the first time.

At time of recording, it was ranked 20th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: This Just In | Tagged: accessibility, alexander hamilton, american history, black lives matter, Broadway, cinema, confederate monuments, deirdre molumby, film, hamilton, Hip hop, lin-manuel miranda, money, royalty, streaming, Theatre | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Mary, Queen of Scots

Posted on January 14, 2019 by Darren

Mary, Queen of Scots is unfocused and unmoored.

Mary, Queen of Scots feels like it should be a star vehicle for Saoirse Ronan. This makes sense. Ronan is a star in ascent. She has three Oscar nominations, and has recently headlined films with broad appeal like Brooklyn and Lady Bird. The concept of building a star vehicle for Ronan from the life and times of Mary Stuart seems like a good idea. Ronan experimented with larger-scale films in her teens like The Lovely Bones or The Host, but it seems perfectly reasonable to have her approach a large scale period drama as a genuine movie star.

Beth left unsaid.

However, Mary, Queen of Scots suffers from what feels like a crisis of confidence. The film’s second-billed lead is Margot Robbie, a successful Oscar-winning actor with similar star wattage to Ronan. Despite the fact that Mary Stuart retained the title of the film, Mary, Queen of Scots has largely been sold and marketed as a film with two leads; consider the misguided #dearsister hashtag publicity campaign, or the misguided branding on the character-focused profiles. It often seems like Mary, Queen of Scots clumsily aspires to be a biography of Queen Elizabeth I.

Mary, Queen of Scots is never entirely sure whether it wants to be a character-driven story focused on one woman’s life or a two-hander about lives in parallel. Watching the film, it feels like the decision was repeatedly taken and revised at various points during production, never committing to one approach for fear that it might preclude the other. The result is uneven and disjointed. Mary, Queen of Scots devotes enough time to Queen Elizabeth I that she feels like a major player, but only managed to get Ronan and Robbie together on set for a single day.

Queen of hearts.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: epic, feminism, film, historical, mary queen of scots, mary stuart, Movie, non-review review, period drama, review, royalty, sexism | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: The Young Victoria

Posted on October 11, 2010 by Darren

There are a few period dramas about classical nobility released every year. Most of them, such as The Dutchess are fairly bland and lifeless affairs – indeed, it’s hard to create an energy or dynamism around a world most of us have never known which is built upon self-restraint and self-control. The tendency is towards po-faced self-importance and excessive melodrama. While I would be hard pressed to describe The Young Victoria as “exciting” or “thrilling”, it is one of the better period pieces I have seen to focus on the British Royal Family, perhaps because – despite the impressive scope of its subject matter (Queen Victoria was, as the end titlecard informs us, the longest-serving monarch of Great Britain) – it remains tightly focused. It’s a story of courtship and romance, loyalty and dependency. It’s a genuinely and honestly romantic film.