Well, the first reviews of ALEXANDER are online at
Ain't It Cool News, and they're not too promising. Granted, ALEXANDER isn't exactly the kind of movie to appeal to the average AICN fanboy, but the criticisms have the ring of possible truth. They say it's choppy, overlong, episodic, unfocused, and has an annoying electronic score (courtesy of New Age composer Vangellis). Also, the CGI battle scenes are not too spectacular, and the performances uninspired.
Despite his amazing role in world history, Alexander the Great has not been the subject of many films. This is probably due, at least in part, to the fact that he's an enigma, his world is foreign to just about everybody, and it's hard to know what parts of his story to emphasize and what to leave out. Given that Oliver Stone tends to throw everything into the pot and then hopes that the result will be sensational enough that audiences will ignore his work's failings, this seemed like an iffy project from the start. Still, we only have two opinions in so far, so I'm going to stay guardedly optimistic.
There are two upcoming DVD releases that I'm much more positive about. Gary Foreman's award-winning History Channel series "Frontier: Legends of the Old Northwest" is coming out in December, according to the
History Channel store. All of us who worked on it would probably love to see a "Special Edition" with more footage, maybe the teaser trailers Gary put together (which AD Marcy Marzuki called "18th century music videos"), commentary, and any other goodies anyone could think of. But, even DVD copies of the series will be a treat. If you're not familiar with the series, it's four one-hour documentaries about legendary characters from the time when the "wild west" was east of the Mississippi. The four episodes are:
Rogers' Rangers
Pontiac (featuring a certain history movie blogger as the ill-fated Capt. Campbell)
George Rogers Clark and the Long Knives
Tecumseh
The History Channel just repeated the series yesterday (9-10-2004), and I watched some of it. It really holds up well. I'd encourage anyone with an interest in early American history to get the set. And, while you're at it, you might also consider Gary's other films such as "Frontier: The Legendary Battles," "Boone and Crockett: The Hunter Heroes," "Carson and Cody: The Hunter Heroes," and his latest, "First Invasion: The War of 1812."
Another upcoming DVD release is Alan Alda's SWEET LIBERTY. Although the movie did not do well with critics or mainstream audiences, it's a cult film for reenactors. Alda plays a college history professor whose Pulitzer Prize winning novel about the American Revolution is being turned into a movie. Problem is, in order to get financing, the screenwriter and director have turned it into a PORKYS-style sex farce. There are multiple subplots, including one involving the tensions between the reenactor extras and the filmmakers. There are also numerous historical "in jokes" about inaccurate uniforms, tactics, etc. Finally, Alda and the reenactors join forces against the movie people during a slapstick recreation of the battle of Cowpens. Somebody at a Rev War forum once said they thought SWEET LIBERTY was a ridiculous farce until they saw THE PATRIOT. Then they became convinced it was a documentary.
It looks like SWEET LIBERTY will be a bare-bones DVD, in fullscreen with no commentary or other noteworthy extras, but at least we won't have to worry anymore about wearing out our VHS copies.
