list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around Cleopatra on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/Cleopatra/6407/default.aspx Title: Cleopatra
Year: 1963
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Plot: In 1963, this colossal and opulent $60 million spectacular was epic in every sense of the word -- an epic investment, an epic in the annals of Hollywood gossip, and, ultimately, an epic flop that nearly dragged 20th Century Fox down the Nile along with Cleopatra's barge. Handsomely mounted by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who replaced Rouben Mamoulian as director after six days of shooting), the drama follows the eighteen tumultuous years that led to the founding of the Roman Empire. Cleopatra (Elizabeth Taylor) meets up with Julius Caesar (Rex Harrison) and plans to lure Caesar to her boudoir in order to forge an alliance with Rome so that she may hold on to her Egyptian empire. When Caesar is stabbed to death in the Roman Senate, Cleopatra is left without an ally, and Egypt is up for grabs. When Roman general Mark Antony (Richard Burton) comes along, she seduces him in order to make him over into her new protector. But, under the charms of Cleopatra, Mark Antony is reduced from a an awesome and dominating general to a sniveling, drunken wimp. At the Battle of Actium, Mark Antony is defeated and Cleopatra withdraws her troops, dooming Mark Antony and his army. With Egypt in peril, Antony and Cleopatra, the doomed lovers, meet each other for the last time, as the enemy forces close in. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
Times Tagged: 7
Number of Lists: 10
Number of blog posts: 3
SpoutRating: 2
]]>Tue, 21 Jul 2009 22:24:59 GMTCleopatra1963Joseph L. MankiewiczIn 1963, this colossal and opulent $60 million spectacular was epic in every sense of the word -- an epic investment, an epic in the annals of Hollywood gossip, and, ultimately, an epic flop that nearly dragged 20th Century Fox down the Nile along with Cleopatra's barge. Handsomely mounted by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who replaced <a href="/players/P___100959/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Rouben Mamoulian</a> as director after six days of shooting), the drama follows the eighteen tumultuous years that led to the founding of the Roman Empire. Cleopatra (<a href="/players/P____70015/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Elizabeth Taylor</a>) meets up with Julius Caesar (<a href="/players/P____30718/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Rex Harrison</a>) and plans to lure Caesar to her boudoir in order to forge an alliance with Rome so that she may hold on to her Egyptian empire. When Caesar is stabbed to death in the Roman Senate, Cleopatra is left without an ally, and Egypt is up for grabs. When Roman general Mark Antony (<a href="/players/P____83664/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Richard Burton</a>) comes along, she seduces him in order to make him over into her new protector. But, under the charms of Cleopatra, Mark Antony is reduced from a an awesome and dominating general to a sniveling, drunken wimp. At the Battle of Actium, Mark Antony is defeated and Cleopatra withdraws her troops, dooming Mark Antony and his army. With Egypt in peril, Antony and Cleopatra, the doomed lovers, meet each other for the last time, as the enemy forces close in. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide7Taggedy Taggged (6-10)1032http://www.spout.com/ProductImages/t71419n1p5z.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/Cleopatra/6407/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/blogs/aidanbrack/archive/2008/7/29/33208.aspx Post By: aidanbrack
Post To: The Bigger Picture
Post Date: 7/29/2008 7:20:09 AM
Body: The Carry On series are a British institution and one of my guiltiest pleasures. Unashamedly low-brow, they are packed with terrible puns and wonderfully hammy performances. I first discovered the series of films when I was in elementary school and they have remained favourites ever since. I certainly would never claim that they were great or even particularly good films, but the cheeky humour and (in the later years) heavy use of innuendo amused me and fundamentally affected my sense of humour. To date there have been twenty nine original Carry On films and one compilation (That's Carry On!), the most recent being released in 1992. Amongst those films are parodies of Cleopatra, James Bond and Beau Geste, as well as more original stories based around national service, the medical profession and holidays. So below are my top five films from the Carry On series. I will not argue that they are great films but I hold enormous affection for them, and the series to this day. To the list... 5. Carry On Cruising - the early films were penned by writer Norman Hudis and followed a very tight formula. Cruising, the first of the colour Carry Ons and the last to be penned by Hudis, is the story of the inept new crew of a cruise liner and its passengers. It is fun, lively and colourful with all of the cast given a chance to shine. My favourite scene: Esma Canon, Dilys Laye and Liz Fraser getting drunk in the liner's bar. 4. Carry On Loving - I never rated this one but at University a friend who disliked the series told me it was the one film that he liked in the run. I gave it another go and found it much more enjoyable as an adult than I had as a child or teenager. There are some great gags and Richard O'Callaghan and Jacki Piper made for a very cute couple. My favourite scene: the opening scene between Terry Scott's character and the priest on the train. 