June 28, 2005

Awaken or die!

As my wife has discovered, I love reading about ancient history (Troy and Rome, in particular). (Although I've been reading more "modern" history as of late, notably John Man's Attila and Thomas Asbridge's The First Crusade. But I digress...)

In today's NY Times, there is a review of ABC's miniseries, "Empire." (Not that I'll get the chance to watch it, unless one of our cable channel stations, like Hallmark, picks it up or it gets sold via VCD.) But I did like the reviewer's writing, who was amusing at times. Some of the better quotations:

"At times, the story seems more influenced by George Lucas's empire than Caesar's. Octavius is a Latin-speaking Luke Skywalker who is taught by a Han Solo-like gladiator, Tyrannus (Jonathan Cake), to fight with swords to gain his throne." [Actually, this sounds more like Orlando Bloom's "Balian" learning how to fight from Liam Neeson's Godfrey in Kingdom of Heaven.]

"Cicero (Michael Byrne) serves as his Obi-Wan Kenobi, weighing in wisely behind the scenes. (Let the forum be with you. ...)"

"The assassination scene is beautifully choreographed, and there are lots of bath scenes and amusingly cheesy dialogue. (Reveille at gladiator boot camp is 'Awaken or die!')"

"Yet there are still plenty of gory scenes, including gruesome torture in a dank gladiator prison, where inmates' screams and groans sound almost as blood-curdling as the match set of a women's tennis final at Wimbledon."

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