Shakespeare in Love

You know the Fiennes family is proving to be quite a little clan—move over Baldwins! Joseph "Joey" Fiennes, the baby brother of (sigh) Ralph (pronounced "Ray-ff") Fiennes has truly mesmerized me with his brilliant performance of William "Willy" Shakespeare. I have to say I was taken aback by the odd sex appeal he had, even though Joey looked like he didn’t know the definition of the word "bathtub"—grub-o-rama! But that’s how it was in those days I guess—the stinkier, the sexier.

Admittedly, "Shakes" has a bad rap as a dull playwright who tortured us throughout our high school years. We more sophisticated folk of the 20th century find Willy’s World hard to comprehend—with all those "thous" and "thees" sometimes you don’t know what the h-e-double hockey sticks they’re talkin’ about! And no women in theater? No running water with whicheth to washeth thine filth offeth? Can you imagine-eth? No Cineplex? No DVDs? No BVDs?

And yet, Shakespeare actually was a hellion of his time—and not the Polly Pure Bread our 11th grade English teacher would have you think. He was the quintessential starving actor of his day in 1593—he sounds pretty cool now, huh? hey if he really looked like Fiennes I'd have oinned man and quill to the Blarney Stone for a lick.

In this flicketh, Shakespeare is hard at work on his new play "Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate’s Daughter." Dear readers, do you now see how a title is everything? As the story goes, Philip Henslowe (ever brilliant Geoffrey Rush), the owner of the Rose Theatre is depending on Sheakspeare to produce him a hit to save the theater from the creditors. Only snafu—William has writer's block. Voila! Enter Viola De Lesseps (Gwyneth Paltrow), his libidic inspriration.

While Shakespeare in Love  is not a completely accurate story -Duh. It takes Hollywood liberties.For one, he didn’t look like Joseph Fiennes, so scoring with a rich talented chick-babe like Viola was not quite so likely- groupies or not his women (and there evidently were many--thee rascal!) were more like Ms. Kathy Bates (hey-I'm not bein’ cruel that’s what 99.9% of the babes looked like in the 1500’s).

SIL is a film as opposed to a modern movie. And a period piece film at that. In this case, meaning you have to sit there and enjoy a story that happened long ago—sans big special effects with stuff getting blown up or people morphing. The computer after all, was not a part of the scene back then. No reading about stuff on the internet like you are now. Hence, the movie is slow moving but enjoyable nonetheless. The settings, supporting cast and the plot are all wonderful. I snored a couple of times, but woke right up during the scenes of the declothed Mr. Fiennes heaving to and fro on top of Ms. Paltrow.

Judi Dench as Queen Elizabeth gave a brilliant performance as the sarcastic monarch. Oddly, she's visually reminiscent of Gary Oldman in Dracula.

Ben Affleck, I think, is in this just because he’s dating Gwenyth- they totally wasted him and gave him "boyfriend of the star" lines.

Get out and see this. Remember relax and enjoy, where are you rushing off to anyway? Not a true story mind you...

Snack recommendation: Ale and a bag-o-fish and chips (sneak em in-they'll never know). Finish off with a cherry tart.

Screenplay by: Marc Norman and playwright Tom Stoppard

Directed by: John Madden

Starring: Gwyneth Paltrow, Joseph Fiennes,Judi Dench,Rupert Everett, Geoffrey Rush, Ben Affleck

"When do I get a date? When does cupid get lucky--huh???"