Anonymous

Shakespeare's life is littered with speculation. Some say he was homosexual, some say he had help writing his plays, blah, blah, blah nobody cares. This isn't The Da Vinci Code, where the so-called secrets actually matter. The movie doesn't exactly provide any truth, or even anything worth thinking about. It's just a story. The movie makers saw how well Shakespeare in Love did, even though that film wasn't any good, and decided to make some sort of Shakespeare drama.

Throw in some Tudors and you've got a curious audience. But curiosity and caring are two different things.

The real author, a nobleman, Edward, the Earl of Oxford, (played by both Rhys Ifans, perhaps best known for playing Xenophilius Lovegood in Harry Potter/ and Jamie Campbell Bower, Caius of the Volturi in Twilight, and Young Grindewald in Harry Potter,) didn't want to take credit for his plays because of, you know, disgracfulness, (for who but some goofy actor named Will would want to take credit for those plays?) Things got political, things got sexy, and Boon got bored.

I enjoyed some parts, and some lines. "All artists have something to say, or else they would make shoes." Sorry, fashion designers.

At moments  art imitates life, like when he stabs someone through the tapestry ala Hamlet... oi. Don't we all hate it when movies show us how some famous person got an idea for something he's famous for...? Don't film makers hate it too?

And parts of the movie, big parts, were portrayed as if the movie were Shrek or Cool Runnings: slow clapping? Crowd surfing? Really?

Queen Elizabeth was portrayed as a jealous slave of emotions, and the author of Shakespeare plays was portrayed as the worst kind of artist, the kind that non-geniuses can get their minds around, the kind that's driven crazy by their work. "The voices!" he shouts. Oh brother.

Then it gets worse, and incest gets involved. Of course, we can't bring up the Tudors without bringing up incest... at least not lately, not in movies.

And sometimes I watch movies and I wonder how the screenwriters, directors, actors and grips got through production. They must have taken napping breaks; they couldn't possibly not have fallen asleep constantly. I only made it through by blogging during it while playing Facebook games.

What's amazing is that we'll watch this movie, but we won't watch Henry V. Go watch Henry V, it stars Harry Potter  actors too.