A film that's not for angry proletarians

Rating: 10/10 (14 December 1998)

Hey, fkk: What are you so p*****-off about? A film "for self-satisfied intellectuals of a literary bent"? (Note hyphen in there.) Is this supposed to be an insult? The film is riddled with hundreds of puns, plays, and joshes based on Shakespeare's work and his legend, as well as the obvious stuff about theatre lore. Is it any worse to enjoy that stuff than for a hip-hop kid to get a kick out of recognizing obscure samples put to a new beat? Your reverse snobbery is pretty dull stuff -- why is "intellectual" a pejorative, anyway? -- and here seems to mask a lot of frustration at the movie, or the love affair (with the principals "gazing idiotically at each other"), for being somehow beyond your grasp. This is a wonderful flick, and you might want to figure out why it makes you so upset. Just a thought.