Hans’s #4 Most Anticipated Film of 2009 – Agora

I gotta say, I’m a little shocked by Sulmoney’s #5 pick with The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Director Terry Gilliam is known for creating some of the most thoughtful and intelligent movies around, so what about this flick could possibly appeal to the guy who crafted a makeshift shrine to Madonna’s boy toy? Wait, what’s that? It stars not just one but FOUR of the biggest heartthrobs for teenage girls everywhere? Ah, that explains it. Speaking of intelligent movies, here’s my #4:

Agora

Synopsis: A historical drama set in Roman Egypt, concerning a slave who turns to the rising tide of Christianity in the hopes of pursuing freedom while also falling in love with his master, the famous female philosophy professor and atheist Hypatia of Alexandria.

Directed By: Alejandro Amenábar (The Others, The Sea Inside)

Starring: Rachel Weisz, Max Minghella, Oscar Isaac

I’m such a sucker for Spanish-speaking (Spancophone?) directors. Guillermo Del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy I and II), Alejandro González Iñárritu (Babel, 21 Grams), Pedro Almodóvar (Volver, Hable con Ella)  Alfonso Cuarón (Y tu mamá también, Children of Men) and most recently Juan Antonio Bayona (The Orphanage) are some of the most promising directors in showbusiness, and not a single one of them has even peaked yet (except maybe Almodóvar). Amenábar’s heritage alone would have been enough to sell me on this movie, but I’ve actually had the privilege of reading the screenplay, and I can report that its depiction of the timeless struggle between science and religion is almost pitch perfect (Bill Maher could learn a thing or two for his next documentary). As the trailer makes abundantly clear, it’s also going to be one of the grandest and most meticulously crafted ancient Roman period pieces since HBO’s “Rome,”which just happens to be one of my all-time favorite TV series. Forget CGI visual effects, these sets are very real, and in the age of Transformers it’s easy to forget how much this kind of pain-staking attention to detail can help to immerse viewers in the fiction. My only worry is that this story is almost too intelligent to appeal to broader audiences, hence the lack of any dialogue in the teaser trailer, but as long as I can see this thing fully realized in fall 2009, I don’t care what everyone else thinks.

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