The last movie you saw....

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Caligula - The Ultimate Cut (1979, 2023)



Blah blah blah...

Blah, blah blah blah...

So I went back and watched the original 79 version, not the whole thing though, just skimmed the major parts. After freshly seeing both now, I can give a better assessment of the new "Ultimate Cut" version.

It seems as though the editor of the new version made it his entire point to remove any pornographic material. While some people, including some of the reputable mainstream actors in the film, might totally appreciate that seeing as how most of them never approved of that kind of material being added to the movie,... it's become very obvious after watching the original that a handful of the scenes they removed should've been left in. The new version should've followed the timeline and storyboard of the old version exactly. After watching the 2, it's obvious that the original 79 version was actually edited properly so as to tell the story correctly chronologically. As I said in the previous post, the new version takes earlier scenes and splices them in later in the film at parts where it apparently makes little sense.

Editing mistakes in the porn-less Ultimate Cut...

Some examples that stand out to me:

Caligula and Drusilla are in the emperors bed chamber. They are talking and fooling around like the perverts they are. There is a giant white marble face on the far wall, some kind of Roman pagan religious thing I think. The mouth on the face has a peephole that goes to the room on the other side of the wall. Caligula hears something, runs over, put his ear near the mouth and hears people moaning. He motions to Drusilla to remain quiet. He runs to the nearby door and looks around the wall to find some guy blowing another dude or a transsexual, I'm not sure. He gets mad and kicks them in the asses while screaming at them and runs them off. I don't know what the significance of that is... but it was in the 79 original. In the new version, he hears noise, he runs over... but they totally remove the scene where he discovers people behind the wall and angrily kicks them in the ass to shoo them away. It makes the brief scene make no sense when they remove the part of him discovering people behind the peephole in the wall. Later in the movie, after Caligula freaks out in the rain storm, Drusilla calms him down by having a threesome with him and his wife Caesonia (Helen Mirren). For some reason, Messalina and Agrippina (Penthouse pets Anneka Di Lorenzo and Lori Wagner) are on the other side of the giant white marble face on the wall peeping at them. They get turned on by what they see, and... bow-chicka-wow-wow, a xxx rated bush-lickin' lesbian scene ensues running parallel to the not-xxx threesome that Malcolm McDowall, Helen Mirren and Teresa Ann Savoy are having. I mention it only because the scene with the lesbian Penthouse pets was edited out of the new version, - but because it didn't really interfere with any part of the story or leave any strange unexplained gaps by editing it out, it was totally fine to leave that part out in my opinion.

When Drusilla (Teresa Ann Savoy) dies, in the original version, you see Caligula (Malcolm McDowall) going out of his mind with grief, sobbing and dragging her naked lifeless body all over the place. In a couple of shots, you get a brief view of her "hairy clam". The new Ultimate Cut removes most of the shots where you can see any part of her pubic area, greatly shortening the length of the scene, and greatly diminishing the importance of the scene in my opinion. So again, the editor prioritized censoring and removing the nudity above telling the story the best way possible. I think with a little effort, they could've used clever post-effects to add some fake shadows to key body parts to retain her modesty along with the full length of the scene. OH NO, NOT A PUSSY! At this point, we've all seen fuckin' Game of Thrones, so brief shots of genitalia really aren't that crazy are they?

The new version cuts out ALL of the pornographic stuff that happens during the Imperial Orgy, an event where Caligula raised money for the state by forcing the senators wives to prostitute themselves (one of the many reasons he became VERY hated by the Senate). Sure, the pornographic scenes included in the original 79 version were dirty as hell (you see a midget getting blown, Anneka Di Lorenzo appears again and sucks off a dude until he blows a load in her mouth), but without ANY of the nude scenes in that part, you completely lose the gravity of the situation. Honestly, even the original didn't do a good enough job of capturing the "gravity" of the situation. You see the senators wives all getting naked and freaky, and you see a couple of characters like Longinus (the emperors secretary) and Chaerea (leader of the Praetorian guard) grumbling about whats going on. You also see one or two other Senators approach them, and they grumble about what is happening... but none of them really express any anger and outrage at their wives being forced to whore themselves... as you'd think they obviously would. Anyway, without any of the dirty-nasty-nekkid stuff, it almost leads you to believe that it was just a fun little harmless party.

