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Savant Movie Preview Review and Essay:
So, Timmy, Do You Like Movies with Gladiators?
No Spoilers.
(I think)
4/30/00
REVISED with READER RESPONSES 5/13/00 - Good ones! See Bottom of page!
Gladiator, the hotly anticipated new Ridley Scott movie, is not bad at all, but is neither the
dream-of-dreams Roman Epic Savant was hoping for, nor, really, a movie with much to say.
Like any Ridley Scott film, it looks beautiful and has a superb production design. To folk
unfamiliar with gladiator pix of olde, it will be a fresh breeze of hip carnage and action.
Unfortunately, it's the downside of Gladiator that gnaws on the Savant memory, after
seeing it in preview under optimal conditions.
Have you seen Anthony Mann's 1964 The Fall of the Roman Empire? Then you've seen
Gladiator. It's the exact same story, minus huge crowds (of real people), minus
huge sets, and minus intelligent ideas about history. It's also lacking in star-power.
The Fall of the Roman Empire had Sophia Loren, she of the looks to die for. Connie Nielsen, her
counterpart here is adequate, but nothing to send one's soul a-yearning for hot times in
Pompeii. Anthony Mann's frail Emperor was a stirring Alec Guiness, here impersonated by Richard
Harris, who is no slouch, but never shows a personality that could haved ruled half the ancient
world. Christopher Plummer was a terrific creep usurper as Commodus, a complicated madman
convinced he's a God, even though he's just a bastard son. The new Commodus, Joaquin Phoenix,
looks like a genuinely treacherous politician, but
doesn't do much with a yawning stock part. The new Gladiator's saving grace is
powerhouse actor Russell Crowe, a real star in the old mode who carries this awkward show
on his back almost single-handed. The old Fall of the Roman Empire was no classic, and
Stephen Boyd really let it down in the Crowe role. But its final good guy / bad guy
confrontation at the end really works, instead of being the silly clash here in Gladiator.
Now before I spew out eleven paragraphs of Savant logic why the movie didn't do the deed
for Glenn, let me tell you I bet you will LOVE Gladiator. The
audience I saw it with was a bunch of jaded industry lizards who might give something like
American Beauty polite applause, if they had a good power day. They loved Gladiator.
It turned the cool crowd into the kind of audience I remember going nuts over Steve
Reeves ("I've been tricked by the Gods!") as Hercules in 1961. What I am going to say
that detracts from it is background thinking, the kind that keeps me from loving lots of
popular films but I think helps to understand what's really going down. Gladiator will have
no trouble at all overcoming the camp stigma of jokes from the movie Airplane!, which,
being from 1980, might be itself be ancient history to a lot of Savant readers. But its age
is also why the perspective of an old crank like Savant has value. (Let me also say right now
that Gladiator begins with a battle scene that is simply marvelous ... exciting,
visually killer-diller ... just a GREAT scene.)
Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus, from 1960, used the gladiator theme
to put across a 50s liberal message about human dignity,
civil rights and anti-blacklist fervor, and did it magnificently. It was of its time and it's
no crime that Gladiator isn't a social document sprung from the minds of men who want
to change society. Older gladiator romps, from the Cecil B. DeMille school of Christian sex, violence
and decadence include Sign of the Cross, The Last Days of Pompeii,
The Robe,
Demetrius and the Gladiators, and 200
exploitative Italian pix. They also can be moving, if you buy the Big DeMille
Lie that all the sex & sadism is somehow uplifted by the cheap Sunday school God-talk. (see the 1932
Sign of the Cross sometime - its pre- Hays code nudity and twisted sex tortures are still
pretty hot).
The first movie to really get into what being a Gladiator might have been like, that pays off
with the kind of thrills you are going to love in Gladiator is the '54 CinemaScope romp
Demetrius and the Gladiators. In it Victor Mature renounces his faith long enough to get
nasty in the arena, where there are some truly ahead-of-their-time action scenes, predating the
martial-arts genre. Vic baby goes one-on-one with a number of combatants, including some tigers.
Then he takes on a phalanx of helmeted, greased sword n' sandal killers all in one go, and kills
them all. The lasting impression of Demetrius is how cool the morally dislocated slaughter
is; the religous content of the movie is a joke.
