marketing mystifies me. i went out especially to pick up Alexander on dvd today. there are two versions, both in two screen aspects. 4. why? the special edition, and the directors cut. looking at the backs, i couldnt find any differences, other than the special edition bled over on to the second disc, while the directors cut used the second disc only for features. which, were the same features on both versions. the run time was 6 minutes longer, i believe, on the special edition. but only the directors cut advertised itself to have missing scenes. i bought it. i havent seen anything that wasnt in the theater. sigh. as much as the film itself didnt satisfy me, i still enjoyed it. maybe more this second time. on the theater screen, its cut so close to the action that on a 50 screen you can seen whats going on. at home on a tv set, squared away in letterbox, i didnt get lost in the battle scenes or get dizzy from trying to swoop to look at different corners of the 50 foot to see who was doing what. i liked alot of the film. lots of little things irk me. some of the documentary on the making of the film was interesting, explaining the differences in grades of film, and types, used to capture certain coloration and contrast in scenes. i had expected alot of that to be done digitally now. kind of nice to see the old standard way still in use in places. its worth a rent. most people probably wouldnt want to own it. warner brothers would have done better to release one version now, and one for christmas time, to possibly double up the buyers. as it stands, i doubt anyone will want two copies of it at the same time. its an ok story. its chopped up badly. appearantly linear story is no longer fashionable. angelina jolie's fake accent is still hideous and detracts from her lines. as is how her whole character is personafied. colin isnt so bad. and yes, his garbage still dangles out there in one shot of him getting into bed with some man whore. sir anthony hopkins isnt in it enough to save it. but... i do love his last lines, poorly transcribed by me...

but the truth is never simple. yet this is. the truth is, we did kill him. by silence we consented. because... because we couldnt go on. what by Ares did we have to look forward to, but to be discarded at the end? like [lighters]. after all this time, to give away all our wealth to asian sick offenses. we dispised mixing the races, harmony. bah. how he talked about these things? wasnt it really about alexander and another population to obey him? i never believed in his dream--- none of us did. thats the truth of his life. the dreamers exhaust us. they, must die before they kill us with their blasted dreams! . . . all his life he fought to free himself from fear, and by this, and this alone, he was made free. the freest man ive ever known. his tragedy was one of increasing loneliness and impaitence with those that could not understand. and if his desire to reconcile greek and barbarian was failure. then what failure, is failure that towers over other mans' successes? ive lived... ive lived long life Catmus, but the glory of life will always remain to those that follow their great visions.