Category: 1. Jason Apuzzo

Sword & Sandal Report!: Immortals, Pompeii, Spartacus & The Latest on the ‘300’ Prequel

From "Spartacus: Gods of the Arena."

By Jason Apuzzo. Today we begin a new feature here at Libertas called The Sword & Sandal Report!, to complement our Invasion Alerts! and Cold War Updates! The Sword & Sandal Report! will cover the recent explosion of new films & TV shows dealing with the ancient world, and especially those depicting the worlds of ancient Greece, Rome and the Biblical lands – but also ‘sword and sorcery’-type projects that cover the Middle Ages, or alternative-style fantasy worlds. So dust off your sandals, grab that Roman-Gladius sword off the wall, strap on your helmet … and ladies, get ready to wear some loose clothing.

Or, as in the case of Spartacus: Gods of the Arena on Starz, wear no clothing at all!

I’ve always loved sword-and-sandal movies or peplum, particularly of the Italian/Steve Reeves-Hercules variety, but also Hollywood-on-the-Tiber classics like Ben-Hur or Helen of Troy – or fantasy fare like Ray Harryhausen’s Jason and the Argonauts. If the purpose of the cinema is to ‘take us away’ to imaginative lands of the past, where heroes are always larger than life and nobler – and women lovelier and more virtuous (or more wicked and licentious, as your tastes demand) – then these films really accomplish that. In recent years. the peplum has been revived largely by Ridley Scott’s Gladiator from 2000, although the results since that time have admittedly been mixed – with a few hits like Frank Miller’s 300, and quite a few reekers like Oliver Stone’s Alexander.

Nonetheless, I’ve been wanting to do The Sword & Sandal Report! for some time, because – when done properly – these films not only convey a wonderful spirit of adventure, fantasy and romance, but they can also be great vehicles for communicating basic ideas about freedom. In fact, it’s often the case in the more modern sword-and-sandal films that the only idea conveyed whatsoever – in the midst of all the dust, carnage and orgiastic sex – is the basic need to fight for one’s freedom, an idea we champion wholeheartedly here at Libertas.

At the same time, sword-and-sandal movies are also an entertaining way to learn about history, even when these films diverge (often drastically) from established fact. And, as in the case of something like The Fall of the Roman Empire or El Cid, sword-and-sandal movies can also be among the more poetic and erudite films you will ever see. So let’s let get started …

• Very big news recently on the sword-and-sandal front was the early rollout of the media campaign for The Immortals, Tarsem Singh’s 3D take on the Theseus myth coming from Universal and Relativity Media in November. The film features Henry Cavill (the new Superman) as Theseus, and also Mickey Rourke, Freida Pinto, John Hurt and Transformers 2/Red Dawn hottie Isabel Lucas as the goddess Athena. Producer Mark Canton talks about the film here and here, new posters are out for the film here, plus Immortals is already getting the graphic novel treatment (see here), and Tarsem Singh and Isabel Lucas together talk about the film here and here.

Because this is a ‘Tarsem’ movie (he helmed the memorably perverse Jennifer Lopez thriller, The Cell), the early vibe I’m getting on this film is that it could be a hyper-violent, MTV-Zack Snyder-type mess, but we’ll see and I’ll hope for the best. Certainly the benefit of casting Mickey Rourke these days as a villain – in Immortals he plays the wicked King Hyperion of Crete – is that you don’t need to put any extra fright makeup on his face.

Isabel Lucas as Athena in "Immortals."

• While producing The Immortals, Mark Canton is also apparently prepping the 300 prequel with Zack Snyder and Frank Miller … which was initially going to be called Xerxes, but which is now lacking a title, as the title ‘Xerxes‘ has apparently been dropped. Why? Too many X’s? I think Xerxes is a great title – crisp, simple and dramatic. Were they worried no one would understand that it was a 300 prequel? Here’s hoping they don’t title the film 299 – or, worse yet, Themistocles.

In any case, Canton talks about his enthusiasm for the prequel here, and you can also see a full breakdown of the Xerxes storyline via Frank Miller here. On paper, it looks like the film could be genuinely spectacular.

