f13.net

I believe the Director is Ridly Scott - which can do no wrong in my mind as I believe he directed Blade Runner, Alien and Gladiator.

I didn't like the way the fight scenes were filmed in Gladiator. I'm not a stedicam fan.

Don't tell me that you hate Scorsese too...?  :|

Lars Von Trier. I hate me some Lars Von Trier. And I hate all the people that convinced me that Dancer in the Dark was a good movie.

I just felt the need to add that.

Lars Von Trier. I hate me some Lars Von Trier. And I hate all the people that convinced me that Dancer in the Dark was a good movie.

I just felt the need to add that.

I didn't like the way the fight scenes were filmed in Gladiator. I'm not a stedicam fan.

Riget rules, but I'm not sure that show ever aired outside of Denmark and Sweden. Still if you can find it, it's worth a look, may even make you forgive him for Dancer in the Dark.

I believe the Director is Ridly Scott - which can do no wrong in my mind as I believe he directed Blade Runner, Alien and Gladiator.

Oh come on, how can you not like Gladiator, even if you don't like Crowe (I don't mind him either way)?

Maximus: I'm required to kill--so I kill. That's enough.

Proximo: That's enough for the provinces, but not for Rome.

A foolish choice in art direction casts a pall over Ridley Scott's "Gladiator" that no swordplay can cut through. The film looks muddy, fuzzy and indistinct. Its colors are mud tones at the drab end of the palette, and it seems to have been filmed on grim and overcast days. This darkness and a lack of detail in the long shots helps obscure shabby special effects (the Colosseum in Rome looks like a model from a computer game), and the characters bring no cheer: They're bitter, vengeful, depressed. By the end of this long film, I would have traded any given gladiatorial victory for just one shot of blue skies. (There are blue skies in the hero's dreams of long-ago happiness, but that proves the point.) The story line is "Rocky" on downers. The hero, a general from Spain named Maximus (Russell Crowe), is a favorite of the dying emperor Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris). After Maximus defeats the barbarians, Marcus names him protector of Rome. But he is left for dead by Marcus' son, a bitter rival named Commodus (the name comes from the Latin for "convenient" and not what you're thinking).

After escaping and finding that his wife and son have been murdered, Maximus finds his way to the deserts of North Africa, where he is sold as a slave to Proximo (the late Oliver Reed), a manager of gladiators. When Commodus lifts his late father's ban on gladiators in Rome, in an attempt to distract the people from hunger and plagues, Maximus slashes his way to the top, and the movie ends, of course, with the Big Fight.

This same story could have been rousing entertainment; I have just revisited the wonderful "Raiders of the Lost Ark," which is just as dimwitted but 12 times more fun. But "Gladiator" lacks joy. It employs depression as a substitute for personality, and believes that if the characters are bitter and morose enough, we won't notice how dull they are.

Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) is one of those spoiled, self-indulgent, petulant Roman emperors made famous in the age of great Roman epics, which ended with "Spartacus" (1960). Watching him in his snits, I recalled Peter Ustinov's great Nero in "Quo Vadis" (1951), collecting his tears for posterity in tiny crystal vials. Commodus has unusual vices even for a Caesar; he wants to become the lover of his older sister Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), whose son he is bringing up as his heir.

The moral backbone of the story is easily mastered. Commodus wants to be a dictator, but is opposed by the senate, led by Gracchus (Derek Jacobi). The senators want him to provide sewers for the city's Greek district, where the plague is raging, but Commodus decides instead on a season of games. Proximo arrives with his seasoned gladiators from Africa, who prove nearly invincible and threaten the emperor's popularity. The moral lesson: It is good when gladiators slaughter everyone in sight, and then turn over power to the politicians.

The Colosseum productions play like professional wrestling. Events are staged to re-create famous battles, and after the visitors wipe out the home team, a puzzled Commodus tells his aide, "My history's a little hazy--but shouldn't the barbarians lose the battle of Carthage?" Later, an announcer literally addresses the crowd in these words: "Caesar is pleased to bring you the only undefeated champion in Roman history--the legendary Titus!" The battle sequences are a pale shadow of the lucidly choreographed swordplay in "Rob Roy" (1995); instead of moves we can follow and strategy we can appreciate, Scott goes for muddled closeups of fearsome but indistinct events. The crowd cheers, although those in the cheaper seats are impossible to see because of the murky special effects.

When Maximus wins his first big fight, it's up to Commodus to decide whether he will live or die. "Live! Live!" the fans chant, and Commodus, bowing to their will, signals with a "thumbs up." This demonstrates that Commodus was not paying attention in Caesar School, since the practice at the Colosseum at that time was to close the thumb in the fist to signal life; an extended thumb meant death. Luckily, no one else in the Colosseum knows this, either.

Crowe is efficient as Maximus: bearded, taciturn, brooding. His closest friend among the gladiators is played by Djimon Hounsou, who played the passionate slave in "Amistad." Since protocol requires him to speak less than Maximus, he mostly looks ferocious, effectively.

Nielsen shows the film's most depth, as the sister. Phoenix is passable as Commodus, but a quirkier actor could have had more fun in the role. Old pros Harris, Jacobi and Reed are reliable; Scott does some fancy editing and a little digital work to fill the gaps left when Reed died during the production.

