Watch Scotland, PA For Free

The Worst Film Ever

Just what I expected

Excellent adaptation.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Scotland, PA (2001)What a terrific farce. And homage to the Shake. And campy fun movie.Advice? Read a synopsis of MacBeth first—the play, the original Shakespeare drama that this movie is based on. There is no Elizabethan language in this thorough update of Lady MacBeth and crew, but the plot is kind of sort of the same. Only different in all the right ways.And the acting is great. Playing Lady MacBeth (one of Shakespeare's greatest characters) as Pat McBeth, is Maura Tierney, and she's terrific—the disdain, sass, savvy, and brooding are all perfect pitch. And matching her as the detective now called Lieutenant McDuff is Christopher Walken in his usual dry, subtle mode. The rest of the cast is nearly as good (the one sorry exception is the James Le Gros as Mr. McBeth), and the compact scenes click along with peculiar twists and little odd background pranks all through. You have to watch closely.The setting—the kingdom—is a drive-up restaurant, a burger joint, called Duncan's. Duncan (Tome Guiry) is the "king" and if you know MacBeth you know he is doomed. The fight for relevance in this little place is comic in itself, even if you don't know Shakespeare. In fact, you need to feel comfortable diving into this funny gem of a movie even if you don't know a thing about the original story. It stands on its own.A terrific surprise.

The cast played Shakespeare.Shakespeare lost.I appreciate that this is trying to bring Shakespeare to the masses, but why ruin something so good.Is it because 'The Scottish Play' is my favorite Shakespeare? I do not know. What I do know is that a certain Rev Bowdler (hence bowdlerization) tried to do something similar in the Victorian era.In other words, you cannot improve perfection.I have no more to write but as I have to write at least ten lines of text (and English composition was never my forte I will just have to keep going and say that this movie, as the saying goes, just does not cut it.

Spoilers herein.Projects like this do not derive from their source as much as reference them. Therefore, you really have to know the source in order to appreciate what has been done. A fast food idea (one which actually spawned a trillion dollar industry) instead of a monarchy? A grease burn for a bloody hand? An accidental death (after ineptly planning murder) in place of a careful plot? It all depends on what you see in the source.I don't consider `MacBeth' one of Shakespeare's better tragedies. The man had a particular ax to grind: a rude Scot had just become king, one with an unnatural fear of the supernatural and a non-northern Catholic notion of fate. The play works at several simultaneous levels, most barely subliminal.Yes, the trailer trash thing works. And the fast food thing works, at least for me. And they can have their tone which mocks the original; this _is_ the age of irony after all and it makes sense to side with the trash.But the dissonance is in the handling of the witches. MacBeth's witches were real, deeply sexual, penetrating the blood of all the characters. They cause, not just see. The witches in `Scotland' are something the credits call `hippies,' which I suppose is the gen-X writer‘s term for stoners. These guys are comic, possessed, ordinary people. That takes all the gas out of this for me.Want to see cool adaptations of Shakespeare? See the Ethan Hawke `Hamlet.' Absolutely right on translation: Hammy and his buddies as film students. Or Godard's `King Lear' with Woody Allen as the Fool.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

For hundreds of years, Shakespeare has inspired playwrights and others, and he himself based many of his plays on past works and stories. "Scotland, PA" is another, one of many in recent years, often done as teen flicks these days. This is totally logical given the power of the stories, the universality of the themes. Now, you might not have immediately thought the take over of a burger joint in the 1970s would be the most logical parallel to the regicide of Macbeth, but it's handled pretty well here.The movie is largely loyal to the original, so the co-story credit with William Shakespeare is quite appropriate. The main characters have names patterned after the originals, and the storyline goes basically the same. Maura Tierney (wife of the director) as Pat McBeth is great and seems to have a lot of fun cursing (she is usually in good girl roles). Christopher Walken (Lieutenant McDuff) has another self-parodying role that is a lot of fun. A couple other interesting tidbits ... "I'm not Lisa" is a song in the film (Maura Tierney played Lisa in "NewsRadio") and the streaker at the end of the film is no bit player ... he is a producer of this film and directed various movies and tv, including a movie Maura Tierney was in, and the homage to old time radio, "Remember WENN."Once the murders begin, the movie (as the director himself notes on the DVD commentary track) gets a bit more serious. It also somewhat loses its way... now, it still is enjoyable, and parts of it are quite imaginative and good on some level, but something is missing. It seems like the movie is just playing out the plot instead of it being fun on its own. Nonetheless, on the whole, it's an enjoyable movie. The DVD commentary is decent too, so check out the DVD.