• Robert Towne (Chinatown) has been hired to write Pompeii, Sony’s four-part miniseries based on the best-selling historical thriller by Robert Harris and produced by Ridley and Tony Scott, among others. Read the details about the project here, and Jeffrey Wells does a nice job of tracking the intriguing similarities between Harris’ Pompeii and Towne’s Chinatown here.

I haven’t read Harris’ Pompeii, although I’ve been to Pompeii itself – an otherworldly ghost town, meticulously preserved since its unearthing – and I’ve read Harris’ Imperium and enjoyed it a great deal. Because Ridley Scott’s involved, expect Pompeii to be big, ponderous, vaguely conspiratorial but otherwise respectable – with a boffo conclusion, as it were.

• Wrath of the Titans, sequel to the godawful remake of Clash of the Titans, has just begun shooting – and you can check out the official plot synopsis of that film here. Wrath was written by a completely different team of screenwriters than the first film, and is being helmed by Battle: Los Angeles director Jonathan Liebesman, so here’s hoping the new film is a lot better than the last. All I ask is that the new film not feature ‘heroic’ pseudo-Islamic suicide warriors (the ‘Djinn’), nor gratuitously insult Indian Hindus, and maybe include a few more women in the cast next time? Just a thought. Actually that’s three thoughts. Continue reading Sword & Sandal Report!: Immortals, Pompeii, Spartacus & The Latest on the ‘300’ Prequel

P.J. O’Rourke: “Atlas Shrugged. And So Did I.” + Shrugged Part I Producer Says There May Not be Any Sequels

By Jason Apuzzo. Writing in The Wall St. Journal today, P.J. O’Rourke weighs with a blistering critique of the new Atlas Shrugged. I’ve excerpted from his piece below. What’s interesting about O’Rourke’s take on the film is that it’s quite obviously coming from someone sympathetic to Rand’s overall cause, and therefore lacking an ideological axe to grind.

I’d like to just say generally that we’ve been as supportive of this film as we can be here at Libertas. Long before people in the conservative/libertarian/Tea Party world began jumping on board this film’s train (so to speak), Libertas was the first to report from the film’s set, conducting the first extensive interview with the film’s director, Paul Johansson (see here and here). It’s also worth mentioning that back in 2005 we did a special tribute to Ayn Rand at The Liberty Film Festival, in which we showed the restored 1942 film version of Rand’s We the Living (directed by Goffredo Alessandrini, with Alida Valli and Rossano Brazzi) and had filmmaker/restoration producer Duncan Scott and noted Rand scholar Jeff Britting speak. So we want these sorts of projects to do well.

However, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that this current version of Atlas Shrugged has few advocates outside of the usual right-wing media chorus, and even a few doubters within it. Suffice it to say that P.J. O’Rourke was not overwhelmed by what he saw:

Atlas shrugged. And so did I.

The movie version of Ayn Rand’s novel treats its source material with such formal, reverent ceremoniousness that the uninitiated will feel they’ve wandered without a guide into the midst of the elaborate and interminable rituals of some obscure exotic tribe.

Meanwhile, members of that tribe of “Atlas Shrugged” fans will be wondering why director Paul Johansson doesn’t knock it off with the incantations, sacraments and recitations of liturgy and cut to the human sacrifice.

Upright railroad-heiress heroine Dagny Taggart and upright steel-magnate hero Hank Rearden are played with a great deal of uprightness (and one brief interlude of horizontality) by Taylor Schilling and Grant Bowler.  They indicate that everything they say is important by not using contractions. John Galt, the shadowy genius who’s convincing the people who carry the world on their shoulders to go out on strike, is played, as far as I can tell, by a raincoat.

The rest of the movie’s acting is borrowed from “Dallas,” although the absence of Larry Hagman’s skill at subtly underplaying villainous roles is to be regretted. Staging and action owe a debt to “Dynasty”—except, on “Dynasty,” there usually was action.

