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June 06, 2020
Saturday Evening Movie Thread 06-06-2020 [TheJamesMadison]Alexander the Awful Gladiator made a mark on Hollywood in 2000. Financially successful and well regarded by both critics (except for Roger Ebert) and the Academy, Ridley Scott's sword and sandals epic ignited Hollywood's love of epics for the first time in decades, something even the success of Mel Gibson's Braveheart could not do. The love affair didn't last very long, though, because none of the movies that followed where nearly as successful critically or commercially, and the genre rebirth died out. A Brief Background Oliver Stone's film was released in November of 2004 with hopes of capturing some industry awards. This was dashed once anyone saw it and realized that the film was a complete mess. Trying to save his film, he came up with a Director's Cut in 2005 that was released on DVD that ended up being eight minutes shorter than the theatrical cut. Do you remember a little biopic satire called Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story? It was a direct satire of the Joaquin Phoenix led and James Mangold directed biopic of Johnny Cash called Walk the Line. In it, John C. Reilly plays Dewey Cox, a fictional singer who leads the most generic rock and roll rise and fall story you can imagine. (It's also hilarious and you should watch it.) There is a scene early in the film where Philip takes young Alexander into a cave underneath Pella and shows him representations of some of the most important Greek myths. There's Achilles, Jason and Medea, Cronos and Zeus, as well as Oedipus. Literally every single one of these myths ends up playing out in Stone's version of Alexander. The great hero undone by the death of a close male friend and lover, the far-traveling hero who marries a foreign woman and betrays her for another, the father and son at war, and the son in love with his mother all are part of this take on Alexander. Trying to tease through all of these overlapping takes, as well as a couple of others that aren't captured on the cave walls, and figure out a basic point for the story's telling and existence is an exercise in futility. Oliver Stone's Alexander has another problem on top of trying to capture the entirety of Alexander's life. It's that Stone barely tries to bridge the massive gaps between events he portrays. It flabbergasted me every time I started a new edition that literally every step from Alexander leaving Macedonia to the Battle at Gaugamela is skipped over. He goes from a boy just taking the crown of his fallen father and king to a battle-hardened commander with the ability to take apart enemy strategies with unconventional tactics. It makes me question what story of Alexander Stone was trying to tell. In a word: No. None of them are good, however The Final Cut is the least bad of them. The changes in structure, that mostly make the film a constant jump between Alexander before he leaves for his war with Persia and the other timeline that starts at the Battle of Gaugamela, are a mixed bag, but they do produce some interesting results. It also fixes one particular sequence as much as editing could fix the sequence, which is the marriage of Alexander to Roxana. So, I set out to watch three cuts of a bad movie, and most of you are wondering why. Well, it's a good question. | Recent Comments
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Saturday Evening Movie Thread 09/07/2024 [TheJamesMadison]
Hobby Thread - Sept 7, 2024 [TRex] Ace of Spades Pet Thread, September 7 Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, Sept. 7 The "rules-based international order" vs. free speech? The Classical Saturday Morning Coffee Break & Prayer Revival Daily Tech News 7 September 2024 The Bric, The Brac, The Craic & All, Lets Call It An ONT TGIF Cafe The Week In Woke Search
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