3. Carry On Cleo - filmed on sets left over from the film Cleopatra, Carry On Cleo is a romp through one of history's best known stories. Here Caesar, played with gusto by regular Kenneth Williams, is portrayed less as an awe-inspiring general but a rather pathetic coward. Believing a British slave to be responsible for saving his life, he installs him as his official bodyguard and goes to Egypt to meet Queen Cleopatra. My favourite scene: Caesar running through the Temple of the Vestal Virgins crying out "Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in 'fer me!" - a line that has been voted the funniest film one-liner. 2. Carry On Up The Khyber - perhaps the best-loved of the series, it is the wonderful portrayal of the British Empire mentality that makes this film so enjoyable. The story is suitably ridiculous (a group of soldiers attempt to recover a photograph that proves they were wearing underwear under their kilts) and the Boys Own adventure style is suitably lampooned. My favourite scene: another obvious one - the dinner sequence where the British leadership sit at the dinner table and ignore the building being blown up around them. 1. Don't Lose Your Head - at first not labelled as one of the series, Don't Lose Your Head is my favourite because it has so much going on. It's certainly not the funniest of the films (being more of an adventure-comedy than a comedy) but its over the top characters and its star turns from Jim Dale and Sid James as the two foppish aristocrats saving their French counterparts from the revolution are amongst the best the series ever offered. My favourite scene: Citizen Camembert's executioner getting tricked into lying under his own guillotine. So there you have it - my top five. Amongst those that were on the verge of being put on this list were Carry On Spying (my first!) and Carry On Doctor.
]]>Tue, 29 Jul 2008 11:20:09 GMTaidanbrackThe Bigger Picture7/29/2008 7:20:09 AMThe Carry On series are a British institution and one of my guiltiest pleasures. Unashamedly low-brow, they are packed with terrible puns and wonderfully hammy performances. I first discovered the series of films when I was in elementary school and they have remained favourites ever since. I certainly would never claim that they were great or even particularly good films, but the cheeky humour and (in the later years) heavy use of innuendo amused me and fundamentally affected my sense of humour. To date there have been twenty nine original Carry On films and one compilation (That's Carry On!), the most recent being released in 1992. Amongst those films are parodies of Cleopatra, James Bond and Beau Geste, as well as more original stories based around national service, the medical profession and holidays. So below are my top five films from the Carry On series. I will not argue that they are great films but I hold enormous affection for them, and the series to this day. To the list... 5. Carry On Cruising - the early films were penned by writer Norman Hudis and followed a very tight formula. Cruising, the first of the colour Carry Ons and the last to be penned by Hudis, is the story of the inept new crew of a cruise liner and its passengers. It is fun, lively and colourful with all of the cast given a chance to shine. My favourite scene: Esma Canon, Dilys Laye and Liz Fraser getting drunk in the liner's bar. 4. Carry On Loving - I never rated this one but at University a friend who disliked the series told me it was the one film that he liked in the run. I gave it another go and found it much more enjoyable as an adult than I had as a child or teenager. There are some great gags and Richard O'Callaghan and Jacki Piper made for a very cute couple. My favourite scene: the opening scene between Terry Scott's character and the priest on the train. 3. Carry On Cleo - filmed on sets left over from the film Cleopatra, Carry On Cleo is a romp through one of history's best known stories. Here Caesar, played with gusto by regular Kenneth Williams, is portrayed less as an awe-inspiring general but a rather pathetic coward. Believing a British slave to be responsible for saving his life, he installs him as his official bodyguard and goes to Egypt to meet Queen Cleopatra. My favourite scene: Caesar running through the Temple of the Vestal Virgins crying out "Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in 'fer me!" - a line that has been voted the funniest film one-liner. 