In “Atlas Shrugged–Part I” a drink is tossed, strong words are bandied, legal papers are served, more strong words are further bandied and, finally, near the end, an oil field is set on fire, although we don’t get to see this up close. There are many beautiful panoramas of the Rocky Mountains for no particular reason. And the movie’s title carries the explicit threat of a sequel.

You can read the rest of the piece here. O’Rourke goes on to make a point I’ve made here previously, which is that Shrugged‘s producers really should’ve considered either: a) setting the film in some sort of ‘alternate’ future, in which trains were not considered the most vital means of transportation (requiring some alteration of Rand’s basic storyline), or; b) simply setting the film in an ‘alternate’ version of 1957, when the novel was actually published. Continue reading P.J. O’Rourke: “Atlas Shrugged. And So Did I.” + Shrugged Part I Producer Says There May Not be Any Sequels

You’ve Got to be Kidding Me

George Clooney in "The Ides of March."

By Jason Apuzzo. To the left is a picture of George Clooney taken on the set of his The Ides of March (based on Beau Willimon’s play Farragut North).

The film is being directed by Clooney himself, and will feature Clooney playing a presidential candidate – a state governor named “Mike Morris” – loosely based on Howard Dean, circa 2004. Based on the poster and the title of the film (drawn from Shakespeare), Clooney seems to be associating himself here with both Obama and Julius Caesar.

According to IMDB, the film revolves around “an idealistic staffer for a newbie presidential candidate” who “gets a crash course on dirty politics during his stint on the campaign trail.” So the “idealism” of this staffer is presumably bound-up in the persona of one George Clooney as the candidate.

Incidentally, the IMDB page for the film misspells the name of Clooney’s character, who is listed as “Governer [sic] Mike Morris.” So apparently this “idealism” does not involve an ability to spell.

The film will also reportedly star Ryan Gosling, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Marisa Tomei, Jeffrey Wright, Paul Giamatti and Evan Rachel Wood – and will be released on Oct. 14th.

I’m at a loss for words here, although the phrase “jumping the shark” comes to mind. Also: looking ahead, I will make a point of never linking the words “George Clooney” and “self-aware” in the same sentence.

Posted on April 5th, 2011 at 12:25pm.

New Interview with Joel Surnow on The Kennedys; Show Debuts Sunday, April 3rd on Reelz

Greg Kinnear and Katie Holmes in "The Kennedys."

By Jason Apuzzo. Writer John Meroney was kind enough to notify me about his interesting and comprehensive new interview in The Atlantic with Joel Surnow on The Kennedys, the controversial new miniseries that debuts this Sunday, April 3rd on Reelz. The interview is easily the most probing yet with Joel on the subject of The Kennedys, and also on how the series fits in with Joel’s career and overall worldview. I recommend that Libertas readers look through the entire interview, some of the more interesting excerpts of which I’ve put below.

In the interview, Joel takes pains to explain what he believes to be the true source of the problems the series had in securing distribution: namely, the fact that he himself as the ‘showrunner’ is an outspoken conservative. As he says in the interview, speaking of his previous series 24:

JS: [A]s it became known that I knew Roger Ailes and Rush Limbaugh, 24 become a problem. I didn’t write every script or divine every single dramatic moment on that series. I had a staff of people who crossed the barriers of left and right. To me, what’s happened [with respect to The Kennedys] is close to some of the things that went on in the 1950s. Instead of asking, “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?,” this seems like, “Are you now or have you ever been a friend of a conservative?” Continue reading New Interview with Joel Surnow on The Kennedys; Show Debuts Sunday, April 3rd on Reelz

Invasion Alert!: Falling Skies & The Summer’s New Wave of Alien Invasions

From Steven Spielberg's "Falling Skies."