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So after watching both now, I gotta admit... shit, the original version is actually still the best one. It would be great if someone could re-edit the 1979 original to add the additional 30-45 minutes of material included in the Ultimate Cut without removing any of the "pornographic" stuff. As much as no one really wants to see a mainstream movie with porn scenes in it... it's obvious that taking them out at this point kinda wrecks the movie in places. And it sucks that you now have to watch BOTH VERSIONS to get the most complete picture of the original Gore Vidal screenplay.

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(Haven't seen it yet... but WANT to.)

More on the topic of Roman history...

Saw a commercial for this on youtube the other day. Anthony Hopkins as Emperor Vespasian. Should be pretty cool. Something about Roman gladiatorial games and such.

Those About To Die - Peacock original miniseries


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFQcZRCZABo

Hoping it's much better than the old Starz miniseries, Spartacus. I rewatched all 4 seasons of that again in the last several months. Does not stand the test of time as far as I'm concerned. Definitely worse the 2nd time around, not that I really liked it all that much the first time either. Season 1 kept me mostly interested. Season 2 prequel less so. Seasons 3 and 4 were pretty shitty. I even ended up deleting the whole series from my video drive when I was done because I DO NOT forsee that I ever want to watch it again. That's the thing about Starz shows. They're good to watch once. But even if it's 10 years after the premier, the 2nd time around shows you how lame it was. Except Ash vs Evil Dead. That ones corny and silly by design so it's fine. Black Sails - I remember liking that one when it was current. I've considered watching that one a 2nd time before also, but I know if I do, I'll just notice how crappy it really is.

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Went to a movie theater tonight for the first time in a long time. Tickets were 12 bucks a head. I used to go all the time back in the early 00's, and I think tickets were 8 or 9 bucks back then. I'm not saying it SHOULD'VE cost more, but I was sort of expecting it to - like 18 or 20 bucks. Sort of affordable, so I might actually start going more. I went to see...

Dune Part Two (2024)



Been anticipating this one for a while. I dunno if I posted about it before but... I was NOT a fan of the old 1980's Dune movie that was directed by David Lynch. I thought it was CRAP.




(I saw the 2nd image when I was googling the first one and thought it was a great coincidence - Kyle Maclachlan was in the old Dune movie.)

The new ones don't suck at all. The first one is great. I've seen it probably 3 or 4 times now - watched it again earlier today before heading out to see Part Two just as a refresher. I've never read the books and really wasn't able to pay close enough attention to the old version to know the story well enough.

Part Two is good, but it did seem to jump forward in time a little abruptly without warning in a couple of spots - perhaps there were a lot more scenes that they had to cut out for time constraints (the movie was about 2hrs 45mins - part one was close to that too). Definitely worth seeing on the big screen.

I give part one a 9.8/10, part two a 9.7/10. 

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Got this in my spam barrage... uh, I mean, email, from Peacock. Some new show I guess, starring Orlando Bloom. Do you notice what I notice? 



This guy does not look like that at all. They've airbrushed about 20 years off of him and now he looks more like Cosmo Kramer Jr.

[Sgt. Dick]

 

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One of the all time greats.



Last movie I saw with him in it... probably Conan or Coming to America, I love those. Conan was a classic, cannot be remade, I don't care WHO you put in it. You'll never get a hero as great as Arnold, and you'll never have a villain as great as James Earl Jones playing Thulsa Doom.

He was also in The Sandlot and Field of Dreams, two good baseball movies, also forever classics.

One of my favorites of his that some people may forget about...

