Lengthy piece in the Miami Herald on the ongoing popularity of Gladiator/Roman movies … along the way, they interview some Classicists: From the biblical epics of the ’50s to the toga dramas of the ’60s through more recent hits such as “300,” “Gladiator,” “Braveheart” and TV series such as “Hercules,” “Xena: Warrior Princess,” “Rome” and [...]

This is kind of interesting, and I might have to track this book down … from an interview in Newsweek with Tom Payne about his book Fame, inter alia: You bring up the theme of sacrifice—for example, you link Britney Spears’s meltdown with the ritual killing of Iphigenia, who, legend has it, was sacrificed so [...]

Mentioned this on facebook last week … forgot to post it here. Here’s the incipit: Even though Homer’s Iliad was written approximately three thousand years ago, the character of Achilles is still alive and well. He is forty one years old, lives in Mississippi, and spends his autumns and winters in Minnesota. Minnesota Vikings quarterback [...]

Interesting item brought back by my spiders from a piece in the National marking the 50th anniversary of Coronation Street … inter alia: In that sense, it doesn’t matter that the soap is set in a version of northern England where life can be slightly grim and unglamorous. Because once you’ve got past the accents [...]

From Natalie Haynes in the Times’ entertainment pages (this one is filling my box and Facebook notification thingy; tip o’ the pileus to quite a few folks) … a good excerpt: Spartacus reflects so many of our current obsessions: the actors are uniformly gorgeous, toned and buff, like models. It’s never questioned. These are gladiators [...]

Very nice overview of the genre, right up to Agora, with comments hic et illic from Robin Lane Fox: The return of swords ‘n’ sandals movies | FT.

A very good piece from the BBC … with the usual observation on the effect of movies on Classics enrollment in universities.  And yet, we hear Classics is in a state of semi-crisis in the UK … How does that compute? Fifty years ago, the story of Clash of the Titans – now a 3D [...]

The musical with Catherine Zeta-Jones seems to be having difficulties (not sure if that’s a bad thing): Movies – News – Winstone: ‘Cleo might be gone’ | Digital Spy.

The incipit of an item from ANSA: Tokyo, March 29 – An Ancient Roman time traveller who shuttles between his own era and modern-day Tokyo is the hero of the comic strip awarded this year’s global manga prize.Lucius, a Roman architect who specializes in designing public baths, stars in a strip called Thermae Romae, which [...]

Seen at Rotten Tomatoes: When HBO pulled the plug on its expensive coproduction Rome, there was talk of the possibility of the series continuing on in movie form. Fans of the show who were also familiar with similar promises of Deadwood movies knew, however, to perhaps take such talk with a grain of salt. We [...]

The Independent has a feature on sword and sandal flicks with a handy list at the end of just-released and to-be-released films of the genre. Here are a few to keep your eyes open for: The Eagle of the Ninth In Britain, this time in AD140, but with the Ninth Legion again as a young [...]

I knew that Spartacus was highly regarded in Marxist circles, but I didn’t know this sort of thing occurred with the Kirk Douglas film came out (in medias res from an article on a showing of the film): As a leader, Spartacus has been admired by revolutionaries seeking to overcome the power of an over-class. [...]

The conclusion of a piece on of Deliverance, Zardoz, Point Blank (et alia) fame: As the new decade kicks off, Boorman seems to have his hands full. He has been working on an animated version of The Wizard of Oz for several years. A film based on the Emperor Hadrian is still under development. And [...]

Baseball and Homer Part One Homer and Baseball, Part Two | TYU.

Found while digging through something Terrence Lockyer mentioned on the Classics list last week … from November 2007: Looking back at Orpheus | BBC News Magazine.