Early in the film, a young actor on his way to rehearse his newly landed, off-off-off-Broadway leading role is abruptly pulled aside by a homeless woman who wants his autograph, only to receive this cautionary advice: "Just remember—if you're ever in a play about Hamlet and vampires, call the number on the side of this pen. You are in great danger."
Later on, he calls the number on the side of the pen.
There are ways in which I find it impossible to tell whether Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead is a good movie, except that I think it was inevitable from the moment the writer-director thought of the title: the plot is a classic secret history/literary conspiracy treated with headbanging absurdity and then played totally slacker-indie straight. The results are very funny, if a little like watching a comedy made out of Verfremdungseffekt; I'm just not sure if the film should have maybe stopped one layer back. (Oddly, I think the same combination would made a brilliant short novel.) My brother and his wife really seemed to enjoy it, though, which was the point of the exercise. And I'd definitely check out whatever the director did next.
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Early in the film, a young actor on his way to rehearse his newly landed, off-off-off-Broadway leading role is abruptly pulled aside by a homeless woman who wants his autograph, only to receive this cautionary advice: "Just remember—if you're ever in a play about Hamlet and vampires, call the number on the side of this pen. You are in great danger."
Later on, he calls the number on the side of the pen.
There are ways in which I find it impossible to tell whether Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead is a good movie, except that I think it was inevitable from the moment the writer-director thought of the title: the plot is a classic secret history/literary conspiracy treated with headbanging absurdity and then played totally slacker-indie straight. The results are very funny, if a little like watching a comedy made out of Verfremdungseffekt; I'm just not sure if the film should have maybe stopped one layer back. (Oddly, I think the same combination would made a brilliant short novel.) My brother and his wife really seemed to enjoy it, though, which was the point of the exercise. And I'd definitely check out whatever the director did next.