Julius Caesar (1953)

Julius Caesar can be viewed online at amazon.com.  The script comes directly from Shakespeare.  It was directed by Mankiewicz who also directed Cleopatra, but being in black and white it lacks a lot of the pageantry of the later movie.  It more than makes up for it in substance.  Marlon Brando is hypnotic as Mark Antony, especially in the famous "Friends, Romans, Countrymen" scene.  The patterns on the men's clothing were very innacurate, many or them containg bold geometric designs.  Roman men of this period wore plain fabric with stripes indicateing their rank.  This innacuracy is fogivable however considering that period appropriate clothing would appear especially boring in black and white, with everyone wearing basicly the same outfit.

Cleopatra

Cleopatra (1963) is an orgy of beautiful clothes.  It is available for streaming on Amazon, but I suggest seeing it in the highest definition possible.  The acting is decent, if a bit stage-y, and the plot is interesting, although I feel it loses steam after the Navel battle, even when broken up into two viewings.  As for the accuracy of the costumes, it varies depending on the scene, as Elizabeth Taylor has a new dress on every time you see her.  Some of them look very appropriate and some are more fanciful.  One perfectly good dress was ruined by a visible zipper.  But all together if you have four hours to kill and a high definition television I recommend giving it a look.

Spartacus

We now enter the Roman Republic with Spartacus.  This was yet another movie that I broke up into two viewings.  I did not find Kirk Douglas as Spartacus to be very appealing.  I found myself a lot more interested in Antoninus.  I was completely bored by the Spartacus/Varinia love story/  The costumes were generally pretty accurate.  The climactic fight scene was ridiculous.  It looked a lot more like a medieval battle than a Roman one.  Roman soldiers did not march forward in a single line, and they had a man called an Optio standing behind them who held a big stick so that the soldiers couldn't back up like they did in the movie, where the Optio was completely missing.  Altogether it was pretty entertaining, even if the main character was a jerk who got a lot of people killed unnecessarily.

The 300 Spartans

The 300 Spartans is probably most famous to modern audiences as the movie that inspired Frank Miller to write 300.  But it still holds up as a pretty entertaining film.  I did have several costume related annoyances, which I will now list.  Some of the Persian danceing girls were blonde, and there outfits pretty implausible.  Most of the men were once again wearing too many clothes.  Dureing the scene where the Greeaks are haveing a meeting there were two men in the background who I thought looked distinctly Byzantine.  Some of the male characters were wearing togas.  Overall, the men's clothes looked more Greco-Roman than altogether Greek.

Clash of the Titans

Clash of the Titans can be viewed in it's entirety here, provided you have a subscription to the right Comcast service.  I'm not going to go into all the ways this movie differs from the Perseus myth, as I would have to recount almost the entire plot.  Also, despite the title, there aren't any Titans in it.  I found this movie to be tolerable, but I started to get bored towards the end.  The acting is pretty terrible.  A lot of the male characters were wearing too much clothes for Greek men, and I noticed that at least one of Andromeda's dresses appeared to have elastic at the neckline.

Masada

Masada is a TV mini-series that aired in 1981.  It was four episodes long and one very hard slog for me.  It pretty much ignores history and turn the Jews into Americans so you know who you are supposed to root for.  There is one particularly narm-y part where the Romans start catapulting Jewish prisoners at the fort.  The best part of the whole movie for me was when my boyfriend came down the stairs, watched a few seconds of the Masadians playing in the water and said, "Nothing enrages Jews like the sound of other Jews having fun."  I thought about placing this movie further down the list since it occurs in the 2nd century C.E., but then I decided I wanted to get all of ancient Israel out of the way at once.  Soon I will be leaving the Jews behind and moving on to Classical Greece.

King David

King David is relatively short for a Bible movie.  The acting was pretty good, and I really like Richard Gere in it.  Especially when he was danceing around in his underwear.