Spartacus we pretty much covered before. What Gladiator has that Fall of the Roman
Empire does not, is gladiators ... a small detail I neglected to mention. The
film that most resembles the gladiator aspect of Gladiator is Richard Fleischer's Barabbas,
one of the best of the early 60s religo-spectacle hybrids, and one of the least successful, financially.
This was probably
because its hefty religous content actually had a basis beyond justifying the arena slaughter. In
Barabbas, the Coliseum scenes are a magnificent recreation of the full-sized three-ring
circus at its height, with animals, trap doors, scenery, elaborate stageplays with real victims,
even boat battles on artificial oceans. There's even Jack Palance as a celebrated gladiator
SuperStar who slaughters dozens in Saturday matinee performances, with the combat rigged in his
favor. The true, awful, but fascinating spectacle that was the gladiator circus is best seen,
Savant thinks, in Barabbas. Natch, it ain't on DVD, but shows in a great letterbox copy
on TCM from time to time; it's a must-see.
How does all this inform Gladiator, and what's Gladiator missing? Well, first of
all, the new film is basically a Jean-Claude Van Damme / Chuck Norris movie, at least in form.
Russell Crowe's General Maximus character is given a dirty deal by the corrupt baddies, loses
all (They killed his wife! They raped his children! They fricaseed his puppy!) and vows vengeance. He
gets it. You know that Russell Crowe is a star because he carries this paper-thin cliche and
makes it work terrifically, at least on the intimate character level. Crowe's thug cop
from L.A. Confidential is great acting, and Crowe makes sweaty thuggery look good here too. In
that sense he's got some of the charisma we associate with legends like Sean Connery.
Gladiator really has no epic dimension if you take away the computer effects ( I know,
this is a tiresome Savant hobby horse issue). The staggering thing about movies like Fall of
the Roman Empire, Zulu Dawn,
The Alamo, is the scale of the production, and frankly, computers
have ruined all that for Savant, who refuses to get excited about animated cartoon visuals that
can all look perfectly exposed and have 50,000 extras moving perfectly while the camera does
impossible moves through clouds and across endless Roman terraces full of pixel-people. I
openly admit I believed hokey matte shots long ago. I don't believe anything I see anymore
unless the story is so compelling that I forget I'm watching a movie. In Gladiator I
felt like I was supposed to admire the computer art. It looked like a moving Dinotopia
watercolor painting, with perfect clouds of fake birds, and unnaturally waving flags atop the
Coliseum. The tigers in the arena are very obviously inserted frame-by-frame, the result being that
you never get the feeling that Russell Crowe or even his stuntman was ever really near a tiger, or
even in a real arena with a real crowd watching. Savant's seen the electric atmosphere on a film set, with a
thousand extras reacting to the lead performance - there's an actual excitement that translates
to the screen that you don't get with digital compositing tricks.
The best visual is the North African tank-town arena, built
next to the
same (forced-perspective) hillside adobe 'city' seen in Sodom and Gomorrah and
The Man Who Would be King, among others. It is at least partially real. It looks
like something. You're all quite right, is IS time to get off this hobby horse.
All the Roman intrigue is thin window-dressing, fifth-rate Spartacus senate vs. despot
stuff that even the actors don't seem to believe. We really see very few speaking roles
around the Emperor, and even though the CG vastness of the crowd scenes is BIG looking, the
scale of the drama stays pretty small. Only Episode 1: The Phantom Menace looks less
substantial (Gladiator is much better in all categories).
There's only the pretense of a script. The howler dialog, with the Emperor whining "This vexes me.
I'm very vexed!" is pretty lame, and well-acted characters, like a wonderfully vibrant Oliver
Reed (often a lummox) still pay off in cliches.
When I said that Russell Crowe is doing a Jean-Claude Van Damme part, I meant it. Not only
is Gladiator missing even the cheesy-churchy pretexts of its genre predecessors, it doesn't
have zilch to say about being a Gladiator, not really. I suppose it is liberated from the
curse of having to have a Christian apology ready for every exploitative thrill, but it
doesn't replace it with anything except personal vengeance. Gladiator is truly
an exploition sword 'n sandal flick uplifted by Ridley Scott, just as he lifted
It! The Terror from Beyond Space to the heights of legitimacy in Alien, twenty
years ago.
Now, to the action. About it, Savant's gripes are of an entirely different nature.
