beyond the wide world's end

I watched the extended edition of Gladiator last night, as you might have seen if you were on Twitter at about 7 pm to 10 pm CST, and oh my god, it gets worse the more I know about history. It's very pretty! It's got some nice (if historically inaccurate) fight scenes! Some lovely landscapes! IT'S JUST TERRIBLE. I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS MOVIE WON OSCARS. (Although, predictably, a lot of the cut scenes in the extended edition REALLY EXPLAINED A LOT. On the other hand, it was almost three hours.)

( do I even have to bother to cut for spoilers? also, clips from Rome )

Oh my god. I think that was a single perfect hour of television. Oh my god. I don't know if I've ever cried so much over a single episode in my life. I feel like I've just run a marathon.

Also, I think this was the first episode of Rome where they ever used the term "imperator." Oh my god. *weeps some more* Oh, Antony. I did not expect to care that much about Antony and Cleopatra! Oh my god. I may have to go back to the library tomorrow and take out S1. I can just watch the whole series on repeat throughout the school year.

I still want to be Atia when I grow up.

God damn.

See, I was never a Mark Antony girl before, and am still not, but I almost became one at that scene, you know the one I mean, the one in the courtyard.

Rome kind of wavers for me on its tell, don't show stance, because it usually doesn't work for me as well as the PTB would clearly like it to. (See: blew all their budget on the scenery, couldn't get fight choreographers. I think "nonexistent" is the best way to describe the fight scenes.) Sometimes it works; I think it split fifty-fifty in this ep. Well, maybe sixty-forty. This is the one point of the show that really puzzles me; why can they not pull this off? I haven't seen enough HBO to know if it's typical for the network, but it bothers me. (Scenes in this ep that used it: Caesar's funeral/the talk in the tavern about what happened didn't really work for me, Vorenus and Pullo on their revenge mission in the house of Erastes did. One major omission that really, really doesn't work for me in S1 was the battle, I can't remember which one, but you know the one I mean, with the vague blurry fighting and then later, "Hey! Caesar won the battle!" Seriously, what is with the tell, don't show?)