OT: TROY
 

I just watched "Troy" last night and thought it was a pretty good movie. It also better explained to me what the "Illiad" was about. I knew the story, but never found interest in reading the book, until now.

Has anybody here read the "Illiad"? Is it worth reading if you just watch a movie about Troy and said, "That was good, I wonder if the book is any good?"

yeah, its worth reading, but it usually goes in the opposite direction. the movie will disappoint you if youve read the book.

The Illiad is great. A great book, epic poem, whatever you want to call it. It's a classic for a reason. Ajax is the man.

I too highly recommend reading the poem but know that it is not "beach reading". It's an epic poem written in Anceint Greece and reads as such.

I read the book before i saw the movie, but i think the movie was well made for what it was. There is a lot of divergence from Homer's basic storyline in the movie, but the characters and how they are presented felt right to me.

the fight between Achilles (Brad Pitt) and Hector (Eric Bana) was just flat out awsome in my opinion.

Overall i thought it was a good flick, not on the epic scale of Gladaitor, Braveheart, LOTR, etc... but still a very good rental.

I was sissappointed that the gods werent involved .

And I just hate to be sissappointed.

Arf, arf. If you do read the Illiad, you'll need to concentrate. It's definitely not light reading.

Shame on you mentioning Gladiator in the same sentence with those other great movies.


Oh as for the Illiad. I read it back in High School, well I at least read some of it and almost all of the Cliff's notes. In my mind the biggest difference between the Movie and the book was mentioned above. A lot of the character's individual motives were driven by the gods, and their interplay. I didn't mind the relatively "godless" portrayal of the story, but I was a bit bothered by Achilles' seeming contempt for all of the gods.

When I was around 12/13 we read it at school - in Latin! It's put me off it for life :rolleyes:

hater!

Gladiator rocked!!! i agree it is the worst of the three i mentioned but still a kick ass movie :)

The pairing of Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix made them the Dynamic Duo of bad acting. The Cinematography was wonderful, the action scenes amazing. The plot was fairly stock, and the acting ranged from trite and wooden (Crowe) to overzealous (Phoenix).

Great action scenes, but little more.

didn't Russell Crowe get nominated for best actor for A Beautiful Mind??

I think Joaquin Pheonix or whatever his name is was either acting badly or was acting to be annoying, in either case he came off brilliantly as a bad guy you wanted to see dead. :)

Not only that but Crowe won Best Actor for Gladiator (his best performance was in The Insider though).

yeah, i think Glen is just a hater ;) ;)

He was pretty impressive in LA Confidential, too. One of my favorite movies.

Indeed, that was an awesome movie, and Crowe was well suited for it. I thought he was pretty good in Master and Commander as well...

I thought Master and Commander was very good aswell.

I loved Crowe in The Insider as well as in A Beautiful Mind. I didn't think he got an Oscar for Gladiator, but if he did I'd say he earned it in other films, because he was bad in Gladiator.

As for Joaquin Phoenix. I wanted him dead all right. I felt he completely overacted his role, in what was attempting to be a serious film. The Over the top villian works sometimes. See Alan Rickman in Robin Hood. Joaquin just didn't pull it off in my book, he didn't come close.

Edit: to add that I also think he was great in LA Confidential as well.

I am a big Crowe fan and think he has done a great job with a majority of the roles he has chosen. LA Confidential was a perfect role for him!!