Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, Ltd.

Archive for February, 2009

In teaching Macbeth in my English IV classes this year, I have searched out various productions of Shakespeare’s classic tragedy, Macbeth. Before this year I had never seen Polanski’s 1971 film of the play, but I found several activities that use it and so finally watched it.  There are several criticisms of the play, and responding to and considering each of those is going to be the primary focus of this article. Read the rest of this entry »

August 11, 2007
Adventures in Bad Sci-Fi – Bloodsuckers
Filed under: Movies, SciFi/Fantasy, bad scifi — duane @ 5:44 pm

I have always had a love/hate relationship with the SciFi Channel. For a sf/fantasy fan like myself, the concept is awesome. Unfortunately, throughout the years the execution has often left a lot to be desired. While one would think I would watch the channel a lot, the truth is I don’t. I haven’t cared for most of their original series, and even those with a premise I liked (such as Eureka) I just haven’t been that compelled to watch. And for every step they take forward, they always take at least one back. For example, it’s cool that they’re showing the new Doctor Who, but then they also show ECW wrestling, which has, as far as I can tell, no connection to scifi, fantasy, or horror.

With that said, one of the things I love about the SciFi Channel is one that I should probably hate: original SciFi Channel movies. These come in two types: mediocre movies that are neither good nor bad, and therefore are incredibly boring (such as Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula, which I was going to review after this one, but just wasn’t interesting enough), or they are so incredibly bad that, as the cliché goes, they circle back around to good again. Thus, every Saturday and Sunday (when I remember), I check out the program guide for potentially bad scifi, fantasy, or horror movies.

Bloodsuckers, also known as Vampire Wars: Battle for the Universe, is one of these movies. Read the rest of this entry »

August 1, 2007
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Filed under: Literature, SciFi/Fantasy — duane @ 8:34 pm

I’ve talked about Harry Potter before, so it should be no secret that I’m a big fan. It’s also no secret that that last book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was going to be a good book. We know by now that Rowling is a good writer, that she has created interesting characters, and that the story-line is compelling. And the majority of people already know if they’re interested in Harry Potter or not; while some people may have been waiting for the series to end before reading it, and others may pick it up later, a review of Deathly Hallows is not likely to inspire anyone to read it. I’m therefore just going to make a few comments about it, and save any potential spoilers for a larger article on the series as a whole. Read the rest of this entry »

In order to get the site going, I’m going to repost some old content, picking through some things that I particularly liked. Of course, I didn’t do a proper backup (Who needs backups? Certainly not me!), so I’m copying a few articles from the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. I’ll have them up in a bit.

The old site had sat still for so long that someone hacked it. I’ve redone the security credentials and started from scratch. Hopefully this means I’ll actually start putting up meaningful content.