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In Short: Best picture winner gets a beautiful transfer but not much else in this movie-only edition of the film. The Movie: Shakespeare In Love:(Movie review originally written in December, 1998) There is a part of "Shakespeare In Love" where the queen, played by the wonderful Judi Dench("Mrs. Brown") where her character talks about how simple plays are not able to truely bring to life the true experience of love. It is up to one William Shakespeare to prove her wrong. It's this film that proves a whole lot of recent films wrong. Where we're thrown many a mechanical, formulaic romances that are simplistic and utterly joyless. One has almost forgotten a film that brings to life the true maddening glory and joy of the grand act of falling head over heels in love, then a film that is so rich, beautiful, smart and well done comes along. "Shakespeare In Love" is definitely one of those films, a true classic work that defied any of my expectations walking in. Parts tragedy, parts comedy, parts love story add up to a whole of grand performances. The story trails Shakespeare through the days as he writes and tries to put together his play, "Romeo and Ethel"(well, it's a working title.) There is a wild cast of characters working around him such as Marlowe(Rupert Everett),a more popular playright during the time; Henslowe(Geoffrey Rush), and more. What I loved about the film was the way it takes the audience through the day to day life; the business that it took to even get a play made in the first place. There's deadlines, casting,the stage to secure,the money to pay the actors. Soon the camera comes upon Viola de Lesseps(Gwyneth Paltrow), a woman who is absolutely enraptured by the poetry of Shakespeare's words, so much, that she dresses up as a man to audition for a role in his next play, unknown to Will, who has also recently fallen in love with the sight of Viola as herself. Prohibited from acting since she's a woman, Vila turns to Shakespeare, who sees Vila as the perfect muse for his current state of writer's block. It's a match made in heaven as the two pair upto complete the play, keeping Vila's secret all the time in some very funny scenes as the two keep the cover-up going. The greatness of the film is how it is at the same time very serious about its subject as well as being wonderfully playful and satiric, providing for some great moments of high comedy. Viola, unfortunately is set to marry Earl Of Wessex in two weeks; it is during this time that her and Shakespeare are set adrift in each other's eyes, spending days and nights together, reading lines of the play to one another in bed. Many of the moments that end up in the play are moments that the two spend together, most memorably the balcony scene right out of the final play. The best scenes of comedy throughout the film is how incredibly close the act of putting on a play comes to the act of putting on a current Hollywood production. There are production partners, tickets that need to be sold, actors that need to be pampered; there's even a riverboat driver that asks Shakespeare to read a script he's written. It's these scenes, as well as a scene where Shakespeare convinces a touring actor played by Ben Affleck(in a strange bit of casting that suprisingly works), to play Mercutio; the scene ends with Affleck's character simply stating: "He dies in the end?" There are some outstanding performances here. Gwyneth Paltrow is simply at her most radiant and wonderful playing Viola. There is a light, a pure energy that she harnesses in this character that is similar to the kind of energy that I see in Emily Watson("Hillary and Jackie"), another of my favorite actresses. Her as well as Joseph Finnes as Shakespeare, make a luminous and wonderful couple. Judi Dench as the queen, though, steals the show as she comes out of nowhere to drop devasting wit amongst the court, in some scenes that are sharp and extremely funny. The script is what lifts the film into a heavenly level, with a wit that somehow reminds me of David Mamet(for some reason this whole film reminds me of "Wag The Dog", why, I don't know). There are just so many things the film tries; comedy, satire, seriousness, drama; the film throws everything and the kitchen sink at you and suprisingly, it all works wonderfully as the timing is just so perfect that it all manages to come together. "Shakespeare In Love" is outstanding, grand filmmaking that is supremely joyous. Paltrow, especially, deserves a definite nomination for best actress; I'll be highly shocked if this film doesn't recieve a much deserved nomination for Best Picture(and, since this review was written, it went on to win best picture.) The DVD VIDEO:It's Disney(or more specifically, Miramax's, to give credit where credit is due) attempt at anamorphic widescreen. The 2.35:1 anamorphic image is quite good, although occasionally the picture does look the slightest bit soft in an interior or two. I'm probably just being picky, because for the most part, this is quite an excellent image, with very strong detail and sharp images. The costumes especially look stunning here, and this disc reveals each and every intricate detail. Colors are extremely pleasing and accurately rendered throughout, looking very pure, vibrant and well-saturated. Fleshtones are especially wonderful, looking natural and warm throughout. The print used is beautiful, free of scratches or other such blemishes. There's no pixelization, but there was a few tiny instances of shimmering. If anything, this only increases my dislike of the DVD output of Miramax's parent company, Disney. If Miramax had to fight to get a transfer this beautiful, then it makes it only more obvious that Disney is not likely to change their outlook on quality DVD work. Hopefully, this does mean that Miramax has broken free to give their films the DVD treatment that they deserve. Hopefully, this will make it obvious to everyone at Disney how great their films can look on this format. If they take a look at the quality of the image here and don't say to themselves, "why can't all of our films look this good?", then there's definitely something very seriously wrong at the Mouse House. SOUND: The score sounds beautiful, flowing throughout the sound stage, absolutely clear, clean and dynamic. There's some nice touches of ambient sound here as well, although the film remains mainly dialogue and that's occasionally where it seemed to run into problems. It wasn't throughout the entire running length, but occasionally dialogue sounded slightly shrill and a little harsh, but it was only an occasional problem. MENUS: Some pretty darn basic menus that are simply the poster art. EXTRAS:The trailer Final thoughts: It's Miramax's first attempt at an anamorphic title and it's beautiful looking. It's strangely empty, though. The cancelled special edition is obviously not going to be cancelled for long, though. Disney will probably offer it shortly after their release of this disc, so that people will have to buy the disc all over again to get the extras. Elements of this disc are certainly a step in the right direction, but with the history of Disney and DVD, I think the strong quality exhibited here will likely be more of a "one-time only" presentation, rather than the new rules in the DVD department at Disney and that's severely unfortunate. I think that fans of the film will definitely be satisfied with how beautiful the image quality is, but this disc certainly doesn't take advantage of the format's potential to offer more information about a film like this that won best picture. Where's a commentary, where's a documentary or even a featurette? As good as the general quality is, I still feel as if there's something missing here.  The Film: 95/A = (475/500 possible points) Video: 94/A = (376/400 possible points) Audio: 85/B = (340/400 possible points) Extras: 70/C- = (210/300 possible points) Menus: 70/C = (140/200 possible points) Value: 82/B = (246/300 possible points) TOTAL POINTS:1787/2100 Average:85%/B BACK TO THE SITE: Listing Of DVD Special Sales Back To A Guide To Current Film A List Of Current/Upcoming DVD For Sale Soundtracks For Current Films |