Ivanhoe & Shadows and Fog

Watched Ivanhoe:
Wow. In this 6-hour epic (originally a BBC-filmed miniseries, I think), I got caught up in a way I have not in a long, long time. A lot of it had to do with the gloriously long and detailed character and plot development; the sort of thing that would make Hollywood executives cringe. As I think I mentioned to Mixdorf, this film had all the wonderful setting and exposition of the first Lord of the Rings movie, with none of the cheap one-liners and plot conventions of the third. This type of historical fiction I really dig, to begin with; as it is set in the same end-0f-the-3rd crusade world as Robin Hood, with (an admittedly idealized version of) King Richard returning to England to reclaim the throne from his treacherous brother, John. In the midst of all the complex characters & storyline, never fear; there's plenty of villainy for Ivanhoe to overcome, from John to the corrupt Knights Templar, and Norman nobility in general. One thing that was kind of funny - the running time was listed on one of the two discs as 150 minutes, which I was expecting for the length of the entire movie. At the end of two nights of two+ hour viewing, I was like "What the hell is going on here?" Of course, I was enjoying the whole thing, so I was actually joyful when I discovered "Oh.....that's the running time for disc one!" Anyway, 5 Netflix stars.

Also watched Shadows and Fog:
This Woody Allen film was a lot more of a cinematic effort (as opposed to a plot & dialogue exploration) than the majority of his films. The whole thing is set in a very m00d-enducing black and white, often through, yes, a fog and often in a very low contrast. It was actually kind of refreshing that it was difficult to see people even moving around during many of the night scenes (as opposed to in most movies, where it's obvious that the sun is shining during the "night" scenes, and they're just using some crazy filter). Definitely adds all the more to the creepiness of the story, which is bascially the W.A. character being summoned by a vigilante group out into the night to help entrap a serial strangler, but then being left totally on his own to wander the streets. Appearances by a crazy number of name actors and some unexpected plot developments add ineterest to the whole experience, even as things plod along a little, at times. This would be a classic 3 1/2 stars for me, if that option was available on Netflix. It's not, so I'd say it's a little closer to a 4 than a 3.