How is it that JZ always manages to sum things up beautifully and eloquently and leave me with the beginning of tears in my eyes?

I have to be all contrarian and say that I've seen Branagh's Hamlet three times through and my admiration for it is nearly boundless (the final inexorable bound: I may possibly hate Robin Williams as Osric even more than Robin Williams in Patch Adams and Bicentennial Man combined). I don't care if it's longer than fuck; I love the language, every word of it, and whatever faults Branagh's performance and direction may have, they (to me, anyway) so vividly convey his love of that language and convey just how alive, how present that language is to him.

And, really, I can't let myself think about Kate Winslet's performance for too long or I will start to tear up right here at my desk. The only Ophelia I've ever seen who's even come close to her is Paul Gross (no, seriously--watch S1 of Slings & Arrows; you'll see).

JZ, I'm right there with you. I love it.

And now I'm thinking about Mark Knopfler's "Romeo and Juliet," its weariness and yearning and nostalgia for that electric too-stupid-to-live time. I can't root for their doom; fuck, I was them. I never even had a boyfriend until I was 19, but I was them anyway. And I hope to God Matilda lives to be them, and lives beyond it, and lives to look back and say, "When we made love, you used to cry. You said I love you like the stars above, love you till I die" and know that it's gone, but remember exactly what it felt like, what it was to live in the eye of that storm. And R&J never get to outgrow it, smarten up, look back and regret and yearn.

This is lovely. And makes me think of My So-Called Life, which I know you also love so much.

I like it, although Claire Danes was a little too old for Juliet

I haven't seen that version. But once you've seen the Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer version of R&J, nobody else will seem too old, ever again.

We watched the Zeffirelli version in junior high. All I remember is Olivia Hussey's cleavage.

We watched the Zeffirelli version in junior high. All I remember is Olivia Hussey's cleavage.

I showed this to my classes, and every showing, right on time, my neighboring teacher would appear as if by magic to watch that scene.

When the Zeffirelli version came out I was in my teens ... and I wasn't allowed to go see it because of whatshisname's bare backside.

I'm trying to remember if they fast forwarded or if the teacher put her hand over the screen in the (in)appropriate place.

I do remember the song, too, though (so damn earnest), but, then, I was not an adolescent boy.

I still like A Midsummer Night's Dream and I've seen it staged many times by vast ranges of talent. I only loathed one version. I'm usually fine with the Atlanta Shakespeare Company's resetting of Shakespeare into mobsters, flappers, flower children and the like, but the one in which they made Puck into Oberon's executive assistant, glued to a phone and blackberry, was truly annoying.

you teach my kids the victorians and I'll teach yours Morrison. No?

Hmmm..... well, given that my Victorians would be heavy on Carlyle and Darwin and light on Dickens...perhaps.

There should be a unit by unit teacher swap program.

In contemporary lit news, I'm reading the newest Junot Diaz books, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and I have to say I'm not loving it. Anyone else read it?