Gladiator (2000) - Experience the grandeur of the Roman Empire in Scott's dramatic masterpiece

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Star Russell Crowe stands tall on one of the most iconic posters of the 2000s, for Ridley Scott's Gladiator

Gladiator is the story of ancient Rome's best general, who gets hunted savagely, when the emperor is murdered by his mad son, and the general is demoted to become a gladiator, who changes the foundation of the empire.

Gladiator is written by David Franzoni (Amistad (1997)), John Logan (Hugo (2011)) and William Nicholson (Grey Owl (1999)) and directed by English master filmmaker Ridley Scott (The Duellists (1977)), whose 11th feature it is.
It is a magnificent spectacle, which is accompanied by some extraordinary performances from Russell Crowe (Boy Erased (2018)), Joaquin Phoenix (Hotel Rwanda (2004)), - who is really loathsome and serpentlike and yet still humanly credible as the film's villain Commodus, - Connie Nielsen (Battle in Seattle (2007)) and Oliver Reed (Blind Justice (1988)), truly terrific in his career's last role: Reed passed away from a heart attack during production, and the remaining shots of him were created with visual effects.
The cinematography by John Mathieson (Kingdom of Heaven (2005)) is matchless. The lengthy film is expertly edited, not a second too long. The suspense is intense. SPOILER The ending is a kind of beautiful song to the bliss of afterlife. Gladiator is a triumph for everyone involved.

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American Gangster (2007) - Great American - now black - gangster picture
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Top 10: The best big flop movies reviewed by Film Excess to date  
Blade Runner (1982) director's cut - Visual extravaganza, great SF 
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Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 103 mil. $
Box office: 460.5 mil. $
= Big hit (returned 4.47 times its cost)
[Gladiator premiered 1 May (Los Angeles) and runs 155 minutes. Scott envisioned Gladiator as a revitalization of the sword-and-sandal epic previously championed by Ben-Hur (1959) and Spartacus (1960). Filming began with an unfinished script; shooting took place from January - May 1999 in Malta, the UK, Italy and in California. Crowe balked at the script problems and himself came up with some of his lines. A replica about 1:3 the size of the actual Colosseum was built in Malta at the cost of 1 mil. $. Reed's sudden perishing from a heart attack during production necessitated 3.2 mil. $ spent to digitally create the roughly 2 minutes of footage with him that was not shot yet. Although Scott set out to portray the Roman empire with unheard of authenticity, the film is ripe with fictionalizations, anachronisms and changes of historical facts. The film opened #1 to a 34.8 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it stayed #1 for another weekend and spent another 5 weeks in the top 5 (#2-#3-#4-#5-#5), grossing 187.7 mil. $ (40.8 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 47.7 mil. $ (10.4 %) and France with 24.4 mil. $ (5.3 %). The film was nominated for 12 Oscars, winning 5: For Best Picture, Actor, Costumes, Sound and Visual Effects. It lost Best Supporting Actor (Phoenix) to Benicio del Toro in Traffic, Art Direction to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Cinematography also to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Peter Pau), Director to Steven Soderbergh for Traffic, Editing also to Traffic, Score (Hans Zimmer) to Dun Tan for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Original Script to Cameron Crowe for Almost Famous. It also won 2/5 Golden Globe nominations, 5/15 BAFTA nominations, an AFI award, was nominated for a European Film award and a Grammy and won 3 National Board of Review awards among many other honors. Roger Ebert gave the film a 2/4 star review, translating to 4 notches lower than this one. IMDb's users have voted the film in at #41 on the site's Top 250, sitting between Psycho (1960) and City Lights (1931). Sequel plans have brewed since the film's success: Crowe engaged Nick Cave to write a script, which was eventually discarded. Another plan for a sequel plot is still in development. Scott returned with Hannibal (2001). Crowe returned in Proof of Life (2000). Gladiator is certified fresh at 77 % with a 7.27/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Gladiator?

Fellini Satyricon (1969) - Fellini's horny, ancient baccanale

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A delightfully brash and outrageous tagline accompanied by a great quote from the filmmaker and an unashamed picture of male homosexuality make up this incredible poster for Federico Fellini's Fellini Satyricon

At the time of Caesar's reign of the Roman Empire, we follow two merry young men at his court, who covet the same younger man and experience a serious of ... events ... on their journey ...

