>Speaking of Al Pacino and Shakespeare, have you seen Michael
>Radford's "The Merchant Of Venice" with Pacino as Shylock? I
>loved it. Pacino gives his best performance in years,
>probably his best in decades.
>
>Also Lynn Collins was incredible in the role of Portia.
>Easily one of my most favorite performances by any actress in
>the last several years.

I don't know about decades, but he was quite good, lol.

My only problem is the revisionist history in it. I mean, yes, the anti-Semitism has to be dealt with, but in the original play, Shylock is one bad dude. He's not unlike Magneto-- yes, you have a reason for being pissed, but you gots to chill. I thought in the film they downplayed a lot of Shylock's more villainesque dialogue and played up the anti-Semitism.

Granted, that's really the only way you can do Merchant of Venice now in a PC world. But that doesn't really make it ring true for me.