2. Carry On Up The Khyber - perhaps the best-loved of the series, it is the wonderful portrayal of the British Empire mentality that makes this film so enjoyable. The story is suitably ridiculous (a group of soldiers attempt to recover a photograph that proves they were wearing underwear under their kilts) and the Boys Own adventure style is suitably lampooned. My favourite scene: another obvious one - the dinner sequence where the British leadership sit at the dinner table and ignore the building being blown up around them. 1. Don't Lose Your Head - at first not labelled as one of the series, Don't Lose Your Head is my favourite because it has so much going on. It's certainly not the funniest of the films (being more of an adventure-comedy than a comedy) but its over the top characters and its star turns from Jim Dale and Sid James as the two foppish aristocrats saving their French counterparts from the revolution are amongst the best the series ever offered. My favourite scene: Citizen Camembert's executioner getting tricked into lying under his own guillotine. So there you have it - my top five. Amongst those that were on the verge of being put on this list were Carry On Spying (my first!) and Carry On Doctor. http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/6/12/31175.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 6/12/2008 3:01:33 PM
Body: Two big movies arrive in theaters this week, The Incredible Hulk and The Happening, and each has had its share of bad buzz. From what I can tell, though, the former is recuperating quite nicely with mostly favorable early reviews. And it’s sure to gross in the hundreds of millions, just like its big brother, Ang Lee’s Hulk, did a few years back. The latter, however, is still struggling through the muck, with writer-director M. Night Shyamalan doing everything he can to assure us that his film is merely a B-movie and shouldn’t be the victim of high expectations. If The Happening bombs, though, 20th Century Fox won’t be able to blame its bad buzz. Especially if The Incredible Hulk comes out a big winner this weekend. When a movie is good, or at least has some goods that audiences actually crave, it can overcome bad buzz. The list of films after the jump is evidence of this, although it’s possible that some of the older titles might have been less successful in the globally conscious age of blogs. Titanic - James Cameron’s romantic disaster film arrived in the early days of mass internet usage, but it didn’t need high-speed gossip to spread word of its troubled production. Any reader of entertainment news learned of the drug-induced food poisoning, the crew illnesses and injuries that came with filming in cold waters and the other problems that put the shoot way over schedule and way over budget. Then there was the matter of its release date being pushed back from July, 1997, to December. Yet Titanic had the goods, and it went on to become the highest-grossing film of all-time and win 11 Oscars, including Best Picture. Star Wars - If the first Star Wars film were made today, it would likely receive a lot of bad press on the web. The production was marred by a number of problems that have since been made public over the last 30 years, and apparently some initial screenings were met with disappointing reactions. But just because the bad buzz didn’t make its way to the masses doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. Much of the film’s cast and crew talked about how the movie was silly and would be a failure. My father, who was one of many illustrators commissioned to design the poster, also thought it looked stupid. And theater owners and studio execs weren’t that excited about it, either — considering this was already the beginning of the age of wide-releasing blockbusters, Star Wars‘ 32-screen opening was pretty slim. Right from that opening week, though, the movie was a smash hit, and of course its success and popularity only grew and grew. Batman - Considering how much disdain there is these days from internerds towards Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne/Batman, I can only imagine what kind of bad buzz Tim Burton’s movie would have gotten had the forums and blogs been around in 1989. However, at the time, there was indeed hatred for Keaton’s casting and the film in general. The Los Angeles Times printed a letter from a fan that read: “By casting a clown in the lead role, Warner Bros. and Tim Burton have defecated on the history of Batman.” Also, according to Peter Bart’s book “Boffo”, comic book geeks at Comic-Con booed representatives from the film, and the Wall Street Journal featured a front-page article criticizing the film’s extensive marketing. Ghost Rider - Like the casting of Keaton as Batman, Nicolas Cage as Johnny Blaze/Ghost Rider seemed a ridiculous choice to many fans. And the movie got dragged through the mud seemingly every time it was mentioned on the web over the many years it took for the comic adaptation to be made and then released. The nail on the coffin seemed to be Sony’s decision to bump it from August 2006 to the dead-man’s month of February, in the following year. Yet despite all that, plus negative reviews, it became a surprise hit. