Spartacus

Personally I did not like the movie Spartacus at all.  I tried to watch the whole thing in one sitting and by the time that I got to the intermission I was falling asleep.  The movie was too long for my liking and a lot of the scenes could have been made a lot shorter.  I also felt like there were a lot of unclosed ends all throughout the movie.  Based on what professor Shelton said during lecture there was a lot of disagreements during the filming of the movie and I could kind of see that because I felt like my mind was shifting to different things but in general there was a flow to the movie, I could see what the director, writers, and producers were trying to create.  I think that if there would have been more direction and maybe fewer disagreements and they would of all had the same idea then I think that the movie could have been a lot better.  I really cannot think of something that I liked about the movie Spartacus, yes there are things that could have been done better but there wasn’t anything bad about it either so I think that I have neutral feelings about the movie I don’t think it was bad but I also don’t think it was that good either.  I think that if the director would have gone back and redone the whole religion part of the movie and taken out the crucifixion of Spartacus and made him be distracted during battle because Varinia had gone to labor and got to meet his son and then died then I think that would have been a better death then the one that he had in the movie. Then Varinia leaving with Batiatus and riding past where Spartacus was killed and telling his tombstone that his son was a freeman and then leave, I think that would have been a better ending because it would be bittersweet that Spartacus never got to see his son be a freeman but Varinia and her son were able to leave slavery behind and be free and Spartacus was finally free because he was dead.  With these changes and more editing of the movie I think that it could have been a lot better.

Suetonius Life of Nero

When I first started reading Suetonius Life of Nero I was expecting something similar to what I had seen in the movie.  I was not expecting Nero to be so terrible, I don’t think there is a word that I can think of that can describe how terrible Nero was, according to Suetonius.  I knew, from the movie Quo Vadis, that Nero had killed his previous wife and mother, but I was not expecting to read about how he dressed himself in animal skin and raped other people.  I was aware that, in ancient Rome, having sex with your slaves was something that was not unheard of and I knew that it was something that I should not have been to surprise from.  But because, through the movie Quo Vadis, I had formed my own opinions of Nero and I kind of liked how evil the character of Nero was that to hear how Nero the person was, I did not even notice that I was separating the two. Once I was able to process that Nero from Quo Vadis and Nero from Suetonius were the same person just different interpretations of him I was able to piece all the information that I had of Nero and put them into one Nero and not have two different Nero’s in my mind.  It was after I came to terms that it was just one Nero that I started to hope that Nero would die soon in the movie Quo Vadis.  In the movie Quo Vadis the character of Nero does not really change he is evil from the very beginning of the movie but reading about Nero in Suetonius Life of Nero I was able to read how much Nero really changed.  In the beginning it seemed that Nero really loved his mother so when I read that he had killed his mother I was a little surprised but I think Nero was just a really crazy person that the life he had made him become the evil person that he was and he convinced himself that was he was doing was alright because he was an “artist” it almost seemed that he wanted bad things to happen to him so he made sure of that and I am glad that at the end I got the satisfaction of seeing the character Nero die in Quo Vadis. 

Quo Vadis

The movie Quo Vadis really surprised me because I was not expecting it to be as religious as it was.  When we watched Ben-Hur I was expecting a lot of really religious scenes for that movie and since we did not get that much religion in Ben-Hur I was not expecting as much religion as was shown in Quo Vadis.  I have to say that out of all of the movies that we have watched so far, Quo Vadis, is my favorite.  It was a little long? Yes, but it was really enjoyable to watch.  I thought Nero was a very complex character and I found myself waiting to see when the villains of the movie were going to show up because I wanted to know what other ridiculous thing they were going to do.  In this case I think that the villains were the ones that stole the show.  Nero, as the crazy artist/ruler, would constantly make me crack up all throughout the movie, even when he set all of Rome on fire, I know it was supposed to be a dramatic scene and in a way it was but all I kept looking at were the faces that Nero was making and I though that Peter Ustinvo did such an amazing job as Nero and bringing that comedic factor into the movie and making the audience have a love-hate relationship with this character, I could not help but love him because he would constantly make me laugh but I also hated him because he was such the perfect villain.  I think that the way that Peter Ustinvo played Nero added to the whole feeling bad for looking concept that was mentioned in lecture, while watching the movie I felt bad because even though I was rooting for Nero to be killed, at the same time I did not want anyone to kill Nero yet because I wanted to know what else would happen throughout the movie and he was such an important character for this movie, if Nero would have died at the beginning of the movie then the movie would not have led to anything. The storyline very much relied in the character of Nero.  This movie so far is my favorite and I cannot wait to see if any of the other movies changes my mind.