Gladiator is a savvy commercial item (what exploitation film isn't?) There is more
slaughter in this thing than in any film of the 90s. Savant believes that the digital / editorial
manipulation (a la Saving Private Ryan) of many of the key action scenes, while fooling
the audience into thinking they're seeing style, is really a commercial dodge to get
an MPAA "R" rating. As many heads and arms roll here as in the slice-'n-dice Sword of
Vengeance-Baby Cart samurai films from Japan - you know, the kind of movies that can't even
get a US release anymore. (The MPAA has effectively killed off the horror film too, folks).
The action scenes are splintered into stop-frame, flash-frame, split-frame, pixilated, animated
fragments that suggest gore where there is none. There are about 20 severed heads and
bloody wounds in fairly plain sight, but the other 200 eviserations in Gladiator are all
either in shadow, or take place a few inches offscreen. All are largely devoid of blood - all
sanitized for the MPAA. In a big studio movie, heads popping off is perfectly kopsetic to our
cultural watchdogs (anybody say censors?) -that is,
when the head is a helmeted pig-sculpture, or bloodless, to wit Sleepy Hollow ... get the idea?
Worse, the most exciting action scene, the reenactment of the Carthage campaign, is simply
indecipherable. The setup is terrific, but then the action dissolves into incoherent tight
shots of unclear movement and mayhem, without blood, without a feeling you're even seeing an organized
sequence of shots. Chariots circle defenders, but there's no sense of spatial relationships.
The arena isn't very big, really, but most of what you see are fleeting glimpses of
details - charioteers, a single gladiator throwing a spear. The chariots crash into masonry or
overturn in horrendous pileups, with horses and men smashe into mincemeat. The gladiators overcome
them, without our understanding the connection between any two shots in a row. (okay, that's a little
exaggerated) How are the defenders doing this? At the end of this key sequence, I thought I had just
seen the trailer for the greatest action scene ever filmed. It was like the ABC network version
of The Wild Bunch, or the TV cut of Taxi Driver, both of which turned bloody finales
into dreamlike processions of disconnected shots about nothing at all. On the other hand, think of
a striptease act where nothing comes off but you thought something did. Does this indicate a
talented stripper, or, in the case of Gladiator, is it just Violentus Interruptus?
Finally, Russell Crowe's character (not Crowe or his performance) is the same old bogus macho vengeance
hero with a thin veneer of 'justification.' In this case it's 'The World Robbed Me, So I'd Just
As Soon Chop Up Hundreds Than Spit.' Crowe's Ace gladiator is a killing machine whose lethal
skill is an admirable end unto itself - and the only 'real' value in the movie. The moral sphere of Gladiator functions at about two
notches above Road Rage. A cockroach would understand it. It's a dishonest formula, no better than the old DeMille fraud.
All the 'sensitive scenes' don't disguise the fact that Crowe's character gets off on killing, and
we in the audience do too. We as an audience don't care about values or philosophies of living
any more. Just deliver the thrills, dude. All ya gotta do is set it up so I (the audience) am not
implicated. I'm a voyeur, and demand the insulation of denial.
No, I Am Not What I Want To Look At.
Nobody seems to have gotten the ending of Robert Redford's Quiz Show, where the 1959
gameshow audience laughs directly at the modern movie audience, for not even caring that they are being
made the patsies of a corrupt entertainment machine. Nowadays, a rigged quiz show wouldn't outrage anyone.
Savant can't help feeling a tug of the same feeling here. There's an entirely undeveloped parallel
in Gladiator, to modern entertainment being the tool by which modern tyrants keep the mob
docile by amusing them. News about movie stars and boxoffice receipts and sports legends and sports
scandals are much more important to civilization, than issues crucial to survival or
central to our spiritual lives. News about the real world has to be turned into Entertainment
before anyone will pay attention - vide little Elian in Miami, at the present moment. Savant 'got off'
on the cheap thrills of Gladiator just as much as the next guy.
So there's the anal, stodgy, killjoy, finger-wagging lecture from Savant. Ya know what? While
I was thinking all this rot, I was saying to myself, 'People are going to Love this movie.' So
go have a great time. Compared to Titanic, Gladiator IS a classic!
