Round 3 Strangers: The Revenger's Tragedy

Aug 12, 2009 07:20

The Revenger's Tragedy

Vid Used
"Speak for me" by sol_se (solvi42 @ gmail.com)
download - http://sol-se.livejournal.com/457643.html


Grokker Synopsis

Revengers Tragedy is the 2002 film adaptation of a 17th century play attributed to Thomas Middleton, transferred from its original setting in an Italian court to Liverpool, England in the near future (2011). Sets, costumes, actors, and soundtrack (by Chumbawumba) are all top-notch. The quasi-futuristic, post-apocalyptic setting serves mainly as an excuse for the FABULOUSLY decadent costume designs, as well as the truly disturbing maroon lipstick on Derek Jakobi.

The main character is Vindici, played by Christopher Eccleston of Doctor Who fame (er, and Our Friends in the North fame), who we first see returning by bus to his native Liverpool after a long absence in order to seek revenge. Everyone thinks he’s dead, and he prefers it that way. While shaving his own head to disguise himself (or just to prove that he’s hardcore), a local gang shows up and demands to know if he’s from London; of course, Eccleston’s accent is demonstrably northern, but he’s just so hardcore that he’d rather beat up some punks than open his mouth.

Vindici plots to kill the Duke, a powerful and thoroughly evil old man played by the excellent Derek Jacobi (who also happened to appear on Doctor Who). Years ago, the Duke poisoned Vindici’s bride and the entire wedding party because “she would not consent unto his lust.” The Duke and his entire family are morally corrupt and basically deserve everything they get. However, it’s worth pointing out that although Vindici is lucid, he is not entirely sane; that’s the skull of his dead wife you see him talking to in SE’s vid. Sometimes he wiggles her jaw and screams, “Revenge, revenge, revenge!” in a high squeaky voice. I love this movie.

SE’s vid focuses on Vindici’s relationship with Lussurioso, the Duke’s oldest son and heir (played by a non-cross-dressing Eddie Izzard). Lussurioso is essentially a pawn in Vindici’s game, but he believes Vindici to be his friend-the only person he can trust. Vindici first catches his eye by beating up his youngest brother after the kid rapes the wife of Antonio, The Duke’s political rival. Fortunately for Vindici, Lussurioso doesn’t like his brothers (they each want to become Duke, and murder is the main method of promotion in this family), so he decides to offer employment to Vindici, who accepts in order to get close to the Duke. At one point, Vindici discovers that the Duke’s wife is sleeping with one of her other sons (YES, LIKE THAT) and tells Lussurioso so that he can gain the advantage. Unfortunately, the hapless Lussurioso mistakenly barges in on his mother when she’s with her husband, not her son, and the Duke is FURIOUS at being interrupted. So Vindici has to rescue Lussurioso from prison. Meanwhile, the Duke’s other sons take the opportunity to convince their father to have Lussurioso put to death; because the prison guards don’t want to admit that he escaped, they kill the youngest brother (in prison for rape) instead.

After Vindici kills the Duke, Lussurioso inherits the position, but still suspects nothing until Vindici sticks a knife in him. Ah, but I didn’t explain! Lussurioso originally hired him for the express purpose of SEDUCING HIS OWN SISTER (who doesn’t appear in the vid) for Lussurioso’s non-matrimonial pleasure-hence the title of the vid. He doesn’t realize the girl he’s been ogling is Vindici’s sister, so the knife in the gut is a bit of a surprise.

So, yeah. Some other stuff happens in the movie-Vindici’s plot is more complicated than what I’ve described here, and there are hints of serious political unrest in the background-but you can go see it for yourself. Preferably not with anyone who objects to viewing incest, rape, or older gentlemen in lipstick.

Stranger Synopses

Stranger 1

All I knew about this fandom was:

(did not specify)

Here's what this fandom is really about:

Holy whoa, how is it possible that Chris Eccleston and Eddie Izzard did a movie and I did not know about it? I'ma Nexflix this bitch soon as I hit send on this email.