Samson and Delilah

Samson and Delilah is the last of the made for TV Bible Epics movies I'm going to cover.  I actually wasn't very familiar with the story of Samson before this movie, so that made it more interesting for me.  Also, it was full of sexy people.  Elizabeth Hurley gave a good, naturalistic performance, while Dennis Hopper sounded like a robot who had just learned how to understand English.

The Ten Commandments

The Ten Commandments is more fun to look at than it is to watch.  The costumes are gorgous, the acting is painful.  I split it into two sittings.  At this point I think the Biblical Epic was starting to wear me down.

Moses

Moses is another one of those very accurate made for TV movies.  Ben Kingsley plays Moses, which leads me to wonder if, in this universe, Moses is somehow descended from Potiphar.  It actually covers more information than than The Ten Commandments even though it is shorter, and it doesn't shy away from things like Moses ordering the death of the disobedient Hebrews.

The Prince of Egypt

The Prince of Egypt felt like it went by in the blink of an eye after watching so many long, long Bible movies.  It was pretty good for a kid's movie.  I'm not sure why they made all the Egyptian buildings so ridiculously huge, but I find it kind of annoying.  People make a big deal about how great the music in this movie was, but I found it to be pretty boring.  I would however recommend this if you are a completionist but don't want to watch a really long Exodus movie.

Joseph

Joseph is a sort of sequel to the made for TV Abraham.  This movie had a surprisingly big name cast with Ben Kingsley playing Potiphar.  There were many shots of the camera caressing a scantily clad Joseph through the gaze of Potiphar.  I really can't figure out if the homoerotic subtext in this movie was intentional or not, but it has made it my favourite Biblical movie.  Also, Monica Bellucci was criminally under-used as the Pharaoh's wife.

The Story of Jacob and Joseph

The Story of Jacob and Joseph is another long epic I broke up over two sittings.  This is one of the few movies to cover the story of Jacob.  I guess the idea of one of the good guys being a lieing polyagamist unsettles people.

Abraham

Abraham was the begining of a series of biblical made for TV movies from the early 90s into the '00s.  It covers the story of Abraham in a very detailed way.  It also offers a pretty accurate portrayel of how historians believe the early Hebrews lived. If I were teaching a theology class I would probably show these movies to my students.

The Bible

The Bible is a super-literal portrayal of the Book of Genesis.  Depending on your point of view, this seems to make it either very inspiring or very ridiculous.  It is very long.  I watched it in two sittings.  As literal as it is, they did cut out a few episodes that I personally think would have made the movie more interesting.
Note:  Now that we are entering the Ancient Israel portion of our tour, I am going to be watching a lot religious movies.  I'm not particularly interested in whether or not the events depicted actually happened, or whether or not the are "true" in some philosophical sense.  Basically, what I'm trying to say is that I don't have any interest in engaging in religious debate.

Intolerance

Intolerance is a three hour silent film from 1916.  It is actually pretty good and has a surpriseingly engageing plot.  I managed to watch it all in one sitting, but you may want to break it up into two.  It actually encompasses four different plots from four different time periods, all with the theme that intolerance is bad.  I picked it because it is the only film I could find that has scenes of ancient Mesopotamia.  The Mesopatamian plot revolves around the fall of Babylon but also includes two tales of unrequited love.  The costumes and scenery were all very good considering the time period, although the women all had flapper hairstyles.  You can watch the entire movie for free online, right here.

Quest for Fire

Quest for Fire is about three cro-magnon men on, you guessed it, a quest for fire.  It's dialogue is in a few different "cave man" languages, but it does have subtitles if you want them.  I watched it without subtitles and was able to follow the plot just fine.  I actually really liked this movie.  It was exciting and sexy and the acting was great.

Introduction

I'm attempting to watch all of human history in order through movies.  I'm going to post reviews here.  Most of my historical knowledge is clothing based, so my criticisms will probably reflect that.