Despite the popular and critical acclaim which he received for his first Shakespeare film, Henry V (1945), Laurence Olivier admitted to a great deal of trepidation upon deciding, three years later, to make a film version of Hamlet. It is, of course, the...

SHOSTAKOVICH Hamlet: Suite. The Unforgettable Year 1919: The Assault on Krasnaya Gorka. Five Days-Five Nights: Suite. The Young Guard: Suite * Vassily Sinaisky, cond; Martin Roscoe (pn); BBC PO * CHANDOS 10361 (79:47) The principal problem with Shostakovich's film music is that he...

Justice Anthony Kennedy faced a problem he never had in his day job at the Supreme Court. The defendant has been dead for 400 years, ordinarily reason enough to dismiss criminal charges. But the show, as they say, must go on. So Kennedy had to...

Steve Coogan is the toast of Sundance. The British actor stars in the biggest acquisition of the film festival, "Hamlet 2," a bawdy comedy directed by Andy Fleming that takes politically incorrect jabs at inspirational teacher flicks like "Mr. Holland's Opus."Focus Features bought the film...

Compares two film adaptations of Hamlet, namely the Kenneth Branagh and Michael Almereyda versions. The analysis focuses on the differences in mood, acting, setting, and costume to compare them.