(no subject)

[pearwaldorf]

Some men say an army of horse and some men say an army on foot
and some men say an army of ships is the most beautiful thing
on the black earth. (Sappho)

So Peter O'Toole's going to play King Priam in the new Troy movie. I heartily approve. Cast list otherwise:

Brad Pitt: Achilles. As much as I wish I could say I want to cringe, I can see this. Achilles always was a bit of an asshole, and if Pitt plays up the crude roustabout ready to fight angle, I can live with it.

Orlando Bloom: Paris. AHHAAAAHAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAAA! He'll look all pretty and sorta-Mediterranean, but really. Unless he plays Paris as a simpering fop (which I never thought he was), I can't really see it.

Sean Bean: Odysseus. I can't see this at all. But maybe he'll surprise me. And dammit, why won't somebody do a film version of the Odyssey that does justice to the poem and cast Miranda Otto as Circe. Mmm, Miranda Otto in a Greek dress... *gets distracted*

Comments

[veux.livejournal.com]

Orlando Bloom as anything other than a confused British boy or a pretty, aloof elf doesn't really work.

[veux.livejournal.com]

Not sure how I feel about their Helen either. (http://romanticmovies.about.com/cs/upcomingreleases/a/dianekrugertroy.htm)

[sonatine.livejournal.com]

Neither am I. She's *looks* like a Helen, but I have no idea of her acting abilities, being an unknown and all. And given their big-star casting (with the exception of O'Toole, nobody else's acting ability has impressed me much), I fear this will be a look! shiny! production as opposed to an actually intellectually interesting one. But in some ways, that suits the Iliad. I can't remember how many descriptions of armor and killing I skipped over in that book when I was reading.

[veux.livejournal.com]

*sigh* There's nothing wrong with "look! shiny!" Shiny is good. A lot of Greek stuff is shiny. It's just that I hope it manages to not suck in the process of being shiny.

[sonatine.livejournal.com]

My bad. I didn't mean "shiny!" always equals "bad/teh suck," it's just that more often than not, when Hollywood makes shiny! more often than not it ends up bad. Hopefully it will be more like Pirates of the Caribbean and less like a Jerry Bruckheimer film. But Wolfgang Petersen has a pretty impressive directorial filmography, so it will probably turn out all right.

[sonatine.livejournal.com]

Blargh. Strike the last "more often than not"

I really need to preview my comments before submitting them, because I am brain-dead.