Shakespeare rolls over in his grave: She's The Man

Cafe Society
1

I saw a trailer for She’s the Man this weekend. As I’m watching the trailer, though, the names start to sound very, very familiar. The main characters, twins Viola and Sebastian, are in love with people named Duke and Olivia. And then Sebastian goes missing, so Viola has to dress up as him and pretend to be him. And Viola likes Duke, who likes Olivia, who likes Sebastian, but the Sebastian Olivia likes is actually Viola dressed up as Sebastian.

That’s right, folks. Twelfth Night is now a teen comedy set in a posh private school. And, yes, I’m going to go see it. :wink:

2

The only way I would watch this is if it had rampant nudity (which is doesn’t) and with the sound off.

I’m waiting for the “teen comedy” version of Hamlet.

3

I would pay to see the teen version of Titus Andronicus.

4

Well, we’ve already had the teen comedy version of The Taming of the Shrew. And Othello.

5

Why is this any different from any adaptation of Shakespeare? We’ve had Much Ado about Nothing set in both Tuscany and 1898 America, the “slacker” Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet set in southern California, Richard III set in 30s Britain, A Midsummer Night’s Dream with bicycles, etc. Some were good, some were bad, but nothing about this is particularly shocking.

6

Lets not forget multiple updated versions of Romeo and Juliet.
The Classic West Side Story and the Leonardo DeCaprio one in the last decade.
Romeo + Juliet (1996)

Jim

7

And as much as I ragged on it when I heard about it, it was a good movie.

8

Don’t forget Tromeo and Juliet.

9

There’s also the 1991 film “Men of Respect”

based on Macbeth. (kind of, sort of)

10

That Romeo & Juliet only used the original for its script, so (aside from the editing & soundtrack) it’s little different from a many stage productions.

And I don’t know what you’re talking about. West Side Story is a zombie movie.

11

If you can set *Hamlet *in a pride of cartoon lions, you can set *Twelfth Night *in a modern highschool.

12

Wasn’t there a movie from the 80’s with that same premise? I believe it was called Just One of the Guys.

13

By no means was “O” a comedy. I actually rather enjoyed it, though it could have used signficantly more Julia Stiles.

14

That could be cool. I’d call it “Summer Vacation”. A hot teen, Dane (Ryan Reynolds), comes home from studying abroad and finds that his dad (John Lithgow) has died and his mom (Jennifer Coolidge) has married his dad’s brother (John Lithgow- this time with a moustache). Only Dane can see his dad’s ghost hanging around the house, and his dad’s guardian angel (Morgan Freeman) tells him he can’t get into heaven unless Dane makes his lookalike brother admit to murdering him, so Dane makes his mom and stepdad/uncle watch a DVD of Mel Gibson’s Hamlet, but it doesn’t work because the Blockbuster made a mistake and gave him Madagascar. Dane pretends to have severe adult ADD and OCD which causes hijinks when his psychology major girlfriend Ophelia (Alicia Silverstone) tries to diagnose him, and Dane’s friends Rosenberg (Adam Goldberg) and Stern (Jason Ritter) are secretly working for the evil uncle because he’s agreed to finance their porn film if they get Dane medicated and put away. Throw in Joe Pesci’s dad as mob boss family friend Jimmy “Polo Pony” Pollonari and a wacky gay houseboy (Jai Rodriguez) and, of course, a happy ending, and I think you’ve got a hit.

15

Awesome, I had seen the **Shining ** remix not too long ago. This was even
better.

Jim

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That is, Julia Stiles NUDITY. :smack:

17

Based rather more closely, IMO, than My Own Private Idaho was based on Henry IV.

18

And Gnomeo and Juliet.

19

Meh. We’ve had Shakespeare with samurai swords in Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood (Macbeth) and Ran (Lear).

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Don’t forget the slightly muddled retelling of Hamlet in Strange Brew