A huge bombard of sack

[nineweaving]

sovay has asked for a roundup of all the scattered Anonymous reviews, like daggletailed sheep to the dip.

Here they are, a fanfaronade for Oxenford:

"We all, at one point or another, indulge fantasies that make the world
seem more dangerous, more glamorous and, simultaneously, much more
simple than it actually is. But then most of us grow up. Or put down

Comments

[ron_drummond]

Well, a rather helpful and often hilarious selection, many thanks! I wasn't too terribly offended by Roger Ebert's review -- he's clear about who wrote what and who didn't -- but the one true howler comes at the very end, where he displaces Pepys a full three generations into the past. Again, I intend to go see the flick and expect to laugh my head off. I note with interest that several reviewers enthusiastically panning the film are nevertheless praising the cgi evocations of Elizabethan London; I suspect it will be worth seeing for that alone. One of the film's ironies is likely that, while the writer and director are profoundly ignorant, they were able to hire costumiers and set designers who actually knew something about what they were doing. So the film may boast some accuracy at that level, even as it utterly fails on almost every other.

[steepholm]

That's very true about Pepys, although it prompts me to wonder whether Simon Foreman wouldn't have mentioned it in his diary. A curious incident of a gossip not tattling in the night?

[nineweaving]

Oh no. You see the Queen's spymasters found and burned all such entries, and so cunningly that no gaps were left in any manuscripts.

Seriously, I would love Simon Foreman's snark on Oxford. Among all his other unendearing qualities, the Oxentoad dabbled in necromancy.

Nine

[kalimac]

Parallel: Oliver Stone's JFK was a well-crafted piece of cinematic art. In fact, it got better reviews in that respect from those who recognized its arguments as nonsense than this one is getting from the equivalent camp. I eventually saw JFK, and am not sorry I did, but I'm less eager to see this one.

[nineweaving]

I am hoping that Emmerich's ineptitude will limit his film's damage, make it an attractive nuisance rather than a plague. Stone's film was good enough to be dangerous.

Nine

[kalimac]

That's what made the Todd Gilchrist review you linked to most interesting. He's willing to swallow the Oxfordian case, but considers the film - particularly the acting - worse than do some other more skeptical reviewers.

[nineweaving]

Can't resist quoting.

"It’s actually a little sad that Edward Hogg didn’t have an actual moustache to twirl, because his hunch-backed malevolence ranks as one of the most cartoonish performances of the year - including the ones in “The Smurfs.”

"Orloff’s screenplay, on the other hand, is a disastrously overcomplicated affair, partially because of its wormhole of flashbacks and partially because it frequently overshadows the 'author’s identity' question with distracting, melodramatic digressions."

Nine

[sovay]

It’s actually a little sad that Edward Hogg didn’t have an actual moustache to twirl, because his hunch-backed malevolence ranks as one of the most cartoonish performances of the year - including the ones in “The Smurfs.”

Alas, I do not know enough about Robert Cecil to write his likely reaction to this portrayal, although Mary Gentle is quite sympathetic toward him in 1610: A Sundial in a Grave (2003).

[nineweaving]

A powerful man, so dangerous. Absolutely not clownish.

Nine