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Alexi Goranov
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PostPosted: Wed 24 Nov, 2004 9:10 pm    Post subject: Alexander the movie         Reply with quote

Well I saw it, and............I do not know what to say.

I could propose alternative titles for the movie though:

Alexander the Boring
Alexander the Disturbed
Alexander the Tragic
Alexander the Deep
Alexander the Dramatic

I can go on and on but will be giving away the movie. the bottom line: only 2 (two) battle scenes in 3 (three) hour movie.
the battle scenes were good, and the the weaponry seemed appropriate (falcatas, kopis, etc) but you might want a get a second opinion on that.

In all honesty, I was bored during most of the movie, but if you have 3 hours to spare you might consider it.

alexi
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David Stokes





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PostPosted: Wed 24 Nov, 2004 10:55 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

parts of it seemed like Will and Grace............. lol
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Mario Perez




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PostPosted: Thu 25 Nov, 2004 12:44 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Interesting. I just got back from seeing this and I thought it was excellent. I'd heard a lot of bad things and I went in expecting bad acting, medicore action and horrible direction ... I thought the whole thing was right on the money throughout, though, and I hardly noticed the length of the film. It was not the Braveheart wannabe that I thought it was going to be.

Mario

"There is nothing new under the sun, but there are plenty of old things we don't know."
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Alexi Goranov
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PostPosted: Thu 25 Nov, 2004 8:41 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Mario Perez wrote:
Interesting. I just got back from seeing this and I thought it was excellent. I'd heard a lot of bad things and I went in expecting bad acting, medicore action and horrible direction ... I thought the whole thing was right on the money throughout, though, and I hardly noticed the length of the film. It was not the Braveheart wannabe that I thought it was going to be.

Mario


You are right the acting was not bad! I as hoping for a more epic, action driven film and I do not think that it was. It should be called a drama /tragedy more than anything else. In that sense, my expectations were not met, which makes for the disappointment. BUT the movie was well made and the acting was on par...... even though it did have some cheese factor

alexi
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Einar Drønnesund





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PostPosted: Thu 25 Nov, 2004 5:41 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Was it good from a historical perspective? (Not just the weapons/armour/battles.)
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Mario Perez




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PostPosted: Thu 25 Nov, 2004 11:04 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

It was close enough. Far more accurate on history than most other such films of late, although lacking in comparison to some.

Mario

"There is nothing new under the sun, but there are plenty of old things we don't know."
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Patrick Kelly




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PostPosted: Fri 26 Nov, 2004 5:32 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Hi Mario,

I missed your show on the Discovery Channel. Work got in the way. I've been looking for next showing though!

"In valor there is hope.".................. Tacitus
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Mario Perez




Location: Los Angeles
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PostPosted: Fri 26 Nov, 2004 5:45 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

http://dsc.discovery.com/schedule/series.jsp?...hannel=DSC

I checked the listings on Discovery and it seems it's been playing quite a bit but they don't seem to have anything more listed at the moment ... it might be still showing, though. I'm not sure what's the upcoming schedule and my boss Luke, who stunt coordinated, hasn't said anything about it.

There's also an interesting quicktime clip about some of the CGI that we had on the show, which you can see here.

Mario

"There is nothing new under the sun, but there are plenty of old things we don't know."
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Matt G. Meekma




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PostPosted: Sat 27 Nov, 2004 2:47 pm    Post subject: Re: Alexander the movie         Reply with quote

Alexi Goranov wrote:
Well I saw it, and............I do not know what to say.

I could propose alternative titles for the movie though:

Alexander the Boring
Alexander the Disturbed
Alexander the Tragic
Alexander the Deep
Alexander the Dramatic

I can go on and on but will be giving away the movie. the bottom line: only 2 (two) battle scenes in 3 (three) hour movie.
the battle scenes were good, and the the weaponry seemed appropriate (falcatas, kopis, etc) but you might want a get a second opinion on that.

In all honesty, I was bored during most of the movie, but if you have 3 hours to spare you might consider it.

alexi



How about these titles:

Alexander the Dear God, Why did they make this movie?

or better yet

Alexander the I Want my Money and Three Hours of My Life Back.


