The Cineaste's Lament.

This is why I avoid “historical” movies.  First off, however Moses and Ramses looked, they weren’t white.  This is because white people (as in:  people that look like Christian Bale and Joel Edgerton) aren’t native to that region.

Now there were conquests made by Europeans, primarily Alexander the Great, but that was significantly after Moses would had been on the scene.

For instance, Egypt geographically neighbors Nubia.  The two countries were often in conflict–which is why some hieroglyphs contain figures that are darker-pigmented than others.

There was a period though, when Nubia conquered Egypt, and the Nubian rulers adopted the mores of Egypt, ruling that country for a period of time.

I can’t believe two Hercules movies were released in 2014 in the span of seven months. I can’t believe that I paid money to watch both of them.

Two things before we begin: again, Hercules movies are never remembered for the plot, and while he may be Hollywood’s current franchise Viagra, Dwayne Johnson hasn’t made many quality standalone films. Therefore, who would’ve guessed in a million years that another freakin’ Hercules story— this one directed by Brett Ratner and adapted from the 2008 graphic novel Hercules: The Thracian Wars by Steve Moore (who died only four months prior to the film‘s release)— would give us life? Among the obligatory close-ups of The Rock’s rock-hard bod is a picture that succeeds in finally lending some big-screen dignity to the character. Hey, it only took 57 years.

The other day, I heard a couple of notes of Simple Minds‘ Don’t You (Forget About Me).  Of course, I immediately remembered the final scene in The Breakfast Club, when Judd Nelson walks away from the school.  It was such a perfect match of film and song.   It got me thinking, what are some of the best and worst uses of popular music in the movies?  I say popular music to distinguish it from a musical score commissioned for a specific film (e.g., John Williams’ Star Wars or Superman themes, or  Lionel Bart‘s songs for Oliver!).

In addition to the song above, I must add Tears For Fears’ Everybody Wants to Rule The World played in the final popcorn scene in Real Genius.

There is more (hint: Kubrick) after the jump.

It’s Summer Blockbuster season, a time when it’s easy (and perfectly understandable) to get completely mesmerized  and distracted by the over-VFX‘d, over-hyped, and over-budgeted tentpole franchise films.

Don’t get me wrong, I lie awake at night in anticipation of The Dark Night Rises, Amazing Spider-Man, and Skyfall (not out until November), but there are a few other flicks flying under the radar amid the ridiculousness of the 3D trailers in theatres now that I’m loosing just as much (if not more) sleep waiting for.

So in case you get all your movie salivation from Tribute Magazine or the $6 tie-in Coca-Cola cup at your neighbourhood Googleplex, here are a few lesser-hyped flicks that you should get pumped about, even if they’re not based on a comic book franchise.

The Great Gatsby

Say what you want about Baz Lurhmann‘s absolutely flamboyant filmmaking style, I’d argue that both Romeo + Juliet…

John Huston’s adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s novel The Maltese Falcon is one of those Hollywood warhorses about which it is just about impossible to say anything original. So I’ll start with something someone else has said about it which is still of interest. In a retrospective look at the film in 1960, Dwight Macdonald wrote “I think John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon is the best crime picture ever made in Hollywood…because [it] shows movie types behaving realistically instead of in the usual terms of romantic cliché.” [1]

Realism is probably not the first word that comes to mind today when people think about Falcon. Quite the opposite, people are likely to think of the stylized characters, the obviously contrived and synthetic story, the “hard boiled” dialog and of course, the panoply of fedoras, shoulder-pads, shiny over-sized cars and non-stop smoking that seems (rightly or wrongly) “so ’40s.” There is…