Also, I really truly dislike modernising the Elizabethan dramas.

Bzzzt! I love that shit.

Oh, you know another cool Shakespeare movie? Titus. A little overstylized in parts, but awesome nonetheless.

And we mustn't forget Ten Things I Hate About You.

Bzzzt! I love that shit.

And I will stand at your back with my crossbow and defend your right to watch it. The minute you tell me I have to love it because it's all modern and metaphorical and stuff, though? Bad Things. (edit: bearing in mind that my level of weirdassery extends to not being able to stomach West Side Story. I probably should have been struck by lightning long ago for that one.)

Making a version of the film that takes from the play - Ran is another movie that never leaves my top ten list - works fine for me.

Deciding that all that boring old history looks better dressed in a modern metaphor? No thanks. Not usually. I haven't seen any updated versions using the original language that brought anything new to any of the plays.

I keep meaning to watch Looking for Richard, because, well, I'm a Sir Ian fangirl.

Er, Ian McKellen isn't in that. He's in a straight filming of the play, just called Richard III, but the Richard in Looking for Richard is Al Pacino.

Oops--you're right. So I'll watch Sir Ian's Richard first, and then Looking for Richard.

My favourite Lear was the one Olivier filmed for the BBC in the seventies. It's completely heartbreaking, full of grief and disillusionment and basically? About an old man's dreams being shattered, by his own silliness. Which, of course, makes me happy as hell: streamline the themes.

IIRC, the confrontation between Goneril and Lear in that one had to be shot multiple times, because Dorothy Tutin kept breaking down in tears in the face of Olivier's Lear.

Oh, let's not forget the worst Hamlet ever, where Mel Gibson is AT THE FUCKING FUNERAL. Umm, hello, miss the point much? Yes, I know that the teenyboppers wanted to see you staring moodily at Daddy's grave, but it kind of screws up the whole story if Hamlet is there to take the freaking throne.

IIRC, the confrontation between Goneril and Lear in that one had to be shot multiple times, because Dorothy Tutin kept breaking down in tears in the face of Olivier's Lear.

Yep. It's completely devastating, that version. I have it on tape, and I can watch it maybe once every five years - too powerful to digest easily. And - another reason I loved it - unlike Olivier's Hamlet and Henry? I forgot I was looking at World's Greatest Actor Ever. All I saw was Lear.

Heh. Vortex, yep - but that version did have two things going for it: a superb soundtrack and (I know, I know) one of my favourite renditions of Ophelia ever.

I wish the main characters in that damned play weren't so confused. It makes it hard to get a read on them.

The Gibson Hamlet had some interesting points. It was actually done in what I think is closer to the historical time of the story, and the "To be or not to be" in the crypt was well done.

Should I even bring up "Shakespeare in Love"? Oodles of fun, but I didn't get the ending, unless they were going in an odd "Tempest" direction.

The director, accepting his Oscar for "Shakespear in Love" thanked Paltrow, whom he said "glowed like uranium" whenever she was onscreen. I have to agree with that assessment. Has she ever done it again onscreen? The glowing thing, I mean?

Oh, there was another thing I liked in the Gibson Hamlet: Glenn Close went to her very famous doctor father - the man in charge in Zaire when Ebola first broke out - to ask how to play Gertrude's death by poison scene. I think he gave her some very good advice; her blue-lipped, terrified "SHIT! I've beenh POISONED!" realisation was very convincing.

Oodles of fun, but I didn't get the ending, unless they were going in an odd "Tempest" direction.

It's the beginning of Twelfth Night, without the captain, right?

a superb soundtrack and (I know, I know) one of my favourite renditions of Ophelia ever.

I couldn't concentrate on that, I was too busy being confused when they moved scenes around. I was furious when I left the movie.