[RainbowRachi]

Today in English, we watched a 1996 film called Romeo+Juliet. It was THE WORST movie I have ever seen in my entire life.

Wikipedia said:

Much of the film's story takes place in the fictional Los Angeles area town or suburb called "Verona Beach", which is based on the real life Venice Beach (a play on the fact that both are cities in Italy). As with the play, a brief part of the film takes place in a location known as Mantua, which is depicted as a desert-like hinterland.

Verona Beach is the center of a corporate war between two leaders of industry, "Montague" and "Capulet". Prince Escalus is renamed "Captain Prince", and instead of being Prince of Verona, he is the Chief of the Verona Beach Police Department. His relationship to Paris (called "Dave Paris" in the movie) is removed from the film. Romeo and Juliet's parents are given names here too, the names in this case being Ted and Caroline Montague for Romeo's mother and father, and Fulgencio and Gloria Capulet for Juliet's mother and father.

In addition to the characters being updated, many of the props were replaced with analogous contemporary props. In place of swords, the characters wield guns with fictional brand names like "Sword 9mm" or "Dagger"; Lord Montague's "Longsword" is a South African MAG-7 shotgun. Instead of chasing Tybalt on foot, Romeo and Tybalt engage in a car chase. Romeo crashes out Tybalt's car by the central fountain of the city, during which Romeo presses the barrel of Tybalt's pistol to his head and asks him to end his life. Tybalt refuses and in a resurgence of anger Romeo kills Tybalt with his own custom handgun. Although most of the fights are done with guns instead of swords, Mercutio's death comes at the hands of Tybalt wielding a large shard of glass found on the beach. Mercutio's "Queen Mab" is an ecstasy-like drug in the form of a pill that Romeo takes before attending the Capulet party. Friar Lawrence gives the letter for Romeo in Mantua to a postal service called "Post Haste".

Some more information from the movie:

All of the characters' dialogue is directly from the Elizabethan play, only trasnferred from Verona in the 1600's to Modern Day L.A. They tried to make the plot more relevant by replacing the Capulets and Montagues with the "Montague Boyz" and the "Capulet Boyz", and changed it into a gang/business war. Among many things they added are: exploding gas stations and hairy old men in saunas. Did I mention Mercutio is a trannie?





I don't know what kind of soulless butcher would turn such a good play into a P.O.S MTV-esque show.

You know what sickens me the most?

Quote

Financially, the film was very successful, grossing USD$147 million worldwide at the box office[2] on a USD$14.5 million budget. The film premiered November 1, 1996 in the United States and Canada in 1,276 theaters and grossed $11.1 million its opening weekend, ranking #1 at the box office. It went on to gross $46.3 million in the United States and Canada.[3]

Critics gave the film generally positive reviews. On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 74% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 38 reviews.

I honestly tried to have some hope for humanity, but this...It's....Ugh.

I nearly vomited when DiCrap-o starting in on Act II: Scene 2...

I would give the movie a waste of neurons and optical cones/10.

May the directors and actors of this play be cursed with the runs for the rest of their days.*


*Except for Claire Danes: she was decent I guess...

This post has been edited by Sirus Griffon II: 30 April 2008 - 04:25 PM

[Scott Robb]

Yeh we watched that and the old one in english aswell. It's awful, but we had a nice laugh about it. Baz Luhrmann

Mercutio's death was just awful. I mean really awful.

This post has been edited by Scott Robb: 30 April 2008 - 04:27 PM

[Jacob the Malignant]

I watched part of it in English class last year. Was indifferent. Didn't really pay attention to it, but fro what I did see it was horrible

[LJ Scott]

Sadly I watched that at home with a girlfriend. She loved it. I pretty much died on the inside (

[HordeOfDoom]

I actually had a decent English teacher who didn't show us crappy movie interpretations. I personally like the 1968 version.

[Dennis Von Bremen]

Kaiser Jacob II, on Apr 30 2008, 05:44 PM, said:

I watched part of it in English class last year. Was indifferent. Didn't really pay attention to it, but fro what I did see it was horrible

I just thought it looked hilarious (saw some small clips of it, like 2 minutes of random scenes).

Of course I could care less about Shakespeare to be honest, I am not against him but I really don't care grandly about Shakespeare, he was a genius, but I just am not that much into his work... maybe if I lived 300 years ago I would like it a bit more...

[Mirreille]

HordeOfDoom, on Apr 30 2008, 07:42 PM, said:

I actually had a decent English teacher who didn't show us crappy movie interpretations. I personally like the 1968 version.

I concur. They absolutely butchered Mercutio in this film, it made me cry, but not in a good way.

[Kazuki Mutou]

I am suddenly very happy to be watching the original movie version of Frankenstein.

[Arcturus Jefferson]

I thought it was alright. Boring parts were compensated for by awesome (if corny) things like the guns being labeled "broadsword."

[BaronUberstein]

Hated the movie more than I naturally dislike Shakespeare. Frankly, it was the 2nd worst movie i've seen.

[o ya baby]

This movie is not nearly as bad as Open Water or Pink Flamingos.

[thedestro]

At least you saw a more recent version, I saw the 1968 version >_<

[mythicknight]

HordeOfDoom, on Apr 30 2008, 07:42 PM, said:

I actually had a decent English teacher who didn't show us crappy movie interpretations. I personally like the 1968 version.

Same. My 9th grade teacher showed that version in class

[Gebiv]

Feel bad for the guy, or whoever wrote his plays.

[Psyonif]

We watched the '96 version in English class too. Mr. Luhrmann obviously has some sort of shady deal going on with the Ministry of Education to get his movie bought and shown to bored children.

Though I thought it was a considerable improvement. Shakespeare is grotesquely overrated and deserves to have his work mangled just for forcing me to find all the symbolism in Macbeth's 'Dagger' soliloquy. Not that this was a mangling. As I said: improvement.

Adding explosions is never a bad thing.

[Gran the Adequate]

HordeOfDoom, on Apr 30 2008, 11:42 PM, said:

I actually had a decent English teacher who didn't show us crappy movie interpretations. I personally like the 1968 version.

That's the one where you get to see Juliet's bewbs, right?

[Esau of Isaac]

Ah, I recall that movie. I never did enjoy Shakespeare's plays, the dialogue wasn't interesting at all because I'm not four hundred years old, and the situations were not very fun to read about at all. Meh, to put it simply.

Gran the Terrible, on Apr 30 2008, 06:58 PM, said:

That's the one where you get to see Juliet's bewbs, right?

I'm not sure, but wasn't that the one where the actors were way to young to be naked? I mean, like, fifteen years old young?

[Kaiser]

That was an awesome movie. Awesome in it's hilarity.

[HordeOfDoom]

Gran the Terrible, on Apr 30 2008, 09:58 PM, said:

That's the one where you get to see Juliet's bewbs, right?

What did you think the was for.

[RainbowRachi]

HordeOfDoom, on Apr 30 2008, 09:41 PM, said:

What did you think the was for.

Goldeneye said:

Boris: K-N-O-C-K-E-R-S <enter>

Teehee.

This post has been edited by Sirus Griffon II: 30 April 2008 - 08:33 PM