A long march, a long march, and twenty years behind

[sovay]

Look, I don't know Neil Marshall from a poke in the eye with a pilum, but all things being equal, I'd rather see The Eagle of the Ninth. No offense, but General Virilus? Does he have a very great friend in Rome named Biggus Dickus?

(Oh, movies. How is it you can beautifully realize Middle-Earth and still fuck up the Romans on a regular basis?)

Comments

[sovay]

one female-heavy horror classic (The Descent), one gritty popcorn werewolf B-flick (Dog Soldiers) and one crazy flaming bag of post-Apocalyptic crap that still contains an insanely cool performance by Rhona Mitra, barbarian queen of Beyond the Wall (Doomsday)

See, that's useful information. Names that look like bad schoolboy Latin are not. Thanks!

I'm betting his version is more "Sent Down" than Life of Brian.

I thought of "Sent Down" immediately on reading the description of Etain. I'd just rather see a movie of that, too!

Besides...who says you can't see both?

I am wondering why it is that zeitgeist comes in pairs—Photographing Fairies and FairyTale (1997), The Illusionist and The Prestige (2006), and now it looks like next year is going to be the Legio IX Hispana.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'd rather see a version of "Sent Down", 'cause getting your stuff optioned for production's where the real money is. Though considering the way some people have responded to it, I think it'd be a pretty hard sell; starts with a rape, ends with...man, who knows. It ain't Gladiator, is all I'm sayin'.

Re the cinematic zeitgeist, meanwhile--my favorite version of that was Dangerous Liaisons vs. Valmont, ie the one nobody remembers anymore. Time usually weeds the chaff.

[sovay]

Though considering the way some people have responded to it, I think it'd be a pretty hard sell; starts with a rape, ends with...man, who knows. It ain't Gladiator, is all I'm sayin'.

This is quite true. Gladiator has the hazy wheatfields of Elysium. "Sent Down" has the underworld. I know which one my money's on.

Time usually weeds the chaff.

There you go: I didn't even know Valmont existed!

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

Valmont's based on a version of Cholderos de Laclos Milos Foreman claims he read back in Poland, and if it's a faithful adaptation, I have to say that that translator utterly missed the point of--everything, basically. OTOH, Annette Bening does make an interesting Mertueil; much crazier than Glenn Close's interpretation, and she gets a great scene where she's talking to Valmont while taking a period-accurate bath (ie, she still has her clothes on). And they cast Fairuza Balk as Cecile, which just accelerates the genuine creepiness of how young she's supposed to be, especially when she's marrying Jeffrey Jones.