Happy 400th Shakespeare Day...........

Today we honor the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's birth and/or death with six images of theatrical productions and filmed version of his fabled plays; somehow, we didn't find any room for "Romeo and Juliet."

The six images are of: 1) The Merchant of Venice; 2) Hamlet; 3) Othello; 4) MacBeth; 5) Akira Kurosawa's "Throne of Blood" (based on Shakespeare's "King Lear," the Japanese film starred Toshiro Mifune, pict) and 6) "Much Ado About Nothing."

http://www.americanshakespearecenter.com/

http://www.folger.edu/

https://www.ncshakes.org/

Top Ten Comic Strips from Sunday Myrtle Beach Sun: Ziggy Breaks the Fourth Wall

Greetings to our blog readers in South Korea, Mexico, and Russia.

Today, we give you our ten favorite comic strips that were featured in the Sunday edition of "The Myrtle Beach Sun" in Myrtle Beach, SC. Ironically, the beach image at the top is from one of their vacation destination rivals Ocean City, Maryland!

The beach was the topic in first place strip "Off the Mark" where all the kids had taken their cellphones into the water!

The second image is in reference to "Dustin," where the kids basically pretended they were Al Pacino from "Scarface" and had a water gun fight.

Lastly, "Ziggy" featured Tom Wilson, the cartoonist behind "Ziggy," breaking the fourth wall as Ziggy told the readers that the cartoonist couldn't come up with any ideas for this week's comic strip. Maybe, next week, Ziggy can state the famous "Hamlet" line: "To Be or Not to Be, That is the Question." Just a thought.

Here is the top ten:

1. "Off the Mark"

2. "Dustin"

3. "Doonesbury"

4. "Mother Goose and Grimm"

5. "Betty"

6. "Ziggy"

7. "Curtis"

8. "Stone Soup"

9. "Dilbert"

10. "Hagar the Horrible"

http://www.gocomics.com/offthemark

http://www.gocomics.com/ziggy

Quote from Shakespeare_We'll Keep it Short

Hmmm... quoting William Shakespeare a collective ten times on two blogs during this month of December was not a very bright idea, but we like to finish things we have started; the image above is from an early film version of "Hamlet."

Here is our latest quip from the Bard:

"Absence from those we love is self from self-banishment."

While researching this post, we learned that the Georgia Shakespeare theatre company in Atlanta is seeking funds to keep operations up. On Dec. 16th and 17th, they will host a holiday cabarte entitled "Cocoa and Cards." Both performances start at 7:00 p.m., and we wish them well.

SIDEBAR: Amazingly enough, we had no idea that today would have been Mexican artist Diego Garcia's 125th birthday when we quoted him yesterday. Today, a painting by Rivera, who was Frida Kahlo's romantic partner, was used as Google's doodle.

More Oscar Projections....

Yes, we aren't exactly sure why we chose an image from Laurence Olivier's screen performance as "Hamlet" for this entry either, although we are 98 percent certain that he won an as Oscar for the performance in the title role.

Here are the short film categories and our projections....


Documentary (short):

Nominees are "Killing in the Name," "Poster Girl," "Strangers No More," "Sun Come Up" and "The Warriors of Quigang."

Projection: We are pikcing "Strangers No More" over "Killing in the Name" and "Poster Girl." Those three films appear to be the front-runners. "Strangers No More" has a 7.8 rating on the IMDB which just slightly higher than "Killing in the Name," which registers a 7.7.

Animated Film (short):

Nominees are "Day and Night," "The Gruffalo," "Let's Pollute," "The Lost Thing" and "Madasgar: A Journey Diary"

Projection: We strongly feel that "Day and Night" will win this one, but don't sue us if you are holding an Oscar party in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Live Action:

Nominees are "The Confession," "God of Love," "Ne Wewe," "The Crush" and "Wish 143."

Projections: All signs point to the much-acclaimed "Wish 143;" we forgot to write down what the film was about!

For the Bard's B-day-a Quote from Will Shakespeare

Tomorrow is William Shakespeare's birthday, so for the occasion we have two quotes from the Bard on our two respective blogs.

Of course, most Americans are undoubtedly more fascinated by the fact that Lauren Conrad of "The Hills" will not be attending Heidi and Spencer's wedding.

The American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, Va., is currently performing "Hamlet" (pictured here, but not the ASC production) along with other vintage Shakespeare plays.

They sent out an email with quotes from the Bard regarding Earth Day but none of them seemed as catchy as his standards, like this one:

"Bening born is like being kidnapped. And then sold into slavery."