What Movies Have You Seen Lately?

Quote: terapined

I loved Gladiator. Great movie

I never made it past the first hour.
Stupid, juvenile movie, they might as
well have been cartoon characters. Mediocre
plot, it was the WWF meets ancient Rome.
Hollywoodization/bastardization of what
could have been a great movie. Spartacus
was 10 times better. Ridley Scott should be
ashamed of himself for Gladiator, he's so
much better than that.

Quote: ams288

I don't think you should have to worry about spoiling a movie that came out more than 15 years ago....

The Sixth Sense came out 9 months before Gladiator. I would still be careful about spoiling that movie for someone who had never seen it. But the plot twists in Gladiator are such a small aspect of the movie, that it doesn't really ruin it to know them.

Quote: Pacomartin

The Sixth Sense came out 9 months before Gladiator. I would still be careful about spoiling that movie for someone who had never seen it.

I've never seen it.

Isn't the big spoiler that someone is dead? What I don't know is how that spoils the movie.

I had a Charlie Brown strip spill what "Rosebud" means, and I managed to enjoy Citizen Kane just fine. Just sayin'.

Quote: Nareed

I've never seen it.

Isn't the big spoiler that someone is dead? .

You didn't miss anything. The hack director
uses an old cinema trick. You're led to believe
one thing is going on, while it's really another
thing entirely. Much like Murder She Wrote
when they go thru a whole litany of likely
suspects, and it turns out to be the gardener
who we saw for 11 seconds in the opening of
the show. I hate 'tricky' movies.

Quote: Evenbob

You didn't miss anything. The hack director
uses an old cinema trick. You're led to believe
one thing is going on, while it's really another
thing entirely. Much like Murder She Wrote
when they go thru a whole litany of likely
suspects, and it turns out to be the gardener
who we saw for 11 seconds in the opening of
the show. I hate 'tricky' movies.

^^^Possibly one of the worst descriptions of The Sixth Sense ever written.

Quote: Evenbob

You didn't miss anything. The hack director
uses an old cinema trick. You're led to believe,
one thing is going on, while it's really another
thing entirely. Much like Murder She Wrote
when they go thru a whole litany of likely
suspects, and it turns out to be the gardener
who we saw for 11 seconds in the opening of
the show. I hate 'tricky' movies.

"No Way Out" (with Kevin Costner, Gene Hackman) was the best trickster plot movie I ever saw. But not sure how it holds up now

Quote:

The film was very well received by critics and as of December 4, 2015, holds a 90% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 40 reviews.[3]

Roger Ebert gave the film 4 out of 4 stars, calling it "truly labyrinthine and ingenious."[4] Richard Schickel of Time wrote, "Viewers who arrive at the movie five minutes late and leave five minutes early will avoid the setup and payoff for the preposterous twist ... Desson Thomson of The Washington Post wrote, "The film makes such good use of Washington and builds suspense so well that it transcends a plot bordering on ridiculous."[6]

If you go searching about on the Internet for information before seeing it, you'll probably find spoilers. I wouldn't recommend it if you want to see it.

But okay here.

If you're bothered by ancient computering stuff, this is in 1987. Not 2016.

Quote: terapined

Emperor Commodus 180 to 192 AD

It would be an interesting exercise to classify the Roman emperors by those which we could consider sadistic sociopaths today.

Tudor Monarchs
Henry VII
Henry VIII
Edward VI (reigned for 6.5 years, but died at age 15 before he reached his majority.)
Mary I (bloody Mary)
Elizabeth I

With the exception of Edward VI, we would almost certainly consider all of the Tudor monarchs murderers of innocent people today. Certainly with a claimed 72,000 executions during his reign, people have thought of Henry VIII as a psychopath.

Torture executions were far more accepted in Tudor England. The execution of Mary Queen of Scots was almost certainly done to prevent people from using her as a focal point for more uprisings. Many of the Catholics who died under Elizabeth I are considered martyrs by the Catholic church. Certainly Bloody Mary's reign practically defined Protestant martyrdom (mostly by burning alive).

Henry VII executed Margaret Pole partly for dynastic claim and partly for religious reasons. She was later beatified by the Catholic church.

Quote: terapined

Emperor Commodus 180 to 192 AD

Was he Trump's ancestor? Big, showy, Huge, spectacle all about him.

Quote: Pacomartin

It would be an interesting exercise to classify the Roman emperors by those which we could consider sadistic sociopaths today.

Perhaps not sadistic, but sociopaths: all of them.

Maybe not Nerva, who ruled for a very short time, and maybe not Antoninus Pious, who reigned longer but was rather passive and low-key.

But keep in mind pretty much all of them fought wars we would consider barbaric by today's standards. Laying siege to a city to starve it out, enslaving POWs, enslaving captured non-combatants, executing captured royalty and nobility after parading them in golden chains through Rome in a Triumph. Or simply keep in mind Romans enjoyed watching slaves fight to the death as spectacle.

Claudius I, who was rather wise, learned, compassionate, empathic and not a military man at all, invaded Britain, and executed several people in Rome during his reign. In particular, he executed the praetorian who put him in the throne by killing Caligula (who more than deserved assassination on many counts)

There were oddities, like Otto, who held the throne for days or weeks only. But even many of them did so through civil war, or lost the throne in a civil war (like Otto). I forget the name of the guy who bought the throne from the Praetorian guard, and was executed shortly afterwards. His last words were "What evil have I done?" The Roman legions and Praetorians put up with the likes of Caligula, Nero and Commodus for years. But buying the throne meant a swift death. Go figure.

So, for purely sadistic impulses, I'd list:

Tiberius I
Caligula
Nero (murdered his mother)
Commodus
Caracalla (he killed his brother in front of their mother)
Maximinus Thrax

as the most notable (of the top of my head).

If we consider dictators and consuls from the Republic era, I can make a good case against both Marius and Sulla.

And what to make of Augustus?

He was positively bloodthirsty in his round of civil wars which led to the throne. He had the one son of Julius Caesar, borne by Cleopatra, killed. He spared the children of Cleopatra with mark Anthony, but paraded them in chains in a triumph. Still, later he sent the girl, Cleopatra Selene, off to Mauretania to marry the puppet king and rule alongside him (more like to administer the kingdom in accordance to Rome's wishes, but not a bad gig at all).

Standards were very different back then.

Quote: rxwine

Was he Trump's ancestor? Big, showy, Huge, spectacle all about him.

All huff and no puff, don't forget that.