2014-11-12

2014-11-12          

                'Did you hear about the roman centurion ?' Chris Walken's steel-worker and soon to be Vietnam vet akses it better in Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter, 'he was glad / he ate her.'

                               

                Yes dear reader it's that time of year again, time for a WTFednesday horroreview of Ridley Scott's Gladiator.  During the course of House Arrest the Horror, wtf knows how many films Cin has videed, they number in / the thousands (hundreds - id.) be©ause ®egime ze®o.  Sometimes he forgets which ones he has videed, much less horroreviewed, and sometimes horrorents the same ones more / than once, Gladiator the video store owner / clerk - this is the new normal as additional staff becomes a luxury for video stores going under as humanity slips into the abyss of / the Internet, fiddling like Nero as Rome burned - scoffed it better yesterday when Cin presented his weekly five movies, and the video store owner / clerk was right.

                Still it's righteous entertainment this movie despite its flaws, righteous entertainment is all / we gots.  What it is of course is that Russell's Crowe's one-time head general of the Roman Army (legion ? ) has a fall from grace before during and after returning to Rome as a gladiator and - spoiler alert - deposing Joachim Phoenix's Marcus / Aurelius, or his son Biggus Di©kus (hooker please –id.) , it's not particularly / important, it's a sandals and swords epic with the swelling music to boot that tells you when, how, and how much / to feel, 'I don't remember what was said, or done', a client's e-mail signature at wo®k that four-lettered wo®d encapsulated it better, 'but how / it felt.'

               

                'My name' Russell Crowe's gladiator says it better to Jacquim Phoenix's weak-kneed emperor,  as part of the elaborate bread-and-circus routine in the arena that he's forced to endure to advance / the plot, 'is gladiator', before mercifully taking off his mask and letting Caesar know / what's the haps. 

                'I am Maximus' Crowe crows immediately afterwards as off comes / the mask, and the crowd / roars, one cannot help but be reminded of the Monty Python bit in the Pythons’ The Life of Brian where the faux and lisping Roman centurions Biggus Dickus and Maximus Biggus compare sizes.  Course soon enough Crowe's Maximus is being called 'the general' or 'General' by his jail-guards - this honorific under the circumstances should be uttered with subtle contempt, but there is nothing subtle about / this movie - and bends the crowd to his will.

                Arena scenes in Gladiator are well-staged : Maximus fights a trio of chariots, many goons wearing Sun God armor, and even a tiger, as he reaches the Final Four.  Roman crowds loved these things if this movie and history are to be believed, and even today public crucifixions and executions are de rigeur in Afghanistan and the like, as a species we haven't evolved all that much up on out on up on out on up out here, innit Electrified JC.

                Course over the top is over / the top, and scenes in the arena where Joacquim Phoenix's sissy Caesar - well-acted by Phoenix, always tormented - taunts Maximus up close / and personal, and more / than once, without swallowing his teeth as so many chiclets, are pyschologically unsound.  This is to show that the crowd, the mob, runs the show up on out on up on out on up on this Dog and Pony Show, when all is said and done, and that maybe correct - democracy 'the least / worst system' we gots of arranging Things, according to Winston Churchill - but still, no one talks to Maximus that way and walks out of there with all limbs / intact. 

                Gladiator manages to hang on somehow, though Cin had to GTFO out the theatre when he tried to videe it the first time, many of these films fall into a fourth category of movie, namely watchable while Cin is after hulk-smashing away at these Take This Thing Back to Baltimore horroreviews, and this movie is surely / amongst them.  Phoenix's character Caesar junior is carrying on some sort of affair with his sister, and the provenance of her son is unclear - either that or Cin missed it, after a while of this dialogue and awful string music ('long-haired' his Uncle calls the genre / better), Cin grooved on Grooveshark for ten minutes to scratch the itch of '10 000 Maniacs' 'Noah's Dove' that's been bugging him / all day - even as Caesar junior's sister still holds a flame / for 'the general', as Maximus is soon enough being addressed, 'the commander', Cin called a f®atb®o in College better, when his eyes crossed after a certain threshold of number of beers drunk had been passed, and he became this alter / ego, eyes crossing after a certain threshold of number of beers has been passed, and becoming our alter ego 'the commander' is all / we gots.

