The Kings of Kings (1928)

First a bit of housekeeping, I am now leaving Rome behind and traveling backwards slightly to Jesus.  I'm actually going to watch several of these movies because there is a lot of them, and it's a very culturally significant topic.  I started with The King of Kings.  I watched the 1928 cut, although there is a longer 1927 version.  It is a long, Cecil B. DeMille silent movie.  I found the beginning to be pretty entertaining, as it starts out with Mary Magdalene at her whoreiest.  But by the time they got to the last supper I was starting to get kind of bored.  Surprisingly a few scenes at the end are in 2-strip technicolor, which creates a neat effect.

Satyricon (1969)

Satyricon is difficult to describe.  It's strange, but not exactly alienating.  It follows the bizarre and often sexual adventures of a young Roman man and his frienemy.  It's taken from an ancient book by Petronius that has only survived in fragments, and so the plot itself is very fragmented.  It's not always clear how one scene leads into another, and the movie ends in mid sentence.  (Which I think turns out to be a nice metaphor for life.)  It can be hard to find, but I highly recommend watching it.