Are you sure Shakespeare didn't write this last week?

Rating: 10/10 (22 January 2000)

Never has a movie so filled me with the urge to get on stage and perform Shakespeare, possibly because it in not a Shakespearean Production, per se. And yet, it may as well be, for it is so closely structured to the Shakespearean Romantic Comedies that we see Will writing. We have sword fights; love found, lost, re-found; comedic relief; a deus ex machina resolution; and, of course, a dog ("you have to have a dog in it, Will!"). But it's so fresh and up-to-the-minute in it's references to movies and society they you're sure that Shakespeare has risen from the dead in order to prove that his structure still can hit the right notes with everyone today. Finely crafted script, brilliant performances, wonderful camera work, clean direction - this deserved it's Academy Awards (except maybe Ms. Paltrow's - as good as she is). See this if you haven't yet, especially if you think Shakespeare was some stodgy old fart who wrote boring plays you were forced to read in school. He really rocked, dude!