Alexander the Not So Great

The Hollywood film director Oliver Stone said yesterday that the flop in America of his £83 million production about Alexander the Great was 'dismaying', confessing that more people watched it on the opening weekend in Croatia 'than in the entire' Deep South.

Mr Stone said: "I still think it's a beautiful movie, but Alexander deserves better than I gave him. There was clear resistance to his homosexuality. It became the headline to the movie.

"They called him Alexander the gay. That's horribly discriminatory, but the film simply didn't open in the Bible Belt."

He said that he should have cut it from three hours to two-and-a-half "and taken out the homosexuality for the US market and for countries sensitive to such things, like Korea or Greece".

He added: "Kids weren't comfortable with men who hugged, a king who cries and expresses tenderness."

The director, speaking to Variety and the New York Times, said that he had dreamt of the project since film school. "I really love this subject so much, but perhaps I just failed to communicate that to an American audience and American critics."

So far, the film has limped to an £18 million gross. Critics have ripped it to pieces. One wrote: "Easily the most fantastic self-destruction I have witnessed in years, Alexander is sordid evidence of what happens when Hollywood producers, burned-out directors and unenthused stars stand in a circle and set fire to $150 million. The real Alexander isn't just rolling in his grave, he's clawing his decayed eyes out."

Mr Stone said it was "always" an uphill battle with the critics. He was hoping for "a breakthrough" after being off the screen for five years. "But I was surprised by the hardness of the reviews."

Moritz Borman, the chairman of Intermedia, the Beverly Hills company that produced the film, said he hoped that the epic mitigated its losses abroad, in places such as Britain.

He claimed that Intermedia has covered its flanks with pre-sales: "We will not lose a penny. But if the picture doesn't work in some foreign territories, they will take the hit. If the picture makes over $100 million foreign, most will be OK. But if the picture fares the way it did here, they will lose.''

Mr Stone said that making the film was like trying to wrap his arms around an elephant. It could have been five hours long, giving him the chance to explain the complicated rivalry among Alexander's mother, wife Roxane, and soul mate Hephiastion.

The director also accepted that he had obscured some symbolic images and foreshadowed plot points. "For example, the young man who kills Philip is shown being humiliated earlier at one of Philip's licentious wedding parties.

"Had I put things in more linear order and shortened everything, maybe more people would get it. There are 100 things like that in the film."

He said he regretted that critics had attacked Anthony Hopkins's lengthy narration scenes as Ptolemy, and an accent used by Angelina Jolie that reviewers mocked.

EARTH TO OLIVER. NOBODY CARES ABOUT THAT STUFF. Nobody goes to see an epic movie about Alexander the GREAT to learn about his relationship with his mother and her "rivalry" with his fruity boyfriend.

More conquests on the battlefield, less sexual conquests. More Alexander growing as a MAN and as a LEADER, not as a lover. More about his strategic brilliance, less about his "sensitivity" and less CRYING for goodness sakes.

Found it! Thanks very much for telling me. The moonshine runners are a key part of NASCAR's history - for those interested..

And in your honor:

BALLAD OF THUNDER ROAD

Let me tell the story, I can tell it all
About the mountain boy who ran illegal alcohol
His daddy made the whiskey, son, he drove the load
When his engine roared, they called the highway Thunder Road.

Sometimes into Ashville, sometimes Memphis town
The revenoors chased him but they couldn’t run him down
Each time they thought they had him, his engine would explode
He'd go by like they were standin’ still on Thunder Road.

(CHORUS)
And there was thunder, thunder over Thunder Road
Thunder was his engine, and white lightning was his load
There was moonshine, moonshine to quench the Devil’s thirst
The law they swore they'd get him, but the Devil got him first.

On the first of April, nineteen fifty-four
A Federal man sent word he’d better make his run no more
He said two hundred agents were coverin’ the state
Whichever road he tried to take, they’d get him sure as fate.

Son, his Daddy told him, make this run your last
The tank is filled with hundred-proof, you’re all tuned up and gassed
Now, don’t take any chances, if you can’t get through
I’d rather have you back again than all that mountain dew.

(CHORUS)

Roarin’ out of Harlan, revvin’ up his mill
He shot the gap at Cumberland, and screamed by Maynordsville
With T-men on his taillights, roadblocks up ahead
The mountain boy took roads that even Angels feared to tred.

Blazing right through Knoxville, out on Kingston Pike,
Then right outside of Bearden, they made the fatal strike.
He left the road at 90; that’s all there is to say.
The devil got the moonshine and the mountain boy that day.

I am Honored:) Now I am going to have to watch this weekend.

Back in our day! My hubby's first job was at a drive-in. Anytime business got slow they would show "Thunder Road" every redneck in south Atlanta would show up.

Love Nascar. We grew up about 20 miles from the Atlanta track. We would just go over and walk around the track, back then nobody cared.

One time my hubby and his buddies were hanging out at the track and David Person and crew were there testing. He had a car that was similar to Person's so they drove out on the track and made a few laps before anyone figured out they weren't Person. They had a blast!

I really didn't believe hubby until I met the guys that were with him. They all went to high school with Mike Helton. At the time Mike worked at the Atlanta track. OH the good ole days!

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