READER RESPONSES 5/13/00: Savant worried about this article, you know,
saying negative things about a movie that is obviously going to be so popular. I was spared the fury
of peplum fans by my open declaration that Gladiator is basically a good movie ... yes, with 1,000
minor reservations. Most of the mail, in fact, were amplifications of Savant's 'hobby horse'
issue - the conversion of movies into showcases for computer animation. The level of writing in
these responses is also of a really high caliber, I think you will agree. While there were no vehement
condemnations, I can't chalk that up to anything more than politeness ... Savant is grateful he's
not inundated with acid mail. Next time maybe I'll tell you what I really
think! .... one more thing: how come nobody caught the infantile joke in my URL
for this page?
5/4/00 Please, please, please stay on that hobby horse! I agree with you
100%. I think this issue goes beyond the surreal or just
plain unreal look of some of these digitally composed scenes. It's simply
impossible to generate any real emotion when you watch a massive battle scene
with the realization that there isn't one living, breathing human being in
the bunch (The Phantom Menace, for example). The spectacle becomes more like
a video game than a movie -- and not a very satisfying video game at that
since you have no control over the outcome.
I think the acting also suffers in the digital realm. Certainly actors are
required to perform under all sorts of odd conditions (it can't be easy
acting a scene to a camera rather than the character you're supposed to be
talking to). However, the best performances tend to come when there's a real
emotion involved -- there's a distinct difference between an actress crying
in her scene and that actress acting like she's crying. The same can be said
for these massive digital compositions. Is it really possible to create the
electricity of a performer (or gladiator in this case) reacting to thousands
of screaming spectators when in reality there are only a handful (or possibly
none at all)?
This is why I can admire a movie like Braveheart. If absolutely nothing
else, you have to appreciate the timing and choreography it took to get
hundreds of extras to engage in a battle and make it look like arms and legs
are being hacked off -- without actually hacking them off. Despite the
choreography, there's the human element that will always add variation. This
is impossible in the digital realm, where everything is as dictated as the
repetitive actions of a motion control model shot. You can see genuine fear
in the warriors in Braveheart. They know it's all planned out, but they
don't know if their opponent is going to slip on the grass and accidentally
skewer them. It creates a visceral experience that makes it seem more real
even if we know it isn't. It's dirty, it's chaotic and you get the feeling
that when the scenes were over, someone had to yell "cut" quite a lot to get
everyone to stop. Perhaps battles really didn't look like that, but we can
believe they might have. The same can't be said for the sterilized fluff
that takes place in a movie like The Phantom Menace.
I haven't seen Gladiator yet, but based on your preview, I'd bet it falls
into a category I like to call Chinese Food Cinema. Just as when you eat
Chinese food you're hungry again in two hours, when you sit down for a movie
in this category, you're hungry for a "real" movie in about two hours. In
other words, it's nice to look at (perhaps even worthy of technical
appreciation), but no real substance.
It's worth pointing out that I love special effects -- I'm a junkie for the
stuff. Having said that, I still prefer a good story over good eye candy.
Right now digital effects are (relatively) cheap and they are hot and we all
know what sort of reaction that will get with movie producers.
Anyway, I just thought I'd drop you a line with my two cents. - Robert Wurth
Thank you for your superb review of Gladiator. Rarely, in the mass media,
is one treated to film criticism exhibiting the intelligence and depth
shown in your articles. (huh?) Although depressing, I find it hard to disagree
with your conclusions about the vacuous, sorry state of today's major film
spectacles. Focusing on your apathy for digital effects, as you know, as
recent as ten years ago, a big movie required big stunts, big sets and,
usually, dozens of extras (remember the truly mindblowing in-camera stunts
performed before the digital age -- I'm thinking of the car jump with
the 360 twist in The Man With the Golden Gun, during which there was
actually a subtitle confirming that the stunt was real). Today, with movie
budgets spent on digital recreations, movies are actually getting smaller,
fewer actors, smaller and fewer sets and no more "gee whiz, how'd they do
that?" magic. One can only hope that the cycle will reverse itself and
that audiences will demand a return to the in-camera magic of the past.
And, based on the films of one director, there may be more than hope.
James Cameron, one of the driving forces behind the new technology, unlike
many of his colleagues, realizes the limitations of digital trickery ---
(a) on the Abyss, he created the massive underwater sets and equipment
necessary to turn a somewhat silly story into the preeminent underwater
epic; (b) in Terminator 2, although initialy wowed by the CGI Terminator
effects, what lasts is the terific stunt and in-camera effects work; and
(c) in both True Lies and Titanic, Cameron was careful to use CGI only as
absolutely necessary, hence the oustanding Florida Keys, car/Harrier stunt
work, all of which was real-for-real, and, of course the nearly full scale
Titanic set with hundreds of extras. Say what you will about the King of
the World, he knows how to make a truly big movie. George Lucas take
note.
