The Queen of Egypt
  Has skin paler than skim milk.
  That makes so much sense.

Usually I don't like watching movies on television; they're edited to death and filled to the brim with commercial breaks.  This was not the case, however, with AMC's showing of Cleopatra.  Four hours of cinematic extravagance with nary a commercial break or an intermission in sight.  By the end, I was yelling "Die, die already!  I have to go to the bathroom!"

Anyway, this movie features Angela Vickers from A Place in the Sun, Cornelius from Planet of the Apes, Professor Henry Higgins from My Fair Lady, and Bela Lugosi from Ed Wood in an epic extravaganza of white people in Egypt.

Cleopatra was the original Goth Girl, and I am insanely jealous of her makeup.  I just bought a super duper black liquid eyeliner and I hope to emulate her eye fashion.  (I wonder if I'd get reprimanded at all at work for wearing extravagant makeup.  There's nothing about it in the manuals....hm...maybe I'll experiment a little.)

In certain scenes you can see Liz's tracheotomy scar.  Oops.

Imagine this: You're Roddy McDowall.  You've just killed Elizabeth Taylor's kid.  You're wearing the special ring she gave to the aforementioned son.  She sees you wearing it, you see her seeing you wear it.  She then says, "I swear on my son's life that I won't reach into the basket of dates that has a big evil poisonous asp in it."  Wouldn't you,
um, well, not believe her?

Richard Burton spends most of the movie drunk, or seemingly drunk, or in the throes of agony and self-pity.  He's not that hard on the eyes, though...I can see where Liz would want to marry him not once, but twice.

As anyone with knowledge of film history most likely knows, this film holds the record for the largest budget.  Adjusted for inflation, this movie cost twenty billion dollars to make, about half of that going towards Liz's makeup and clothes.

The movie was just too darned long, and it was essentially the same movie twice - Cleopatra falls in love with powerful guy, makes a lot of people upset, guy dies.  Lather, rinse, repeat.