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 two “Potter” films and was brought in by Fox with hopes that magic lightning can strike twice.

“Clash of the Titans” is a familiar brand name to fans from the 1981 movie of the same title. Like that film, this new model is more about an adrenaline adventure than meticulous scholarship. Leterrier “The Incredible Hulk,” “Transporter 2” was playing with the idea of presenting Pegasus as a black horse with bat-like wings instead of the iconic white steed with angelic feathers. He and his star, Worthington, have already discussed the possibilities of a sequel, and Warner Bros. has high hopes for the movie.

The films follow a surge in more traditional sword-and-sandal movies in recent years. The decade began with “Gladiator,” which won the Oscar for best picture, and it was followed in 2004 by “Alexander” and “Troy.” It was the 2007 hit film “300,” though, that truly captured the attention of Hollywood executives with $456 million in worldwide box office off a $67-million budget.

The Zack Snyder film, the highest-grossing March release ever, was based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel about King Leonidas and his doomed army of Spartans; Miller is preparing a follow-up now titled “Xerxes,” which begins about 10 years before the events of “300,” and Snyder has expressed interest in it as a film property as well. “It’s the battle of Marathon through my lens,” Miller said.

Miller said he is not surprised Greece is resurgent in Hollywood. “Every generation returns to ancient Greece because, well, the stories are so damn good.”

via Clash of the Greek mythology movies | Detroit Free Press.

Seen in Passing: In A Cage

In medias res from an item in Psychology Today:

Would you like to be 80 and be physically health with dementia, or with a sound mind in a ruined body?

Pick only one.

In my work, I get to ask questions from the Geriatric Depression Scale like, “Do you think that most people are better off than you are?”

The 80something, I asked this of said, “No, not most, particularly some of the other people around here, whose minds are totally destroyed,” the fairly common response from many who still have a mind that always reminds me of the first line of Ginsberg’s Howl, “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness”-a line appropriate to the most garden variety of nursing homes.

I’ll call him Mr. Jones. He was a long-time, semi-prominent classicist who forsaking Herodotus–I told him I could barely finish the first book of The Histories, in English–now lies in bed when he’s not in his wheel chair, mostly watching TV. A Yankee fan, he’s happily waiting for the first spring training game only weeks away.

“If only I kind walk,” a refrain I’ve heard scores of times over the years, “my life would be so much better.”

But Jones, unlike some others or possibly me in the future, is making–pick your platitude–the best of a bad bargain and playing the hand fate dealt to him.

Jones told me that, like Thaoo, perhaps, he never expects to leave the nursing home.

“I recognize I can’t live on my own. My son says its an ordeal just to take me for a car ride. But my friends still visit.”

On his nightstand, I see a copy of a journal I never heard of, Classical Philology, so I know that there is more than the Yankees on his sound mind not in a sound body

via World’s Oldest Condor Dies–In A Cage | Psychology Today.

January, 2010 CSA Newsletter

Going AWOL (ancientworldonline.blogspot.com/): Thoughts on developing a tool for the organization and discovery of open access scholarly resources for the study of the Ancient World (Charles E. Jones)

Website Review: The Ancient Agora of Athens

A very complex site without a carefully-defined audience. (Harrison Eiteljorg, II)

Cloudy Skies?

Computing in the clouds may have more costs than benefits. (Harrison Eiteljorg, II)

Using Old Data in New Ways

Repurposing data is a critical process for all scholars. (Harrison Eiteljorg, II)

Know Your Choices

New tools can be very useful — if they are used wisely. (Harrison Eiteljorg, II)

Miscellaneous Notes

An irregular feature of the CSA Newsletter

via CSA Newsletter.