Spartacus | MostlyFilm

In another walk down memory lane we revisit one of our most popular posts, by Spank the Monkey, probably because it contains the line My cock rages on, my cock rages on.

Spartacus Blood And Sand — Spartacus: Blood and Sand

Blood rains down from an angry sky
My cock rages on, my cock rages on

– Traditional gladiators’ drinking song. Apparently.

This is the story of a television drama that everyone thought was a bit of a joke. Except that the joke was on the people who abandoned it after the first couple of episodes, and failed to spot it slowly turning into one of the most deliriously entertaining shows on the box, despite the untimely death of its leading actor. The most recent season of Spartacus is about to be released on home video: let me explain why you should be buying it.

Continue reading Spartacus: Blood From An Angry Sky →

Spank The Monkey comes to praise Spartacus, not to bury him

Do we need spoiler alerts for this one?

When I wrote about the Starz TV series Spartacus for Mostly Film last year, we were three seasons into what we knew by then was a four season run. I tried to keep spoilers to the absolute minimum, just telling the bare bones of the familiar story: the one about the Thracian slave who ended up leading an army of the oppressed against the might of Rome.

But now we have the final season to consider – Spartacus: War Of The Damned, recently shown on television and just released on home video. The story of Spartacus is familiar, and its ending is even more so. One particular version of it has become so ingrained in our culture, it’s become a metaphor for a certain type of heroic sacrifice. And that’s not even the true version. As Steven S. DeKnight and his writers approach the final chapters of their tale, their retelling of it has to battle against all the baggage the viewer brings along to it. It’s been pre-spoiled. Is that going to be a problem?

Continue reading Friends, Romans, Juno’s Countrymen →