It's been a long time, hasn't it? I've been busy translating my body from rubber into steel, by way of my new love, Lindy. Miss Hop is a harsh mistress, and more than one sweaty encounter has been had in her arms...

But I digress. Tonight I found myself at home, relaxing, and I decided to fire up one of my Netflix films. The first one, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 2 Disk 3 was bad, and it has been dutifully punished and returned. As I could not jump to Disk 4 without having watched Disk 3 ("If you don't eat your meat, how can you have any pudding?") I instead opted to throw back to an earlier era and watch The Lion in Winter.

As Eleanor of Aquitaine so accurately puts it halfway through the film, "Well, what family doesn't have it's ups and downs?" It seems that for the family of King Henry II, it's mostly downs. In winter court, Henry II lets Eleanor, his wife and queen, out of prison for a little family reunion, and what can only be described as the game of diplomacy, minus the board and pieces. Henry seems to want his son John on the throne; Eleanor seems to want Richard - yet everybody has their own agenda, their own passions, their own lies, and their own limits, limits which will be tested before Christmas is over.

For me it is always interesting to watch older films - the acting feels different in a way that I cannot quite put my finger on, but I am sure one of my more drama-oriented friends will point out. In some cases it comes across as stilted and overdone (*cough*Shatner*cough*) but in some cases, such as this film, it works wonders. Peter O'Toole, playing Henry II, obviously loves the taste of the scenery, as he spends a good portion of chewing on it to marvelous effect, and Katherine Hepburn is alternately shamelessly manipulative and desperately vulnerable as Henry's neglected queen. This is also the debut film for Timothy Dalton as the King of France, and one of Anthony Hopkins's first films. (And is it just me, or did Russel Crowe in Gladiator steal Anthony's look from this film? The beard, the hair, and the broody look had me wondering...)

Having not ever seen the play, I can't compare the two, but I was suitably distracted by this film. I'll give it four stars on Netflix, and would recommend this film to others.