Thats what Caligula is, a terrible movie.

But what I find interesting (and a bit disturbing) is that Caligula is treated by some people as a masterpiece or a work of art. I find it's very existance fascinating though, how did they get funding and the stars is beyond me.

Malcom McDowell was in another rated X movie: Clockwork Orange- but that's when hollywood COULD make a more adult film. He didn't object then because he knew it was a black comedy. When the porno buisness began listing their movies XXX voluntarily-many major movie houses and studios refused to make an X.

Even when the MPAA tried making NC-17...a lot of major movie houses refused to show that kind of picture. Thus limiting Hollywood to the bizzar R rating that seems to have no bounderies.

Your review gives the impression that these cinema greats were part and parcel to the X-rated stuff. When in fact, they weren't, and they were outraged by it.

"Hairy nipples??! Senator Marcellus! Your wife will scare our customers away! Try hot walnuts..."

Awful, awful, awesome, awesome movie.

These writers (Tacitus and Suetonius) were clearly sympathetic to the senatorial faction that Caligula's family had pushed out of power. Most of the really twisted and perverted stuff comes from Suetonius, who wrote in what we might now call the 'tabloid journalism' style of writing--his "biographies" of the emperors are often just collections of gossip and slander that had accumulated in the decades that separated them from him.

I'm not saying that Caligula was a good emperor--I'm just saying that we have to take all the historical "facts" we know about him with a grain of salt. Imagine if, in two thousand years, the majority of the evidence that remained describing the Bush presidency was a collection of National Enquirer issues from 2001-9 and an Al Franken book. (Actually, since both of these would be contemporary sources, they would be much more reliable than Tacitus and Suetonius). But, from these, you could probably get some idea of the arguments that people had against Bush--many of which are based in fact--but you'd also get a lot of innuendo and exaggeration.

There are only so many hours of your life that you can devote to sitting in front of movies--great movies even more so, because you can't just have them on while folding laundry or surfing the internet--you need to have a situation where you can really absorb the movie, and then have time to think/talk about it afterward. We've all got movies we haven't seen (or books we haven't read, music we haven't heard, etc.).

Fuck me, some of you will defend anything.

And I like Miike as a rule, but that was just a shit effort.

It's repellent cinematic dogshit- the equivalent of an artist painting in Elephant dung, or menstrual blood (which has been done).

It's shock for shock's sake- and I really need convincing that it is anywhere near as good as you think it is. It's also dour, boring, incomprehensible, fragmented, and ill thought out. It doesn't hang together thematically, and the absurdities in it feel forced and unnatural.

No masterpiece, and probably miike's weakest film.

And Visitor Q is not porn either. Pornography= obscene works with little or no artistic merit designed for the purpose of titilation. It doesn't have to be about sex.

In this case, Visitor Q (despite my low opinion of it)obviously has artistic merit, and isn't designed to titillate- MASSIVE SPOILER You aren't meant to be wanking yourself into a frenzy when he gets his cock stuck in the dead reporter, END SPOILER . It is unpleasant, but that is neither here nor there.

"The Elephant Man? Cool Hand Luke? Pappilion? The fact that you've never seen these movies is systemic of a Hollywood intelligencia that knows absolutely nothing about what makes good films."

Not having seen a select few of your "must-see" titles makes someone incapable of having an opinon on film? By that logic, can we assume that as long as somone has seen these films (even if they are the only films they have seen) their opinion must be valued above all others?

But I do agree that most executives wouldn't know a good movie unless the person whose ass they were kissing told them what to think of it. But then, Quint isn't an executive. He's just a guy with a cool job who writes about what he sees. He doesn't make the decisions in Hollywood, he comments on them (or at least, the end result of those decisions).

I am curious what you, and others who have been critical about what Quint has not yet had the time to see, what movies have you not seen? And by that I mean movies that would surprise your family or friends if they knew. I haven't seen most of the ones on Quint's list, including Papillon (but I will soon; it's #1 on my Ziplist). Others, off the top of my head include Raging Bull, Blue Velvet, The Seven Samurai, Ran, Dog Day Afternoon.

So why harp on him? And why visit this specific series of articles that wouldn't appease you anyway, no matter what he said? Isn't that masochism?

Just because it is provocative does not mean it is good.

And what about my other arguments about it's cinematic flaws? you don't address any of them, just some utterly subjective point about why you find it beautiful.

It's trash masquerading as intellectual art, pure and simple.

I said it had obvious artistic merit, and that is what you have explained. What it is, is a very, very well made piece of shit. Much as the Elephant dung painting was an amazingly constructed piece of shit (it did win the turner prize). I'm never going to convince you, but if you take a step back from it and look at it as a whole rather than a series of "moments" then it really is an absolute cesspit of a film worth only scorn.

So I asked questions related to some of the things you said and all were able to come back with a condescending comment.

My point, in case you missed it, was that no one has seen every movie made. Everyone has at least some films they have yet to see; films that would be considered by most film fans as "must see movies". I asked you what yours were and I listed some of my own. You replied with nothing more than a snide remark. If that's the all you have to offer you can play with "big boys" all you like; I'll have adult conversations with the men.