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl - Remember how we all reacted when it was announced Disney would make a movie based on a theme park ride? Remember how we all loved it when it was finally released? Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - Another old film made before the scourge of the internet; another old film with bad buzz that seems to have remained hidden from the public at its time. Still, in “Boffo”, Bart claims that due to escalating costs and an overlong production (this was the first feature-length animated film from Disney and nobody knew how much or how long it would take) and the fact that studio execs didn’t believe audiences would go for such a long cartoon, “Hollywood tagged the production ‘Disney’s Folly.’” Waterworld - This one was plagued by so much bad buzz that most people still think it bombed at the box office. And if you only look at the domestic numbers, it did. But this was around the time when Hollywood started realizing how much more money could be made from international b.o. and sell-through home video distribution (VHS was still big and the DVD breakthrough was around the corner), both of which overcompensated for lack of sufficient domestic gross. Cleopatra - Another film that has a sort of unfair reputation for being a box office failure. Sure, it nearly bankrupted Twentieth Century Fox, which indeed lost millions on the production. And sure, the scandalous affair between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton brought the film a lot of negative publicity around the world. But it was the top-grossing film of 1963 and was nominated for 9 Oscars, including Best Picture. So, despite the bad buzz, tons of people went to see it, but there was no possible way for the thing to make any money. Bee Movie - Everyone seemed to want this to fail, mostly because Jerry Seinfeld’s longtime marketing of the film was more obnoxious than anything experienced prior. And perhaps also because it was fun to refer to a bee having bad buzzzzzz. Yet children don’t follow buzz and so the movie did great business in the long term, even despite its inability to top the box office chart its opening weekend. The Da Vinci Code - It wasn’t the first movie to garner negative publicity from religious groups, but it may have been the biggest production to be threatened by protest and criticism from as high up as the Vatican. Likewise, it probably wasn’t the first movie to be laughed at and booed during its Cannes premiere. But news of that reaction circled the globe/net very quickly. However, despite whatever protests there were and despite the near-universal panning of the film by critics, it was a huge success. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:01:33 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com6/12/2008 3:01:33 PMTwo big movies arrive in theaters this week, The Incredible Hulk and The Happening, and each has had its share of bad buzz. From what I can tell, though, the former is recuperating quite nicely with mostly favorable early reviews. And it’s sure to gross in the hundreds of millions, just like its big brother, Ang Lee’s Hulk, did a few years back. The latter, however, is still struggling through the muck, with writer-director M. Night Shyamalan doing everything he can to assure us that his film is merely a B-movie and shouldn’t be the victim of high expectations. If The Happening bombs, though, 20th Century Fox won’t be able to blame its bad buzz. Especially if The Incredible Hulk comes out a big winner this weekend. When a movie is good, or at least has some goods that audiences actually crave, it can overcome bad buzz. The list of films after the jump is evidence of this, although it’s possible that some of the older titles might have been less successful in the globally conscious age of blogs. Titanic - James Cameron’s romantic disaster film arrived in the early days of mass internet usage, but it didn’t need high-speed gossip to spread word of its troubled production. Any reader of entertainment news learned of the drug-induced food poisoning, the crew illnesses and injuries that came with filming in cold waters and the other problems that put the shoot way over schedule and way over budget. Then there was the matter of its release date being pushed back from July, 1997, to December. Yet Titanic had the goods, and it went on to become the highest-grossing film of all-time and win 11 Oscars, including Best Picture. Star Wars - If the first Star Wars film were made today, it would likely