Okay, so it looks like some d-bag, probably connected to the mob, killed Chris Eccleston's wife and all of his guests at his wedding, so I don't care if he steals candy from babies in his spare time, I'm definitely on the Revenger's side. (I will not discuss whether or not the fact that I'm mere days from my own wedding and already having nightmares about none of the guests showing up may be coloring my view somewhat.) He's come back to town to shave his head and kick some skinhead ass to show the creepy albino mob boss that Revenge is Srs Bizness.

In the meantime he meets Eddie, who is low on the mob totem pole but related to the creepy albino so he can't actually be kicked out. It's a nepotism thing. When the Revenger tells his story, Eddie realizes it's time to overthrow his uncle-in-law's black market bride-killing drugs, so he volunteers to help out. Eddie uses his connections with the police department, but lands himself and the Revenger in the hoosegow, which of course is run by the mob. Through some trickery and switchery, Eddie and the Revenger escape and bond with just a little bit of man-love, and it is good. But of course, the Revenger isn't done yet.

He wields an impressive-looking knife thing and confronts the albino mob boss at a funeral while Eddie is off trying to get elected mayor and bring down the mob through official channels, and they... WHAT? WHAT HAPPENS?!? THIS VID DOES NOT INCLUDE THE END OF THE STORY OH GOD I HAVE TO KNOW THE ENDING SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME well honestly it looks sort of like Kill Bill so I guess maybe it has the same ending as that. But I've never seen Kill Bill either. ARGH.

Stranger 2

All I knew about this fandom was:

Nothing. Not even that it existed!

Here's what this fandom is really about:

Dr. Who is a total badass, and he's going to save the world from a totalitarian government. Eddie Izzard is his sidekick. Or his spirit guide. And they are totally about to make out like every five seconds, but they don't!!! Dr. Who's secret power (besides time lording) is nosebleeds. And maybe still time lording, because he seems to sometimes maybe be in the past. Maybe? He's got a special fetish for skulls, including his own shaved head.

Dr. Who and Eddie take on the government agents with a lot of punching and not-quite-making-out. The agents capture Eddie and put him in a poorly-constructed cell made of drywall (seriously, get some more metal bars), and Dr. Who cuts a hexagon (which is way more work than cutting, like, a rectangle) out of the wall to set him free. PRISON SECURITY FAIL! Someone else is blamed for the escape, someone who is already in this half-assed prison, and he gets hung for a crime that even a shriveled skull could see was not committed by him. But it's the government. C'est le vie. With more punching and nosebleeds and skipping through tunnels, our homoerotic heroes successfully take down the government. And in the end, they get to celebrate! By not making out. Which makes me sad.

Stranger 3

All I knew about this fandom was:

So, Revengers Tragedy. Sounds like a really old play from the Elizabethan era, maybe by Thomas Kyd - The Spanish Tragedy II: The Revengers Tragedy!

Here's what this fandom is really about:

Sadly, nobody's wearing manly hose here, but it still has all the wonderful visual style of a stage play. Doctor Who is a man with a mission and an electric razor. Long ago, he was just a hairstylist with a Highlander ponytail who was about to marry the woman of his dreams. But some bad wine made her and all the other wedding guests cough up blood, so he gave up his hair salon and donned his secret identity of ... The Revenger! He gives himself a dramatic haircut in the middle of a gang fight for an extra challenge, and buys himself a fancy looking dagger that he likes talking to while rolling around on the grass. (I'm naming it Mr Pointy.) He even keeps a skull in a wig around for those long nights when he gets lonely.

Then there's the question of who he's revenging against. He seems to be going after a nicely dressed Eddie Izzard (who should really get those cuts on his face looked at by a doctor) as Mr Green Coat. The Revenger pretends to be all buddy-buddy with Mr Green Coat, and they do lots of typical best friend things together: go for limo rides together, beat up guys with earrings together, go drinking together, go to court together, play fooseball together, bust out of jail together, kiss hands together, break into jail to hang people together, and go frolicking in the rain together to have an excuse to get close to one another when wet. Sometimes, The Revenger goes off to wander the city streets and brood Batman-style in front of huge doors with Roman Empire insignia on them and re-election signs for Duke Builds (vote Builds in 1592!), or to flail about in empty fields while ranting to himself. Derek Jacobi also sometimes appears in visions as The Revenger's guardian angel who died in The Revenger's arms, and likes drawing chalk outlines around people.

