Peppermint Friday Review #5: The Lion King

This week has been abit of a Leonardo D'caprio/Shakespeare week, so I thought I'd do a review of the Lion King which is lighthearted but also not, and is basically Hamlet. 

I'm assuming like with my Titanic Review you know what the Lion King is about. It combines my two favorite things: Musicals, and Disney. But I bloody love this film, fun fact for you but The Lion King and Pocahontas were both made in the same year, but Disney decided to put more money towards Pocahontas than The Lion King as they thought Pocahontas would be the better film, but it wasn't The Lion King made a larger profit. 

First of all the music is stunning, I mean you can't hate Elton John just beautiful music, that fits so beautifully with the story. My favorite songs are probably, Hakuna Maktata, I Just Can't Wait To Be King, Be Prepared, and well just all of them! The story is amazing aswell, It was heartwrenching when Simba thinks his dad is still alive is the worst. I think the graphics, and colors are amazing and I love Pumba, Timeon and Zazu, I also love the Hyenas.

 I love the fact that its a musical on stage in London and New York. As it will be a story told for thousands of generations, which is performed by schools, and in different languages. I do love this film, and there really isn't much I can say but Its a good film obviously, but I'm assuming you already knew that.

Overall its an amazing Musical film, and Rowan Attkinson is just the best as Zazu, just brilliant how they bought in a comedian which is such genius to do, as they're always fun. I can't believe that they're re-making the film, its killing the Classic Disney Family its got, I think they should not recreate good, solid films, make something original. Theres nothing I can say about it except that its an amazing film and musical, and if you haven't watched it then and its crazy you haven't. 

Shakespeare For Dummies

I usually do a post about my favorite films of that genre, but I thought I'll do something abit different. Where I talk about something that I love, but its not necessarily connected to films or the making of films, buts its connected to storytelling, which is something I love. 

People have have different reasons to like or hate Shakespeare, so we're gonna explore it. I feel with Shakespeare a real reason whether people like it or hate it, is learning about it in School now I was very fortunate to have a teacher who taught it to me in a nice way. This is where films come in, when I was about 15 in GCSE English we did a play called Romeo and Juliet. Which everybody knows, and my teacher introduced it more as a film and a story rather than being all "SHAKESPEARE IS THE SINGLE MOST INSPIRING WRITER IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE AND YOU WILL UNDERSTAND HIM AND LOVE HIM".  But we watched Romeo + Juliet with Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by Baz Lurhman. That really helped as I saw Shakespearean work as plays, stories and films, rather than it being an amazing piece of literature. 

I also love films that aren't necessarily the greatest, and most eloquent of films. But they're good for Shakespeare Dummies, films such as '10 things I hate about you' or 'She's The Man' which is a retelling or Taming Of The Shrew and Twelfth Night although it doesn't have the original Shakespeare language but its good. For dummies, as one of the main reasons people say they hate Shakespeare is that they don't understand the language. So I guess changing it to real modern day is always good, I say 'real modern day' as Romeo + Juliet is a modern retelling but its the same language.

When you think about it, Shakespeare is a very teenage thing, like the whole 'she doesn't like him thing' or having a really bad breakup they're all teen related stuff. Also Adult related, I mean its all life, and you get alot of Drama that happen in them which I firmly believe we use still use now. You watch Coronation Street and you see the storyline of 'I'm cheating on my sister's boyfriend' kinda style, well Shakespeare introduced that sort of thing, of plots and twists and things we cal relate to. Also we still use quotations and certain phases, that were in some of his work that he invented.

Another thing that I love and what I want bought back is the BBC Plays during the 70s and 80s, (I think thats what they were called) because I love watching those during English, and I still watch them now occasionally on YouTube. They were done so beautifully, but I now that it wouldn't happen as its about quality. Its nice aswell watching them now as they're are actors in the plays that went on to do really well, and they also did Shakespeare previously. But I mean its just nice and funny to watch a young actor who is now a massive star.

I mean this is just a appreciation post for Shakespeare and why you should love Shakespeare, obviously I can't force people into liking something, but even if you don't like him, you should appreciate him. I'm gonna end this post with a quote from Hamlet.

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

—Hamlet in Hamlet