MetaFilter posts tagged with gladiator

'Until Eternity Itself Has Said Its Prayers'

koeselitz — Mon, 04 May 2009 06:34:03 -0800

A few years ago, Russell Crowe, star of the breakaway Ridley Scott hit Gladiator, ran into fellow Australian Nick Cave and managed to convince the exotic dancer and some time screenwriter to consider writing a sequel of the Roman period piece for him. The resulting script included the reincarnation of Maximus as the eternal warrior, the betrayal of Hephaestus, the sickness unto death of the Roman gods, the martyrdoms of St. Irenaeus of Lyon and St. Cassian of Imola, the persecution of Emperor Decius, the Crusades, and the Vietnam war; it ended in the men's bathroom at the Pentagon. Here is a review and detailed synopsis of that script, which was unfortunately (though not too surprisingly) rejected by the studios. Amazingly, between writing outlandish scripts and taking off his clothes for money, Cage has found time over the last fifty years to pursue various careers as an amateur magician, a presumptuous monarch, a compassionately agnostic christian, Odysseus, a notably self-entitled literary critic, a scary guy who seems to be in love, a very nice and mild-mannered middle american evangelical who loves kittens, and even a mean motherfucker called Stagger Lee. Nowadays you always have to do videos for albums; it's a standard record company requirement, and Nick Cave is always complaining about this. A few years ago, the suits came to him again and said they'd set up meetings with producers and videographers so that he could made a video for his latest. He was feeling punchy, so he asked them: 'what's the most popular thing to put in a video right now?' An uncharacteristically honest wag among them replied: 'the rear ends of scantily-clad black girls.' To which Nick Cave reportedly replied: all right then, bring it on. If anyone can find a copy of Nick Cave's Gladiator 2 script and pass it on to me, they will be justly rewarded both in this life and the next.

It was gladiator-style entertainment for the staff

CheshireCat — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 09:12:36 -0800

Thunderdome Filter: In two separate incidents Texas schools have gotten a jump on any sort of dystopic future scenarios by staging illegal forced fights between those in their care. Corpus Christi State School night-staff made disabled residents get out of bed and then taped them fighting each other in over 20 incidents during 2008. South Oak Cliff High School had a policy between 2003 and 2005 of settling disputes between troubled students by having them fight it out in a steel cage in the boy's locker room while students and faculty looked on. Several arrests have been made in the Corpus Christi case and the South Oak Cliff one is just coming to public attention.

History Repeats and Hollywood Remakes

wendell — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 19:44:43 -0800

You know the trouble with Historically-Based Movies? Unless you're an uneducated, ignorant moran, you know how they're gonna end. At least that's the argument of this Premiere article on 10 Movie Endings Spoiled By History. Of course there are ways to avoid that problem, as Cracked.com's (yeah, them) 11 Movies Saved by Historical Inaccuracy declares. Books have been written about Historical Movies' accuracy or inaccuracy, and everybody has an opinion on what the Best Historical Movies are, but if you want your History purely entertaining, there's only one ~~man~~dog you can count on: here are Mr. Peabody, Sherman and the original Wayback Machine dropping in on Cristopher Columbus, Pancho Villa and Francisco Pizarro and the Incas (sorry, no USA History episodes on YouTube). Notes: "300" is the only movie on both the 'Spoiled by History' and 'Saved by Historical Inaccuracy' lists. But it was the inclusion of the Star Wars Prequels on Premiere's 'History' list that motivated me to make this post. What The Frak?!? And the first episode of Peabody's Improbable History is less about history and more about adoption issues that are still relevant today.

Cavatica — Tue, 13 Feb 2001 06:11:34 -0800

The Oscar Nominees Page is up... ...and it looks like both Gladiator and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon are the two big movies this time, with 10 Nominations each, including Best Picture. In addition, Julia Roberts finally has her oscar nod, as well as Tom Hanks, Ed Harris and Geoffrey Rush returning for another round in the Best Actor Category.

elgoose — Fri, 09 Jun 2000 09:32:25 -0800

Russell Crowe's sweaty Gladiator costume If you want it, you can bid on it. Is it just me, or is this at least slightly revolting (no pun intended)?