Archive for the 'Shakespeare in the Movies' Category

Playing Othello

Sunday, October 5th, 2008

If you didn’t know this about me already, I happen to be a white girl. But the year that Ella Fitzgerald died, I wanted to be her for Halloween, so I went out and got some dark brown theatrical make-up and slapped it on. I made a few mistakes that year:

I wore a sleeveless, backless […]

MacBeth Meets McDonald’s

Sunday, September 14th, 2008

I gave Scotland, PA three stars on Netflix, but I gave it three-and-a-half on Flixster. The trouble with the Netflix rating system is that you can’t give a movie half a star. Like many, this film for me was more than “Liked It” but less than “Really Liked It.” What I hate is when they […]

Who Needs Hell?

Sunday, September 7th, 2008

So, despite my dresser, I’m more inclined to believe in karma than an after life Hell.  I’m all about the golden rule. I believe that what goes around comes around. I believe that to live by the sword is to die by the sword and that fighting monsters can turn you into a monster. But I […]

Time tripping again

Saturday, August 23rd, 2008

I’m only one season behind on Lost now.  When I started watching, I was three years behind, watching scenes that happened before, feeling as if I had slipped back in time to the year 2004, watching time progress again to 2005 and 2006.  So, I’m a little slow in jumping on a bandwagon, and I’d […]

Some of us need a bad influence

Monday, August 18th, 2008

I had a thing for bad boys ever since kindergarten.  I think they represented a kind of freedom I longed for in my hyper-controlled, good-girl world. My name was Sparkman, so the bad boy in my class called me, “Sparkplug.” I didn’t know what a sparkplug was, but I knew I wanted him. There was […]

Hamlet for Hosers

Sunday, July 6th, 2008

I’ll admit it. Strange Brew is my favorite Hamlet tribute film of all time. It’s got a heroine (Pamela) instead of a hero, and instead of a prince, she’s an heiress to her father’s corporate empire. It has the ghost of her father communicating from the dead through an 80s video game machine, and a duplicitous […]

Rosencat and Guildenboar

Sunday, June 22nd, 2008

You know, when Disney does Shakespeare (or anything, for that matter), there’s always a happy ending, regardless of whether it’s based on a comedy or a tragedy.  Hamlet is no exception.  I watched Be Kind Rewind this week, and they made subtle reference to The Lion King’s roots, calling it, “Shakespearean.” I just smiled because […]

The Wicked Step-Father

Sunday, June 15th, 2008

It’s Father’s Day, and we could talk about Katherina’s good father Baptista in The Taming of the Shrew, but we won’t.   Instead, we’ll talk about the evil step-father who kills his own brother to attain the throne - Hamlet’s uncle/father Claudius. It’s not that I don’t love my father, because I do. It’s just that […]

Looking for Richard

Sunday, June 1st, 2008

My earliest knowledge of Richard III was watching Richard Dreyfus play a flamboyantly gay hunchback in The Goodbye Girl. I didn’t know the story, I just knew Richard was a serious dude with a bad back, and he wasn’t meant to be a joke.
When we visited the Tower of London, we walked through the Bloody Tower […]

Shakespeare in the Movies

Monday, May 26th, 2008

I’ve been plottng this tour of Shakespeare in the Movies for over a year now, and what better time than following a trip to England?   Our literary tour of England started in October of last year with Nick Hornby’s A Long Way Down. It took us through a journey into alternate reality London, and actual real-life […]