How's the Ethan Hawke Hamlet in comparison?

Bad. Bad. Very, very bad. Lord, it wasn't good. Especially noteworthily bad are Hawke as Hamlet, Julia Stiles as Ophelia, and Bill Murray as Polonius.

Julia Stiles especially stank up the joint; after 10 Things I Hate About You I was totally ready to love her forever, but it took until the Bourne movies for me to forgive her for this (it made it all much worse that her Ophelia hit movie theatres right after Kate Winslet's, but she still would've been glaringly bad even without that comparison).

But, honestly, I feel slightly guilty for singling her out, because the whole thing was one long tedious ooze of unrelenting suck. Kyle MacLachlan as Claudius may possibly have sucked marginally less than the rest of the cast, but that's about as much enthusiasm as I can muster for any of the actual humans involved.

The sets were kind of coldly, glossily pretty, I guess. But that's about it.

Yikes. I will...not add it to my Netflix queueueueue, then.

Oh, and the movie that inspired me to walk across America...and become a professional peace activist...The Day After. Yeah, I guess that qualifies as influence.

Loved Brian's Song so very much.

I was totally in love with James Caan after that.

You people that don't hate Julia Stiles are weird. She can't out act a potato.

I'm with ita. I like 10 Things a lot...even own it...but more for what goes on around her than for Stiles' acting. I thought she was terrible in the Bourne flicks and not even because of how poorly her character was written.

She had me with Save the Last Dance.

But I have an unholy love for anyone in a dance movie.

You people that don't hate Julia Stiles are weird. She can't out act a potato.

To be fair, she wasn't bad in 10 Things. And she totally out-acts a potato when Matt Damon is getting all up in her face in extremely scary Jason Bourne mode. I think she just needs to take Matt Damon with her on every single gig she ever gets. She still may not be able to manage much beyond "scared shitless and trying not to cry," but that's still one more emotion than she could plausibly play before she started working with Matt Damon.

eta:

She had me with Save the Last Dance.

She was awesome at saying "I would never pop a cap in your ass!" in the most wholesomely, earnestly white suburban manner possible. Though I don't know that that, coupled with "Watch me not altogether suck in my scenes with Heath!" and "Oh shit, Matt Damon is going to actually snap my actual neck!" will be enough to win her a lifetime achievement Oscar decades from now when someone notices that she's been in eleven jillion movies and never been nominated.

Oh, and the movie that inspired me to walk across America...and become a professional peace activist...The Day After. Yeah, I guess that qualifies as influence.

Threads freaked me out more. I still have nightmares from that film, 25 years later.

ETA: Not that The Day After wasn't scary! I think I just had too much of the HITG response to the film, and couldn't move past the recognizable actors to the guts of the movie.

But I have an unholy love for anyone in a dance movie.

You're just hot air until you come back with your review of Step Up 3D.

Julia Stiles is why I'm not one of the cool kids who loves 10 Things. I can't work around her. The stuff around her is GREAT. I just don't forgive the movie for including her.

I don't think any TV movies have influenced me ever, except for sheer horror of ones Colin was in. But they weren't a part of my formative years. We did get some mini-series, though. Roots, naturally. First time I cried watching anything--last time I cried for a long time.