A Family Thing - 1996 - James Earl Jones, Robert Duvall - Synopsis from IMDB: When an old woman dies, she leaves a note for her apparent son (Robert Duvall) which tells him that his biological mother died giving birth to him. She begs him to make peace with his half-brother (James Earl Jones) living in Chicago.

Currently available on tubi for free:
https://tubitv.com/movies/312415/a-family-thing


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65tMREjQXAQ&ab_channel=VideoDetective

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Another good one passed back in August apparently, but for personal family reasons, it wasn't announced to the public until October 1st.

Actor John Amos passed away at age 84 on August 24th.



He played the dad James Evans on the old 70's sitcom Good Times. Sure, Jimmie Walker as JJ was popular and quotable, but without John Amos, it wouldn't have been worth watching in my opinion. My favorite episode was season 1 episode 2, Black Jesus, where the dad (John Amos) insists that Jesus was black, so JJ paints a picture of "Black Jesus" (see the above pic) and it becomes the family good luck charm.

Me? Watch Good Times? You DAMN RIGHT, I do! I might be a white boy that grew up in the 80's and 90's but I love me some black 70's sitcoms - Good Times, The Jeffersons, Sanford & Son, also the early 80's reboot of Sanford & Son minus the son Lamont (played by Demond Wilson) just called Sanford... it was pretty good, although not quite as good as Sanford & Son.

Beats the hell outta the crap they have on network tv now, that's for sure. I can't name one single sitcom on network television that's worth watching anymore. It all sucks. Especially if it's on ABC.

Fact about John Amos you maybe didn't know: You could kinda tell just by looking at him, the man played football. Throughout the 60's, he played football for various leagues, starting out with the AFL (later became NFL) Denver Broncos but was cut after a very short period, and then other teams in the Continental Football League, United Football League, and the Atlantic Coast Football League.

My favorite John Amos movies:

The Beastmaster (1982) - Always loved that movie as a kid. Was one of the best "sword & sorcery" genre movies from the 80's. They used to play it on TBS a lot back in the 90's, and I'd also rent it from the local Blockbuster Video every once in a while.

(Dunno what the hell a black guy was doing roaming the countryside with a young white boy. Yeah, maybe it's kinda weird,... but... he's the dear old dad from Good Times, so we don't question it.)



Coming to America (1988) - One of the greatest comedy movies of all time in my opinion. Eddie Murphy in his prime, and Arsenio Hall, both of them getting in makeup and prosthetics to create even more hilarious characters throughout the movie. And the great John Amos as Mr. McDowall. Also... the debut of Samuel L Jackson ...yelling and pointing a gun at people, just how we always love him.

Die Hard 2 (1990) - Die Hard... is a Christmas movie. It's been decided... not by me, but hey, I'll go along with it. At the very least, it's a really good action movie, definitely what I'd consider an all-time "classic", certainly as an action movie, but just as a good well-made movie in general in my opinion. And Die Hard 2 was a very solid sequel. Honestly, the entire catalog of Die Hard movies have something to offer for the action movie fan. If you're the kind of person who hates the Die Hard movies... you either hate Bruce Willis personally for some reason, or you're just not that big of a fan of the action genre... so I'm sorry, but your opinion about the Die Hard movies doesn't count.

He was in lots of other movies, and he never really played any lead characters.


Also...

(Haven't seen it yet... but WANT to.)

More on the topic of Roman history...

Saw a commercial for this on youtube the other day. Anthony Hopkins as Emperor Vespasian. Should be pretty cool. Something about Roman gladiatorial games and such.

Those About To Die - Peacock original miniseries


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFQcZRCZABo

Saw this a couple weeks ago. 10 episodes, about 1 hour each.

Verdict:
MEH. 

Not altogether historically accurate. It takes plenty of "artistic liberties", and it's not all that great.

The end of Season 1 sets the stage for a Season 2... which I anticipate would be even LESS historically/factually accurate than season 1, but so far, I haven't heard if Peacock plans to finance a 2nd season. I kinda hope they don't. I'd be tempted to watch it... and I don't want to.