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3 items from 2012

4 April 2012 7:02 AM, PDT | Moviefone | See recent Moviefone news »

I come to praise Sword & Sandal movies -- not to bury them. But with Wrath of the Titans and the Sword & Sandal/sci-fi mash-up John Carter not exactly setting the world on fire -- along with recent disappointments like Immortals and Conan -- it's getting more difficult by the day to believe that the Sword & Sandal movie can survive the recent fumbling of this otherwise great genre. And that's a shame, because the Sword & Sandal movie -- known for its gladiatorial games, pagan orgies, depraved emperors, and the occasional snarling cyclops -- may represent the most colorful and enduring movie genre of all time. So for the uninitiated, what exactly is a Sword & Sandal movie? Like its cousin the Biblical epic, a Sword & Sandal movie -- or 'peplum,' named after a type of ancient Greek garment -- is typically set in the ancient Mediterranean world, and dramatizes the fight for freedom. »

- Jason Apuzzo

19 March 2012 7:17 PM, PDT | Alt Film Guide | See recent Alt Film Guide news »

Omar Sharif Jr., grandson of the Doctor Zhivago star, is currently in the news because he has come out as a gay man who happens to be half-Jewish (on his mother's side) in an essay found in The Advocate — one accompanied by a photograph showing a hairy, buffed-up, bare-chested man (Sharif Jr.?) holding the Egyptian flag. In the essay, the 29-year-old Montreal-born actor explains he wrote the piece out of "fear for my country, fear for my family, and fear for myself." As per Sharif Jr., the problem is that in Egypt "the full spectrum of equal and human rights are now wedge issues used by both the Supreme Council of the Egyptian Armed Forces and the Islamist parties, when they should be regarded as universal truths." Further down in his piece, he adds: And so I hesitantly confess: I am Egyptian, I am half Jewish, and I am gay. »

- Andre Soares

2 February 2012 2:30 PM, PST | Alt Film Guide | See recent Alt Film Guide news »

Christopher Plummer Christopher Plummer — SAG Award winner for Male Actor in a Supporting Role — poses in the press room during the 18th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards. The SAG Awards ceremony was broadcast on TNT/TBS from the Shrine Auditorium on January 29, 2012, in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Michael Buckner/WireImage.) After expressing his pride in being a member of the world's "second oldest profession," Christopher Plummer went on to say that actors may be "wacky" and the like, but winning an award from them is like to be "lit by the Holy Grail." Plummer also thanked his Beginners co-star Ewan McGregor, who "makes acting look so easy," and the film's writer-director Mike Mills for creating "such a human story." Inspired by Mills' relationship with his own father, Beginners is the tale of a son (McGregor) who learns that his elderly father (Plummer) is gay. Plummer's competition consisted of Kenneth Branagh »

- D. Zhea

3 items from 2012