This is Sparta!

I confess. I find silly image macros absolutely hilarious.

Dante's Inferno

Dante's Inferno has been kicking around the cultural playground for over 700 years. But it has never before been interpreted with exquisitely hand-drawn paper puppets, brought to life using purely hand-made special effects. Until now. Rediscover this literary classic, retold in a kind of apocalyptic graphic novel meets Victorian-era toy theater. Dante’s Hell is brought to lurid 3-dimensional, high-definition life in a darkly comedic travelogue of the underworld — set against an all-too-familiar urban backdrop of used car lots, gated communities, strip malls, and the U.S. Capitol. And populated with a contemporary cast of reprobates, including famous — and infamous — politicians, presidents, popes, pimps. And the Prince of Darkness himself.

Grrr. The movie seems interesting, but I can't get the web site to load. Anyway, IMDb has a trailer and some information, and if you're in San Francisco you can buy tickets at sf indiefest.

Hellboy and Hecate

Indeed, Hecate shows up in the new animated Hellboy: Blood and Iron movie. Pop over to Hellboy Animated to see a picture and find out what Hellboy's weapon of choice is.

Hellboy: Blood and Iron airs on Cartoon Network, March 10.

The Golden Compass

Somehow I missed this. The official web site for The Golden Compass, the first movie based on Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, is now online - and you can play with the alethiometer!

The Chemical Wedding

Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden is involved in the production of a movie inspired by Aleister Crowley.

The movie is reportedly about a professor in an English university, whom, after a failed experiment, becomes obsessed with Crowleys soul. Crowley himself was very much into redhaired women, and obviously the professor becomes enchanted by a very beautiful, red-haired student.

Read more at Maiden Norway.

Yes, obviously...


Aleister Crowley

Apocalyptic violence

"The message? The end is near and the savior has come. Gibson's efforts at authenticity of location and language might, for some viewers, mask his blatantly colonial message that the Maya needed saving because they were rotten at the core. Using the decline of Classic urbanism as his backdrop, Gibson communicates that there was absolutely nothing redeemable about Maya culture, especially elite culture which is depicted as a disgusting feast of blood and excess."

Read Tracy Ardren's review at archaelogy.org.

So if Mel Gibson's new genre really is religious slasher flicks, what can we expect next? Something based on the writings of Adam von Bremen, maybe? I suspect that "the enlightened Christian describing the barbaric heathens" would be very much Gibson's thing.


Midvinterblot

Artemis and Santa

"There are several humorous cameos in this film, including an uncredited actress who plays the Greek Goddess Artemis working undercover on Earth as a gym teacher. This actress is gut-bustingly funny in a role that is far too brief when compared to the time spent on Heat-miser and Snowmiser. In fact, her role is part of the underlying, richer story about the role that myth and story plays in cultures, even modern ones."

Belinda Acosta reviews The Year Without Santa Claus

Socrates: Lost in Olympia

"SOCRATES: LOST IN OLYMPIA", the feature-length 3d animated English-language film, planned as a European & Chinese co-production, is in the initial phases of preproduction. Twelve fresh and exciting characters have been added to Socrates' group of friends and this time the mission is next to impossible: to save the planet and the Olympic Games. "SOCRATES" is scheduled for a 2007 theatrical release.

Read more at Dimitri Vorris' web site.

There should be some religious or mythological content in there, right?

Nicolas Cage, holy men, and Voodoo

Cage is to star in The Sadhu, the story of a soldier who travels to India during colonial times and becomes a spiritual warrior. The plot mixes action with mythology, and is meant as a starring vehicle for the US actor.

The movie is based on the Virgin comic with the same name. Sadhu was created by Gotham Chopra and will be adapted for the screen by his father, Deepak Chopra. Sounds positively trainwrecky to me, but hey, maybe a chakra alignment can improve Cage's acting abilities.

But wait, there's more...

Cage is developing a comic book for Virgin Comics entitled Enigma, with an eye to developing it into a film. Billed as a voodoo-laced thriller, Enigma deals with a murder investigation set in New Orleans.

Source: The Guardian

Voodoo, eh? Cage has mentioned his interest in Voodoo before, and said that "it's important to be respectful of all religions". I hope he respects it enough to do his research.


Sadhu

Aleister Crowley in the movies

Set in a very different London is writer-director Hadi Hajaig's Puritan, a bizarre mixture of film noir and occult horror flick. Nick Moran plays Simon Puritan (the name suggests Simon 'The Saint' Templar), a sad alcoholic student of the paranormal who lives in Whitechapel in an early-18th-century house designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor where Aleister Crowley once raised the spirit of Satan. This sad hero believes in the existence of a fourth dimension and appears to be drifting through time and space as he encounters a femme fatale, a sinister capitalist (David Soul), Crowley and the devil himself. The movie might have been directed by someone called Midnight Charlatan or Goodnight Chameleon, but there are hints of real talent and style behind this addled piece.

