I wonder how much it cost the Weinstein's to buy the Best Picture award.

Rating: Null/10 (25 September 1999)

THIS beat Saving Private Ryan? Private Ryan-the film that made us appreciate our veterans and understand why our parents wouldn't talk about 'it' all these years-is not as good as Shakespeare In Love? Neither dramatic nor very funny, Shakespeare in Love makes a mockery of history and Gwenyth Paltrow gives a performance worthy of abhorring as Viola De Lesseps. The minute she comes on screen, you sense the phoniness of the performance, and by the end of the movie you realize this vexatious twit has done basically nothing to inspire Shakespeare besides f**king him every once and a while. Oh yes, let me run out and write the best play every to grace the page cuz i just got laid. Nope, don't think so. When it comes down to it, Shakespeare in Love is really a movie hinging on one big premise with nothing to back it up, and it wears out fast. With only a handful of good one-liners and performances from both Rush, Paltrow, Affleck, and Firth that all quickly wear out their welcome, I don't see how anyone could find this poorly assembled piece of celluloid better than the massive and heart-wrenching epic Saving Private Ryan. Ask anyone of those Shakespeare in Love 'fans' out there why Judi Dench won Best Supporting Actress. Watch them not be able to answer it. She's on screen for 8 minutes at most, and half the time the audience is supposed to just sit and marvel in her wonderful makeup and costumes. Do you want to know the number one reason why Shakespeare in Love was a bad movie? It was written by the guy who did Cutthroat Island. The other writer was the guy who wrote Brazil. Brazil was a great movie mind you, but it was a movie without a point; a psychological rush. If you cross a science fiction acid trip of a movie and a film where Geena Davis plays a pirate, do you really think you're going to get an Oscar-worthy epic picture? Skip this travesty of a film and move elsewhere...this film doesn't deserve to be called a drama OR a comedy, let alone Best Picture. I hope all have lost faith in the Academy.