epic Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor won nine Oscars out of nine nominations, sweeping every category except acting (stars John Lone, Peter O'Toole and Joan Chen weren't nominated). It was chosen as one of the year's ten best films by Cahiers du Cinema, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Roger Ebert, Richard Corliss, and even the National Board of Review. Gene Siskel voted it the year's best film, as did Judy Stone of the San Francisco Chronicle. Filmmaker Samuel Fuller chose it as one of his ten favorite films of all time. In 1998, it received a major theatrical re-release, supervised by cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, with nearly an hour's worth of footage edited back into the film, bringing the total from 160 to 219 minutes. Yet, it has somehow fallen into the list of hard-to-find films. For years, it has only been available on VHS or import DVDs. Now the Criterion Collection has come along and corrected this oversight by delivering perhaps 2008's most spectacular DVD release so far. (Blu-Ray be damned!)

Criterion's four-disc release includes both cuts, as well as two more discs full of extras. (Many are from 1987 and some were created more recently; the bonus is a series of "video postcards" shot by Bertolucci in China while preparing for the film.) Personally, I like getting to decide which version to watch, rather than having someone else choose the definitive version for me. The 160-minute version is the one that garnered all that praise, but the longer version -- here called the "television version" -- is great, too. The extra scenes don't particularly work to "drive" the movie forward, but they give a richer understanding of Pu Yi and the emptiness of his life.

It's funny; I'm not not a big fan of blood and gore in the movies, and occasionally I get a little squeamish at the Hostel variety of horror, but show me a guy cleft in two with a broadsword and I don't even bat an eye. Sometimes, I even get a sick little giggle out of it. I've always enjoyed historical epics; why else would I have I sat through all of the classic "sword and sandal" flicks and their various incarnations of the last few years?

Variety announced that John Malkovich has joined an international cast that includes Michael Madsen, Peter O'Toole, and Virginie Ledoyen for Raoul Ruiz's Love and Virtue. The film centers on the crusading battles and romantic intrigue during Charlemagne's empire. The film was written by Mia Sperber and Stefano Prates, who used the epic poems The Song of Roland and Orlando Innamorato as inspiration for the story. The poems are full of all those things that are usually in medieval poems, like treacherous nobles, love-smitten knights, and Saracen armies -- which in the end guarantees at least a few large-scale battle scenes. No word yet on who Malkovich will play, but I'm sure it will involve one of his bizarre accents. Love and Virtue will begin production this March on location in Belgium and Luxembourg.