Pluskylang Great Film overall

Lightdeossk Captivating movie !

Donald Seymour This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) "Caligola" is a 1979 movie with Malcolm McDowell as the title character and this one here is a 5-minute spoof of the movie from 10 years ago. It also lists Gore Vidal as a writer, but I am not sure how accurate this is. The cast, however, is pretty good: some really big names in here such as del Toro, Jovovich, Bateman, Black, Butler and last but not least Helen Mirren, who also starred in the original movie. This parody was done briefly before Mirren won her Oscar for "The Queen". Anyway, lots of obscenity in this little movie, lots of screaming and spectacular costumes (if they wear anything at all). I have not seen the original movie and I am not sure I ever will, but this short film here did not get me too interested I must admit. It's 100% comedy, but I almost never found it funny. Not recommended.

Rathko A conceptual film from Italian artist Francesco Vezzoli, first shown at the 2005 Venice Biennale and later traveling to the Whitney Museum of American Art. The work is conceived as a trailer for an imaginary remake of the infamous Tinto Brass/Bob Guccioni sexploitation fiasco that was 'Caligola'. Instead of shooting in the ruins of Rome, however, his location is a tacky Roman-lite villa in Hollywood. Instead of striving for historically accurate costumes, he has Donatella Versace design him some glamorous togas. And like Matthew Barney, he's able to talk a whole host of known (and unknown) actors to star in a an artwork that will rarely, if ever, be seen outside of a gallery (or online). The casual viewer can choose to read it all as a comment on the timeless nature of gluttony and excess or simply laugh out loud at Courtney Love's full-bodied reading of Gore Vidal's overwrought language - "I have existed from the morning of the world and I shall exist until the last star falls from the night" - egomania as fitting for a Hollywood star as it for a Wall Street executive or an insane Emperor. Which, or course, is the point.

seanymphette If there is anybody left out there who doesn't recognize this as parody, you're either incredibly ignorant about film, and everything connected to it, or incredibly dense. Come...On! Watch it again, and pay attention this time! Let's start, as the trailer does, with Gore Vidal, one of the most esteemed historical writers of our generation. Why would someone of his caliber seriously license a film that is blatant, gratuitous pornography? Think about it. The first "Caligula" was controversial in it's portrayal of debauchery and violence (mild by today's standards), but at least it was an accurate chronicle of Caligula's life and times, based on research of the documentation. Next, think about what you know of Hollywood, how many films get made that feature a cast dominated by middle aged actresses, some of them has-beens? Although I personally love all these grand dames, let's be real here! Where are the young, anorexic contract starlets that studios demand (like Megan Fox, Elisha Cuthbert, Diane Kruger etc.)? The pretty effeminate young male stars (Zach Ephron)? The only thing not crusty and old in this trailer is Milla Jovovich, and she is known to have a hearty sense of humor. Speaking of casting, what director, who wasn't a complete idiot, with a deathwish for his own career, would cast Courtney Love in a dramatic lead? First we have to buy the lie that Gore Vidal would allow his historical story to be altered so radically as to change the gender of his lead character, and then that the character was a homely, high and tasteless woman (albeit a very talented musician). Courtney Love is suitable for a few bit roles in films, and the lead in only one type of film, a documentary about her own life! Now think about the FCC and the MPAA. We've seen human heads exploding on screen, human body parts juiced in a blender and force fed to a woman, but we've barely seen 10 films out in the last 10 years with full frontal male nudity. The rating a film gets has a direct correlation to it's box office value. It's highly unlikely any studio would fund a film that is guaranteed to garner an "X" rating (one that shows oral copulation with a dildo, using semen as skin cream, and worse), when the biggest movie-going audience is teen aged and unable to get in to see it at the theater. Finally, this trailer is a testament to the fact that Hollywood is aware of just how morally bereft the American viewing public perceives them to be. They know that we believe they would "go there". Thank goodness that somebody there still has a conscience and wouldn't. They're just having some fun, at our expense.

haystack-caldoon This seemingly-pointless trailer for what appears to be a pornographic film is actually much more than that.Gore Vidal requested that his name be removed from the original "Caligula". He did so because he felt it had been produced as a low-grade soft-core pornographic picture, rather than as the more serious and lofty one he had intended. Thus, there is no such thing as "Gore Vidal's Caligula".What you have here is a trailer for a remake of a movie that never existed. That remake can never be made, of course! It's quite an elaborate and outrageous production for such a sly, clever joke. Even the super-raunchy nature of the trailer is a nod to the reasons the movie it suggests could never happen. I'll admit that, when I was shown this at an art historian's lecture, I didn't understand why the fellow in front of me began cackling madly the moment he saw the trailer's title. Once our lecturer (John Paul Ricco) explained the history behind the trailer, though, the laughs came from all over.