Renaissance Man
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Movie Reviews of Renaissance Man
Movie Review: Renaissance Man
Summary: 5 Stars
I recently bought this movie for my mom. It was never opened and in great condition.Movie Review: Great flick
Summary: 5 Stars
This is my first copy on DVD, however I have gone thru 4 copies on VHSMovie Review: A bit formulaic, but excellent for Shakespeare classes
Summary: 4 Stars
Shakespeare's _Hamlet_ is the real star of the comedy _Renaissance Man_. Many films have featured groups of social misfits who have grown and changed through the assistance of a caring teacher, but in how many of those films has the teacher been dead for almost 400 years? Danny Devito is funny in this family-friendly film, but it is the Bard himself who shines best here.
I use this film in my college-level Shakespeare courses and find that it is more useful for teaching Shakespeare to young adults than most of the recent film adaptations aimed at the younger generation (_She's the Man_ and _10 Things I Hate About You_ come to mind). _Renaissance Man_ celebrates the magic of Shakespeare that even recent films preserving Shakespeare's language, such as the _Hamlet_ starring Ethan Hawke, do not. In _Renaissance Man_, Shakespeare's beautiful language is not replaced. Rather, it is read and then internalized by the characters who produce their own modernized version in the form of a rap song and chant. The film teaches about some of Shakespeare's rhetorical strategies (e.g., metaphor, oxymoron) as well as his themes (e.g., mutability). While the recitation of Henry the Fifth's famous "Crispin Day" speech at the end of the film is a little sappy, the characters' reaction to and obvious enjoyment of the _Henry V_ stage production is not. The characters in _Renaissance Man_ model for the young people of today how Shakespeare should be experienced.
Movie Review: Renaissance Man in the Classroom
Summary: 4 Stars
Believe it or not, I've used *Renaissance Man* in the classroom for a couple of reasons. When we study the Renaissance in World History, our text makes reference to Leon Battista Alberti, the scholar and architect who, from a standing start and with his feet together, could leap over a man's head. The DeVito character, in his efforts to get his students interested in Shakespeare, makes reference to Alberti in one scene in the movie, so I couldn't resist showing that clip in my class. Then, since I taught the same students (high school freshmen) in English, I also showed all the clips related to the teaching of *Hamlet*. I've been patiently waiting for the DVD to come out so I won't have to do the slow "fast forwarding" and can just leap to the clips I want. The students usually get caught up in the characters as well, which is pure serendipity for me!Movie Review: A good comedy about learning "English"
Summary: 4 Stars
Being a non-native English speaker, I enjoyed the teacher's (Danny DeVito) making Shakespearean phrases and quotes understandable and interesting to the unmotivated youngsters in the boot camp. A previous reviewer wrote:"The concept of a necessary english teacher in the army is not actually sensible."
To me we always need good English (E in upper case) teachers. A heart-warming comedy, yes. And I would hyphenate between "heart" and "warming" to make it a compound adjective. Current tendency of doing away with hyphens makes English more difficult to read for us "foreigners."
"Foreigners," said Mark Twain, "always spell better than they pronounce."