"T Paine and Lil Hamlet"

Rarely posting now, but decided to put this up. Hilarious. Class agreed. (Just finished teaching Hamlet again. FYI. Since of course you would no doubt be wondering about that).

Recently put a site meter up. Happy to report people are finding this site from as far away as Turkey, Israel, India, Australia, Hong Kong, Spain, Venezuela, Argentina. Someone recently used google-translate to read the "memento mori" post in Dutch.

Polonius

R. Kelly's Trapped in the Closet + Hamlet = "Polonius in the Closet." Posted on youtube by "poloniuscloset." This in fact hits key plot points/subtext and is freaking hilarious. Class loved it.

DIY Hamlet

"Monologue by Craig Bazan in Camden NJ." He does the rogue/peasant slave speech. Cool.

DIY Hamlet for kids

Beautifully done. And so simple. From the creator's website:

"An 8-minute, animated short for kids, adapted from Shakespeare’s play. This film has been shown in film festivals around the world, including Chicago International Children’s Film Festival, Redcat Film Fest, Nashville Independent Film Festival, Toronto Images Festival, the Boston Museum of Art, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and more. I made this film in three weeks in 2001 for a high school project."

DIY Hamlet

This is pretty great. Total DIY, zero-budget Hamlet. Done for a 10th grade English class. Hamlet meets The Godfather in eight minutes. They hit all the key points and are able to fold in "Godfather" elements pretty smartly, actually.

Instead of smoking Claudius out with a play that depicts the murder Claudius committed, Hamlet goes up to Claudius (who is now called Godfather) and asks him, hey I'm thinking about taking a hit on this guy by putting poison in his ear. What do you think?
I asked the star/director a few questions:

1. Your name.
Giordan Diaz

2. Where was this filmed?
This was filmed in Hialeah Gardens, Fl. In the house of the girl that plays Gertrude. In 2006.

3. Why Hamlet?
Well I didn't have any other choice. My 10th grade English teacher gave out the assignment. He wanted us to adapt and modernize Hamlet in any way we wanted.

4. Anything you like about the play?
I filmed this movie 3 years ago, and its been just as long sense I've read it, but I'll give it my best. I like the concept of a family slowly but surely destroying themselves little by little. The character of Hamlet himself is also very important to me because I don't think you can ever run out of ideas when analyzing this character. As an actor myself, I see why Hamlet is "the" role to play. I wish I would have known half the things I know now back then. I would have done this film differently.

5. What made you decide to give it the Godfather angle?
I'm a HUGE film buff. I really enjoy classic filmmaking more then the average person my age. So I had recently finished reading and seeing The Godfather that very same year. When this assignment came up I realized there are many similarities between a crime family and a royal family as far as titles of nobility and things of that nature. So I just decided to sit down and write down the main characters I needed and write down a very condensed version of Hamlet as if it were set in that particular world. Basically this little film is an Ode to the greatness of The Godfather.