receive a lot of bad press on the web. The production was marred by a number of problems that have since been made public over the last 30 years, and apparently some initial screenings were met with disappointing reactions. But just because the bad buzz didn’t make its way to the masses doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. Much of the film’s cast and crew talked about how the movie was silly and would be a failure. My father, who was one of many illustrators commissioned to design the poster, also thought it looked stupid. And theater owners and studio execs weren’t that excited about it, either — considering this was already the beginning of the age of wide-releasing blockbusters, Star Wars‘ 32-screen opening was pretty slim. Right from that opening week, though, the movie was a smash hit, and of course its success and popularity only grew and grew. Batman - Considering how much disdain there is these days from internerds towards Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne/Batman, I can only imagine what kind of bad buzz Tim Burton’s movie would have gotten had the forums and blogs been around in 1989. However, at the time, there was indeed hatred for Keaton’s casting and the film in general. The Los Angeles Times printed a letter from a fan that read: “By casting a clown in the lead role, Warner Bros. and Tim Burton have defecated on the history of Batman.” Also, according to Peter Bart’s book “Boffo”, comic book geeks at Comic-Con booed representatives from the film, and the Wall Street Journal featured a front-page article criticizing the film’s extensive marketing. Ghost Rider - Like the casting of Keaton as Batman, Nicolas Cage as Johnny Blaze/Ghost Rider seemed a ridiculous choice to many fans. And the movie got dragged through the mud seemingly every time it was mentioned on the web over the many years it took for the comic adaptation to be made and then released. The nail on the coffin seemed to be Sony’s decision to bump it from August 2006 to the dead-man’s month of February, in the following year. Yet despite all that, plus negative reviews, it became a surprise hit. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl - Remember how we all reacted when it was announced Disney would make a movie based on a theme park ride? Remember how we all loved it when it was finally released? Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - Another old film made before the scourge of the internet; another old film with bad buzz that seems to have remained hidden from the public at its time. Still, in “Boffo”, Bart claims that due to escalating costs and an overlong production (this was the first feature-length animated film from Disney and nobody knew how much or how long it would take) and the fact that studio execs didn’t believe audiences would go for such a long cartoon, “Hollywood tagged the production ‘Disney’s Folly.’” Waterworld - This one was plagued by so much bad buzz that most people still think it bombed at the box office. And if you only look at the domestic numbers, it did. But this was around the time when Hollywood started realizing how much more money could be made from international b.o. and sell-through home video distribution (VHS was still big and the DVD breakthrough was around the corner), both of which overcompensated for lack of sufficient domestic gross. Cleopatra - Another film that has a sort of unfair reputation for being a box office failure. Sure, it nearly bankrupted Twentieth Century Fox, which indeed lost millions on the production. And sure, the scandalous affair between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton brought the film a lot of negative publicity around the world. But it was the top-grossing film of 1963 and was nominated for 9 Oscars, including Best Picture. So, despite the bad buzz, tons of people went to see it, but there was no possible way for the thing to make any money. Bee Movie - Everyone seemed to want this to fail, mostly because Jerry Seinfeld’s longtime marketing of the film was more obnoxious than anything experienced prior. And perhaps also because it was fun to refer to a bee having bad buzzzzzz. Yet children don’t follow buzz and so the movie did great business in the long term, even despite its inability to top the box office chart its opening weekend. The Da Vinci Code - It wasn’t the first movie to garner negative publicity from religious groups, but it may have been the biggest production to be threatened by protest and criticism from as high up as the Vatican. Likewise, it probably wasn’t the first movie to be laughed at and booed during its Cannes premiere. But news of that reaction circled the globe/net very quickly. However, despite whatever protests there were and despite the near-universal panning of the film by critics, it was a huge success. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/love/MemberTagFilms.aspxlove
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