My family has a lot of family favorite films, they include What About Bob?, Sgt. Bilko, Big Business, Father of the Bride (one and two), and My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Another film on this list is a 1994 movie with Danny Devito called Renaissance Man. This is a movie about a man who is fired from his job in advertising and after going to unemployment for a check or a job for quite some time they finally find him a position. the position is teaching kids in boot camp for the army who are just not quite as well educated as the others. There is no teacher’s manual so Devito ends up teaching them Hamlet.
You might be asking where is this post going right about now. The answer is two places. In the first place I must confess that the title of my blog cannot be attributed to original thinking on my part. It is a line from Renaissance Man this is something I have been meaning to include in my blog and now I finally have an in for it.
The second reason for talking about this movie is because today Professor Burton mentioned the name Heywood in class. I have to admit I had never heard of the real Heywood before yesterday. However, Haywood is the last name of one of the characters in the movie Renaissance Man. So I did different searches with each last of the of the twelve main characters and was a bite disappointed in what I did not find. There were only slight and very stretched connections with four of the names.
- Bill Rago: Rago is a national forest in Norway –Prince Fortinbras was from Norway. In the end Fortinbras is king. In the end Rago’s life comes to order. He reconciles with his daughter and has a girlfriend and new job. They both get what they want in
- Jamaal Montgomery: There was a line fathers and sons in the 1600’s and 1700’s who were officers in the British Army.
- Roosevelt Nathaniel Hobbs: Thomas Hobbes lived from 1588-1679. He was a philosopher and author during this time who contributed to many fields of study. The significance of this in relation to the character from the movie is that both of them were highly intelligent and both get into trouble because of their book smarts.
- Tommy Lee Haywood: Thomas Heywood (1570’2-1641) was a playwright, actor and author.
While 4 out of twelve may not be anywhere near an A+ I feel like it is too many to be a consequence. Below is one of my favorite clips from Renaissance Man. The first one is funny toward the end so you could skip to half way through if you want. The second one is more about Hamlet than the first clip. And just so you know these clips don't do the movie justice it is hilarious!
