Tom Stoppard- My Love For Him-& Julie Taymor

Hi Everybody,

I'm sorry I haven't posted in the last few weeks. It's just those goddamned midterms, you know... and I have to finish my National History Day Paper tomorrow for my AP US History Teacher, Mr. Scott. It's on the 1964-1965 World's Fair. But that has nothing to do with this post right now.

Hey- have you guys ever heard of the playwright Tom Stoppard? No? Well, you should know him. He's friggin awesome. His works are friggin awesome.  He's a big name back in the West End and here in America, among geeks like me and playwrights. Proud pop-culture and theater geek, whoo! I own a copy of his trilogy of plays set in pre-Stalinist, Tsarist Russia, called "The Coast of Utopia". Can't wait to read it. Oh, he's not only done a shit ton of plays, he's also done screenplays, radio plays, television scripts, operas, and he's also a novelist. He's also a director, too. Oh, and he's also an outspoken human rights activist and an anti-Marxist. He's also won Tonys and Oscars, and I think he was even nominated for some Emmy awards. That's a sign of awesomeness, people. Did I also mention that he is so badass that he actually got a knighthood from the queen. Not kidding people. Holy shit. A. fuckin'. knightdom. And two years before I was born as well (Born in 1999. March 10th, to be exact. His birthdate is July 3rd, 1937). I asked him to legitimately come to my school to give a talk to the kids via through his agents, yet they won't respond. Jesus. (Oh god, I might be coming off as a tad obsessive to the point of stalkerdom here. I'm sorry, Mr. Stoppard, if you are reading this, I am a genuinely nice gal. Sorry.)

See, my love for him began with this play called Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. I discovered it through via looking it up on the Internet. This wasn't the 1st play Mr. Stoppard did. But it was the one that caused him to become a star, when it premiered in August 24th of 1966 at the Edinburgh Festival, when the Beatles were in their heyday. He was just 29 years old. However, an earlier form appeared in 1964 as a one-act play, titled Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Meet King Lear (whatever the hell happened to that one-act play, I don't know.). Stoppard must've been, what, 24 or 25? Christ, that's young. Nowadays, he's old enough to be a grandpa (and, in fact, he might have kids that are grown and have kids themselves already. Or just knocked up their girlfriend or got themselves knocked up or something). But anyway, I stumbled across the movie on Amazon. I watched it, and the first few minutes in, I was hooked. How many times have I watched that movie? I have no clue. I invited my dad to watch it with me one night, but he fell asleep during it (not of boredom, but out of tiredness), and I was pretty much the only one watching it. I was absorbed throughout. That movie premiered on September 5th, 1990. So that means last year, the movie had its 25th anniversary. Wow. It doesn't feel dated, not at all. The cast (especially the two leads) is/are awesome. The script is badass. What more can I say. Why the hell it wasn't nominated for Best Picture and Best Adapted screenplay (alongside Best Director for Stoppard) at the Oscars, I don't know. Maybe it was because of the fact that the movie didn't get a worldwide release and was limited here in the States? Yeah. Could be a factor.

And I'd love it if he would do a script for a movie or something with Julie Taymor. Who is she, you might ask? I'm doing my final Film Studies project about her. She's very well known in the Theater community for the broadway production of The Lion King (which is still going strong after all these years) as well as many others, including the infamous mess that was/is Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark (That show had potential, what with Bono and the Edge as collaborators and an awesome soundtrack and pretty damn good leads. But Taymor got a little too carried away, I guess... which explains why they had so many screw-ups that led to those record-breaking number of reviews and the accidents involving the actors on the flying wires.) She's also many other things, including a composer, a screenwriter, former puppeteer, costume designer, director, head of a production company, production designer, blah blah blah... her films are feasts for the eyes, and the visuals/production design are pretty gorgeous, if not a bit trippy and psychedelic at times. I think she would be a great collaborator for Mr. Stoppard to work with, since he's not unfamiliar with trippy sequences (Ahem...Brazil anybody? In February of last year, the movie celebrated its 30th anniversary. I watched that film in its entirety in my Film Studies class. He wrote it with (Terry) Gilliam and other people, yeah, but still. Weird as fuck, but also crazy awesome, like Mad Max: Fury Road.). They would work pretty well together, I guess. I think they should make do with Darkside, since that is pretty much the most Taymor-esque thing Stoppard has ever done. And Taymor has already done a musical jukebox film (Across the Universe, that was one of the most wicked (in a good way) uses of Beatles music in any form of media ever.), and since Pink Floyd is one of the most theatrical classic rock bands in the world. From England, too, hells yeah!

Oh, and if you guys are wondering, the movies I used for my Final Project were Titus, Frida, and The Tempest. Titus came out the year I was born. It bombed at the box office. (If you have ever read the play, you could see why.) Could be considered a cult film, even if it is based on Shakespeare. No, scratch that, pretty much all of Taymor's movies are very culty. I love her. A lot.  I watched that movie on New Year's Eve, and let me tell you...the movie was weird. Probably the most trippiest Shakespeare movie ever to be filmed. It's also one of the most entertaining and awesome. Yep. Really is.



Also, guys, I hope you've had a really nice day and hope to see ya soon! Bye!