| Posted by Bel | The time is 11.32am here in Wellington NZ |

A film that makes you really happy

I recently re-watched Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet. Yes, I realise this film doesn't have (SPOILER!!) a happy ending, but I enjoyed watching it so much.

When this film came out in 1996, I was pretty much the same age that Shakespeare first intended his heroine to be. And I was just as malleable, impetuous and giddy as your average young teen - be she living in Verona, Verona Beach or small town NZ.

Re-watching the film was such a pleasure. It was slightly worrying how much of the script was sitting verbatim in my head after so many years. And not just the Shakespearean quotations, but the specific delivery and intonations by this version's actors.

Miriam Margolyes tottering about as the Nurse, crying out "Hhhhhuuulieet!".

Claire Danes actually managing to make the "wherefore" in "Wherefore art thou Romeo?" like a "why" and not a "where".

The police chief Prince growling out "All... are... BANISH-ED!!" in the final scenes.

And, of course, Leo doing the same donkey-like gasping bray of a cry you can trace back to The Basketball Diaries and even saw recently in Shutter Island.

It can be a dangerous territory, going back and re-watching the films that influenced those tender years. And yet so many favourites from the 90s are still standing strong: Clueless, 10 Things I Hate About You, Mallrats, Wayne's World.

Any word on Heathers? Can't Hardly Wait? Empire Records? Have you re-watched something lately and found it just made you so so happy, regardless of the content?