Shakespeare in Love- A Masterpiece or Crap?

[StickToPriest]

Posted: 8/25/05 at 5:46pm

I love how there are so many vastly different opinions on this one movie.

I, myself, love the movie (so I'd say somewhere in between), but I think it's ridiculous that it beat Saving Private Ryan for the Best Picture Oscar.

Updated On: 8/25/05 at 05:46 PM

[Orpheum]

Posted: 8/25/05 at 5:46pm

I agree.

Great, but maybe a slight case of The Emperor's New Clothes.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 8/25/05 at 5:48pm

Neither. It's just a good, entertaining comedy.

[SorryGrateful]

Posted: 8/25/05 at 5:49pm

I agree with borstal. I think it's a very good movie, but not the greatest movie ever. It's just good, old-fashioned fun with really pretty clothes and one hot dame-- Judi Dench.

[TheHumanTorch]

Posted: 8/25/05 at 6:25pm

bad, bad and bad

[Princeton78]

Posted: 8/25/05 at 6:26pm

Good Good Good..
I adored it.

[EponineThenardier]

Posted: 8/25/05 at 6:29pm

Didn't care to much for it when I first saw it. But I was young enough to not appreciate that sort of thing. I need to see it again. And I have a sneaking suspicion that I will love it this time around.

Adore Judi Dench. Classy lady.

[zepka102]

Posted: 8/25/05 at 7:00pm

loved it... definitely enjoyed it more than saving private ryan... i got bored with that one

[DayDreamer]

Posted: 8/25/05 at 7:01pm

I thought it was excellent... not a masterpiece, but excellent nevertheless. Very entertaining.

Saving Private Ryan was excellent as well... who knows what goes on in the minds of the Academy voters.

[Pinguin]

Posted: 8/25/05 at 7:03pm

I've always loved this movie...I definitely think it deserved Best Screenplay if not Best Picture.

[robbiej]

Posted: 8/25/05 at 7:04pm

I thought it was a lovely film.

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN had a great opening 30 minutes. Didn't care much for the movie after that. Especially that manipulative Matt Damon morphs old ending.

Posted: 8/25/05 at 7:39pm

One of my all-time favorite screenplays.

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 8/25/05 at 7:41pm

It's incredibly entertaining, delightful and touching. But, despite the subject matter (Shakespeare, with tongue-in-cheek references to his contemporary dramatists), it's also fluff.

Although I adore Judi Dench, I was shocked that the dame won the Oscar that year for what amounted to nothing more than a 10-minute cameo. Her fellow nominees delivered much more memorable (and substantial) performances.

But the biggest shocker that year was Ian McKellen getting robbed of his Best Actor Oscar by some Italian clown with ADD.

[smartpenguin78]

Posted: 8/25/05 at 8:37pm

I also love Shakespeare in Love and have always been solidly in the camp (however small) that believes it is a better movie than Saving Private Ryan.

Ryan was a bold take on the war genre but it has flaws in its narrative and characters that will never be able to be overcome, for me. It is shocking and bloody and I think that those choices lead to the film creating a false emotion in the viewer. Shakespeare, on the other hand is a simple story and a comedy but a masterful example of storytelling form. The comedey is well paced and the drama as intense as you would expect.

I do not think either is amoung the best movies ever, but Shakespeare is the more meaningful picture, for me.


I agree that Sir Ian was robbed.

Updated On: 8/25/05 at 08:37 PM

[Kringas]

Posted: 8/25/05 at 8:41pm

I also love Shakespeare in Love and have always been solidly in the camp (however small) that believes it is a better movie than Saving Private Ryan.

I'm in that camp, too.

[Millie42]

Posted: 8/25/05 at 9:01pm

I wouldnt call it a masterpiece, but I still really like to watch it. I think it's clever and entertaining.

[NYadgal]

Posted: 8/25/05 at 9:09pm

Agree, Millie!

Great topic, Priest!

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 8/25/05 at 10:22pm

The great enjoyment for me comes in all the hidden nods to other early-modern figures of theatre, like John Webster and Thomas Kyd.

[ashley0139]

Posted: 8/25/05 at 10:24pm

I actually really did not like the movie. Hey, that's what makes the world go 'round, right?

[Jon]

Posted: 8/25/05 at 10:33pm

Not a masterpiece, but not crap either. A very good, but not great film.

Here's why it beat Private Ryan:

When I went to see Saving Private Ryan, I had to leave the theatre after ten minutes. I had the choice of either passing out, throwing up, or leaving. And I was not the only one who left.

It's now become part of popular culture - a joke: "Man, this place looks like the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan!"

Somehow, I htink the story could have been told without shots of quivering intestines hanging out of men's abdomens.

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 8/25/05 at 10:38pm

As much as I appreciated SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, I thought GODS AND MONSTERS was the more haunting articulation of what war can do to a person.

[Rose_MacShane]

Posted: 8/25/05 at 10:41pm

I love "Gods and Monsters."
Anyway, SIL is a decent bit of escapist costume-drama fluff. Not brilliant, but I've seen far worse movies.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't it win the Oscar for Best Costumes? Because it definitely deserved that.

[jeremykushnier1fan]

Posted: 8/25/05 at 11:24pm

What the hell was Ben doing in Shakespeare in Love...
only part i didn't like about the movie.

[broadway86]

Posted: 8/25/05 at 11:34pm

I, for one, disliked Saving Private Ryan. I would have given this film the Oscar in a heartbeat.

In any case, I think that Shakespeare in Love is underrated by a lot of people nowadays. It is extremely clever, charming, well-written, well-acted, and well-designed.

It is not, as another user pointed out, "the great movie ever". But, then again, was it trying to be?

PS - I also thought that Paltrow deserved the Oscar over Cate Blanchett *ducks*. Don't shoot! Don't get me wrong, I am a HUGE Blanchett fan.

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 8/26/05 at 12:18am

Woah, if you weren't pleading "don't shoot!," I might have had to smack your silly ass.