Fellini Satyricon is written by Bernardino Zapponi (Paprika (1991)), Brunello Rondi (Arabella (1967)) and Italian master co-writer/director Federico Fellini (The White Sheik/Lo Sceicco Bianco (1952)), adapting Petronius' Satyricon (54-68 AD).
The film is a nearly plot-free, psychedelic, dilly-dallying, carnevalic endeavor, - and perhaps the horniest motion picture ever made?
Fellini Satyricon is naughty and very elaborate, absolutely among the strangest and most transgressive of 1969's cinema trips. It is visually extraordinary, (cinematography by Giuseppe Rotunno (Julia and Julia (1987))), at times arousing, and it has an ending in which the lustful gathering in posterity only exist on crumbling frescoes, which is highly moving. Fellini Satyricon makes it hard to fathom that Fellini wasn't gay, (no doubt he must have had a vivid bisexual side at least.)

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Watch a 2-minute clip from the film here

Cost: 3 mil. $
Box office: Reportedly 8 mil. $ outside of Italy
= Uncertain, but certainly a box office success
[Fellini Satyricon premiered 3 September (Rome, Italy) and runs 129 minutes. Shooting took place in Italy, including Rome, from November 1968 - May 1969. Fellini has said about his goal with the film; "to eliminate the borderline between dream and imagination: to invent everything and then to objectify the fantasy; to get some distance from it in order to explore it as something all of a piece and unknowable." Another Satyricon was made in Italy also in 1969; Fellini's producer Alberto Grimaldi sued to stop that film but lost, and Fellini's film was retitled to Fellini Satyricon to distinguish it from the other. The film's Venice Film Festival screenings inspired wild praise and hype, with tickets reportedly selling on the black market for prizes upwards of 100 $. The film made 1.4 mil. $ in rentals in North America, and was reportedly a big hit in France, Japan and Italy. The Italian gross is not included in the figure listed above but could likely be anywhere from 1-3 mil. $, which could possibly make the film rank as a big hit. The film was Italy's entry for the Best Foreign Film Oscar but went unnominated in 1970; however, Fellini was nominated as Best Director for it in 1971 instead, losing to Franklin J. Schaffner for Patton. It was also nominated for a Golden Globe and won an award in Venice, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 4/6 star review, translating to 2 notches higher than this one. Fellini returned with The Clowns/I Clowns (1970, TV documentary) and theatrically with Roma (1972). Fellini Satyricon is fresh at 76 % with a 6.9/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Fellini Satyricon?

Caligula (1979) - Depravity galore in the Penthouse-produced Roman emperor biopic

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An alluring, brooding poster for Tinto Brass's Caligula

QUICK REVIEW:

The subject of the film: Caligula, who was a Roman emperor approximately 100 years A.C., as well as a sex-crazed maniac.
The film in itself is only worth 3 ♥'s, however, the place it has carved out for itself in film history, (along with the not irrelevant fact that it didn't spin an intolerable avalanche of accompanying epic, swords-and-sandal-art-porns in its vein), contributes to Caligula's growth beyond its own potential.
In a way it is refreshing to see an epic costume drama like this that suddenly both entails fisting and cumshots, and yet still ... Caligula, produced by Penthouse magazine, (it's only film to date), is a complete 70's freak-show.
The ending SPOILER with the appointment of the new emperor and the mooing-scene are spot-on, and the execution-scene impresses, but the film is generally wildly stagy, uncinematic and technically poor.
It was directed by Italian Tinto Brass (Salon Kitty (1976)) with additional footage, - more accurately all of the pornographic material in the film (spurting cocks etc.), - directed by the film's producer Bob Guccione (Lowball (1996)), who insterted the footage against Brass's wishes. The film is based on a script by Gore Vidal (Myra Breckinridge (1970)), which had way too many homosexual sex scenes in it (to suit the Penthouse taste) and was therefore rewritten by Brass. Both Brass and Vidal later disowned the film, which became a success fueled by the free press it got from the courts around America that actually (sensationally) tried to ban the film, but without luck; it was repeatedly deemed 'not obscene'. - It was, however, banned in Australia, where the uncut version has been banned at least into 2011!
That is the version this review is based on, which runs 156 minutes.

Watch an original trailer here

Cost: 17.5 mil. $
Box office: 23 mil. $
= Minor hit

What do you think of Caligula?