Alexander (2004)

"ALEXANDER RIVALS MONTY PYTHON FOR SURREAL LEVELS OF FARCE"

-BBC-

This is a biopic about Alexander the Great, or simply Big Al, as history remembers him. I am writing this several months after Alexander's theatrical release, upon the release of the two DVD versions (theatrical and director's cut). By this time the story of Alexander the movie is known almost as well as the story of Alexander the conqueror. It was a mega-bomb of astronomical proportions.

• Made for $155 million, it grossed $34 million.
• American critics scorned it, British critics found it unworthy of their scorn, and ridiculed it instead.

This movie is just jaw-droppingly bad in so many ways that it should be used as the screening criteria in film criticism societies. Any critics who gave this a good review should be called in front of their peers and have their pencil broken over their editor's knee, as pictured in that opening scene in "Branded."

• The most irritating thing about the film is the sequencing. Scott Weinberg of efilmcritic.com had the point exactly right: "You could literally chop Alexander up into six 30-minute blocks, reassemble it at random, and the movie would make the exact same amount of sense (i.e. none)." The film follows the same formula again and again. Totally boring stuff for about a half an hour, followed by a scene where you are starting to get involved, followed by a word slide that says "ten years earlier, in Babylon" or "2300 years later, in Pennsylvania" - or whatever - thus assuring that you will never at any time actually be interested in what is going on.

That was the deal-breaker, the one element which secures the film's place as bad cinema in a serious conversation. On the other hand, who cares about serious conversations? There are other, more entertaining elements which place it in the realm of so-bad-it's-almost-good.

• The accents are astounding. Colin Farrell chose to play Alexander with his natural Irish accent. Jared Leto, who does not normally have an Irish accent, decided to adopt one since that seemed to be the official way to represent ancient Macedonians. Others in the cast followed suit. Angelina Jolie speaks with an accent very similar to Natasha Fatale on Bullwinkle, except with just a hint of Bela Lugosi as Dracula.
• The film is 176 minutes long. If you prefer, you can get Oliver Stone's 167 minute "director's cut." Most film versions bearing that particular appellation are longer than the theatrical cut, but Stone felt the film was better shorter. I'm sure he was right, but this raises the question of why, if Stone now likes the film better nine minutes shorter, he just didn't cut it that way in the first place. Did the MPAA pressure him to put scenes in? (Technically, he has taken out about eighteen minutes of the theatrical footage and added in some ten minutes of alternate footage, if you really care about such minutiae.) There is a full-length commentary on the DVD, and that may answer the question, but I am not about to watch this movie a third time to find out. The supreme irony of the film is that Alexander himself died so young that he would not have had time to watch this movie. OK, I admit the film is not actually longer than his life, but it seems to be.
• The sets are sometimes downright ludicrous.  As Movie Juice pointed out: "Anthony Hopkins wanders about his terrace as minions water scores of obviously plastic plants amidst a selection of statues that look barely authentic enough to stand in your local Chucky Cheese." Actually, it looked like he was standing in my local garden center, shopping for statues. Worse than that, ol' Hannibal Lecter is supposed to be playing Ptolemy I, and he has a beautiful garden palace overlooking the Alexandria harbor, with a great view of the famous lighthouse. One problem with that is that film shows the lighthouse burning a fire on a sunny day. (It did use the fire at night, but was illuminated with mirrors in sunlight.) The far greater problem is that Ptolemy is looking out over a scene which could only have been seen after his death. Ptolemy conceived the lighthouse, but it was not completed and functioning until the reign of his son, Ptolemy II, who dedicated it as a memorial to his parents. The film therefore pictures Ptolemy looking out over his own memorial. And it sure doesn't look all that spiffy for a newly-built (or not-yet-built) monument which was said to be covered in white marble. As shown here it looks like a grungy brown factory from Dickensian London.
• There is no real sense of dialogue, just stagy speechifying. People wait politely for a monologue to finish, then start their own.