By Jason Apuzzo. • There’s been an ocean of ‘alien invasion’ news since our last Invasion Alert! – so much so that I’ll barely be able to cover it all. So let’s jump right in, focusing on recent developments …

• Trailers and promotional art have begun to appear for Steven Spielberg’s Falling Skies TV series for TNT. If ever we’ve seen a classic alien invasion scenario, this would seem to be it. The excellent new promo trailer for this series makes it look like a cross between V and War of the Worlds – although, interestingly, some of the promotional art seems to suggest that this series may also be headed down the path of Robert Heinlein’s Puppet Masters, with alien creatures riding on the backs of humans and ‘controlling’ their thoughts and actions. That’s just a hunch, but check out this promotional poster here (scroll below to the second poster) and perhaps you’ll see what I mean.

I’m not too crazy about Noah Wyle in the lead – he plays a Boston history professor who has to “use his military knowledge to aid the resistance movement known as the 2nd Mass” (sounding a bit like V here?) – although that may be because I keep thinking of him playing Steve Jobs in Pirates of Silicon Valley, which didn’t quite work for me.

In any case, the show’s trailer features a lot of gratuitous flag-waving and patriotic imagery, once more suggesting that this genre is heading back down its traditionally pro-American, pro-freedom path, a la the recent Battle: Los Angeles. With that said, I strongly suspect that this series will likely also have multiple layers to it in the way V has had over its first two seasons.

As far as alien invasion projects, Spielberg’s Falling Skies will be headed into some crowded skies when it premieres in June, right after the J.J. Abrams/Steven Spielberg Super 8, and with the Michael Bay/Steven Spielberg Transformers: Dark of the Moon and the Jon Favreau/Steven Spielberg Cowboys & Aliens opening in July. By the way, anybody notice a recurring name here?

• So Battle: Los Angeles worked out well, yes? You can read my glowing review of Battle: LA here, which got some attention when most everyone else in the critical community was trashing the film. Battle: LA is currently the top-grossing movie worldwide, so far having taken in over $153 million. Possibly the rest of the world simply likes seeing Los Angeles being destroyed? Putting a more positive spin on things, I suspect the film’s done well because it depicts a more old-fashioned, hard-nosed, patriotic side of America – the America that the rest of the world misses, even when they claim they don’t.

Brooklyn Decker: "Battleship" has "a lot of yelling."

At the same time, I think Battle: LA probably could’ve done even a lot better at the box office had the film been a bit more original in conception. Battle: LA takes such a straight-no-chaser approach to alien invasion that it’s hard to distinguish the film from many similar projects that have come before it – and will soon be coming after it. In any case, I’m already looking forward to the DVD …

• Brooklyn Decker spoke recently about Battleship, giving us some crucial new insights into next year’s alien invasion war thriller. In the UK promoting Just Go With It, Ms. Decker revealed that “I worked on [Battleship] for a good four months and I think it’s going to surprise a lot of people … There was weapons training, stunts with cars, it’s more of an intense film with a lot of fights and a lot of yelling.”

It’s true that when aliens invade, there’s usually a lot of yelling.

• Since our last Invasion Alert!, Guillermo del Toro very publicly had to set aside one alien invasion thriller, At the Mountains of Madness (from the H.P. Lovecraft novel), in favor of directing another alien invasion epic called Pacific Rim. At the Mountains of Madness was to star Tom Cruise, be shot in 3D, and would’ve had James Cameron on board as a producer. Universal, however, balked about the project’s reported $150 million price tag and potential R-rating, so del Toro has switched to directing Pacific Rim for Legendary – which is looking like an old-fashioned, Toho-style thriller about “a future Earth defending itself from attacking creatures.”

What do I think of this? It comes down to the question of whether you’d prefer seeing an important novel filmed and botched – or not filmed, at all. For various reasons I was having doubts about del Toro’s vision of Madness, although I’ll confess to having looked forward to seeing what he, Cruise and Cameron would come up with. Ultimately I suspect that same team will probably still make the film, only with another studio; as for Pacific Rim, we know little about it at this point other than that it feels a bit like Godzilla, which happens to be in the midst of a re-boot from Legendary.

This may end up being del Toro’s put-up-or-shut-up moment; either Pacific Rim is a huge hit, or he may have a lot of trouble helming another big-budget sci-fi feature in the future. Tron: Legacy‘s Joseph Kosinkski is finding that out right now, as his huge sci-fi project Horizons just got dropped by Disney.

