(no subject)
Jan. 20th, 2025 10:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsWhen I found out that Grand Theft Hamlet was playing at one (1!) theater in Boston on Saturday, I immediately rearranged my whole schedule to see it. I am posting about it Now in case this is true for anybody else, because I do think it's worth seeing in theaters if you can -- the whole thing is, of course, shot entirely within Grand Theft Auto and the fact that it looks absurdly beautiful on a big screen is I think part of the absurd charm of the whole thing.
Grand Theft Hamlet is a documentary about a pair of out-of-work actors who decided to stage a production of Hamlet during the pandemic, using the tools at their disposal: to wit, the virtual world of Grand Theft Auto and any Grand Theft Auto players who could be convinced to turn up and recite Shakespeare instead of committing random acts of violence at auditions. It's a documentary because one of the actors happens to be married to a documentary filmmaker, who decided to join him in GTA to find out what the appeal was.
For those who haven't seen it, here's the trailer:
I enjoyed this movie exactly as much as I thought I would enjoy it, which was a tremendous amount.aria described it as "like watching Slings & Arrows and Staged kiss while cool funny explosions happen in the background," which I think is extremely accurate. I love people getting through rough times by getting very invested in artistic passion projects; I love backstage problems; I love extremely that it is apparently impossible for any actor to go through the experience of putting on Hamlet without having an existential crisis about "To be or not to be," even if they are doing it in Grand Theft Auto.
As a sidenote, I think it's very funny that I seem to have backed myself into being a fan of Hamlet by becoming very passionate about several pieces of media about people putting on productions of Hamlet ... I am a simple person with simple enjoyments. Show me an actor going into an absolute tailspin about how to deliver a soliloquy that's previously been performed by all of history's greatest while something about the production blows up metaphorically or literally in the background and I am contented every time.
Grand Theft Hamlet is a documentary about a pair of out-of-work actors who decided to stage a production of Hamlet during the pandemic, using the tools at their disposal: to wit, the virtual world of Grand Theft Auto and any Grand Theft Auto players who could be convinced to turn up and recite Shakespeare instead of committing random acts of violence at auditions. It's a documentary because one of the actors happens to be married to a documentary filmmaker, who decided to join him in GTA to find out what the appeal was.
For those who haven't seen it, here's the trailer:
I enjoyed this movie exactly as much as I thought I would enjoy it, which was a tremendous amount.
aria described it as "like watching Slings & Arrows and Staged kiss while cool funny explosions happen in the background," which I think is extremely accurate. I love people getting through rough times by getting very invested in artistic passion projects; I love backstage problems; I love extremely that it is apparently impossible for any actor to go through the experience of putting on Hamlet without having an existential crisis about "To be or not to be," even if they are doing it in Grand Theft Auto. As a sidenote, I think it's very funny that I seem to have backed myself into being a fan of Hamlet by becoming very passionate about several pieces of media about people putting on productions of Hamlet ... I am a simple person with simple enjoyments. Show me an actor going into an absolute tailspin about how to deliver a soliloquy that's previously been performed by all of history's greatest while something about the production blows up metaphorically or literally in the background and I am contented every time.
no subject
Date: 2025-01-25 01:01 am (UTC)