Baz 'Moulin Rouge' Luhrmann created a radically updated West Side
Story version of the classic school O-level text, especially for
the MTV generation.
The opposing Montague and Capulet teenagers ride around in hip
cars with rap music blaring, carry handguns, and have parties at
beachfront mansions. Like, cool dude!
The film gave Leonardo DiCaprio his first real taste of the limelight
and briefly enabled schoolteachers to get their classes to read
Shakespeare.
'But sir, if the Capulets were in McDonalds, why couldn't the Montagues
just go to Burger King?'