Finally, The Revenger takes Mr Green Coat out to a red-themed club, where the tension builds and they start to get close to each other. Unfortunately, Mr Pointy decides to jump in with a heart-to-heart chat that leaves Mr Green Coat pinned to the wall and dead. Presumably having been revenged, The Revenger and his skull puppet are now free to hang out in empty fields all they want.

Stranger 4

All I knew about this fandom was:

Nothing! Never even heard of it before. I'm guessing it may have something to do with revenge and tragedy, though.

Here's what this fandom is really about:

Once upon a time there was a man with very nice hair, and he was going to marry a gorgeous woman who was the love of his life. But on the day of their wedding, at the reception, she was murdered, poisoned. So he shaved his hair off and set out to seek revenge, taking along the mummified head of his wife.

In the big city he went about beating people up in order to figure out who had killed his wife, but then he was taken in by a strange man who looked like Clockwork Orange Eddie Izzard.

As our protagonist felt more and more drawn toward the strange man, who flirted with him and helped him beat people up, he soon realized that this man was a mystical reincarnation of his wife, brought back by the force of their true love. This is clear from the bright orange hair both have.

However, the passage back from death had driven her/him crazy, and the grief had driven the shaved man crazy, and even though they were now reunited they didn't stop tracking down her killers. Eventually they found the evil man who had masterminded it all and slew him.

The orange-haired man was going to go back through the holy doors into the realm of death, his mission fulfilled, but the shaved man broke all mystical and human laws to stop him from doing that, so in the end they stayed on earth together and lived out their crazy love story as best they could, having lots of kinky two-and-a-half-way sex with the mummified head.

Stranger 5

All I knew about this fandom was:

(did not specify)

Here's what this fandom is really about:

This movie, staring the 9th Doctor and Eddie Izzard, is CLEARLY an attempt to show what happens after the end of Hamlet, if Hamlet had lived to tell the tale instead of Horatio. Nine plays the part of Hamlet, who is cursed to roam around the streets of Denmark, picking fights with all of the Norwegians who've invaded the place. He would probably have died in his last brawl if the random mysterious man (played by Eddie Izzard) had not shown up and saved his ass. I'm going to call his character Ed, because I am unoriginal. Ed and Hamlet wander around town, start a gay love affair and Ed convinces Hamlet to have the will to live by turning his penchant for revenge toward Fortinbras and co. All goes pretty well, until Ed makes the mistake of actually caring about Hamlet. (SERIOUSLY! If there is one thing we all have learned from Ophelia, it is that falling in love with Hamlet is bad news.) Poor Ed gets thrown in jail because of something dumb that Hamlet has done, but all is not lost, for lo! Hamlet comes and breaks Ed out of jail! If this were a movie that did not have the word Tragedy in the name, this is likely where I'd start waxing poetic about the power of love and blah, blah, blah. Instead, this is where this movie turns even DARKER! It is revealed that Ed was actually working for Fortinbras and co and was sent to do something dastardly Hamlet to make the takeover of the country complete. (I am waving my hands as to the reason why he didn't just let the bandits kill Hamlet back at the beginning. FOR REASONS OF PLOT.) Hamlet does what Hamlet does best and plots an entirely too elaborate scheme to kill Ed in revenge, so the movie ends with Hamlet putting a knife into Ed's stomach, and Hamlet all alone, again, just like at the beginning. Only this time, he has even MORE angst! Not suggested as a date movie.

Stranger 6

All I knew about this fandom was:

Nothing that I could recall, although as I watched the vid my memory snagged onto the style of the production (fashion, sets, staging) to dredge up that it's a Restoration drama?

Here's what this fandom is really about:

It's a Doctor Who AU where the Ninth Doctor is lured into a surreal world by the Master in his supposedly-human form (look, if it's an AU, it doesn't matter that the Time War made everything linear now). This happened before the Doctor met Rose, and he falls in love with a woman with long red hair. At their marriage - nothing of Gallifrey is left, so he has to cling to whatever stability he can find - the Master enacts some terrible violence involving blood and broken glass. The Doctor's love dies, and he vows revenge. He shows this resolve as all heroes do, by shaving his head. The Master sends a gang of street toughs to finish the job of destroying his most hated (loved) enemy as he brings flowers to his almost-wife's grave, but the Doctor fights them off.