Ben-Hur ‘Tale of the Christ’ or tale of Rome? : (My thoughts on the paper and thoughts on the movie after reading the paper)

In this article I learned that maybe I should not have skipped the overture for Ben-Hur.  If I had left the overture and waited like the people at that time would have done would my opinion of the movie be different? I did listen to half of the overture until I decided that if I wanted to get through the entire that night I would have to skip the rest of the overture and get started.  In my opinion, I think that by listening to just a minute or half of the overture, is enough time to get into the mindset that you are watching something bigger than just a film.  I feel that if some of the scenes could have been made shorter and left the chariot race the way that it is, maybe the chariot race would of stood out a lot more.  As for the presence of Jesus throughout the film, there were times where I thought that the movie was trying to make Judah a little bit like if he was going through something somewhat similar to what Jesus was going through.  Judah was judged unjustly and was condemned for something that he did not do, while Jesus was also condemned for the sins of everyone.  Also when Messala says, “He is god the only god. He is power, real power on earth Not –that” it made me think to a scene in Titanic when someone, I cannot remember who said that not even God could sink the ship, and what happens the Titanic sinks.  So in this particular case I see a similarity with a defiance of God Messala says that God does not have any power on earth and what happens? Messala is killed very brutally during the chariot race.  When I try to put myself in the position of the people of 1959 I can imagine that seeing a film on a big screen with so many vibrant colors and such a big action sequence I know that if I would have lived in that time era I would have been very impressed and even now that I am so much more used to color film and SGI and so many other “movie magic” I found myself liking the 1959 version of Ben-Hur and reading this paper by Theodorakopoulos really put a lot of things about this film into perspective and I know that if I were to watch this movie again I would probably enjoy it a lot more

Socrates’ Excellent Adventure: (My thoughts on the paper and thoughts on the movie after reading the paper)

At first when I started reading this article I was not completely sure why the article mentioned Plato’s allegory of The Cave, until I remembered what the cave was about that Nisbet gave a little more information as to where she was going with this.  When Nisbet says, “Plato would have hated cinema.” I don’t think that Plato would have really hated the Cinema.  Maybe he would have hated the idea of it but ultimately would have used it for his own advantage.  I think that Plato would of used the cinema to make a film advertising what his ideal world would look like.  Just imagine how much more influence Plato could have had if he would to have used films to his advantage.  What would we think about Greece now if Plato had used films to promote his beliefs? Before I read this article I had just finished watching Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and I had thought that it was a good movie.  After watching the movie and reading this article, I went back to some of the mentioned scenes from when Bill and Ted go to Greece for Socrates and realized that a lot of the points that were made in the article were right.  Scenes are a second too long and when the scene is just with the people from Athens, it really does not look like a good film.  The moment that Bill and Ted are introduced to that time era all I found myself thinking about was, “Oh boy what are these two going to do next?” throughout the whole film I just kept waiting to see how Bill and Ted were going to be able to pass their history report and not fail.  When Nisbet mentions that Socrates, or ‘So-Crates’ like Bill and Tell like to call him, leaves willingly and happily with Bill and Ted made me realize that even Socrates was playing into the perspective that we have about ancient Greece.  Socrates leaving Athens made me think that ancient Greece was so boring that even he id not want to be there.  Also when I think back to the scene with Billy the Kid, the scene was also a lot longer and with the scene in ancient Greece the scene seemed rush and what was there seemed too long. 

Ben-Hur (1959) William Wyler, dir.: (My opinions and thoughts of the movie)

My first thought after pressing play for the movie Ben-Hur was, “is it working?” I thought that the video player was not working because all I kept hearing was music and I thought that the film had frozen and it was just the audio part that was working.  After I realized that the overture was over six minutes long, I decided to skip the Overture and go straight into the movie.  Since the name of the movie is Ben-Hur Tale of Christ my expectations for the film were that it was going to be more focused on the story of Christ and that Ben-Hur was just going to be another follower of Christ. About a quarter of the way into the movie I realized that I had seen this movie before.  But it was not this version of the movie that I had seen; it was the 2010 mini TV series of Ben-Hur that I had seen before.  The only reason that I had seen it was because, during summer break last year, the television in my mothers house only has Spanish channels and one of the channels was showing that mini series as a film.  I thought that the 1959 version of Ben-Hur was done very well and the adaptation of that film to the 2010 mini series was pretty good as well.  If no one had told me that the film was from 1959 I would of probable have guessed that it was made in the later 1900’s.  This film really is a film for any time era.  A lot of the scenes were a little long for my liking but if you can get past the extremely long film then I am sure that a few long scenes wont be a bother.  One of the best scenes in this film was the chariot race, which also happens to be one of the longer scenes in this film.  The fact that it is a long scene made me enjoy the scene a lot more.  Usually when I am watching more modern films, the action scenes are so short that I am left wanting more, since the chariot scene is so long in Ben-Hur, I was able to fully enjoy the scene and was not left wanting for more spectacle.

Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989) Stephen Herek, dir.: (My opinions and thoughts on the movie)

Funny and Lighthearted are the first words that come into mind when thinking about Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.   This film was a great way to introduce this class, as it is lighthearted and an easy movie to watch. I was entertained all throughout the film and laughed constantly at Bill and Ted’s way of speaking.  I especially laughed whenever they would say Socrates name as So-Crates. I liked the fact that the movie is something that can be simply just watch and have a good laugh throughout the film without having to worry if there is any hidden meaning behind any details in the film, but if I wanted to, I know that I could simply just go back and re-watch the film carefully and could potentially find some meaning behind the film.  Like professor Shelton mentioned in class that the film really does play to what we would expect to see from every historical figure that is introduced in this film.  This film brought back my inner child and made me use my imagination as to how would some of my favorite historical figures would react if they were to come to the future.  I think that the idea of this film was really unique because we will never know how people from the past will think about the world that we live in now but if we were given the opportunity to see what their reactions would be I am sure that we would all take that chance just to see what their opinions would be.  Overall Bill and Ted’s adventure would be an adventure that anyone would want to go on if given the chance and if such technology ever existed, the film did a good job at portraying what the audience would most likely imagine if such thing could be a reality and it was very enjoyable to be able to see what would happen if historical figures were to come back to our present.