Source: The Observer

Sounds promising! I wonder what happened to Revolt of the Magicians, though? The web site is half broken, and hasn't been updated in quite a while. I even tried writing Dominion Entertainment Group to ask what their plans are, but the email was returned because "there's no mailbox by that name". I'm guessing that this movie won't be happening. A shame, really.


Aleister Crowley

Mahabharata becomes movie

The Indian epic poem Mahabharata , regarded as one of the longest works in all of literature, is about to become one of the longest works in all of cinema. Veteran Bollywood producer-director Ravi Chopra has told Indian reporters that the film, reportedly budgeted at $28 million -- an extraordinary amount for an Indian production -- will run more than 6 hours. "It will be unjust to tell the most beautiful story of the world in three hours," he said. Chopra said that his plan is to screen the first three hours of the film on one week, then screen the final three hours a week later.

Source: contactmusic.com

War Gods of Babylon & War Goddess

Much of what I write about I get through Google Alerts, an indispensable tool that emails me every time a subject I'm interested in is mentioned in the news. I have been reading about Persian religion and mythology, and figured that I should add the name Zoroaster to my watch list. Had I not done that, I might have lived the rest of my life not knowing about these gems.

..after the queen is crowned, the Amazons go to meet a group of Greek soldiers for their annual mating. The king of the Greeks pretends to be a captain and has sex with the queen. Much to the queen's dismay, she quite enjoys having sex with a man...

Uh. I think I might give War Goddess a miss. War Gods of Babylon, on the other hand, sounds spectacularly awful in quite a different way, and may even be entertaining.

...a conflict exploited by the governor of conquered Babylon, Arbaces, who convinces Samos to make himself king of Babylon and rebel against the rule of Sardanapolos, with the support of his faithful friend Hammurabi. Betrayals ensue, climaxing in a special-effects extravaganza as the gods of Babylon wreak their vengeance upon Assyria...

Suddenly Troy and Alexander don't seem so bad anymore.

Jade Warrior

"Do you love me?" asks Tommi Eronen on the big screen. Nothing new here – a Finnish man whining about his love again. But this time we are in ancient China, the actress is Zhang Jingchu, and the couple has just had a dance-like fantasy duel.

The film is called Jade Warrior. It is an ambitious combination of themes from the Finnish national Kalevala and Chinese mythology, and tells the story in the style of Wuxia – Chinese warrior films."

Read more in the Helsingin Sanomat or watch the Jade Warrior trailer.

(Actually, you should do both. And if you have seen the movie already, please leave a comment and let me know if you liked it.)


Sampo

Cardiectomies all around

"Oh man, it’s just awful what they did to one another, you know, chewing their fingers off, cutting your eyelids off and you lips, ripping your tongue out, hanging you up and stabbing you in the genitals, I mean, just horrific. Putting you up as a living target in the field like a firing range, firing arrows at you. At least we had our guys running when they were doing that. They used to just tie them up on boards and like, “hey, I think I can hit him right in the heart!” So they’d be doing target practice on real targets."

Mel Gibson talks about his new religious slasher flick, Apocalypto.

Ah Puch

The Dark is Rising

"David Cunningham (The Path to 9/11) has been tapped to direct The Dark Is Rising, a fantasy film based on Susan Cooper's book series, Variety reported. The film is being produced under the co-financing alliance between Walden Media (The Chronicles of Narnia) and 20th Century Fox reached in August.

The Dark Is Rising is part of Cooper's five-book series, focusing on a youth who discovers at age 11 that he's a Sign Seeker, the last of a group of immortals dedicated to fighting a growing presence of dark forces.

Cunningham has already headed to Romania, where he'll prep the film for an early 2007 start and a Sept. 28, 2007, release, the trade paper reported."

Source: SCI FI Wire

Ramayana

Dadasaheb Phalke’s debut film Raja Harishchandra set the trend for mythological films in Bollywood. It was in 1913. In circa 2006, mythological and theological characters, particularly Gods and deities, are back in vogue. The similarities: stories are from religious texts and folklore, the difference: the budget and, of course, star cast.

In 2007, Rajkumar Santoshi will begin work on his magnum opus — Ramayana. With a budget of Rs 100 crore, he has roped in one of Bollywood’s most popular couple, Ajay Devgan and Kajol to play the part of Lord Rama and Sita.

Read more at Hindustan Times.



Ravana, king of Lanka