As You Like It (2007)
Nominated: Golden Globe Awards & Screen Actors' Guild Awards (2008)

Emmy award winner Kenneth Branagh, the man who redefined Shakespeare for a whole new generation with Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing and Hamlet, brings the Bard's most delightful comedy to sensational life! Rosalind is a young woman living in the court of her uncle when she falls in love with Orlando, a young gentleman of the kingdom. When Rosalind is banished, she flees into the forest of Arden disguised as a man...only to encounter Orlando who has also been exiled! But can she win his heart, disguised as she is? With a setting inspired by 19th century Japan and a star-studded cast including Kevin Kline (Dave, A Prairie Home Companion), Bryce Dallas Howard (Spider-Man 3, The Lady In The Water) and Alfred Molina (Spider-Man 2, The Da Vinci Code), AS YOU LIKE IT once again proves that all the world's a stage. Come enjoy!

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As You Like It [SOUNDTRACK]

Patrick Doyle tends to do his most gorgeous work for Kenneth Branagh's films, which give him the broad canvases his scores excel with. Most directors aren't willing to make their films so dependent on music any more.

Many of the cues here are three to five minutes, with achingly lovely themes working their way in and out of each fully developed piece. The main theme, played by a solo violin, backed by the LSO, is especially beautiful.

Bravo, Patrick Doyle. - Amazon.com

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William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice (2004)
BAFTA Nominated telling of the classic Shakespeare story

Rarely has The Merchant of Venice, one of Shakespeare's most complex plays, looked as ravishingly sumptuous as in this adaptation, directed by Michael Radford (Il Postino). In a decadent version of renaissance Venice, a young nobleman named Bassanio (Joseph Fiennes, Shakespeare in Love) seeks to woo the lovely Portia (newcomer Lynn Collins), but lacks the money to travel to her estate. He seeks support from his friend, the merchant Antonio (Jeremy Irons, Reversal of Fortune); Antonio's fortune is tied up in sea ventures, so the merchant offers to borrow money from a Jewish moneylender, Shylock (Al Pacino, Dog Day Afternoon). But Shylock holds a grudge against Antonio, who has routinely treated the Jew with contempt, and demands that if the debt is not repaid in three months, the price will be a pound of Antonio's flesh.

The Merchant of Venice is famous as a "problem play"--the gritty matters of moneylending and anti-Semitism sit uncomfortably beside the fairy tale elements of Portia and Bassanio's romance, and some twists of the plot can seem arbitrary or even cruel. The strength of Radford's intelligent and passionate interpretation is that he and the excellent cast invest the play's opposing facets with full emotional weight, thus making every question the play raises acute and inescapable. Irons is particularly compelling; kindness and blind prejudice sit side by side in his breast, rendering the clashes in his character as vivid as those in the play itself. - Bret Fetzer, Amazon.com

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The Merchant of Venice [SOUNDTRACK]

After viewing the film on which Jocelyn Pook based her majestic score, one wonders how THE MERCHANT OF VENICE could be considered one of Shakespeare's comedies.

After listening to this beautifully recorded, hauntingly atmospheric soundtrack, one may ask the question twice. While buffered by some of the jolliest comic scenes Shakespeare ever wrote, this deadly serious film, based on one of the poet's most moving and difficult plays, asks how it is possible religion and law -- the pillars of modern life -- have so often served the human drive toward cruelty and avarice, towards religious bigotry and misogyny.

This soundtrack draws carefully on Renaissance musical motives, and is orchestrated with such respect for the script that I actually enjoyed the recording as well at home - as I did the score in the theatre. That is the greatest compliment that can be paid any film composer. - Amazon.com

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Macbeth (2006)
AFI-Winning Australian telling of the classic Shakespeare story

Transferred from Scotland to Melbourne, Australia, the well-known fight for kingship among the Scots is transposed to be the turf struggle for supremacy in the underworld gangland of Melbourne. The script and the direction make this transposition work, using the original dialog from the play, placing it in the voices and bodies of an all-Australian cast, to the point that the allegiance of the actors as to place is far less important than the telling of a powerful tale of ambition. Sam Worthington makes an enigmatic yet strong Macbeth, well paired by Victoria Hill as his conniving and ultimately mad wife Lady Macbeth: the two form a chemistry that serves the original intent of the author well. The many characters who rise and fall in the wake of the ambition of Macbeth tend to blend a bit because of the condensation of the script, but Gary Sweet as the doomed Duncan, Steve Bastoni as Banquo, and Lachy Hulme as Macduff are particularly fine.

The battle scenes are appropriately gruesome and the musical score that accompanies this film is an odd mixture of rock and piano transcriptions of Beethoven symphony movements. With the bracing cinematography by Will Gibson it all works well. - Amazon.com

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Macbeth (Folger Shakespeare Library) (Paperback)

William Shakespeare's tragedy "Macbeth" was performed at the Globe Theater in 1605-06. The "Scottish" play was a calculated to be pleasing to James I, who took the throne of England after the death of Elizabeth Tudor in 1603. It was not simply that the play was set in the homeland of the Stuarts, but also that when Banquo's royal descendants are envisioned the last of them is the new King.

