tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339653801453633850.post4880585969223784297..comments2023-04-27T07:06:09.269-07:00Comments on Dux Homunculorum: A Rant About an Awful MovieDux Homunculorumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00536604035307855671noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339653801453633850.post-14995470640490988322013-01-21T12:57:32.383-08:002013-01-21T12:57:32.383-08:00That's great news Tony. I once climbed up Trap...That's great news Tony. I once climbed up Traprain Law the morning after a blizzard went through. I've never been so cold in my life. I love the Sassoon story. That must have sent shivers up your spine.<br /><br />Cheers,<br />Alan. Dux Homunculorumhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00536604035307855671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339653801453633850.post-647645498027322662013-01-21T12:27:08.145-08:002013-01-21T12:27:08.145-08:00Alan - I won't report back on a regular basis(...Alan - I won't report back on a regular basis(!), but I duly went to my mum's and borrowed a stack of Sutcliff books, and have started off with Frontier Wolf, as recommended. Going very well, but on p34 it states that the HQ of the Votadini were at Traprain Law, to the South East of the fortress at Cramond. This is all correct - I know about the Votadini, and their stronghold at Traprain (which in those days was called Dunpender, or something similar) is about 6 miles from my house. You can see Traprain Law from our upstairs windows.<br /><br />Nothing unpredictable, but faintly spooky. Last time this happened to me was in 1984, when I was recovering from an operation, and I was reading Sassoon's "Diary of a Foxhunting Man" trilogy in my garden in Edinburgh. At one point, Sassoon describes a bicycle trip from Slateford Hospital to visit a friend at the Observatory, and he reports that he rode along "The Greenbank Road", which was, in fact, where I was sitting as I read it. He rode past my house in the account I was reading!<br /><br />Ho hum. Just coincidence. I was tempted to have a look outside to see if there was any sign of him...<br /><br />Cheers - good recommendation about the Sutcliff books - I'll get my son wired into these as well - many thanks.<br /><br />TonyMSFoyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14470241067504971068noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339653801453633850.post-24518570860529067012013-01-17T13:43:17.378-08:002013-01-17T13:43:17.378-08:00Thanks Tony for your thoughtful and generous comme...Thanks Tony for your thoughtful and generous comment. I would recommend having a crack at Sutcliffe's 'Frontier Wolf'. Terrific story, but I often wonder whether my continued enjoyment of it is overly influenced by childhood nostalgia. If you do read it, I'd be very interested to hear what you think.<br /><br />Cheers,<br /><br />Alan.Dux Homunculorumhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00536604035307855671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339653801453633850.post-53417916054655840112013-01-17T00:32:53.927-08:002013-01-17T00:32:53.927-08:00Sorry for being a year late - I only got here from...Sorry for being a year late - I only got here from the link in Parum Pugna. Enjoyed your review of the film very much - excellent job. For some reason, Rosemary Sutcliff rather passed me by, which is a shame. I checked the dates, and the Eagle of the Ninth was published in 1954, so it's not just that I am too old (which is refreshing - it usually is). I appear to have spent much of my childhood with my head up my bottom, and as an adult I would have had little patience with books for children, so I must make an effort to do something about that. My mother, I see, has many Sutcliff titles in her "upstairs" bookcase.<br /><br />I watched "The Eagle" with my son (who is 10), and he thought it was pretty good. I thought it was pretty good too, for the first half, and then it was like they sacked the director and the screen writers and tried to make the thing more like a formula adventure. The Seal People were scary, but very strange, and not at all convincing. The end of the film, as you say, is straight out of a bad Western.<br /><br />So I don't have the personal grievance of comparing it to the book, but just found it poor and flatulent from basic principles. <br /><br />Agree about the Iliad. Come to think about it, I recall having my head available at school to translate (and elide, of course) most of Virgil's Aeneid - in fact I can still recall great chunks of it "instat vi patria Pyrrhus nec claustra nec ipsi custodes suffere valent" and so on. Maybe *that* is what I spent my childhood doing? Who knows?