I could go on to mention the obvious problems, but why bother. Everybody has noted that Big Al's mom is the same age as he, and looks younger. Everyone has already noted that Alexander is a whiny talk-too-much bitch. Why did they need macho Colin Farrell for the role? As it is written here, Paul Giamatti would have been better, or better yet Andy Dick, who already has the right hairstyle.

Are there positives? Yes, there were a few things I liked.

• The opening credits are beautiful and elegant.
• The musical score by Vangelis is appropriate for the epic scope of the story.
• Val Kilmer brought some weight to the role of Philip of Macedon, Big Al's dad. (In more ways than one. He gained fifty pounds.)
• The aerial shots of the battle scenes are spectacular and useful, in that we are able to see the strategies employed by massive armies moving into their various formations.
• Some of the other battle footage is impressive, especially the parts with exotic animals in combat.
• The march into Babylon looks kind of impressive in a Roger Rabbit, "humans performing in front of cartoon backdrops" kind of way.

If you really love the big epics, it is probably worth your while to rent the Alexander DVD. The blessing of the DVD format is that you'll be able to see all of those spectacular visuals and fast-forward through everything else.

Rosario Dawson

Having done "Death Wish 2" (yesterday) we decided to grab some Caps from "Death Wish" (the original) and "Death  Wish 3".   This of course has to lead to some more "Damsels in Distress".   

First up from "Death Wish" we have Kathleen Tolan showing boobs & butt as she is grabbed by the ever-present punks in these movies.
Moving on to "Death Wish 3" we have Marina Sirtis kidnapped off the streets and having her tits exposed and groped before being dragged off to a warehouse where she is raped ...
... and then Sandy Grizzle is grabbed on the street by the baddies and has her robo-hooters exposed

PALMEIRO FAILS STEROID TEST
Baltimore Orioles slugger Rafael Palmeiro, who adamantly testified to Congress that "I have never used steroids, period," was suspended for ten days Monday for failing a urine test.  He insisted, "I have never intentionally used a banned substance," but couldn't explain how he failed the test, other than to say, "I unfortunately wasn't careful enough."

*  He'll never kiss Arnold Schwarzenegger on the lips again.
*  How could he have ingested a big load of steroids?...I'm thinking, "Ballpark Franks!"
*  It takes a big man to admit he lied about taking steroids...A big, bulky man.


SCHOOLS TO KEEP "FAILURE"
England's national teachers' union rejected a proposal to replace the grade of "failure" with "deferred success."  Proponents said just as we applaud marathon runners who persevere and take days to complete a race, we should replace the word "fail" with "please do a bit more."  But other teachers called it "ridiculous," and the Education Secretary said she graded the idea a zero out of ten.


*  Proponents immediately went out to celebrate their deferred success.




WOMAN FALLS OUT OF CAR, CHASES IT
Robbin Doolin of Grandview, Missouri, astonished other drivers on Highway 71 Friday morning, when she fell out of her fast-moving
car, hopped up, and started chasing it as it kept on going down an embankment toward a construction site.  Police said it's not prudent to open your car door on the highway when you're not wearing a seat belt.  Doolin was embarrassed, and explained, "I leaned out to spit, and I leaned too far."

*  That's the #1 cause of car wrecks in Missouri.



BOOZE ADS MUST FEATURE UGLY GUYS
Britain's Advertising Standards Authority ordered alcoholic beverage makers to use uglier men in their ads.  Citing an ad in which three hot women come on to a slim, young man who's drinking Lambrini sparkling wine, officials said it implied a link between drinking and sexual or social success.  To remove it, they suggested the handsome young man be replaced with someone "clearly unattractive... overweight,
middle-aged, balding, etc."

*  All right!  I'm moving to England to be a male model!



