Song: Rose Rouge
Artist: St Germain
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While J.J. Abrams is taking on Star Trek and Star Wars, everyone’s other favorite nerdy director, Joss Whedon, is taking things in a completely different direction. Whedon is following up his clever horror movie, The Cabin In The Woods, and the enormously popular Avengers, with a Shakespeare adaptation. Maybe a risky move, but one that could really pay off.
The film keeps Shakespeare’s original dialogue but sets the film in modern times. This has been done a couple of times before (see: ’90s Romeo + Juliet or more recently Ralph Fiennes’ Coriolanus), but who cares, really? It’s still fun to appreciate Shakespeare in a different kind of setting.
The cast reads like a Whedon dream team. Depending on how long you’ve been following Whedon’s career, you’ll spot actors from all of his different projects. Amy Acker (Angel), Nathan Fillion (Firefly), Reed Diamond (Dollhouse), and Alexis Denisof (Buffy, Angel, Dollhouse, The Avengers, godfather to Whedon’s son) all make appearances. The film is shot in black and white and the trailer features splashes of color. I’m not sure if this is just to make the trailer more visually interesting (like that Red Widow promo), or if the movie will also feature this device. In the trailer it’s cool, but I think in the movie it might get a little distracting.
Shakespearean dialogue and color splashes are nice, but what really grabbed my attention was the song. “Rose Rogue” by French electronic/jazz (nu jazz?) musician St. Germain mixes classic and contemporary in a really clever way, and considering that’s exactly what the film is trying to do, the song choice couldn’t be more perfect.
I was surprised to learn that “Rose Rogue” is off of St. Germain’s U.S. debut album Tourist, released all the way back in 2000, and that he hasn’t released an album since then. What happened St. Germain? You make such hip music, you should put more of it out.
There’s a lot of buzz surrounding this trailer on the web lately, so what do you think? Will you see it or are you just waiting for Whedon’s Avengers follow-up? Are modern Shakespeare adaptations played out? Check out the trailer below and let us know what you think in the comments.
