Hollywood Vs. The Rest Of Us

Kingdom of Heaven, Ridley Scott's new epic starring Liam Neeson and Orlando Bloom is getting set for release in a few weeks and it appears ready to offend anyone who dare love this country or believes in good and evil. You know, like most movies. An early review:

It wasn’t the story, which takes place during the crusades and tells the story of Balian (Bloom), a young blacksmith who rises to protect his people in Jerusalem from foreign Muslim invaders. Do I smell controversy? No, absolutely not. My fears that the Muslims would be depicted as barbarian savages were pleasantly proved wrong. Scott does a great job of not vilifying the Muslims or the Christians, but instead showing the corruptive effects of power, greed and religion from both angles. There are bad individuals on both sides, but there’s no right or wrong side.

Heaven forbid Hollywood take a stand on good or evil. I guess we should be relieved that Christians aren't singled out. Again. The bright folks over at the conservative Hollywood site Libertas are similarly skeptical and see a more sinister agenda:

But what I’m really interested in is the analogy this film seems to be making to our present war in the Middle East. There really is no chance that Hollywood is going to pass-up using this film to make some sort of indirect comment on the war. I’m wondering what other people notice. My early guess is that the marketing on this film will, as usual, hide the political message - although I’m detecting something from the trailer in the way that a war is ‘manufactured’ by the crusaders …

So, brace yourselves, folks. Looks like they might try and sneak one in on us.

Here's the trailer. All I really got from it is that Ridley Scott's a bit too enamored with shots of blowing wheat; remember Gladiator? But it doesn't look like a very good movie either. What's the story? A trailer with a bunch of flashing fancy shots and bits of trite dialogue is never a good sign.

And what's with this Hollywoody for Orlando Bloom? Talk about a lightweight. I don't think the Rings trilogy were hits because today's Leif Garrett gave a twice divorced overweight middle-aged casting director a mercy poke to snag the role. I thought bad casting in epics were Edward G. Robinson in The Ten Commandments and Tony Curtis in Spartacus until I saw this guy in Troy. And now they're putting him another one? As the lead? Well, anything may be an improvement after this.

Have you read this post? Because if you haven't you need to.

Comments

[Gun Powder]

Your representation of the Christians as the "good guys" during the Crusades seems pretty silly. On the other hand the Christians didn't single-handedly destroy Arab civilization, either.

What is true is that the technologically superior Arabs fought as much amongst themselves as against the Christian barbarians. Their loss in the Crusades was a result of the overall decay of their own civilization, not some Ghengis-Khan-like unstoppable army of Christians.

More important than who was "right" or "wrong" during the Crusades were the resulting technology transfers. As the Romans were to the Arabs, so would the Arabs be to the Europeans: a waning civilization passing on its knowledge to a rising one.

[DH]

I must've missed where I said the Christians were good guys during the crusades.

[cali white bear]

cool blog, but i'm at a loss: Ed G dominated in
the 10 C's, and tony curtis did a passable job as antoninus. i mean, who among us could pull off the dramatis needed when Larry Olivier asks if you like snails or oysters? i mean, c'mon!!!