http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117999542.html?categoryid=13&cs=1

Wow.  Oh, geez.  Umm…. I think I’m a little speechless. The first thing that comes to mind is “Oh, crap, the director is the same guy that did Pacino’s Merchant – and that got crucified by the Shakespeare crowd.”  (See Rosenbaum’s Shakespeare Wars for a good example of said crucifixion.) But…it’s Pacino!  Can he do it?  Does he still have the chops?  Is Michael Corleone/Tony Montana/Sonny Wortzik still in there?  Or would we get the screaming half-deaf Lear ala Colonel Frank Slade?  COME NOT…BETWEEN THE DRAGON, AND HIS WRATH!  HOO-AH!

Seriously, has Pacino ever had it in him to play Lear?  He’s been a great actor, no doubt – but has he ever really had that kind of range?

I want to thank everybody for participating in our “Bill Bryson For Everyone And Their Grandma” contest, sponsored by Harper Collins.  The winners, chosen randomly from all the entries received, are… ANN (from Shakespeare Tavern), who wrote:
I’d give one to the volunteer coordinator at the Atlanta Shakespeare Tavern (http://www.shakespearetavern.com/). Not only does she enjoy that sort of book, but she often leaves them out for everyone else to read and gives them as gifts. REN GIRL, who wrote:
I would keep one to read, & give one to my school’s drama department. Unlike the Big State School down the road from us, we don’t have a full-on drama library, just the shelves of our professors & some older books (hard to get to) locked up in our greenroom, but I would LOVE to start a drama library collection that we could just waltz in & borrow whenever we wanted. I’d start with something fun & light but good, like this book. 🙂 and… LIANE66, who wrote:
I would keep one and give the other to my college son.   Congratulations!  Winners, please contact me with your mailing address so Harper Collins can send your books along.    Thanks to everyone who participated, hopefully this puts Shakespeare Geek on the radar for more book publishers looking to give away their goods!

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/digital-short-laser-cats-4/981341/ I found it pretty stupid, but what kind of Shakespeare Geek would I be if Steve Martin dropped a Shakespeare reference on Saturday Night Live and I missed it?

Just say “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” last night, and it’s got Shakespeare in it. As a general movie rule I find that whenever a character says that he was raised on classics or learned to read from classics, a Shakespeare quote is coming.  So when “Tizzy” said, “I learned to read when I was five.  My grandfather was a dresser for a famous actor…”  I was expecting Shakespeare. What I got was this:

 "Kind keepers of my weak decaying
               age, Let dying Mortimer here rest
               himself. Even like a man new
               haled from the rack. So fare my
               limbs with long imprisonment. And
               these gray locks, the pursuivants
               of death, Nestor-like aged in an
               age of care, Argue the end of
               Edmund Mortimer."

I have to admit, I did not recognize it.  Though I kept the name “Edmund Mortimer” in my head to look up later.  The character Tizzy goes on to say that the “great actor” was John Wilkes Booth, who Shakespeare geeks will know was an accomplished Shakespearean actor in his own right.

Later in the movie, in a voice over about people’s purpose in life, the narrator does indeed say “Some know Shakespeare”, so I knew I had to find the reference.

Turns out, if you didn’t already recognize it, that it’s from Henry VI, Part One.

 

By the way I have no idea how accurate it is, but I was very surprised and pleased to find the entire script online!  Maybe it’s not perfect, but all I needed to do was recall the Shakespeare quote :).