                Biggus Dickus' fellow-gladiators die noble deaths while helping out Crowe's 'the general' on his one-man crusade to kill Caesar Junior, even as Phoenix's Caesar Junior tries to blackmail his sister yet again to provide him with an 'heir of pure / blood'.  This two-trick pony was old after half an hour up on out on up on out on this Dog and Pony Show as depicted in Gladiator and only / gets older with time, but yet you wait to see / how it ends.

                Of course it's showtime at last with Caesar Junior and the general going mano a mano - 'chopper' Homer Simpson says it better as he prepares to battle with the motorcycle that's taken a shine / to wife Marge, 'to chopper' - in the arena.  Crowe beats Phoenix half-way into the next week, despite the knife wound that Ceasar junior gave him when he was hanging from the ceiling earlier / in the day.

                Mercifully Ceasar junior is kilt by Maximus at the end without all that much further / ado, and without any further awful dialogue dripping out / his wordhole than what's already / exited, before Maximus starts hallucinating again - and not for the first or last time during the course of this movie - and the awful music starts in / again, and then Maximus dies, too, The End.

                Ridley Scott gets free passes for his Blade Runner, and his The Counsellor from last year was hard-as-nails, a solid take on Cormac McArthy's book, with a screenplay from McArthy to boot. Scott did Thelma and Louise (or was that brother Tony Scott, ®IP ?) as well, Thelma and Louise which strangely enough came as a DVD package with the Coen Brothers' Fargo and which Cin watches as a double-bill when he needs to come down / to Earth. 

This one Gladiator was  biblical if that's the word, innit Electrified JC, 'when I was a child I dreamt / as a child' might well have been its subtitles - this verse from St. Paul has gotten some serious mileage as of late up on out on up on out on up in here in this Take This Thing Back to Baltimore (f) / (b) / (c) / (v) / (s) log - 'but now I am a man and have put away childish / Things.'

                Oh yeah and the Gladiator script in its early minutes before it drowned / in syrup also delivered one of Cin's Top Ten lines so far during the course of House Arrest / the Horroreviews, namely of course 'release' - the general Maximus says it better as the Romans get ready to rumble with the Goths or whatnot - 'hell', releasing hell is all / we gots.

                Course it's all of a piece of this cintinuing series of war movie horroreviews, though this one was / a stretch, other than the first ten minutes there is no war at all in Gladiator, ironically / enough, though war is war by other means than Romans fighting Goths, he supposes, though this method is much / the best.  'Think how many good war movies have been made' Cin said it better to Iron Mike as of late, 'and then think about how many good movies set in an office there have been', before adding as is his wont his own / estimation, 'three', Presumed Innocent being one, the others slip what's left / of his mind, certainly Cin's former and current (b) / (m) / (s) and just plain adventures within the Cubicombs are a far cry from Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, to say / the least, 'it's your' his cousin told him better once using one of the better slogans that Cin's heard, 'your / movie', and he's right, it’s your / movie is all / we gots.

                Still, the Cubicles is what Cin's gots / for now for material, and at least his current gig allows Cin contact with the military folks - 'don't embarass me in front' Bart Simpson pleads it better in one episode of 'The Simpsons' to his mother Marge, 'in front of the army /guys'.  'Thank you' Cin said it better to a Major earlier today as he passed him outside, referring to yesterday's Remembrance Day activities, though this came only after Cin made the mistake of sharing that it had been nice to have 'a holiday' in the middle of the week, Remembrance Day if nothing else surely not / a holiday for service members.

                Thanks for reading this Take This Thing Back to Baltimore me-moirs and (v) / (s) / (f) / © / (b) / log.