From "Transformers: Dark of the Moon."

• Some new pics came out today of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, plus word that Leonard Nimoy will be doing the voice of Sentinel Prime, who’s glimpsed briefly on the Moon in the film’s teaser trailer. Also: some spoilerific details about the film are apparently available in the Dark of the Moon novelization.

I’m really looking forward to what Michael Bay’s cooked-up here, especially now that he’s taken the plunge into 3D. I thought the first two Transformers films were a lot of fun, and also warm-hearted – unlike a lot of contemporary sci-fi.

• Men in Black 3D seems on the road to becoming one of those spectacular behind-the-scenes disasters that comes along every few years to bankrupt studios, end careers, etc.

The film, which has been in development for years, went into production with only a third of the screenplay written in order to take advantage of expiring tax incentives; the latest story now is that nobody even knows who one of the screenwriters is working on the film’s rewrites! Ouch. Also: Alec Baldwin has dropped out of the film (hooray!), and tensions are developing between director Barry Sonnenfeld and producer Walter Parkes. It will be interesting to see how – or whether – they pull this one out of the fire …

• In other Alien Invasion/Sci-Fi News: Ridley Scott’s Prometheus is shooting right now in Toronto, and Noomi Rapace talks about the project here; a new trailer for The Thing should be coming soon; there’s breaking news about The Darkest Hour; J.J. Abrams has been talking about Super 8 recently, and 20 minutes of the film was recently shown to exhibitors; incidentally, Abrams still apparently wants to do Cloverfield 2 (see here and here); another J.J. Abrams project, Star Trek 2, has apparently bumped the Jack Ryan reboot from Chris Pine’s calendar for the time being; a description of the first two reels of Cowboys & Aliens has leaked; the release date for Apollo 18 has been switched to January 6, 2012 (not a good sign); indie alien invasion thriller Attack the Block apparently rocked the SXSW film festival in Austin (see new clips of the film here); the indie sci-fi pic Another Earth (read the LFM Sundance review here) will be released July 22nd; Paramount just put Dune into turnaround, probably because they can’t find anyone with half a brain to do it; Tron: Legacy and the original Tron hit DVD/Blu-ray on April 5th (see my Tron: Legacy review here); will there be a third Tron? my guess is yes, with a new director and new writers; Steven Spielberg’s massive new Terra Nova series has been delayed again; a new trailer for Mass Effect 2 is out; there’s casting news on the Total Recall remake (see here and here); and there’s been a huge new wave of sci-fi deals all over Hollywood (see here and here), including movement on such projects as: The Runner, Voltron, Agent OX (about a human spy infiltrating an alien planet) and something by McG.

Sarah Carter of TNT's "Falling Skies."

• Speaking of Pacific Rim and Godzilla, on the Creature Invasion front the forthcoming Piranha 3DD now has: 1) the greatest title in the history of the cinema; 2) a new script; 3) Tara Reid in the cast; 4) a rumored setting of a water park; 5) and a Thanksgiving release date of November 23rd. I’m there. No questions asked.

• James Cameron and George Lucas recently sat down to discuss 3D, digital technology and the future of the cinema. Lucas’ Phantom Menace is currently being retrofitted into 3D, and the entire Star Wars saga is now coming to Blu-ray on September 16th. Very much looking forward to both.

Cameron has been in the news a lot lately, as usual. He recently said that that he’s considering bringing the cast of the Avatar sequels to the Amazon so they can get in touch with nature and with the lifestyle of indigenous tribes – this, no doubt, to the chagrin of the former Fox executive who wanted him to cut the “New Age, tree-hugging, hippy crap” out of Avatar. Also: the Japan earthquakes are probably going to lead Cameron to call off his planned dives to the Marianas Trench to capture footage for the Avatar sequels. Cameron also wants to shoot the Avatar sequels at  48 or 60 frames/second to reduce 3D strobing, which sounds great except for the fact that every theater in America would need to be retrofit for that. (Incidentally, is Fox paying for all this?)