As for the majority of so called Hollywood "spectaculars," that damn
pseudopod in The Abyss is to blame! Regards - Chris Dewees
5/6 Glenn: Holy Christmas! Did you take you curmudgeon pill today, or what?
Still, an entertaining review. I wasn't even planning on seeing this
one 'til I read it. - Dan Sheehan
5/9 Normally I avoid reading reviews of movies I know I want to see, but I
couldn't resist sampling your "preview" essay on Gladiator.
I saw Fall of the Roman Empire about four times when it came out (and most recently on
laserdisc), and I have a few problems with that movie, mostly having to do with ludicrous historical
inaccuracy. I have a degree in history, so you can imagine some of the things I look at in a
sword-and-sandal epic. (Believe it or not, The 300 Spartans is pretty accurate.) (But just try
and watch it sometime - yikes. GE)
It's interesting that both Fall and Gladiator apparently feel it necessary to overlook
the fact that Marcus Aurelius groomed his son for the throne, ignoring all the evidence of Commodus's
weak, dissolute character. I suppose it makes a better story to have Marcus assassinated by his
son. But there's no reason to believe that. Marcus was the tail end of the golden period of the
Empire, and by breaking with the tradition that had been established, of appointing an adoptive heir
rather than keeping the principate in the family, he opened the door to chaos.
I should spare you the history lesson anyway, as there's a good possibility you know the basic
events of Roman politics already. (only when I ask my history-expert sons for the facts - GE)
I did see Gladiator this weekend. Based on your essay, I had fairly low expectations; however,
I was still disappointed. Bottom line: the film was kind of boring. Maybe I was just tired;
I had a late night and actually dozed for a few minutes. The first half hour was the best and
most involving; after that it was a little too predictable to be compelling.
I did yearn for Christopher Plummer's interpretation of Commodus, which not only was much
slimier, but also gave you some idea of why the populace might be willing to dump this guy.
In Gladiator, all we see is that Commodus spends a lot of money on games and they're
running out of gladiators. Otherwise, he whines a lot about how his father didn't love
him - this father/son trauma is a staple of American fiction that is really overdone, and it
isn't particularly effective here. It's also annoying to those of us familiar with the real
story, that Marcus loved his son so much that he ignored his "rude and brutish mind" and appointed
him to share the throne, even though this was against the procedure that had been established a
hundred years earlier.
It's also a stretch when Commodus refuses to kill Maximus outright, saying "I won't make
a martyr of him." The real Commodus wouldn't have thought twice about that. Push him off
a cliff, and who's the wiser? It reminds me somewhat of the infinite opportunities villains have
had to simply shoot James Bond in the head; but no, they have to concoct some wildly elaborate
scheme and then leave so Bond can extricate himself.
Yes, Gladiator was a great-looking movie. I've been in the Colosseum and it does
seem smaller than that, but it's hard to tell because it's in ruins. The crowd looked a
little too well-dressed, though.
And what is it with Hollywood wanting to revive the Gracchi brothers? They died before the
time of Julius Caesar, and yet we have a Gracchus (Charles Laughton) in Spartacus, and a
Gracchus (Derek Jacobi) in Gladiator. At least these were both superb performances.
The idea of restoring the republic is a little ridiculous at this point in time. The Republic
fell because it didn't work, and people were fed up after more than 100 years of virtually
continous civil war. And I said I was going to spare you the history lecture... Regards - Marc
5/13/00 Hi there! I had the chance to go see Gladiator tonight and
there were several things that struck me about the film. First of all, I thought the directing
and editing of the battles and fight scenes were a mess. The constant switching of normal
and high speed film, combined with quick camera jerks and fast cuts made what could
have been an interesting battle unwatchable. I can understand wanting to make things
look chaotic, but again I'm reminded of Braveheart -- a film where even larger battles
take place and everything is just as confusing, but it's WATCHABLE. The fight scenes
in Gladiator were kind of like a home movie, where all the interesting action is
happening three inches out of frame, but the person operating the camera isn't quite skilled
enough to capture it.
