Angry Robot

Grrrreat

How many big-budge Hollywood biopics of Alexander the Great can you personally take? Is it two? I hope it’s two, because both Baz Lurhmann and Ollie Stone have one in the oven. Stars are Leo DiCaprio and Colin Farrell, respectively – and Marty Scorsleaze is rumoured to be exec-producing the Baz picture. Seems both productions are jockeying for the earliest shoot, which of course endangers the quality of both projects. So who wants to bet on which one gets into theatres first? (hat tip to Les)

5 comments on "Grrrreat"

  1. mageebags says:

    I don’t know which will be “first”, but I’d bet the farm that Ollie’s will be “suckier”.

    Exhibit A: The Doors, Natural Born Killers, the voiceovers in Platoon, any scene in JFK that wasn’t in a courtroom, Any Given Sunday, Nixon.

    What a clod.

  2. D says:

    Five minutes of any one of those films is orders of magnitude better than that unwatchable piece-of-shit hackfest, Ballroom Dancing. Except maybe The Doors. And do you think R&J was better than JFK – are you kidding me? I liked it and all, but JFK is a mammoth of a movie. So influential. R&J couldn’t have existed without it.

  3. mageebags says:

    I believe the film you’re talking about is “Strictly Ballroom”. It was a fluffy, fun little pic that didn’t try to be anything more than light entertainment.

    Which brings me to my primary problem with Stone — he thinks his movies are towering, artistic statements about Important Things, when they’re really just over-inflated bullshit.

    Sure, JFK had some great stuff. The final courtroom speech where they break the whole conspiracy down piece by piece is a triumph of filmmaking, and John Candy’s bit at the restaurant shows that he could have been a great dramatic actor if only someone had taken a chance on him. But there was a lot of flab and way too many “JFK-as-hero” moments (I think the most inane part of the whole flick has to be when Costner is listening to RFK’s pre-assassination speech on TV, and his “Spidey-Sense” goes off two seconds before the gunshots. Boo-urns!!!)

    So yeah, I do think R&J is better than JFK. At least in terms of how well each film lives up to what it is trying to achieve.

  4. D says:

    Strictly Ballroom, yes.

    You’re not going to get any love from me, bitch. I was riveted for JFK’s entire 3+ hours, and I normally hate anything longer than 80 minutes.

    Ollie Stone is a master with a very polarizing approach to filmmaking – he tries to put every-fucking-thing into his pictures. Which leads to NBK, in which something like 4 conflicting explanations are given for the lead characters’ condition. I personally loathe his insistence on including a wise old Indian man in every single film, but I think he sees it as a kind of joke. Nonetheless his achievments stand up over time blah blah historical significance argument. Nuff said.

    Who knows – I hated the ballroom movie, but I loved R&J and Moulin – Baz could turn out to be a real master as well. But he simply hasn’t made enough movies for us to know. No matter who winds up making it, I look forward to a righteous Greek epic (emphasis on the Greek, apparently in both cases, if you know what I mean).

  5. mageebags says:

    I’m assuming by “Greek”, you mean “gyros”, and not “anal sex between consenting males”. ‘Cause gyros just look so damn good up on the big screen.

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