What to say about Macbeth? Words cannot describe the ultimate spine-tingling, soul-shaking nature of it until you've read it. Then you know that there is only one way to describe this terrifying yet amazing play: by reading it. Shakespeare captures a whole new age and style with this harsh tragedy about the powers of evil. - Amazon.com

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William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet (Special Edition) (1996)
BAFTA Award-winning & Oscar Nominated retelling of Shakespeare's classic story

This brilliant and contemporary retelling of the world's most tragic love affair makes this wildly inventive "Romeo & Juliet" unforgettable. This special edition DVD contains audio commentary by Baz Luhrmann, early rehearsal scenes and an inside look at the making of the movie.

Baz Luhrmann's dazzling and unconventional adaptation of William Shakespeare's classic love story is spellbinding. Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes portray Romeo and Juliet, the youthful star-crossed lovers of the past. But the setting has been moved from its Elizabethan origins to futuristic urban backdrop of Verona Beach.

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Romeo + Juliet (10th Anniversary Edition) [EXPLICIT LYRICS] [SOUNDTRACK] [EXTRA TRACKS]

Like the movie itself, the Romeo + Juliet soundtrack is filled with emotional twists; from the hardness of Garbage's "#1 Crush" and the Butthole Surfers' "Whatever" to Stina Nordenstam's endearing, whispery "Little Star" the journey is all over the map.

Within the CD-enhanced grooves, however, moments of absolute brilliance flow; Des'ree's "Kissing You (Love Theme from Romeo + Juliet)" is perhaps her strongest work to date, while Radiohead's "Talk Show Host" is a track that the group treasures and performs live often. Those two tracks alone make this soundtrack worth the purchase price. - Denise Sheppard, Amazon.com

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William Shakespeare's Hamlet (Two-Disc Special Edition) (1996)
Academy Awards® Nominated full version of the classic Shakespeare tale

It's the greatest work of literature, but nobody had ever filmed Hamlet uncut - until Kenneth Branagh went about the task for his lavish 1996 production. The result is a sumptuous, star-studded version that scores a palpable hit on its avowed goal: to make the text as clear and urgent as possible. Branagh himself plays the melancholy son of the Danish court, caught in a famous muddle about whether to seek revenge against his royal father's presumed slayer… the man who now sits on the throne and shares the bed of Hamlet's mother. (Or, as the song "That's Entertainment" summarizes the plot: "A ghost and a prince meet / And everyone winds up mincemeat.") As a director, Branagh (who shot the movie in 70 mm.) uses the vast, cold interiors of a vaguely 19th-century manor to gorgeous effect; the story might scurry down this hallway, into that back chamber, or sprawl out into the enormous main room. With its endless collection of mirrors, the place is as big and empty as Citizen Kane's Xanadu.

The experienced Shakespearians in the cast come off nicely; Derek Jacobi's Claudius, Richard Briers' Polonius, and Michael Maloney's Laertes are just terrific. Julie Christie is a suitably attractive Gertrude, and Kate Winslet makes the most of Ophelia's mad scenes. Branagh's habit of folding in unexpected American performers is on the mark, too: Billy Crystal is surprisingly good as the Gravedigger, Robin Williams predictably camps up Osric, and Charlton Heston is an inspired choice as the grandiloquent Player King. - Amazon.com

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Hamlet: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1996 Film) [SOUNDTRACK]

Patrick Doyle easily matches John Williams for great composition. This soundtrack is incredible, opening with a hopeful note and a fanfare. The middle is well balanced between dark, heavy thunder, victorious resolve, mystery, and grief. The last track, even played by itself with no context, will blow your mind away.

This is certainly one of my top 3 Patrick Doyle scores and a towering achievement. The score unfolds like a great romantic symphony encompassing several moods from serenity and inner peace, to violence and lush gothic undertones, and a finaly sense of joyous celebration. After listening constantly to Mr. Doyle's scores for "Henry V", "Much ado about nothing" and "Frankenstein", I thought he could never top such achievements and somehow he did: "Hamlet" is a masterpiece of thematic inventiveness and dramatic power. - Amazon.com

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Much Ado About Nothing (1993)
BAFTA & Golden Globe Nominated romp

Full of "sparkling merriment" (The Hollywood Reporter), this sexy, sunny comedy positively sizzles as one set of lovers battles against a dirty trick, and another set simply battleseach other! Adapted by Oscar® nominee* Kenneth Branagh and featuring an all-star cast, this charming romp "casts the battle of the sexes in the form of an elegant dance" (The New York Times). A military war has just ended, but the "merry war" between Beatrice (Emma Thompson) and Benedick (Branagh) rages on! Can their friends trick them into making love instead? For that matter, can another couple's devotion survive the evil Don John's (Keanu Reeves) vicious lies? It's up to the blundering constable (Michael Keaton) to save the day so that the course of true love may yet run smooth!

*1989: Director, Actor, Henry V; 1992: Short Film-Live Action, Swan Song; 1996: Adapted Screenplay, Hamlet

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Much Ado About Nothing: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack [SOUNDTRACK]

Patrick Doyle has become one of those composers whose first works in motion pictures mark the status of film music scoring. His work for "Henry V" -actually his first -put him on the map. But "Much Ado About Nothing" puts him on a pedestal.

Emma Thompson gives a sweet reading on 'The Picnic', thus giving support to the main love theme, which is truly fantastic. Later this track gives way to the 'Overture', a magnificent piece with epic proportions and, perhaps, one of Doyle's best themes. The vocal tracks (sung by himself, I believe) 'Sigh No More, Ladies' and 'Pardon, Goddess Of The Night' are truly enchanting. Overall, the music on this CD is remarkable. Patrick Doyle is remarkable. - Amazon.com

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