I was also disturbed by what seemed to be a drastic inconsistency in the art direction.
One minute everything in Rome is white, grainy and washed out. The next minute everything
has a brown haze. I kept thinking of movies that use stock footage (like of an airplane
landing) that doesn't quite match the look of the rest of the film -- some of the scenes
just didn't look like they fit with the rest.
Although I really like Ridley Scott, I'm not sure he was the right man for this film.
I hate to say it (when there are so many films out there with boring direction), but I
think they really needed someone less artistic and more straightforward for this sort
of movie -- either that or Scott needed to direct the action with the same skill he
gave the dramatic scenes. I think I could have forgiven the sometimes shabby digital
effects if only the editing, art direction and directing had been a little more
coherent and consistent. The story and idea of the film didn't disappoint me...the
look of it did. - Robert
5/11/00 Last night I saw Gladiator; this morning, I read your
review. What can I say but you were quite right in
your disappointment with the picture.
Gladiator suffers from that age-old Hollywood malady
of "Scriptus Indifferus," which firmly ranks the
screenplay�s importance far below the attached star
names and SFX, and plops it in between "Who's doing
craft service?" and "What kinda gaffer's tape are we
using?"
Sure it has its moments, albeit briefly, but overall
there is little more than 30 minutes of plot; shallow
characterization (e.g., Marcus Aurelius is a saint;
Maximus is a loyal husband; etc etc.); and there just
isn't enough violence! While that last statement may
send some histrionic PTA moms across our nation into a
veritable tizzy, it doesn't change the fact that this
movie is about gladiators fighting to the bloody
death. Gladiator's reluctance to firmly embrace its
source material, by the insertion of those blurry,
confusing battle scenes ripped straight from MTV, only
reveals the producers love of money more than film.
After all, they dare not "shock" any fragile minds,
with pocketfuls of greenbacks, out there. (I also
smell the stink of interference here, from that
unquestionable higher power: the dreaded MPAA and its
NC-17 kiss of death.)
Now I'm not one of those pedantic film scribes who
have locked themselves away in some ivory celluloid
tower, and believe that any film that isn't black and
white, and doesn't originally hail from Sweden, isn't
worth a tarnished nickel. I know these guys are in it
for the Ben Franklins, but I will never understand
their erroneous assumption that they can make a movie
to attract every demographic out there. It's a
violent movie for the guys, but it isn't too violent
for the ladies; he's a rough and tough general
more than ready to kill over and over again, but he's
also a sweetheart who just wants to return to his
family and plant wheat. ??? (reminds me of Chaplin's 'Killer with
a Heart' in A King in New York - GE)
Is it some closely guarded secret that it's impossible
to please all of the people all of the time? How can
you make a chocolate cake that will attract both
chocolate lovers, and those who despise chocolate,
with an equal amount of allure? Answer: YOU CAN'T! The
hamfisted manner in which those Hallmark card
inspired shots of Maximus' family happily gazing upon
the flowing fields (and apparently doing nothing but
this every waking moment) are hardly the epitome of
subtlety. They do a disservice to the film by simply
trying to include every possible story element�and
subsequently attract every possible audience member
out there.
If it's a war movie, I want to see war; if it's a
horror film, I want horror, gosh darn it! This isn�t
storytelling, it's accountants doing bean counting.
They should just cut their alleged losses and make
genre films that will greatly appeal to their
particular fans. A war film for people who hate war
films just ain't none too bright.
So in short, kind sir, you were quite correct to
assert your disappointment with Gladiator, and I just
wanted to let you know that it's okay to say so. You
seemed to exhibit some reluctance, musing "well, I
didn't think it was all that hot, but you'll love it!"
Despite the chilling effect a few wordsmith zealots
like to spread, you should never feel afraid to state
your opinion on such matters. Like every good critic,
you didn't simply state "I thought it rocked/sucked,"
and leave it at that. You backed up your reasoning
with examples from the film. And if some people don't
agree, hey that's their opinion, right? Let them do
their own column. Just a friendly few
words o' advice! Faithful reader, - Eric Massey PS: You're
also right
about the overuse of CGI in
modern movies. What will look great in a
next-generation video game, just comes across in film
as ... well, a next-generation video game. Still, hope
springs eternal for the higher-processor future.
DVD Savant Text © Copyright 2007 Glenn Erickson
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