Mastodawn

A look at the strange paradox of films that try to tell the story of Muhammad and Fatima without ever showing them — epics built around a void, where reverence ends up undercutting the very figures being honored.
#FilmCriticism #CinemaHistory #ReligiousCinema #TheMessage1976 #TheLadyOfHeaven #MovieAnalysis #RepresentationDebate #MiddleEasternCinema #FilmDiscussion #CulturalDebate
https://pablohoneyfish.wordpress.com/2025/11/24/reverence-as-cinematic-self-sabotage-the-message-and-the-lady-of-heaven/

Reverence as Cinematic Self-Sabotage: The Message and The Lady of Heaven

The cinematic representations of the early figures of Islam, specifically Moustapha Akkad’s 1976 epic The Message and Eli King’s contentious 2021 drama The Lady of Heaven, present a profound and of…

VIKINGS vs SAMURAI Nov 18

Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West is myth, massacre, and movie magic. Fonda’s a villain, Bronson’s a ghost with a harmonica, and the West? A graveyard. It’s slow, brutal, and pure cinema.
🔗 https://vikingsvssamurai.com/once-upon-a-time-in-the-west/
#OnceUponATimeInTheWest #SergioLeone #SpaghettiWestern #CinemaHistory

Once Upon a Time in the West

In the dusty West, a widow’s quest intertwines with a gunslinger’s past. Harmonicas play, vengeance brews.

VIKINGS vs SAMURAI

jp Nov 16

A three-hour attempt to turn Nero into a misunderstood hero ends up torching the history it claims to honor. When myth outmuscles evidence, all that’s left is a glossy portrait of an emperor who never existed.
#Nero2004 #RomanHistory #HistoricalAccuracy #FilmCritique #AncientRome #HistoryVsHollywood #MovieReview #Nero #JulioClaudian #CinemaHistory
https://pablohoneyfish.wordpress.com/2025/11/15/nero-lucius-domitius-ahenobarbus-we-hardly-knew-ye/

Nero: Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, We Hardly Knew Ye

For eons, the life, times, and alleged crimes of Roman emperor Nero have been exaggerated — either embellished or tarnished but ever sensationalized. Nero (2004) shamefully brings that uncritical t…

jp Nov 8

Phantom Punch promises to reveal the mystery of Sonny Liston, but all it lands is a glancing blow. A biopic too afraid of its own subject to tell the truth.
#SonnyListon #PhantomPunch #FilmReview #Biopic #Boxing #CinemaHistory #SportsMovies #FilmCriticism
https://pablohoneyfish.wordpress.com/2025/11/08/phantom-punch-2008/

Phantom Punch (2008)

Phantom Punch is the tale of the oldest boxing world heavyweight champion. Wait, scratch that. It’s actually a Sonny Liston biopic starring a 49-year-old Ving Rhames. That’s nine years older than L…

Mark Sabalauskas Nov 4

Bigelow’s direction is characteristically muscular and kinetic, complemented by innovative, almost disturbingly intimate, point-of-view cinematography that places you directly within the recorded experiences

Strange Days: Kathryn Bigelow’s Forgotten Masterpiece Revisited

What if I told you there’s a film written by James Cameron, directed by Kathryn Bigelow, that critics praised but audiences ignored-leaving it to vanish into the shadows of cinema history? That fil…

Optimistic Indie Roleplaying

jp Oct 31

I don’t think you’re supposed to laugh with, let alone at, a film about Jesus Christ. Jesus (1999) didn’t just make me chuckle; it made me snigger, which feels even more wrong.
#FilmCriticism #Jesus1999 #MovieReview #TVMiniseries #PopCulture #BiblicalCinema #Apocrypha #CinemaHistory #JeremySisto #GaryOldman #TheologyAndFilm #BadMovies #CultCinema #MediaStudies
https://pablohoneyfish.wordpress.com/2025/10/30/jesus-apocrypha-for-the-small-screen/

Jesus: Apocrypha for the Small Screen

I don’t think you’re supposed to laugh with, let alone at, a film about Jesus Christ. Jesus (1999) didn’t just make me chuckle; it made me snigger, which feels even more wrong. Maybe something was …