Soon after, he catches his first glimpse of the Master, who is affecting a persona inspired by Lucius Malfoy (I suspect the Master was a Death Eater in another regeneration, but that would be an entirely different AU).

The Doctor meets his beloved's estranged brother, a man with red hair and a goatee who decides to try to help him. Together, they navigate an underworld of vice and sin and plot to topple the Master from his perch as a judge. Along the way, there's a stint in prison, narrow escapes, and a slowly-growing chemistry expressed in smoldering glances, lounging against columns, shoulders melting into each other in the back of limos, long drags on cigarettes, dances in rainstorms, and thrusting up against walls.

Eventually, the Doctor isolates the Master next to his almost-wife's grave, and stabs him with a dagger MacBeth would have envied. But can he reclaim the TARDIS and go back to his footloose ways alone, or will he bring his near-brother-in-law with him to roam the universe?

Stranger 7

All I knew about this fandom was:

All I know is that this film looks to be based on a Jacobean Play by the same name. It does star some very recognizable actors doing some very nasty things to each other.

Here's what this fandom is really about:

We open in an dystopian industrial town in (Northern?) England. Our hero Chris Eccleston arrives on a broken down bus. He is shaving his head as he walks down the street, as if he were stripping down for a battle. When a group of ruffians accosts him on the street, he takes them out ninja style. Who is this guy? Why is he here?

He pauses in his one man battle to clean the town of punks to gather a bunch of daisys from a churchyard. Is he going to see a lady friend? His Mom? Oh dear, he IS going to see a woman, a DEAD one. Next thing you know he is cooing to the skull of his dead wife. The flash backs of doom tell us that she, and what looks like the entire guest list, was poisoned at their wedding.

It seems that Chris ran afoul of a VIP (crime lord? politoco?) played by Derek Jacoby. You can tell he is evil and all powerful because his image is plastered all over town. (That and the random killing of innocents.) Could it be that our man Chris coming home to exact Revenge? Yep, I think so.

Later that night Chris comes to the aid of a woman in distress. While displaying his impressive, punk beat down skills, he gains the attention of crime guy Eddie Izzard. Eddie seems to like Chris's looks and steps in between Chris and the authorities. Chris ,in turn, offers his fealty to Eddie with the classic hand kiss. This looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Chris busts his new found bud out of the slammer. They cavort and bond over foosball. In no time at all they are BFFs.

But Chris still has some unfinished business. He finds bad guy Derek at the graveyard without his guards. It's a "I know what you did" kind of moment. Chris takes great pleasure in gutting Derek with a wicked looking knife. Is his revenge complete? Stay tuned.

It seems to Eddie was next in line for chief bad guy. So he rises to power with Chris at his side. But all is not well at the top. It looks like Eddie is not the man Chris thought he was. He is becoming the new evil overlord. So Chris brings out the wicked knife and pins Eddie to a wall like a fish on a cutting board. The moral of this story? Don't fuck with Chris Eccelston he will take you down.

Stranger 8

All I knew about this fandom was:

It may or may not be related to the Jacobean play of that name (which I'm also unfamiliar with--I just know there is one). I don't know whether this is a film or a TV series. I'm guessing it's about revenge. ;) And it's a tragedy. Or has some really false advertising.

Here's what this fandom is really about:

Christopher Ecclestone. Sorry. Er...

This is a film version of the Jacobean play by the same name. It's one of those modern film adaptations which occur in a slightly exaggerated fantasy version of the modern day. The costumes and the posturing are a giveaway. It stars Christopher Ecclestone. He is the Revenger. In particular, he wants revenge for the death of his wife on their wedding day. She and all the wedding guests were poisoned by a gang of thugs with links to politics. They wanted to fuck with Ecclestone but he vows revenge.

He infiltrates the gang and sucks up to the man responsible. He becomes such an indispensible lackey that the evil dude cannot possibly suspect him, even though at first he is wary. Once they've loosened up and played table soccer together, Ecclestone slips the knife in, literally. He also kills the puppet master behind the scenes. But it's the man who actually carried out the killing that he saves his epic scene for--he makes sure to tell him why he's dying.

round 3, the revenger's tragedy

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