Tag Archives: War

Rome – Kalends of February

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The final episode of the first season of “Rome” ends with the ides of march so poignantly titled “Kalends of February”.

Rome - Kalends of February
“Thus ever for tyrants!” Cassius declares, raising Brutus’ hand in the air.

A powerful and dramatic season finale ending in anger, grief, murder, revenge and death and yet there also is forgiveness and redemption. How will it all unwind? We will have to wait until the start of season 2 in 2007 to find out. Production of the next 12 episodes begins in March 2006. Alternatively you can brush up on Roman history (44 B.C.) in order to find out what the next epic conflict will be about.

So much is for certain: Niobe will not come back. “Rome” is no Romero Zombie Zoo, so you can stop speculating! She is dead. Gone. Pushing up the daisies, joined the choir invisible. She is a late Niobe! R.I.P.

Kingdom of Heaven (2005)

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Kingdom of Heaven (2005)Friends warned me not to watch this but I went ahead all the same and the “Kingdom of Heaven” hit me with all its sword swinging gore and naked man boob intermissions. Cut. Sorry, what was that? Come again? First, Orlando Bloom is miscast. Yes. Please wake up and smell the humus. Bloom is not a bad actor. OK, most people think he is, apart from the girls who like the afore mentioned man boobs. Anyhow, he is not the man who leads soldiers into their deaths (fake beard or not); they would just laugh and point at him. At least in “Troy” he got to play the pansy wearing a silly short skirt but Ridley Scott had to make a manly blacksmith out of this “Milchbrötchen” who inspires whole legions to give their lives for a mere idea of what Jerusalem is supposed to be? What is it worth? Nothing – and everything. There you have the best quote from the movie spoken by the only actor actually worth mentioning in this horrible “no story and all show” debacle.

Edward Norton as “King Baldwin” is good, as far as the script permits but it doesn’t help making him wear a mask all the time, crippling his performance. Liam Neeson has a short appearance in the beginning of the movie and makes the most of it. Good man. And Jeremy Irons has seen better days than this. “Who was he”, you ask? Well, “Tiberias” of course. What am I getting at? This is not a movie about characters or their development, it is solely about effects, about swords cutting heads off and arrows sticking out of skulls and we have better movies for that, thank you.

Ridley Scott announced that he wanted to put the story (his story, not what actually happened, don’t be so foolish as to think this has anything to do with accurately depicting actual historic events, it does not) back into “Kingdom of Heaven” and release a Director’s Cut so I suggest – if you really cannot withstand the urge to buy the DVD – to wait until he does, for the theatrical release does suck immensely.
4/10

Hotel Rwanda (2004)

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Hotel Rwanda“An oasis in the desert”. That is what it’s called and that is what it was. 11 years ago a genocide happened and the world stood by and let it happen. Making a movie about it might heighten the awareness of the already educated but will it prevent anything? No. Let me quote Jack:

[after Paul thanks him for shooting footage of the genocide]
I think if people see this footage, they’ll say
“Oh, my God, that’s horrible”
and then they’ll go on eating their dinners.

This sums *us* up pretty much, sadly. Sidenote: Musically “Check the Meaning” by Richard Ashcroft springs to mind as it fits perfectly to that image (Human Conditions).

Hotel Rwanda is a good movie and it is also a disturbing one in as much as it shows and even shames me as to how little I actually knew and still know about recent history. It also angers me. Even now, the next day, I am still angry. These atrocities happen again and again and we stand by. What could we have done? Nothing? I can recommend watching this movie but be advised that it will probably upset you unless you are indifferent to genocide (you’d be surprised how many people do not know what it means or find the word cool…) and mutilations of little children by hate filled men with machetes that only cost 10 cents… well at least someone made money out of that…
8/10