Am I not Entertained?

I am famously not a Christopher Nolan fan, so when I heard he was adapting Homer’s classic, I let out a big tired sigh. But I decided to go in with an open mind, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. The writing was immediate without feeling heavy handed, the pacing… Continue reading

I heard mixed things about this movie before watching it, and in the end, it probably deserves its rating of “okay,” but I enjoyed it more than some of the other “okay” films I’ve watched. It’s not the most profound or subtle film of all time; it is also based on a book and, I… Continue reading

This is the most unlikely entry so far for my ancient movie series, and even more surprising as one of my favorite entries so far–Prey is a recent reboot of the Predator franchise. The fresh new twist? It’s set 300 years ago, from the perspective of a Comanche tribe. Yes, it falls almost a millennia… Continue reading

In my last post, I lamented why modern directors have shied away from sword & sandal films. Having watched the much-anticipated sequel to Gladiator, I’m now like, “yeah, maybe we don’t need more of these.” I watched this movie on a plane, which is perfect because it feels like it was made for exactly that… Continue reading

I’m back, baby, and finally ready to dust the cobwebs off of this blog after spending the last few months moving to a new country (where it will be so much easier to travel to sites of classical antiquity rather than just watching movies about them). We’re kicking things off with a return to my… Continue reading

It turns out that the same year Akira Kurosawa released Throne of Blood, halfway around the world in Sweden, Ingmar Bergman also put out his classic historical fantasy film, The Seventh Seal. This was probably the most arthouse of all the movies I’ve watched for this project so far, and in some ways the least… Continue reading

Rashomon got its hooks in me, so I decided to make it a Kurosawa marathon weekend by diving into Throne of Blood, which I’ve been looking forward to for a while (I also watched Sanjuro, having enjoyed its predecessor Yojimbo a while back, but both are sadly out of the time scope of this project).… Continue reading

Rashomon has been on my to-watch list for a while–even before this project began–as it’s regarded as one of the greatest films of all time. And I’m not here to argue with that assessment! It was excellent! I think it has enough tension and mystery to hold up for modern audiences, and I found myself… Continue reading

I bent my definition of “ancient” film to watch Harakiri–it’s set in early Edo period Japan, or roughly the end of the Renaissance period in the west, so pretty far off–but I’m glad I did, as this is apparently (and with good reason) considered one of the best samurai films of all time. More precisely,… Continue reading

Asoka was pretty far out of my movie comfort zone (but hey, that’s what this project is for). For one thing, I know pretty much nothing about the ancient history of India; for another, I think this might have actually been my first Bollywood movie ever, so it took me a while to adjust to… Continue reading