Planning to stay home tonight and there is nothing tempting to watch on TV then Queerguru so recommends Criterion Channel’s online fab Pop Shakespeare collection.
After all, every era gets its own Shakespeare, from the genius championed by the Romantics to the Bard who inspired Orson Welles and Laurence Olivier—and the age of MTV is no exception. Beginning in the late 1970s, modern-dress adaptations on both sides of the Atlantic spliced Shakespeare’s plays with the shiny trappings of contemporary pop culture. From indie luminaries (Gus Van Sant, Michael Almereyda) and exploitation artists (Abel Ferrara) to stage-trained specialists (Kenneth Branagh) and superhero showmen (Joss Whedon), everyone wanted a crack at the English language’s greatest poet and dramatist.
With their earworm-packed soundtracks, razzle-dazzle anachronisms, and dreamy casts—Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes as Romeo and Juliet! Ethan Hawke as an NYU-student Hamlet! Keanu Reeves as a hustler Prince Hal!—these ecstatically inspired films are such stuff as dreams are made on.
Labels: 2024, Criterion Collection, Much About Nothing, My Own Private Idaho, Pop Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet
