SHAKESPEARE ON SCREEN.

A few years ago, Jane Austen seemed to be the hottest screenwriter around, never mind the fact that she had been dead for more than 175 years. Proving that even being 200 years older is no deterrent, the Bard of Avon is looking to reclaim his crown as the classical writer with the most screen credits.

Shakespeare's plays have been turned into films since silent movie days, not even counting adaptations and outright stealing of plots without attribution. "Hamlet" alone has drawn such disparate stars as Laurence Olivier, Kenneth Brannagh, and Mel Gibson. Until, recently, though, old Will was content to stay offscreen, before popping up as the swashbuckling, albeit ink-stained, hero of "Shakespeare in Love" (Buena Vista Home Entertainment, 122 minutes, $39.99 [DVD]). Winner of seven Academy Awards, including best picture, the film makes a stunning appearance in widescreen DVD, a joyously literate love story well worth seeing over and over again. Especially winning, besides Joseph Fiennes' title role and Oscar-winning turns by Gwyneth Paltrow and Judi Dench (best actress and best supporting actress, respectively), is Geoffrey Rush's sly, but hapless, producer, hoping for a nice money-making comedy, "Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter," and getting a classic "Romeo and Juliet" instead. As he frequently utters throughout the film concerning why things turn out well, "It's a mystery." Even on the small screen, it's no mystery why audiences fell in love with this movie.

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