‘Juliet & Romeo' Review: Tragedy Executed as Farce
The movie begins, a narrator says, 'In the year 1301' when 'Italy was only an idea.' In this movie's idea of 1301, characters jumble up modern and Shakespearean language; 'Romeo, where the hell art thou,' someone from the hero's posse shouts early on. And while '& Juliet' uses pop songs, for this picture the composers Bogart and Justin Gray try to concoct tunes that sound like those of Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff. 'There's a whole lot of wrong here but we get it right, we get it right,' goes one lyric.
Veteran actors including Jason Isaacs, Derek Jacobi and Rebel Wilson add spice where they're able; the costumes are colorful, and as Juliet, Clara Rugaard is fresh-faced and appealing. (As Romeo, on the other hand, Jamie Ward mostly looks like he's trying to find a boy band to join.)
The Bogarts are sons of Neil Bogart, the blockbuster record exec who empowered both Kiss and Donna Summer back in the day. Watching this largely misbegotten movie (which seems to fulfill all of its aspirations with an utterly tacky ending), then, sometimes brought to mind the sardonic Steely Dan tune 'Show Biz Kids.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Bloomberg
20 hours ago
- Bloomberg
With House of Guinness, Netflix Appeals to Our Succession Obsession
Watching children squabble is annoying. Unless it's about inheritance; then, it turns out, it's theater. For thousands of years, dramas spanning Aeschylus' Oresteia to William Shakespeare's King Lear to James Goldman's The Lion in Winter have grappled with the question of family succession. A king might love all of his children equally, but only one of them can sit on the throne. Parents are pitted against children, children against one another and, in the case of several Greek tragedies, everyone against everyone else.
New York Times
20 hours ago
- New York Times
An Evening With the Central Park Coyotes
'There they are!' A hush fell over three humans with cameras, as a doglike shape emerged from the shadows, followed by another, smaller dog shape. For a nanosecond the creatures were silhouetted by a streetlamp. It was just after 8:30 p.m. on a footpath in Central Park, not far from the Delacorte Theater, where 'Twelfth Night' was in progress, and the coyotes had appeared. The couple, named Romeo and Juliet by their fans, have been living together in the park for over a year. Juliet was the first to arrive, and there have been regular sightings of her since 2020. In the summer of 2024, she was joined by a male coyote, a little darker and slightly larger, and their love story made headlines. (Previous reports have erroneously identified the genders of the coyotes, but the larger, newer coyote is the male.) Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Post
a day ago
- New York Post
Gary Oldman believes he'd be ‘dead or institutionalized' if he didn't give up booze 28 years ago
Gary Oldman is getting candid about his sobriety. The 'Slow Horses' star opened up about his battle with alcoholism and getting sober 28 years ago during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter published Monday, Aug. 18. 'I'm in a very good place at the moment, and a lot of that is to do with sobriety,' Oldman, 67, began. 'It's been 28 years. There was a point when I didn't think I could've gone 28 seconds without a drink.' Advertisement 9 Gary Oldman at the National Theatre in London, England, on July 18, 2024.9 Gary Oldman at the Ham Yard Hotel in London, England, on February 7, Apple Although the 'Harry Potter' actor did not pass the buck regarding his fight with addiction, he did acknowledge that many of his 'heroes' were 'all sorts of drunks and drug addicts,' which played a part in his own decision to start drinking. Advertisement 'They were all tortured poets and artists,' Oldman shared. 'You look up to them and you romanticize and want to emulate them.' 'It was a social norm, and at some point, it got out of control,' he continued. 'And that's nothing to do with anyone other than me. But you do glamorize it, that sort of crazy behavior.' 9 Gary Oldman at the Meryl Streep Center for Performing Artists in Los Angeles, California, on June 06, 2025. Getty Images for SAG-AFTRA Foundation 9 Gary Oldman at the TV Academy's Televerse Festival in Los Angeles, California, on August 14, 2025. Getty Images Advertisement One hero in particular was Richard Burton, who allegedly got drunk every night before he was set to go on stage to perform Shakespeare. 'You read about Richard Burton, who I think did 136 performances of Hamlet, eight shows a week on Broadway,' Oldman said. 'He'd drink a whole bottle of vodka and then play the whole part completely drunk.' However, the 'Dark Knight' actor eventually realized that his life was better without alcohol, and he gave it up for good in 1997. 9 Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter and Gary Oldman as Sirius Black in 2007's 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.' Murray Close Advertisement 9 Gary Oldman as Lt. James Gordon in 2008's 'The Dark Knight.' Stephen Vaughan/Warner Bros. 'It's just an excuse, really, and you're just kidding yourself,' he explained. 'My own life, my personal life, is immeasurably better from just not living in a fog. But I think the work is good, too.' 'Going at the rate I was going, I wouldn't be sitting here with you by now,' Oldman added. 'I'd either be dead or institutionalized.' This wouldn't be the first time that the Academy Award winner opened up about his battle with alcoholism. 9 Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb in the AppleTV+ series 'Slow Horses.' Jack English 9 Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb in 'Slow Horses.' AP Back in 2021, after starring as alcoholic screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz in the 2020 biopic 'Mank,' Oldman told the Los Angeles Times how his drinking was once so bad that he 'used to sweat vodka.' 'It becomes such a part of you,' he shared at the time. 'My tongue would be black in the morning. I blamed it on the shampoo.' Advertisement 'I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy to be in the grip of it,' Oldman added. 'It's hell. And that self-effacing humor? That's just there to mask the inadequacy.' 9 Gary Oldman as Herman Mankiewicz in 2020's 'Mank.' AP Unlike Mankiewicz, who passed away from uremic poisoning in 1953 at 55, Oldman was able to get sober after two stints in rehab – even if he was a functioning alcoholic for the first 20 years of his adult life. 'When I was drinking, I was working and I was remembering lines, so you feel you're getting away with it, though, deep down, beneath the denial, you know,' Oldman concluded.
