Go down on history with Caligula for Valentines Day.
Caligulais Bob Gucciones Valentine to the forgotten pleasures of Rome and he shot quite a load filming it.
Its Valentines Day fare for the sensualist.
But you never know what youre tasting until you take a bite.
Always up for a skorry in-out in-out, great bolshy yarblockos out for all to viddy.
We absolutely believe in him, weve seen him do this before.
The English are not particularly associated with romance, in spite of their romantic poets.
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The original treatment forCaligulawas written by Roberto Rosselini, Isabellas dad.
His nephew Franco and Gore Vidal presented a retooled script for Bob Guccione to sniff.
But there was trouble in paradise.
Vidal wasnt prepared for the bitch-slap that he got from Guccione and had his name taken off the title.
Rossellini instigated an orgy of lawsuits for this movie.
Bob Guccione is Sicilian.
Italians are world-renowned as hot, romantic lovers.
Sicilians tilt more to the side of hot.
And then they turn up the heat.
Just not in court.
Guccione, like any lover hiding the ring in the chocolates, madeCaligulathrough subterfuge and trickery.
He told the actors they were working on a movie with a script by Gore Vidal.
He told Gore Vidal he was making a movie about Caligulas last days.
This is Fellinis Rome!
where apparently everyone is ugly), something no one wants to see on Valentines Day.
Guccione probably told them he was making a nature film.
And he wont actually slip it on.
Hell take the care to slip it in, with a little interpretive march on the way.
What could be more romantic than some wine?
Caligula has his minions tie off a mans urinary tract (tactically put?
Caligula declares himself a god and, rightfully deduces that, who wouldnt want to schtup a god?
Blessing a wedding with his divine presence, Caligula gets first dibs on the blushing bride.
Not wanting to leave anyone out, he dibs the groom too.
Magnificently magnanimous of the monarch, I must say.
Not so much by the Senate.
Caligula mocks the wealthy consulate by appointing his horse to an important government seat and other conspicuous indignities.
He also builds a massive head-chopping machine for their amusement.
Sadly, Caligula gets spent at the end.
He doesnt know when hes licked.
When it first came out, critics blastedCaligulaas vile, disgusting and not even worth watching as porn.
They went to great lengths to warn people away from the sticky, slimy miles of celluloid.
They still do their best to cock-block this hard-core history pictorial.
But it did very well even in limited release.
The filthy old perv.
Cleopatra exclaimed that she loved tits and asp movies.
Messalina is said to have squirted her praise all over the imperial canopy.
The illustrious historian of all things Roman, Anthony Everitt, quoted Julius Caesar as saying, Vini.
I came again.)
Critics pre-emptively slammed the movie again when the Imperial version came out on DVD, with extra money shots.
Caligularuns about two and a half hours, so it will be a marathon foreplay session for Valentines Day.
Yeah, its hard to watch.
And it probably wont get her in the mood, but if it does, bone for tuna.
Rating:
2 out of 5
