Ancient legends inspire today's filmmakers(menziona Xena)

Citazione :

With the resounding box office success of Clash of the Titans, here's a look at which other films rule when it comes to Greek mythology in Hollywood.

1. O Brother, Where Art Thou (2000)

Leave it to the Coen brothers to turn a swashbuckling Greek myth about a wandering seafarer into the weirdest, funniest, smartest, most thoughtful satire about Depressionera Americana in Hollywood history. All that with a great bluegrass soundtrack, too.

2. Black Orpheus (1959)

This Brazilian film by French director Marcel Camus is revered for introducing the world to bossa nova music. It won the top prize in Cannes and the Oscar for best foreign film for its retelling of the Orpheus and Euridyce myth set during the Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro.

3. Jason and the Argonauts (1961)

Led by well-coiffed Todd Armstrong, this legendary band of adventurers don't make much of a movie, but the stop-motion effects by Roy Harryhausen are famous for good reason. The battle between the Argonauts and an army of skeletons is still eminently watchable, albeit in a quaint way. In 1963, this was cutting-edge stuff, which puts it higher on the mountain than Harryhausen's final movie ...

4. Clash of the Titans (1981)

Hairy Harry Hamlin stars as Perseus in the original version of this gods-and-monsters epic that was heavy on star power (Laurence Olivier as Zeus, Ursula Andress as Aphrodite), but even heavier on the cheese. Harryhausen returned to Greek mythology for this, his final film. He created a number of memorable stop-motion animations for the film, but after the phenomenon of Star Wars a few years prior, it just looked old fashioned. Still, it became a cult hit, like most of Harryhausen's work.

5. Percy Jackson and the Olympians (2010)

This adaptation of the popular kids novels puts Greek gods into the lives of modern-day teenagers, focused on the titular character who is the son of Poseidon, god of the sea. Percy fights off minotaurs, hydra and Medusa, as well as the ravages of puberty -- talk about teen angst.

6. Troy (2004)

Brad Pitt may be a god in the eyes of most women, but in his turn as Achilles in Troy he was far from indestructible. The $175-million adaptation of the legendary battle of Troy sank in a mire of computer-enhanced battle scenes and tepid performances. We might say high expectations were the Achilles heel of this film, but we won't.

7. Yanni: Live at the Acropolis (1994)

The lushly mustachioed Yanni made this straight-to-PBS concert film in the shadow of the Acropolis, and it turned him from a fringe New Age keyboard melodramatist to a mega-popular New Age keyboard melodramatist. The resulting DVD is one of the bestselling music videos of all time and, according to Wikipedia, has been seen by half a billion people. Many of them no doubt relished the irony of a nice Greek boy doing a Jesus Christ pose at the Acropolis.

8. 300 (2007)

Gerard Butler's abs carried this hyper-violent stylistic exercise loosely based on the ancient Battle of Thermopylae. Despite the fact the film was little more than a string of cool battle scenes that had little to do with real history, it was a huge hit, just not among those who found its unsubtle xenophobia and warmongering, well, a little fascist.

9. My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)

Not a film about Greek mythology, you say? Check out the backstory: an unknown comedy writer from Winnipeg makes a low-budget in-die romance that is spotted by Tom Hanks and his wife, who promote it into a mainstream release, where it becomes one of the highest-grossing independent movies in history. Sounds like a legend to us.

10. Hercules

Pick a film version of this myth -- the Disney animated version, the 1970 version starring Arnold Schwarzenegger in New York, the 1983 Italian version starring Lou Ferrigno, the campy TV spinoff of Xena: Warrior Princess, the cheapo TV cartoon version for kids, the Three Stooges version -- and you've got a whole lot of time in your life you'll wish you had back.

11. Alexander (2004)

Yes, the story of Alexander the Great is real life, but this movie is so bad it nears the level of mythology. Colin Farrell plays a charisma-free Alexander the Great, while director Oliver Stone seems intent on adhering to his own dry version of history. Plus, the gay subtext just seems out of place.

Fonte: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/entertainment/movie-guide/Ancient+legends+inspire+today+filmmakers/2771867/story.html

Mi pare giusto che in cima ci sia il capolavoro dei fratelli Coen