"I did it for Rome." Freestyle Digital Media has debuted their official trailer for the film Seneca, made by director Robert Schwentke who worked in Hollywood for years (he last made Snake Eyes before this). The full title is actually Seneca - On the Creation of Earthquakes - this first premiered at the 2023 Berlin Film Festival a few years ago and opened in Germany that year. But most critics hated it and reviews have been harsh. It's about the relationship between Seneca and Nero, the infamous Emperor he mentored since childhood and who accused him of plotting his assassination. The plot revolves around Nero telling him to kill himself and Seneca's response to this directive. "Schwentke has made a pyrotechnic display of a film that is almost peerless in its use of over-the-top punchlines, splatter-sarcasm, love of verbal precocity. Stunning & incredibly topical, Seneca asks: is the educated elite a victim of tyranny or an opportunistic collaborator? The time is indeed ripe for political allegories." John Malkovich stars as the intellectual Italian stoic philosopher in Ancient Rome, with a cast including Tom Xander, Geraldine Chaplin, Louis Hofmann, and Lilith Stangenberg. Most people won't be into this film, but I saw it and appreciated how it's an angry outburst against the greed & nonsense within Ancient Rome (acting as a metaphor for everything now, too). // Continue Reading ›