The Washington Monthly

May 14, 2004

TROY REVIEW....I saw Troy this afternoon, and, really, it wasn't bad — although, sadly, the Trojans lost once again even in this modern retelling. Brad Pitt was fine aside from some odd facial tics during his meeting with Priam that I couldn't quite make sense of.

And there are lessons to be learned from it, too. That whole Iliad story — which I understand the movie to be "based on" — sure goes to show the value of a well-targeted special ops team doesn't it?

Oh yeah, and don't mock the gods. Bad news, that.

FOOTNOTE: There was one odd thing about the movie — aside from the inevitable garbling of story details, of course. They pronounced the name of Mr. Helen of Troy as Me-nu-lauw-us. I've always heard it pronounced Me-nu-lay-us. But who knows? Perhaps that's how ancient Greeks really said it. I imagine it's hard to say for sure at a remove of several millennia.

FOOTNOTE ANSWER: Astonishingly erudite discussion is here.

—Kevin Drum 9:49 PM Permalink | Trackbacks

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