School of Movies

[School of Movies 2026]

The final week of Shakestember brings us to a modern teen high school adaptation that far surpasses the dodgy original by an as-yet-unseasoned William, blushingly groping for a satirical take on misogyny in the sixteenth century and landing by accident upon dystopian horror with Taming of the Shrew.

10 Things was the debut of Heath Ledger, and is intensely fondly remembered, being the sweetly dry retreat for those who mourned his passing just nine short years later. It is also the most prominent early onscreen role for Julia Stiles, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and David Krumholtz. This one was a favourite for us from the first word, but we found out things we never knew whilst exploring these hallowed hallways.

Our Shakespeare season may be ended here, but the Patreon bonus feed for the next few weeks will play host to a series of discussions on movies that explored the real life man, some heartbreaking, some hilarious and one utterly despicable!

Coming soon, we unexpectedly find ourselves training up to tackle the Rocky movies after years of putting them off. This next month will be our long-awaited, long-promised Rocktober!

This week's After School Club: Cutting Class on 10 Things

Next week: Flash Gordon (1980)

[School of Movies 2026]

For the third week of Shakestember, we move away from tragedy to comedy... except we don't really. By and large, scholars agree that the tragedies are actually funnier than the comedies, in principle, because the man writing them needed some real winning moments to help you invest emotionally, rather than heaping on doom and gloom (King Lear does that and we aren't fans). In other words, if he gives you a taste of the sweet, taking it away as bitterness descends feels more of a contrast, and sweeps you up in a more powerful feeling of loss.

Much Ado takes the beguiling form of a sexy, Tuscany holiday of a comedy, but Kenneth Branagh -in directing and starring- very overtly brings it down as we reach the halfway point, and some really serious and upsetting decisions are made. Some of the most memorable and cherished of his characters are in the memorable mix here, and Billy Shakes appears to be pronouncedly building upon and evolving his earlier works. This 1993 production is one of our favourites, so thank you to Matthew A. Seibert for commissioning it and effectively bringing this whole month-long project into being.

This week's After School Club: A Special Project

Next week: 10 Things I Hate About You

[School of Movies 2026]

For the second week of Shakestember, now having talked about a dozen cinematic adaptations we look at his most widely-recognised gateway movie for teenagers. Thirty years old this year, Baz Luhrman's hyperkinetic modern reimagining for the MTV generation garnered sniffy responses from the critics, but this 1996 film has stood the test of time and remains memorable and most of all useful, long after the more critically lauded and financially successful Shakespeare in Love (1998) bagged its awards.

This is the one that contemporary teachers can wheel out in order to get schoolkids even remotely interested in this four-centuries-old body of work, and because of its hypnotic production design, costuming and music, it has not dated anywhere near as much as some of the stuffier, respected theatrical productions.

I loved this film immediately, having studied the play at school just a year or so before, and memorised every scene. Going back to it is like a blast of clear, fresh water washing over you, leaving you trembling.

This week's After School Club: The Dark Tower (Part II)

Next week: Much Ado About Nothing

[School of Movies 2026]

Possibly the greatest playwright the world will ever see, creator of countless clever words and idioms, '"Heart of gold", "Wild goose chase", "Good riddance!" all gifts to the English language. He was also a man whose private life was shrouded in mystery, and for the average person our familiarity with him begins and ends in the one or two plays we are forced to study at school, along with The Lion King and an awareness of crackpot theories surrounding all of these plays being written by someone else (suspects include another playwright with a completely different and humourless style, a tyrannical lord who kicked a pregnant lady in the stomach and a man who died ten years before Billy Shakes stopped producing plays, so it was good of him to leave such a ready supply).

Here for you folks now, kicking off Shakestember, we discuss with Willow, a dozen film adaptations, many of which you will definitely want to seek out.

Romeo + Juliet (1996)

Much Ado About Nothing (1993)

Hamlet (1996)

The Tempest (2010)

The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021)

Othello (1995)

The Merchant of Venice (2004)

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1999)

Richard III (1995)

Twelfth Night (1996)

King Lear (2008)

Titus (1999)

This week's After School Club: The Dark Tower (Part I)

Next week: Romeo + Juliet

[School of Movies 2026]

Back in 2021, after a surprising 24-year absence of Mortal Kombat live action movie adaptations while several really great cinematic story modes played out on the past four entries of the video game series, a movie finally emerged.

It wasn't very good. But since we were all on lockdown and starved for entertainment many of us chomped it down like Baraka at a buffet.

Then, five whole years later a sequel emerged that actually delivered on the basic, underachieving proof-of-concept that was pitched to us in that excuse for a first movie. Entertaining, grisly, a bit too self-conscious and at times historically inaccurate, this made for a fun time at the cinema and now we actually look forward to more.

This week's After School Club: Spy Kids 4

Next week: William Shakespeare on Film