WOMEN TERRIFIED OF LOOKING OLD AND UNATTRACTIVE
The UK magazine Top Sante surveyed women, average age 38, and found that 80 percent think our culture of surgically-enhanced,
airbrushed celebrities has made men's expectations too high and reversed the trend of prizing women's intellects.  Half think they would go farther at work if they were prettier, 46 percent would change careers if they had a better body, and 12 percent would change partners.  Most said they looked their best at 31, after which it was "downhill all the way."  And they are terrified of looking old: 58 percent are jealous of women their age who look younger; 42 percent are jealous of good-looking women friends; and 36 percent envy all younger women.

*  Except those who weigh more than they do.
*  Who knew most women's dream job was to work at Hooter's?
*  This is why 60 percent of medical students are going into plastic surgery.
*  If they had a better body, they could get a partner who's less shallow...Also younger, and better-looking.



DOG COMPLETES MARATHON SWIM RACE
Saturday, history was made at the South End Rowing Club's 10th annual Alcatraz Invitational, a swim race from Alcatraz Island to the
San Francisco shore.  For the first time, a dog competed.  Jake, a golden retriever, swam 1.2 miles through cold, rough waters in 41 minutes, 45 seconds, coming in 72nd out of 500 swimmers.  His owner Jeff Pokonosky said he was amazed at Jake's focus, and he tried to slow him down and couldn't.  His secret: he always eats scrambled eggs before a swim.

*  His owner stood on Alcatraz Island and threw a stick all the way to the shore.



Ph.D STUDY OF AIR GUITAR
Britain's first professor of pop music, Sheila Whiteley of the University of Salford, will supervise a Ph.D dissertation on air guitar. Amanda Griffiths of Wales will spend nearly $18,000 (US) and three years on a 60,000-word study on why men are more likely to play invisible guitars than women, and why women who do so play it differently.  She plans to base it on the philosophical arguments of French post-structural theorists such as Michel Foucault and Marxists such as Roland Barthes.  Whiteley is also overseeing an academic study of moshing, the dance in which people jump up and down and shake their heads violently.

*  Like Prof. Whiteley did before okaying this Ph.D study.
*  I assumed most women don't play air guitar because they know a stupid waste of time when they see one...Not Amanda, though.



CONNERY QUITS MOVIES, "FED UP WITH IDIOTS"
Sean Connery can still get $20 million a movie, but he hasn't made one in three years, and he told a New Zealand newspaper that he has effectively retired.  Connery rejected the role of Gandalf in "Lord of the Rings," saying he read the book and script and saw the movie, and "I still don't understand it."  He said, "I'm fed up with the idiots...the ever-widening gap between people who know how to make movies and the people who green-light the movies."  He said it would take "a Mafia-like offer I couldn't refuse" to make him do another movie.

*  He didn't understand "Lord of the Rings," but "Zardoz" he got?!

BACALL SLAMS CRUISE
Hollywood icon Lauren Bacall slammed Tom Cruise in a Time magazine interview, calling his recent public antics "shocking," and saying, "It's inappropriate and vulgar and absolutely unacceptable to use your private life to sell anything commercially, but I think it's kind of a
sickness."  She added, "The word 'great' stands for something.  When you talk about a great actor, you're not talking about Tom Cruise."

*  He's a short guy who plays himself in every movie, not a great actor like Humphrey Bogart.


A controversial new biography of Jimi Hendrix claims that Jimi got out of  going to Vietnam with the 101st Airborne by pretending to be gay

* So the song really DOES go, "'Scuse me, while I kiss this guy!"
 

 The News of the World tabloid claims that Jude Law is trying to win back furious ex-fiancee Sienna Miller by begging her to have his baby to prove his commitment to her

* He doesn't want another baby, he just wants to hire another nanny.

MOVIE REVIEWS:

Here are the latest movie reviews available at scoopy.com.

• The yellow asterisks indicate that I wrote the review, and am deluded into thinking it includes humor.
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• If there is no asterisk, I wrote it, but am too ashamed to admit it.

 

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