"Gladiator" is being hailed by those with short memories as the equal of "Spartacus" and "Ben-Hur." This is more like "Spartacus Lite." Or dark. It's only necessary to think back a few months, to Julie Taymor's "Titus," for a film set in ancient Rome that's immeasurably better to look at. The visual accomplishment of "Titus" shames "Gladiator," and its story is a whole heck of a lot better than the "Gladiator" screenplay, even if Shakespeare didn't make his Titus the only undefeated champion in Roman history.

While, I've backed away from that sentence in the last 5 years or whatever, it still comes across that way in a couple scenes. I'm no whore for Mel Gibson, but it's tough to compare to Braveheart on the epic love scale.

That said, Gladiator is one of the most beautiful pieces of work ever put down on celluloid. It's easily up there with Fifth Element, Equilibrium, Gattaca and a short list of other movies that are too artistic for words.

I still say Braveheart beats the shit out of Gladiator.

... exotic yet strange methods of healing...

Leslie Nelson will alway be the patriot to me...

Spoken: "My name is Francis Marion. I fought the British Redcoats in '76 - hiding in the Carolina swamps by day, surprising them with swift strikes at night. They called me a tricky swamp fox, so a Swamp Fox I became."

The Patriot was pure, utter shit. It was an attempt to Braveheart up the American Revolution, and it failed miserably. It wasn't even good for the battle scenes, which make the historian in me cringe.

The fuck?  I think this is the first time I have actually ever heard anybody say a bad thing about Gladiator, let alone a group of people.

You should have posted the big one.

Shockeye has no opinion. We don't let him have one except on Yom Kippur.

Two words: Cabin Boy

You're 6 months too early.

No more T word.

Holidays be damned- Cabin Boy was still a solid flick. I <3 Chris Elliott.

I'm of the opinion that he once actually liked Pulp Fiction (probably a lot), but feels the need to hate Tarantino completely simply because he didn't like Kill Bill.

Crowe's best performance is still from The Insider.

Yes. Most underrated Crowe movie.

L.A. Confidential was awesome and I enjoyed A Beautiful Mind regardless of it's questionable representation of real events, but for my money Crowe's best performance is still from The Insider.

Holidays be damned- Cabin Boy was still a solid flick. I <3 Chris Elliott.

Give the "Idiots" a try if you already haven't (Danish - "Idioterne").

Not the best representative of Dogma 95 (Man Bites Dog anyone?), but definitely the funniest one.

Man Bites Dog had nothing to do with Dogma 95 - it was just a low budget movie. It's easy to confuse the two.

Idioterne is one of the most unwatchable movies ever made. Pure pretentious dreck.

Hmm, that's strange. Since the director (and it's specifically stated in the beginning of the movie, no less) says it was done according to the Dogma 95 rules. Hell, a simple viewing will tell you that it follows everything to a T.

It has nothing to do with me confusing a low budget movie with Dogme 95. I know the difference.

Or are you saying anything that isn't from von Trier or Vinterberg isn't Dogme 95?

But funny!  :lol:

Unless there's another Man Bites Dog than the Belgian serial killer movie, then I have no clue what you're talking about. Link to interview please?
It was made in 1992, which kinda gives a good reason why it wasn't made following the Dogma 95 rules. But the director (and you) compairing it to Dogma just argues my point about Dogma just being a gimmic.

No. Painful.

Gladiator was ok... but forgettable.

The official list (http://www.dogme95.dk/dogme-films/filmlist.asp) has quite a few movies and directors. But movies prior to "Dogme 95 # 1" - Festen - do not count there. People did after all make amateurish handheld camera movies prior to "the rules".  :evil:

Don't go discounting Virtuosity.

Well, the European Crusaders were probably "less good" than the Arabic peoples.

Foreign Invasions, and all that.

Well, the European Crusaders were probably "less good" than the Arabic peoples.

Foreign Invasions, and all that.

I take it you've never hear of "Spain".

Sacking Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade was exactly a charitable act either....

Istanbul was Constantinople
Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That's nobody's business but the Turks

It has given us one of the greatest quotes in history though, "Kill them all, god will know his own."  I mean seriously, thats some stone cold shit right there.  Tarantino just wishes he could write dialogue like that.

Nobody was a "good guy" in the Crusades. The Byzantines asked for help because they could no longer defend their conquered lands from the Muslims. The Crusaders themselves just wanted church-approved land holdings in the Middle East that they could get income from. The Muslims wanted to conquer it alll in the name of Allah, and slaughter those who didn't comply. The Crusades were just one of the ugliest messes ever in the history of the world, on all sides.

But they should make for fantastic battle scenes, and really shitty, overly-dramatic speeches that have nothing to do with the history.

Johny Cee just reminded me of something....

We need mroe ancient history-based movies. Not trash like Troy, but stuff based upon the Persian Wars (esp. Marathon), or the Peloponneian Wars.

Hell, someone please give me The Illiad done correctly please, with the drama between the gods, kthx. At least, from what I remember, someone did The Odyssey correctly a few years ago as a mini-series. It had Vanessa Williams if I remember correctly as Calypso.

Well, here's to hoping Kingdom of Heaven doesn't completely butcher the source material.

There's got to be a way to make it fairly accurate and entertaining, without being too dialogue heavy for movie audiences.

I'd like to see a movie of Socrates myself. A comedy!

There's got to be a way to make it fairly accurate and entertaining, without being too dialogue heavy for movie audiences.

At least, from what I remember, someone did The Odyssey correctly a few years ago as a mini-series. It had Vanessa Williams if I remember correctly as Calypso.

Someone needs to do a good Beowulf also.  :mrgreen: