Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins. Twenty years old. Born on the fourth of July — and don't think there weren't jokes about that my whole life, mister, 'cause there were. 'Who's our little patriot?' they'd say, when I was younger and therefore smaller and shorter than I am now.

Anya ,'Potential'


Buffista Movies Across the 8th Dimension!

A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.


Vonnie K - May 25, 2016 3:40:03 pm PDT #58 of 3455
Kiss me, my girl, before I'm sick.

What are the good movies about Ancient Egypt

Unfortunately, all we seem to have are terrible flicks with white actors in brown-face with the background of video game violence. Or they are all about mummies and Egyptian curses, etc. The animated movie about Moses from the 1990s, "Prince of Egypt", was quite good, if I recall.

I think the best filmed material about antiquities are in TV series form. The HBO series "Rome" is fantastic but way too mature for a 15-year-old. And there is the splendid "I, Claudius" -- it's been ages since I watched it, but it's like 12-episode long and might be a bit dry for a high-schooler.


Vonnie K - May 25, 2016 3:50:11 pm PDT #59 of 3455
Kiss me, my girl, before I'm sick.

Ooh, Mongol, I forget who it's by I think it's Russian. About Genghis Khan, very good.

Oh, neat! I haven't even heard about it, but there is a trailer on IMBb and it looks pretty epic: [link]

(The IMDb pages says the languages used are Mongolian and Mandarin)

I have also heard great things about Red Cliff, an epic historical film about political power struggle and warfare at the end of Han Dynasty, although I haven't seen it personally. That cast is dynamite though: [link]


DXMachina - May 25, 2016 3:55:52 pm PDT #60 of 3455
You always do this. We get tipsy, and you take advantage of my love of the scientific method.

I Claudius might also be a bit too mature for a 15 year-old as well.

One old TV movie set in ancient times was Masada, about a Hebrew city under siege by the Romans.


billytea - May 25, 2016 4:18:56 pm PDT #61 of 3455
You were a wrong baby who grew up wrong. The wrong kind of wrong. It's better you hear it from a friend.

I have also heard great things about Red Cliff, an epic historical film about political power struggle and warfare at the end of Han Dynasty, although I haven't seen it personally.

I only caught part of this. It's an excellent production, but not necessarily too historical. There was a battle of the Red Cliffs, but it's best known in China through a much later novel, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. That book added some ahistorical elements to improve the narrative (and possibly to reflect current politics), and the movie is closer to the book than the original event.

Nonetheless, the goal of representing early Chinese history is a good one. I'll check with Biyi if there's anything else in that genre worth considering.


Matt the Bruins fan - May 25, 2016 4:23:32 pm PDT #62 of 3455
"I remember when they eventually introduced that drug kingpin who murdered people and smuggled drugs inside snakes and I was like 'Finally. A normal person.'” —RahvinDragand

I don't know, Masada ends with hundreds of people defiantly committing group suicide as a solution to their problem with Roman authority. I wouldn't show that to a teenager.


SailAweigh - May 25, 2016 4:40:49 pm PDT #63 of 3455
Nana korobi, ya oki. (Fall down seven times, stand up eight.) ~Yuzuru Hanyu/Japanese proverb

Mmm, what about Monty Python and the Holy Grail? Or Life of Brian?


Consuela - May 25, 2016 7:14:32 pm PDT #64 of 3455
We are Buffistas. This isn't our first apocalypse. -- Pix

Oh, The 13th Warrior! It's kind of ludicrous, but it's based on an actual possibly-true story, I believe. Like, there may really have been a Spanish Moor who ended up visiting with Vikings for a while. (Certainly the Vikings got to Spain, and Russia, and Constantinople...)


-t - May 25, 2016 7:23:12 pm PDT #65 of 3455
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration

I haven't even heard about it, but there is a trailer on IMBb and it looks pretty epic:

I highly recommend it. I saw it in the theater and it was spellbinding, but I think it would probably translate to smaller screens just fine.

I want to say Ran (I really want to say "any Kurosawa, just pick one at random" but I could say that to almost any question) - it doesn't narrate a historical event, I don't think, but I understand it's a good depiction of the period.

I can't think of any movies about ancient civilizations that aren't crap. if there are good ones I would be please to hear it!

Are those "Newscast from the Past" things available anywhere? I can't remember the context for them at all, except that I think they aired in the '90s, and were both entertaining and informative.


Steph L. - May 25, 2016 7:50:51 pm PDT #66 of 3455
Unusually and exceedingly peculiar and altogether quite impossible to describe

Are those "Newscast from the Past" things available anywhere? I can't remember the context for them at all, except that I think they aired in the '90s, and were both entertaining and informative.

Archive. org might have things like that.


Fred Pete - May 26, 2016 9:52:08 am PDT #67 of 3455
Ann, that's a ferret.

Depends on Mac's taste in movies. From 8:00 p.m. Friday until 6:00 a.m. Tuesday, Turner Classic Movies is doing its regular Memorial Day war movie festival. They're going to show some of the movies mentioned above.

Some old movies provide great windows into the eras in which they were made. Casablanca could be a great springboard into WWII.

On ancient civilizations, the Taylor-Burton Cleopatra is great spectacle but crap history.

For TV, how about You Are There. I vaguely remember seeing reruns of a few episodes as a kid, and it may be as good as you can get in a half hour. Basically, it's historical recreations of events in history, with a reporter present to interview the principals and acts as Captain Exposition. Fairly U.S. centric, but a lot of episodes cover non-U.S. events (Hitler Invades Poland, The Death of Socrates).