Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Mongol Talk From Ethiopia


I certainly hope that Mongol begins showing in Ethiopia. I am looking forward to seeing it. For more information on Genghis Khan I highly recommend the book Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford. One the reasons the movie may have felt sparse in terms of Mongolian culture is that, according to the book, so little is known about it during that time period. The books scraps together young Temudgin's story from bits and pieces and many of his future exploits come from the horror stories of those conquered. After reading this book I was convinced that Genghis Khan was the greatest militaty leader and emperor in history surpassing Alexander the Great or the Romans. What he accomplished by ruthlessness and then fairness after conquering is unbeleivable. The story of the Mongol army arriving in Turkey and telling the city to surrender or perish is riveting. How Khan aopended the Silk Road to trade and accepted other cultures as long as they paid him fealty shows how canny he was. It's a great story that I am glad more poepl will get to see it in motion picture format.

As for adding a rating sytem to my movie reviews? Probably not. My perception of certain movies changes over time and I would rather just save my ratings for the end of the year. You can tell how I feel about a movie from my review which comes directly after viewing.

1 comment:

tom said...

I regretted my rating system right after my post. But I think I'll stick with it - in a modifed format. "Good but flawed" is a stupid category. That will change to "Good." And I'll add a "Poor" to go after "Disappointing." I like a five tier apparoach: Highly Recommended; Recommended; Good; Disappointing; Poor. I'll see how it goes and it may be interesting to see how if my mind changes over the course of time.