I think you might have figured out that i didn't care for the movie much. I really wasn't expecting much out of this film at all any way and only went to see it because three of my closest friends wanted to see it. I mean Really before even walking in the door, colin farrell as a very Blond Military Genius? That is a hard sell to begin with. Then you get to the fact that all of the macedonians all have Irish accents.

Now i am not the greatest of history buffs but my friend jason is and he was upset greatly by what they showed and didn't show. So on the way home i did get a history lesson and found out that as far as i can tell the film was horribly off base from known fact.

What i did learn and was DRILLED into the movie more than ANY other point, was not that Alexander was a cunning respected military genius, but that he MUCH preferred the company of men.

This movie didn't come close to what i expected and i did not expect much at all.

Beer is God's way of saying He wants Us to be Happy. - Ben Franklin
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Patrick Kelly




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PostPosted: Sat 27 Nov, 2004 9:37 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I just returned from one of the worst movies I've seen in years.

This has got to be the most plodding waste of time that I've experienced in quite some time. It's really a shame too since the arms and armor are well done. According to Mr. Stone Alexander was a homosexual (and this point is given far too much attention IMHO) because of his mommies manipulations, conquered the known world in an attempt to gain his daddies acceptance, and lead any army of macedonian irishman.

When the movie was *finally* over almost everyone in the audience reacted with "thank god that's over".

This isn't a bad movie, it's a dreadful movie.

"In valor there is hope.".................. Tacitus
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Steve Fabert





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PostPosted: Sun 28 Nov, 2004 2:58 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Here's a professional review that agrees with Patrick. http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story...70,00.html
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David Wilson




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PostPosted: Sun 28 Nov, 2004 3:21 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I actually did not hate this movie. It was better, I thought, than King Arthur, but that's not saying much.
I believe that Alexander's biggest problem is that it was a "full biography" movie, and every single "full biography" movie I've ever seen is plodding, overly-long, talky, and boring. In such a way I would compare it with another "full biography" movie, Wyatt Earp with Kevin Costner. Earp told the whole-life story of legendary western lawman Wyatt Earp in a couple hours, and ended up being real long and going nowhere. There were a couple decent gunfights, but the rest of the film was talking, philosophizing, talking, talking, sex scene, talking, talking, etc. Like Alexander, Wyatt Earp was well-researched and generally historically accurate. However, Earp does not hold up against another movie about Wyatt Earp released the same year, the less-historically accurate but more exciting (and better acted) Tombstone.
Alexander compares to the older film Alexander the Great with Richard Burton. That film was also plodding, long, and dull. Will someone come out with a Tombstone-equivalent movie about Alexander? It's doubtful.

I thought that the battle scenes were incredible and the arms, armor, and tactics were spot-on historically. This movie shows what it must have been like to face down a Macedonian phalanx and their long Sarissas, or what it must have been like to face down charging war elephants. Great, bloody battle scenes. But too few and too far between to keep interest.

The personal aspects of Alexander's life (his struggles with his father, his relationship with his mother, his homo-or bi-sexuality and the nature of his relationship with Hephastion) didn't really bother me, but they came across in an almost soap-operatic way. It was almost as if Oliver Stone was hitting us over the head with these elements ("Alexander was gay and look what he did! He was competing with a cruel and inattentive father! And he was gay!") in a ham-fisted manner -- but then, what were people expecting? This is the guy who gave us Born on the Fourth of July, Wall Street, Nixon, and other similar films. Stone does not do stuble. Ham-fistedness is his normal technique. What did you expect?

Anyway, watch this movie for the battle scenes, the arms and armor, and the wonderful reconstruction of Babylon. And take frequent bathroom breaks. You won't miss much.

David K. Wilson, Jr.
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Steve Grisetti




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PostPosted: Sun 28 Nov, 2004 3:50 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I'll wait for Alexander to come out on video. Based on earlier comments in this thread, I declined to see it when some of my family went yesterday. When they came home, I got the same type of comments - plodding, angst, etc. The battle scenes were good, but not enough of them.
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Joe Fults




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PostPosted: Sun 28 Nov, 2004 6:31 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Guess I'll rent it when it comes out.

Fast forward to the fights, and hope they don't make another like it. Which is a shame since the lesson should be that crap, historical or otherwise, does not sell. Instead I'm sure it will be historical fiction does not sell. Too bad.

