112 – Love’s Labour’s Lost

Why Did We Watch This

Rita Mae Brown’s definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. On an unrelated note, in this episode Leigh, Brendan, and Chris return to the filmography of Kenneth Branagh just to see how we feel about perhaps his most unusual and unique movie, his 2000 Shakespeare adaptation Love’s Labour’s Lost. Yes, that’s right, that little-performed play that Branagh chopped down to about 80 minutes, reset in pre-World War II Europe, and then added musical numbers from the Great American Songbook. Can such a weirdly specific take work? Is this even a play that can justify having this much done to it in the first place? Does it matter if Kenneth Branagh doesn’t really get how to make a 1930s movie musical or indeed how to make song and dance look interesting? Listen in, won’t you, as we spend a lot of time trying to make sense of all this while enjoying a sparkling cocktail (but sadly no cocaine).