My comment at Dennis' blog today - following up on Hamlet Day

Jax: Did you mean Shakespeare-related film recommendations? Some of my favorites are (but I have funny tastes and I also don't know how many of these were mentioned already):
Michael Almereyda's Hamlet (2000), the one with Ethan Hawke.
Kurosawa's The Bad Sleep Well (marginally a version of Hamlet)
Aki Kurasmaki's Hamlet Goes Business--a really great quirky indie movie, and I wonder if Almereyda didn't borrow from it.
Shakespeare Behind Bars - a documentary about an ongoing prison project. When you find out the relation between the characters and the crimes committed by the actors who play them, it blows your mind.
Kurosawa's Throne of Blood, maybe the best Shakespeare adaptation ever (from Macbeth)
Peter Greenaway's Prospero's Books (from The Tempest)
Derek Jarman's The Tempest
Forbidden Planet (as an adaptation of The Tempest)
Scotland, Pa. (from Macbeth) - mostly for Christopher Walken doing an amazing Christopher Walken imitation

I hate:
Julie Taymor's Titus
Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet

I'd also like to give a shout-out to Marjorie Garber's book "Shakespeare's Ghost Writers," a very clever deconstruction of the supernatural in the plays, especially good on Macbeth and Hamlet.

And now with your indulgence the funniest Shakespeare-related post I've seen lately--one of my students linked it from McSweeney's after I already put together the Day here:


HAMLET
(FACEBOOK NEWS
FEED EDITION).

BY SARAH SCHMELLING

Horatio thinks he saw a ghost.

Hamlet thinks it's annoying when your uncle marries your mother right after your dad dies.

The king thinks Hamlet's annoying.

Laertes thinks Ophelia can do better.

Hamlet's father is now a zombie.

- - - -

The king poked the queen.

The queen poked the king back.

Hamlet and the queen are no longer friends.

Marcellus is pretty sure something's rotten around here.

Hamlet became a fan of daggers.

- - - -

Polonius says Hamlet's crazy ... crazy in love!

Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Hamlet are now friends.

Hamlet wonders if he should continue to exist. Or not.

Hamlet thinks Ophelia might be happier in a convent.

Ophelia removed "moody princes" from her interests.

Hamlet posted an event: A Play That's Totally Fictional and In No Way About My Family

The king commented on Hamlet's play: "What is wrong with you?"

Polonius thinks this curtain looks like a good thing to hide behind.

Polonius is no longer online.

- - - -

Hamlet added England to the Places I've Been application.

The queen is worried about Ophelia.

Ophelia loves flowers. Flowers flowers flowers flowers flowers. Oh, look, a river.

Ophelia joined the group Maidens Who Don't Float.

Laertes wonders what the hell happened while he was gone.

- - - -

The king sent Hamlet a goblet of wine.

The queen likes wine!

The king likes ... oh crap.

The queen, the king, Laertes, and Hamlet are now zombies.

Horatio says well that was tragic.

Fortinbras, Prince of Norway, says yes, tragic. We'll take it from here.

Denmark is now Norwegian.