Frankly, I wish Hollywod would realize that we do not all go to the movies, an escape from reality for the common man, to have all our heros, legends, and myths deconstructed, tarnished, and used to further trendy agendas. Sometimes I simply want to see heroic deeds. Even if I know the deeds are myths, sometimes I want to pretend that good people do achieve greatness.

When I want to see a bunch of decadant degenerates I turn on the news.

"The goal shouldn’t be to avoid being evil; it should be to actively do good." - Danah Boyd
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Matt G. Meekma




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PostPosted: Sun 28 Nov, 2004 7:48 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

The weapons did booth look great and fill that historical niche, but to my eye it seemed that most of the armour had Perfectly machine sewn seems and that all of the rivets were machined as well. There were a few very close up scenes where you get a pretty good look at Alex's armour and this fact just seemed to jump out at me.

I did find the whole monkey man army just hilarious as well. Yes they were in new lands and all but really, small creatures covered in hair throwing rocks fruit and dung..... Human enemy isn't the first thing that pops to mind and i am not a military genius. Also why is it that in both the battle scenes they got their butts handed to them by the enemy with bow and arrows and never used them in return. They instead reserved that weapon to fight the Monkey Man army.

I could go on and on with little things i noticed cuz i was WAY too bored with the plot to even care about it any more, but that means that i would have to think about it again and its just too painful and just too soon. I am just not ready to relive that part of my life yet. *sob*

Beer is God's way of saying He wants Us to be Happy. - Ben Franklin
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Steve Fabert





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PostPosted: Mon 29 Nov, 2004 6:33 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Joe Fults wrote:

Fast forward to the fights, and hope they don't make another like it. Which is a shame since the lesson should be that crap, historical or otherwise, does not sell. Instead I'm sure it will be historical fiction does not sell. Too bad.


Hollywood follows a pattern of superficially copying anything successful. Gladiator and the LOTR films made more than enough money, and earned some Oscars too, so the producers jumped to the conlusion that most any CGI film about swords and armor would be a winner. But Gladiator and LOTR had a plot and good casting, not just CGI and a lot of dirty sword wavers. So Troy and Alexander (among others) lose money, and the big studios will now stay away. Maybe it's better that independent fimmakers do the sword films.
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Roger Hooper




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PostPosted: Mon 29 Nov, 2004 9:57 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Well, you can wait for the next Alexander movie to come out, the one with Leonardo Dicaprio as Alexander, and Nicole Kidman as his mom. Surely that will be an improvement? Worried
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Alexi Goranov
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PostPosted: Mon 29 Nov, 2004 1:20 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Roger Hooper wrote:
Well, you can wait for the next Alexander movie to come out, the one with Leonardo Dicaprio as Alexander, and Nicole Kidman as his mom. Surely that will be an improvement? Worried


It might be, if they were to focus on Alexander's military activities more, as opposed to his personal life. Now I of course understand that his personal problems drove much of what he did as a general, but still.......I am more interested in the military stuff.

I wonder whether the flop of this movie will actually push the next one to be made, or completely prevent it from happening?

Alexi
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Steve Grisetti




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PostPosted: Mon 29 Nov, 2004 1:41 pm    Post subject: Don't Hold Your Breath         Reply with quote

One can always hope that the DiCaprio/Kidman film will be better. Unfortunately, I doubt that this other offering would do much more to please our community than the current film. We may be pleasantly surprised, though.
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Joel Chesser




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PostPosted: Mon 29 Nov, 2004 2:01 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I work at a theater that has been playing the movie, AS people are walking out i sometimes get to talk with them and see what they thought of the movie, for the most part every one says that the movie sucks, one guy actually spent a good five to ten min griping about it with me. The only good review i have heard came from a little old woman who said she could not decide which she preferred, Alexander or Troy. she seemed to think they were both rather accurate. I didn't want to be rude so i just smiled and nodded. I will say that personally have not seen the whole movie as of et, but what i have seen seems to be pretty decent. i have only stopped to watch the end and the part at the beginning where he tames the horse. While being rather cheesy it still seemed pretty good to me.
..." The person who dosen't have a sword should sell his coat and buy one."

- Luke 22:36
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