Malcolm McDowell looking exceptionally fierce as Caligula: "Kiss the ring, bitch!"As many of you already know, I am something of a history buff, and it is a well known fact that those are the best kind of buffs. I earned an utterly useless degree in History while in college, and have impregnated my personal library with a fine collection of biographies and historical nonfiction. To the untrained eye I may even come off as being educated, which would be a truism, except for the fact that I possess absolutely no knowledge whatsoever that would be beneficial to mankind. I am an idiot savant of meaningless information. For instance, did you know that goose bumps are left over remnants from when our species was completely covered in hair? Or, that the white crescents at the bottoms of our fingers are air pockets that serve no purpose? How about the fact that Albert Einstein had autism? So, how bout it? Is cancer cured yet? Did those little tidbits solve the AIDS crisis? No? Well, that's all I got. Anywho, today I want to talk about perhaps the single most devious, malicious, hated person to have ever lived: Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, AKA Bobby Ray, AKA Caligula, emperor of Rome during the Julio-Claudian dynasty who reigned from 37 AD to 41 AD. However, I wish to discuss Caligula in direct relation to the only worthwhile biopic made of his life, 1979's Caligula, directed by Tinto Brass and starring Peter O'Toole, Helen Mirren and Malcolm McDowell (who is probably best known for his role as Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange). Now, in real life, Caligula was one badass motherfucker (or sisterfucker, since, you know, he raped his sister...sit on that for a while). While attending a gladiatorial display at the famed Coliseum, Caligula ordered an entire section of spectators be fed to wild animals during intermission because he was bored. He would have sex with any woman he wanted, and then would intentionally brag about it to the woman's husband. Just to be a dick, he recalled all the exiles banished by his predecessor. Eventually, he just said fuck it and went for full-on crazy when he started dressing like Hercules or Apollo (sadly, not the Creed of Rocky fame) or Venus (Aphrodite to those dirty, smelly Greeks). He started referring to himself as a god, and demanded that others do it as well. He even ordered a statue to be constructed in his honor in Jerusalem, the holiest city in the world, and asked people to worship him there. Caligula makes the Marquis de Sade look like fucking Mr. Rogers (please Google Marquis de Sade to get this reference)! Yet, sadly, Caligula's reign of batshit nuts was cut short when he was stabbed to death by a group of pissed off senators. OK. That was my little intro to Caligula. Read more online or visit your local library. Now, I want to talk about Tinto Brass's infamous movie. As I mentioned above, the movie starred some classically-trained acting heavy weights. And it was written by Gore Vidal, the Gore-fucking-Vidal; perhaps America's most famous author and essayist. So, it seemed at the time that all the pieces were in order: a controversial, yet intriguing subject, a respected avant garde director, accomplished, well-known classical actors, and a screenplay by one of the world's best writers. The project had all the makings of becoming a true classic, in every sense of the word. What could possibly go wrong? Well, for starters the movie was produced by a man named Bob Guccione. If that name sounds familiar then you are probably a sexual deviant and registered sex offender, because Bob Guccione is the founder of Penthouse, the porn mag that was Playboy's main competitor. Now, what do you think Guccione's (or the Gooch to his friends) artistic contributions to the movie were? How about insert scenes of hardcore pornography into a legitimate Hollywood film! That's right! In an intense scene at the beginning of the movie, Caligula and Tiberius (played by Peter O'Toole, possibly the greatest actor to have ever lived) are arguing over Caligula's future. In the scene Tiberius threatens Caligula with torture and death. It really sucks you in. After the scene ends, instead of moving on to another scene that, you know, keeps the plot moving forward, the viewer gets an extreme close-up of a vicious dong just pounded the shit out of a scantily clad slave girl. I mean...it's pretty nasty, even by seventies standards. And that was it. That's what the whole movie was like. It wasn't exactly porn because there was an actual plot, but it wasn't a real Hollywood movie because of all the shots of penises going in and out of vaginae. Can you imagine watching Gladiator or Braveheart, and every couple of minutes, just for the fuck of it, there are shots of people just going to town on each other? In fact, the one criticism I had about the movie Julie & Julia was that there was not enough interracial fucking in it. But here's the real kick in the balls: Guccione didn't tell anyone that he was going to put the porn shots into the movie! So Mr. O'Toole and Ms. Mirren are just sitting there during the premier, thinking about Oscar season, and then, oh, wow, a dude's sack flopping against his thigh...huh. So the Gooch pulled a fast one em. But it's not like they were innocent bystanders in this. In an actual scene written by Vidal and shown in the movie, Caligula greases his fist with lard and anally penetrates a man and his wife (Helen Mirren). So, they couldn't have been completely blindsided by this (Oh! The Blindside! That shitty movie could have also used more fucking). Now, I'm a big fan of biopics, and the Roman era is one of the better ones, as far as eras go, so I watched Caligula, knowing full well that it contained such hardcore scenes. It was a weird experience to say the least. I mean, I couldn't jerk off to the porn scenes because they kept getting cut off by the legitimate movie scenes. But I couldn't take the legitimate movie scenes seriously because those kept getting saturated by balls. I concluded that certain things do not mix: oil and water, oil and water.....I'm not sure what else doesn't mix, but I do know that history and porn do not mix either. But if you really want to see the movie, I guess it's worth renting. After all, it is to date Penthouse's number one (1) selling movie. Spoiler alert: Caligula's been dead the whole time!
The Moore You Know: My dad pulled me aside the other day, completely frustrated and said firmly, "Eric, why can't you be more like your older brother?" "Uh," I replied, "you want me to have rape fantasies about Mom, too?"
© Eric Moore - 2010
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