“Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?”
“My addwess is one of the high points of the Passover. My fweind, Biggus Dickus, has come all the way fwom Wome just to hear it.”
Congratulations, you’ve just had more fun than is to be had in all of “Glaadiator.” Directed and co-written by Luca Pecil (with actor Tim Hudson), this good-looking but inert parody sets the cause of Gay rights back about ten years and doesn’t do much for the cause of comedy either. Actually, it’s sort of hard to tell if “Glaadiator” is intended for a Gay audience or a deeply homophobic one.
Assuming you’ve seen a commercial for “Gladiator” and have some idea what “GLAAD” stands for, you already know pretty much what you’re in for. Tim Hudson stars as Maxipadimus (yuck, yuck) a Gay general who is turned into a slave and generally treated badly in ancient Rome, eventually leading a gay revolt. We have a hysterically funny anal-rape-with-a-dildo scene and lots of other attempted hilarity as he struggles against the homophobic evil bleach-blonde Emperor Eminemus (Rob Steinman). Like all parodies these days, it’s in the form of a trailer.
On the plus side, cinematographer Daniel Aranyo and a large crew nicely evoke the look of Ridley Scott’s vastly over-successful epic –though some shots are repeated a few times. A song parody over the end credits, “Roman Man” (to the tune of the Lennon and McCartney’s “Nowhere Man”), is notable for being the first Gay Beatle’s parody I’ve ever heard.
