And on the sixth day, God created Trash! And it was good. Especially his hair! That’s right Trashers, Mark Gregory hits the big screen yet again, this time portraying the greatest role of all time, the very first man! Continue reading “Adam and Eve (1983)”
Category: Historical Epic
79 A.D. (1962)
A lot of folks ask me why they should care about ancient history in general and old Italian gladiator movies about ancient history in particular. Who cares whether some guy named Feces Maximus fought a guy named Flatulence the Elder over a beautiful girl named Chlamydia? What does that have to do with my life here in the futuristic present where people have normal names like Barack and Kanye? Continue reading “79 A.D. (1962)”
King of Kings (1961)
As soon as King of Kings began, I felt my heart race and my left arm go numb when the narrator (Orson Welles) intoned that the year is 63 B.C. Maybe I don’t know a whole lot about this religious stuff, but I was smart enough to notice that we were starting things way before Jesus was ever immaculately conceived, let alone bugging Romans. I wondered just how much pre-game hype I was going to have to sit through. After all, I was paying to see a film about Christ and his times, not about how crappy everyone had it until he showed up. Continue reading “King of Kings (1961)”
Barabbas (1961)
Allegedly Barabbas was a thief and murderer, but I never saw him do more than get wasted, try to hump women and burn Rome down. I guess he did kill a few guys, but this was the ancient world and people would run into your spear all the time then. Continue reading “Barabbas (1961)”
The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968)
This has to be my favorite movie about the Crimean War! While the film attempts a half-hearted explanation of the events that take us into the Crimean War through its periodic (and somewhat snarky) animation segments (it was 1968 so you’ve got to expect a little pretentious artiness and social commentary), I didn’t get much more out of it than identifying the countries through the cartoon animals that represented them: Russia was a bear, Britain a lion and Turkey was a turkey wearing a fez. France was of course a chicken. Continue reading “The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968)”
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
As directed by David Lean, Dr. Zhivago is a movie of sweeping scale and swirling historical events about the life of a Russian poet. Once it was all over though, I wondered why more time wasn’t devoted to Zhivago and less time devoted to shots of trees fluttering, frosted over windows, and really cold countryside. As the movie drew to a close, I felt like all I knew about Zhivago was that he loves to pump blondes, write poems, and isn’t really sold on this Russian Revolution thing. Heck, that could describe any of us! Continue reading “Doctor Zhivago (1965)”
Cleopatra (1963)
Holy crap, that was long! Such was my reaction after finishing this one about two days after I started it. Lumbering, plodding, crawling, rumbling, stumbling, and finally bumbling into the endzone after an eternity, this movie (and really, that’s probably too charitable a term for something more akin to second job) will sorely test the patience of even the hardiest of historical epic fans. Continue reading “Cleopatra (1963)”