Franco Zeffirelli
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10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
Directed by Gil Junger
influenced by The Taming of the Shrew (1967)
Plot
Very loosely based on (maybe even just inspired by) William Shakespeare's comedy The Taming of the Shrew, one thing that 10 Things has going for it is a teriffic ensemble cast of teens.
Yes, yes, it’s a remake of Shakesepeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, but Kirsten Smith and Karen McCullah’s screenplay is anything but a complimentary nod to the Bard.
Although similar in plotting (ok, darn near identical), "10 Things I Hate About You," a modern-day version of Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew" ("She's All That" got its inspiration from "Pygmalion"), is an infinitely superior film in every department, from the smart direction by first-time feature director Gil Junger to the charming and well-written screenplay by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith to the striking ensemble cast, who give the best group of performances in a teen comedy since 1985's "The Breakfast Club."
''10 Things I Hate About You'' may be the cheekiest ''literary'' update yet -- a post-riot grrrl gloss on ''The Taming of the Shrew,'' with Shakespeare's plot twirled around devices that have become clichés, virtually overnight, in the new teen comedies: the guy who struggles to land a girl in order to win a bet; the ingenue -- in this case Kat's younger sister, the button-nosed Bianca (Larisa Oleynik) -- who's a virgin to everything but consumerism.
As it is, this very loose adaptation of the Bard's stage play, "The Taming of the Shrew" (done "Clueless"-style), is a definitely a cut above the current crop of teen-oriented comedies, thanks to an appealing cast of fresh faces, as well as a surprisingly literate script.
"10 Things I Hate About You" -- a "Clueless"-spawn remake of "The Taming of the Shrew" -- while an above average entry in the recent pool of teen-targeted pics, is sorely lacking in this arena.
First-time director Len Wiseman almost gets there, too, using "Romeo and Juliet" as a template and fusing medieval mythologies to video game sensibilities.
The press materials purport a “Romeo and Juliet” level of emotional depth to the piece, but that’s not translated to the screen.
Logic doesn't figure prominently in the latest entry into the horror-fantasy amalgam — a kind of monster-mash "Romeo and Juliet" featuring vampires and werewolves — which works to the good and bad of the story.
Passing itself off as a supernatural version of Romeo and Juliet, it benefits from pulpy energy and a nice sense of style, but its weak plotting and terminal poker face keep tripping it up.
With a plot that can be viewed as either a metaphor for race relations or a direct lift from Romeo and Juliet (or both, for that matter), Underworld is a hoary, wannabe epic that nonetheless springs to icily gorgeous life every time Beckinsale enters the frame.
(Nobody's complaining about that!) It's trying to be "The Matrix" and "The Lord of the Rings" and Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles and "Romeo and Juliet" all at the same time, and it isn't 10 percent of any of those things.
Gyllenhaal the writer sees Frankenstein as a Romeo and Juliet story…
Love story: Can you get audiences to root for the monster couple (like Romeo and Juliet) or be awed by their depravity (like Sid and Nancy).
…historias de amor épicas y trágicas que van desde Romeo y Julieta hasta Bonnie & Clyde…
There are expressions of love and lust, though Romeo and Juliet, they are not.
…reciting ‘Romeo & Juliet’ in reference to Frank and Penny…
It contains echoes of Rocky, Raging Bull, Million Dollar Baby, even that Jon Voight weepie, The Champ.
A flurry of haymakers in the form of boxing movie cliches, "Southpaw" was conceived as a loose remake of "The Champ" — Wallace Beery in 1931, Jon Voight in 1979 — tailored for Marshall Mathers, also known as Eminem.
Think of this trite fight film as a close relative of "The Champ," and I'm talking more about the equally contrived 1979 remake (with Jon Voight and Ricky Schroder) than the ancient 1931 Oscar winner (with Wallace Beery and Jackie Cooper).
“Southpaw” is, like most fellow boxing movies, a shameless melodrama, one that mixes “Rocky III” with “Rocky V,” plus bits of Franco Zeffirelli’s unwatchable 1979 remake of “The Champ,” in which Jon Voight and Ricky Schroeder tussle over who can mug more.
The powerful boxing scenes, vividly shot from Madison Square Garden to Vegas by Mauro Fiore and edited by John Refoua, help distract from the father-daughter scenes that outdo The Champ (the Wallace Beery original and the Jon Voight remake) for gooey sentiment.
The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009)
Directed by Chris Weitz
influenced by Romeo and Juliet (1968)
Plot
The parallels that can be drawn to "Romeo and Juliet" are more in evidence this time around.
Sadly, much of what I enjoyed about the first movie seems missing in the overly depressing follow-up film, which comes across like Romeo and Juliet on extra downers.
Scenes where Bella and Edward sit through a class covering Romeo and Juliet act like a subtle wink to adults in the audience: Yes we know this is a bit overly dramatic and self-important, but, as even Shakespeare recognized, so are teenagers.
Enjoying all of New Moon 's 130-minute running time (as I did, well enough) takes the ability to swoon and snort simultaneously—say, when a fantasy Bella runs through the woods in gray chiffon, or Edward recites the closing lines of Romeo and Juliet by heart.
The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun (2021)
Directed by Wes Anderson
influenced by Romeo and Juliet (1968)
(I'm not sure why, but good for her.) Lucinda was based on a real journo, and there's an obvious homage to Zeffirelli's "Romeo and Juliet," although I'm also not sure why.