<br /><br />That's enough about me. My compliments, once again, on your critical style - enjoyed it very much.<br /><br />TonyMSFoyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14470241067504971068noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339653801453633850.post-73504485492093113432012-01-06T15:07:53.505-08:002012-01-06T15:07:53.505-08:00While I appreciate your anger at the 'demoliti...While I appreciate your anger at the 'demolition' of your favourite work of literature by the Hollywood machine, there can be little to compare to the utter arrogance on of the film Troy, where H'wood execs thought they could 'improve' on the plot of Homer's Illiad eg. let's not start the story 7 years into the war and tell the rest in flashback, let's keep it in chronological order so peeps aren't confused, ...or let's not let Achilles be killed by Paris after killing Hector, let's save it 'til the end of the movie..make it more like Die Hard. Doh!!!. <br /><br />It was just satisfying to see the film was panned by the critics and buried within 6 months of its release...compared to the Illiad, which has been getting rave reviews for the brilliance of its construction for...for...well around 2,700 years actually!!!<br /><br />Well Rosemary Sutcliffe has done well to be so highly regarded 30 odd years on. Just 2670 more to go!!!Kreigspeilerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06110457054209064141noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339653801453633850.post-49735285951720834252011-12-05T03:42:43.774-08:002011-12-05T03:42:43.774-08:00It wasn't that bad and that was a quality rant...It wasn't that bad and that was a quality rant!The Angry Lurkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01227314379603418332noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339653801453633850.post-7470792415055615762011-12-04T19:04:43.219-08:002011-12-04T19:04:43.219-08:00I watched this recently as well. Haven't read ...I watched this recently as well. Haven't read the book but I enjoyed the movie in general but....The Seal people WTF! Looked like some sort of Hollywood version of Canibals from the South Pacific!! Stoopid!<br />CheersThe Kiwihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06829184068503627810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339653801453633850.post-10145501698174972372011-12-04T13:53:33.574-08:002011-12-04T13:53:33.574-08:00Sutcliff was a class act - a pity that such a pigs...Sutcliff was a class act - a pity that such a pigs ear was made of the movie.Conrad Kinchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15683395740934527502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339653801453633850.post-79001476192136777542011-12-04T07:10:38.083-08:002011-12-04T07:10:38.083-08:00Thanks for the review, which confirmed the impress...Thanks for the review, which confirmed the impression I've had from everything I've seen about the film. Will avoid like the plague! I wish Hollywood would not continue to butcher classic novels like this; I felt with LOTR that they were progressively less true to the books and characters, to the detriment of the films, so that by the end (ROTK) it was almost unwatchable, especially for anyone who had read the books.<br /><br />I did write to Rosemary Sutcliff back in 1986 to say how much I enjoyed her books and also to make some comments on e.g. the wrong trees turning up in "Frontier Wolf" (beech, never native in Scotland), one of my favourite books of hers. I had an interesting reply too. It strikes me (from what she said in that and elsewhere) that she never really accepted that she was an author writing fiction but wanted everything she wrote to be almost entirely true, a curious attitude in a novelist where the freedom to invent is much of the pleasure, I'd have thought.<br /><br />Cheers,<br /><br />David<br />http://nba-sywtemplates.blogspot.com/David Morfitthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09016926084467625584noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339653801453633850.post-31209711385389254862011-12-04T05:14:15.079-08:002011-12-04T05:14:15.079-08:00Too bad. I'll have to give Sutcliff a look. Fo...Too bad. I'll have to give Sutcliff a look. For me it was I Claudius, and that is on DVD.Seanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15428727065347379281noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339653801453633850.post-50166754558063469012011-12-04T01:45:31.083-08:002011-12-04T01:45:31.083-08:00Agree, it is a rather lame film.Agree, it is a rather lame film.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com