Spartacus: Gods of the Arena

For anyone who missed them, here is an archive of images and wallpapers from the Spartacus: Gods of the Arena website.

Be sure to catch the premiere of Spartacus: Vengeance on January 29th!

Meet the Spartans (2008)

Meet the Spartans comes from the ridiculous minds of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer.  These are the people who (unfortunately) brought us the Scary Movie films, Date Movie, Disaster Movie, etc.  It finds itself in the IMDB's 100 worst movies for good reason.

The story (such as it is) is very loosely based on the film version of Frank Miller's 300.  It begins with rather faithful recreations of scenes from 300 but quickly degenerates into a series of sickening toilet humour and nonsensical parodies of celebrities and reality TV shows.  It also relies heavily on racial and gay jokes, which, surprisingly are not that offensive (and not that funny).

The cast is full of eye candy with Carmen Electra, Sean Maguire and Travis Van Winkle.  Maguire seems to have fallen far from his first acting role with Sir Laurence Olivier in A Voyage Round My Father.   

Travis Van Winkle is truly beautiful.  I would cast him to play Apollo in something. He definitely embodies the ancient Greek ideal of male beauty.  Unfortunately, this film doesn't give him a chance to display much acting talent. 

Finally, there's an appearance by genre-favourite Kevin Sorbo.  Fans of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys will enjoy some Herc jokes.

It is possible to say at least one good thing about this film and that is that production designer William A. Elliott, costume designer Frank Helmer the visual effects teams did an excellent job on creating sets and a look that mimics 300.  The film had a $30 million budget so the money had to go somewhere!

The best sequence in the film takes place at the Hot Gates where the Spartans face the Persians.  There's a pretty incredible "dance-off" that features some very talented dancers and stunt performers.

Other than that, the film is pretty terrible and I would say it's safe to stay away from. If you do intend to seek it out, it's available on DVD in an "Unrated Pit-of-Death Edition."

Spartacus: Blood and Sand

For any who may have missed them, here's an archive of wallpapers from the original Spartacus: Blood and Sand site.

Be sure to catch the premiere of Spartacus: Vengeance on January 29th!

Spartacus: Vengeance

The wait is almost over for season two which premieres on January 29th. Unfortunately, up here in Canada I won't be able to see it probably until it's released on DVD!

Here is an archive of some images and wallpapers from the ever-changing website.

Ted Raimi at Fan Expo 2001

I didn't find Tim Raimi especially friendly or gracious when I met him in 2001.  He waved me up to his table and then proceeded to ignore me and have a five minute conversation with his girlfriend about what she should bring him for lunch!

However, he made up for it during his stage appearance when he invited fans to sing the Ballad of Joxer the Mighty with him (the Illusia version from "The Bitter Suite").

Design of Conan the Barbarian

Ron Cobb was the production designer for the 1982 Conan the Barbarian.  He had previously worked as a conceptual artist on Alien and Raiders of the Lost Ark.  He and director John Milius were influenced by the work of Frank Frazetta and truly did a wonderful job of bringing Conan's world to the silver screen.

iconic Conan by Frank Frazetta

The sword of Conan's father is an important part of the film's story so it had to stand out.  I think Cobb managed to design an iconic prop.  The sword has been replicated dozens of times as a collectable for fans.

Cobb obviously worked closely with costume designer John Bloomfield because many of Cobb's costume sketches look as though they walked directly from the page to the screen.

I think perhaps Cobb's greatest contribution to Conan the Barbarian is his incredible set designs.  In the 1980s filmmakers still had to build most sets practically without any CG aids.  The epic scale of some of the Conan sets really hearkens back to the enormous sets for films like Cleopatra, Caligula and the biblical epics of the 60s.

Cobb has said that his favourite part of designing Conan the Barbarian was the chance to create entirely new architectural styles that seemed otherworldly but were also familiar enough to have actually existed in Earth's distant past.