You get the feeling that pre-production on these Avatar sequels could total around $1 billion. Why am I thinking these films may take another 12 years for him to complete?

• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … let’s take a look above at Sarah Carter of TNT’s forthcoming alien invasion series Falling Skies. She plays the only surviving member of an “outlaw motorcycle gang” who’s now on the run after a massive force of extraterrestrials arrive on Earth and begin wreaking havoc. Do women in outlaw motorcycle gangs really look like this these days?

And that’s what’s happening today on the Alien Invasion Front!

Posted on March 31st, 2011 at 6:44pm.

LFM Review: The Ten Commandments (1956) on Blu-ray, Available March 29th

By Jason Apuzzo. The new Ten Commandments Blu-ray comes out this Tuesday, March 29th (see the trailer for the Blu-ray at the bottom of this post). Paramount will be releasing a 2-disc Blu-ray set of the classic film, and also a Limited Edition 6-disc DVD/Blu-ray Combo set, that features both Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 and 1923 versions of the film – and a host of goodies, including a handsome archival booklet that may be worth the price of the set on its own.

The Ten Commandments is a special favorite of mine. Not only is the film one of Hollywood’s greatest epics of the 1950s, the film is also a timeless and enduring ode to human freedom – and one which seems to grow only more timely and urgent as the years go by. The Ten Commandments is a film that will always remain powerful and ‘relevant’ so long as there are souls yearning for freedom – even, as we’ve seen recently, in contemporary Egypt and North Africa where so much of The Ten Commandments was filmed.

We had the pleasure of showing what was then the best existing print of The Ten Commandments at our first Liberty Film Festival in 2004, when we invited cast member Lisa Mitchell to talk about her recollections of Mr. DeMille – and how influential he was in her life. Several years later Govindini and I spent time with Cecilia DeMille Presley, granddaughter of Cecil DeMille and a caretaker of his legacy – who shared some wonderful memories of her grandfather with us. Most special, however, was the opportunity Govindini and I had years ago to meet Charlton Heston himself at The Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, when he introduced a special screening of The Ten Commandments. (We actually sat right behind him during the screening – and watched his reactions to the film, which he still seemed to take great delight in so many years later.) It was an extraordinary thrill to meet him; even late in life, he was still handsome and rugged, with a biting wit – but also a warm and generous spirit. He was the consummate gentleman.

Charlton Heston in "The Ten Commandments."

The Ten Commandments is without a doubt one of the best films Hollywood has ever produced, and a carrier of important ideas about freedom, so I thought we’d take a little look back at it today. It also happens to be a magnificent showpiece for the Blu-ray medium – with the film’s rich, saturated colors, beautiful costumes and production design, endless desert vistas, and iconic visual effects sequences. To put it mildly, The Ten Commandments is not only an emotional spectacle of the heart … it’s also an eyeful.

Interestingly,The Ten Commandments happens to be the fifth highest-grossing film of all time, adjusted for inflation. When the film was released in 1956, theater tickets cost about 50 cents – and the film still grossed over $65 million. What this means is that at today’s ticket prices, The Ten Commandments would have grossed over $1 billion at the domestic box office. In the history of American moviemaking, only Gone With the Wind, Star Wars, The Sound of Music and E.T. have fared better at the box office than did DeMille’s extraordinary film.

I don’t mention The Ten Commandments‘ box office success because that denotes anything in particular about the film’s merits – success at the box office can always be misleading – but to suggest the kind of powerful bond this film has with the public. The Ten Commandments is, as it turns out, a beautifully written, directed, acted, photographed and scored film – a majestic and emotional voyage into one of the primary myths of Western religious life. It’s also the crowning achievement of one of America’s greatest moviemakers. At the same time, The Ten Commandments is something else: it’s a part of American popular mythology, as important to America’s filmic conversation about freedom and individual dignity as Casablanca, Gone With the Wind or On the Waterfront. Continue reading LFM Review: The Ten Commandments (1956) on Blu-ray, Available March 29th