While a last-act regurgitation of "Romeo and Juliet" produces a flavorless ending, Lawrence is the living promise that the next course of "The Hunger Games" will give us more to chew on.
He might have added The Truman Show (for the TV cameras hidden throughout the forest environment to catch every pursuit and fatality), Oliver Twist (for the children forced by adults into criminal behavior), Romeo and Juliet (for the poison that two lovers plan to take) and, centrally, Richard Connell’s 1924 story “The Most Dangerous Game,” whose scenario of a mad Cossack trapping humans on his Caribbean island and hunting them down like big game has inspired a couple dozen Hollywood films.
The concept of doomed love is as old as "Romeo and Juliet," by William Shakespeare, who is also responsible for the film's title.
From the 1944 Joan Fontaine-Orson Welles film to the 1996 version directed by Franco Zeffirelli, nearly every feature-length "Jane Eyre" has had to wrestle with the challenge of condensing Bronte's episodic narrative, a task more easily managed by five-hour-plus adaptations such as the beloved 1983 miniseries.
Endless Love (2014)
Directed by Shana Feste
influenced by Endless Love (1981), Romeo and Juliet (1968)
Plot
“Endless Love,” a remake of the 1981 movie starring Brooke Shields, itself an adaptation of the 1979 novel by Scott Spencer, is here to make you fondly reminisce on those first tender days of youthful relationships.
When I was 11 years old, I snuck into Brooke Shields’ R-rated 1981 feature, Endless Love.
"Endless Love" isn't so much a remake of the 1981 Franco Zeffirelli film as it is an extended ad for the idyllic Abercrombie & Fitch lifestyle.
Endless Love is based on a novel, but its story bears little resemblance to either that book or Franco Zefirelli’s 1981 film of the same name.
Widely derided upon release, 1981’s Endless Love nevertheless clicked with audiences, spawned a classic Lionel Richie-Diana Ross duet and gave eye-catching early roles to James Spader and Tom Cruise.
Unlike Franco Zeffirelli’s notoriously over-the-top 1981 filmization of Scott Spencer’s novel, Shana Feste’s “ Endless Love ” seems less a misguided adaptation than a deliberate, flat-out rewrite.
The Book of Life is not-so-slyly derivative in its romantic themes: a little Romeo and Juliet here, Ghost there and The Princess Bride throughout, with "real" world interruptions by a museum tour guide (Christina Applegate) to increasingly involved children.
The pop culture references fly fast and furious, with Gulliver feeding Horatio lines from Prince's "Kiss" in a Romeo and Juliet inspired romance scene, a replica of Times Square erected in Gulliver's honor, and the bad guys cook up a giant robot that's supposed to be their answer to Gulliver's might as a warrior, but really just recreates the dull metal-on-metal fight scenes from Iron Man 2 (that one might not have been intentional).
Ever since Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet it's been somewhat of a maxim that mismatched couples are eventually doomed, romantically if not otherwise.
A 'Robo-Rocky’-like mash-up full of 'rock-'em/sock-'em’ action, Shawn Levy’s Real Steel reimagines the father/son boxing melodrama The Champ (1931, 1979) for the gamer generation... and it damn near pulls it off.
What they're really done, however, is pretty much make a high-tech variation of "The Champ," the 1979 flick -- recently named the saddest movie ever and a remake itself of the 1931 film of the same name -- where Jon Voight played a former boxer with a gambling problem who tries to make a comeback while raising his young son.
Like "The Taming of the Shrew" or Emma, Hitch meets his match in tabloid columnist Sara (Mendes), who mistakes his helping schlub Albert (Kevin James--the real surprise of the show) to woo heiress Allegra Cole (Amber Valletta) for something venal instead of something wonderful.
But once everyone sees the movie — which is like The Champ if Jon Voight listened to Mötley Crüe, had his own action figure, and occasionally let another man in tights shoot him in the chest with a staple gun (it is to the movie’s endless credit that this scene is actually moving) — that’ll change fast.
Robinson knows the life of an actor (and the disconcerting advances of an older man, having been pursued by Franco Zeffirelli on the set of Romeo and Juliet); one of the funniest elements of Withnail & I is that it concerns three varieties of drama queen: the flamboyantly dark-minded Withnail; neurotic, ill-equipped Marwood, and the larger-than-life Monty.
In most respects, Eggers is a unique artist with strong, singular ideas of how to script, stage and pace his films, and while “The Northman” is nothing if not a signature addition to a most original oeuvre — no one but Eggers would or could have reimagined “Hamlet” thus — it lacks the element of surprise that made “The Witch” and “The Lighthouse” feel like instant classics.
Almost as manipulative as “Everything, Everything,” or “A Walk to Remember,” less wrenching than “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl,” more medical than “The Fault in Our Stars,” almost as drawn-out as, oh, “Romeo and Juliet” — that’s “Five Feet Apart.”
The story is a take on “Romeo and Juliet,” featuring a pair of young, doomed, star-crossed lovers carrying on a forbidden romance.
Tragic teen romances have been all the rage since the time of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet .
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
influenced by Romeo and Juliet (1968)
There’s Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet on a movie-theater marquee (“Held over 8th month”).