Latin Tattoos Causing Revival in Latin?
Image via Wikipedia Tip o’ the pileus to Dorothy King for alerting us to this somewhat strange connection being made by the Daily Mail: Celebrity Latin tattoos may be fuelling a revival of the ancient language in schools, it emerged today. Pupils are increasingly demanding to study the subject, according to an exam board, as [...]
Cleopatra’s Pearl
Image via Wikipedia A very interesting item in USA Today (ultimately deriving from an article in Classical World!) is bouncing around the interwebs … we’ll preface it with this excerpt from Philemon Holland’s 1847 translation of Pliny’s Natural History (9.119-121) via Archive.org. The Latin is available, as always, via Lacus Curtius: There were two Pearls, [...]
Ancient Stuff at io9
Over the past couple of weeks, it’s becoming clear that the gang at io9 are either looking for some rogueclassicism love or (more likely) have sensed the popculch value of the ancient world. Consider some of their recent posts (all worth a look) … They first caught my eye with A brief history of alternate [...]
Vidfest: We’re all Spartacus
I thought of tying this to the Times piece (below) but it seems sufficiently different to warrant its own little chunk of rogueclassicism. The incipit of a column in the Post … where possible, I’ve interspersed bits from Youtub of the clip in question: 1. In the Stanley Kubrick epic “Spartacus,” the Romans offer slaves [...]
Romans Just Like Us (on screen anyway)
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 [...]
Citanda: Sword and Sandals Redux
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.
Hollywood and the Classics Redux
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 [...]
Movie Gossip: ‘Cleo might be gone’
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.
Ancient Roman Manga
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 [...]
Rome Gossip
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 [...]
Sword and Sandal Flicks
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 [...]
Spartacus the Communist
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. [...]
Seen in Passing: Hadrian Flick?
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 [...]
Citanda: Homer and Baseball
Baseball and Homer Part One Homer and Baseball, Part Two | TYU.
Citanda: Looking back at Orpheus
Found while digging through something Terrence Lockyer mentioned on the Classics list last week … from November 2007: Looking back at Orpheus | BBC News Magazine.
Clash v. Percy
The conclusion to a piece at the Freep: “Percy Jackson” stars 17-year-old Logan Lerman “3:10 to Yuma” as the title character, a troubled youngster who like a certain boy wizard discovers he has a magical heritage and then teams with his young friends to fight the dark forces aligned against him. Columbus directed the first [...]
Citanda: Cleopatra and Egyptian Fashion in Film
Tove Hermanson: Cleopatra and Egyptian Fashion in Film | Huffington Post.
Clash of the Titans Trilogy?
The incipit of a bit in the Coventry Telegraph last week: CLASH OF THE TITANS director Louis Leterrier says he is hoping the film will be the start of a franchise and has mapped out a possible trilogy centring on ancient Greek mythology. He said: “We’ve talked about it loosely. Any movie of this size, [...]
Citanda: Top ten passions of Ancient Rome (slide show)
… sounds suspiciously like undergrad life … Top ten passions of Ancient Rome | The Independent.
Spartacus Marketing
Since up in Canada here we don’t get the new Spartacus until Monday (on TMN), I was looking to see if it was on iTunes … while waiting for the predicted iTunes update to install (why do folks tolerate these constant wholesale updates? If that were a Windows thing there’d be no end of complaints), [...]
Clash of Titans in 3D decision coming soon | Reuters
Haven’t been keeping up with all the Clash of the Titans gossip of late … this incipit from Reuters is very interesting: Warner Bros. will decide in the next 10 days whether to release Louis Leterrier’s remake of action fantasy “Clash of the Titans” in 3D.FilmThe studio has ordered a 3D test of the film [...]
I, Claudius Remake
From the incipit of a movie column in the Times: William Graves, son of the writer and poet Robert Graves, has sold the rights of his father’s I, Claudius for a big-screen feature, to be directed by Jim Sheridan. Leonardo DiCaprio, whose production company is appropriately called Appian Way, has expressed interest in the project [...]
We Are Sparta! And Athens!
A piece in Metro Santa Cruz begins with this interesting quote: “We are the modern equivalent of the ancient city-states of Athens and Sparta. California has the ideas of Athens and the power of Sparta.” –Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger I guess you can take the man out of the sword-and-sandal, but you can’t take the sword-and-sandal [...]
