Habitually Viewing - Febuary 1st to Febuary 6th


I allow myself three Netflix rentals a week. That's discipline if you're a confirmed movie guy.

I don't have HBO or any pay-per-view channels. By the time I hear about a good series, it's had a chance to make or break it on it's own and I'll reap the benefits by watching (and occasionally buying the DVDs.

This last week I started Rome. This was good. Really, really good. Yes, parts of the history were a little "stretched," but it was certainly true to the spirit. No abstract people in togas and robes barely occupying pure white marble architecture. This Rome was lived in, right down to the graffiti and the ramshackle shop stalls. These were an earthy people without body consciousness where eating and sex were just another part of living. My one objection to the art design is that the statues and the buildings are supposed to be painted and colorful. We think of Greece and Rome as pristine white marble because that's what we see now, but that's only because the pigment has long since flaked off.

I groove on politics and history, but that might put some people off. It was a huge part of Roman history though, especially in Julius Caesar's time. More importantly, these characters live it. We don't just hear that Marc Antony has been made a tribune, we see him in the white robe and learn that tribunes are supposed to be inviolate. Neat comparison to Rome itself there. We see Atia of the Julii with all her manipulations to keep her family at the center. We feel Octavia's despair as she is dragged screaming into her mother's schemes even as she loses herself. We see Julius Caesar not so much a man of destiny as a man who juggles nearly everything and still manages to keep his balance. Pompey Magnus lives on past glories never realizing the world has changed without him.

And Octavian. You can see why this boy would become Caesar Augustus, the first Emperor. Absolutely brilliant and well capable of drawing men into his orbit even at a young age. Julius Caesar did it through force of arms, Octavian would do it through reason.

Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo work as the everyday soldiers drawn into the great events of the time. I'm not sure I found more appealing, Lucius the breadwinner who has neglected his family or Titus the rogue who finds himself caring.

Be warned though, these characters are not abstracted and do not share contemporary morals. Most women aren't much more than property. Slavery exists and is a major trade. Torture is casually discussed and just as casually demonstrated. And there is a shakedown that reveals only too well the tradition that the modern Mafia draws from.

I only did the first two discs this last week, but I'm looking forward to the rest.

I try to break up long DVD series with another story or two so I don't get fixated. That's why I chose Get Smart the movie. This one wasn't that good. Yes there were some very good gags, but overall it fell flat. When Mel Brooks and Buck Henry created the character Maxwell Smart, he was a bumbling idiot who only succeeded through blind chance and circumstance. But in this version, he's already an accomplished intelligence analyst and has some serious physical skills. He's just too good, and the movie suffers.

It isn't on my rentals, but I watched 2081 last night. This short based on the Kurt Vonnegut story "Harrison Begeron" is one of the best film adaptations I've seen in a long time. I have only minor nitpicks, you would really enjoy it.

Posted: Tue - February 9, 2010 at 01:50 PM
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