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what are the funniest slams of "300"?

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Not a huge AO Scott fan, but does his NY Times pan have the lead?


“300” is about as violent as “Apocalypto” and twice as stupid. Adapted from a graphic novel by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, it offers up a bombastic spectacle of honor and betrayal, rendered in images that might have been airbrushed onto a customized van sometime in the late 1970s. The basic story is a good deal older. It’s all about the ancient Battle of Thermopylae, which unfolded at a narrow pass on the coast of Greece whose name translates as Hot Gates.

Hot Gates, indeed! Devotees of the pectoral, deltoid and other fine muscle groups will find much to savor as King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) leads 300 prime Spartan porterhouses into battle against Persian forces commanded by Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), a decadent self-proclaimed deity who wants, as all good movie villains do, to rule the world.

The Persians, pioneers in the art of facial piercing, have vastly greater numbers — including ninjas, dervishes, elephants, a charging rhino and an angry bald giant — but the Spartans clearly have superior health clubs and electrolysis facilities. ...

Too cowardly to challenge Leonidas man to man, Theron fixes his attention on Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey), a loyal wife and Spartan patriot who fights the good fight on the home front. Gorgo understands her husband’s noble purpose, the higher cause for which he is willing to sacrifice his life. “Come home with your shield or on it,” she tells him as he heads off into battle after a night of somber marital whoopee. Later she observes that “freedom is not free.”

Another movie — Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s “Team America,” whose wooden puppets were more compelling actors than most of the cast of “300” — calculated the cost at “300” is about as violent as “Apocalypto” and twice as stupid. Adapted from a graphic novel by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, it offers up a bombastic spectacle of honor and betrayal, rendered in images that might have been airbrushed onto a customized van sometime in the late 1970s. The basic story is a good deal older. It’s all about the ancient Battle of Thermopylae, which unfolded at a narrow pass on the coast of Greece whose name translates as Hot Gates.

Hot Gates, indeed! Devotees of the pectoral, deltoid and other fine muscle groups will find much to savor as King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) leads 300 prime Spartan porterhouses into battle against Persian forces commanded by Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), a decadent self-proclaimed deity who wants, as all good movie villains do, to rule the world.

The Persians, pioneers in the art of facial piercing, have vastly greater numbers — including ninjas, dervishes, elephants, a charging rhino and an angry bald giant — but the Spartans clearly have superior health clubs and electrolysis facilities. ...

Too cowardly to challenge Leonidas man to man, Theron fixes his attention on Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey), a loyal wife and Spartan patriot who fights the good fight on the home front. Gorgo understands her husband’s noble purpose, the higher cause for which he is willing to sacrifice his life. “Come home with your shield or on it,” she tells him as he heads off into battle after a night of somber marital whoopee. Later she observes that “freedom is not free.”

Another movie — Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s “Team America,” whose wooden puppets were more compelling actors than most of the cast of “300” — calculated the cost at $1.05. I would happily pay a nickel less, in quarters or arcade tokens, for a vigorous 10-minute session with the video game that “300” aspires to become. Its digitally tricked-up color scheme, while impressive at times, is hard to tolerate for nearly two hours (true masochists can seek out the Imax version), and the hectic battle scenes would be much more exciting in the first person. I want to chop up some Persians too!

...Allegory hunters will find some gristly morsels of topicality tossed in their direction, but you can find many of the same themes, conveyed with more nuance and irony, in a Pokémon cartoon..05. I would happily pay a nickel less, in quarters or arcade tokens, for a vigorous 10-minute session with the video game that “300” aspires to become. Its digitally tricked-up color scheme, while impressive at times, is hard to tolerate for nearly two hours (true masochists can seek out the Imax version), and the hectic battle scenes would be much more exciting in the first person. I want to chop up some Persians too!

...Allegory hunters will find some gristly morsels of topicality tossed in their direction, but you can find many of the same themes, conveyed with more nuance and irony, in a Pokémon cartoon.

― Dr Morbius, Friday, 9 March 2007 20:48 (eighteen years ago)

god this movie looks so awesome. i hope it plays here. you never know with this place.

― scott seward, Friday, 9 March 2007 20:52 (eighteen years ago)

ao scott always makes me want to see anything that he hates and miss anything that he loves. denby too. i prefer both of them as book reviewers.

― scott seward, Friday, 9 March 2007 20:55 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah the visual treatment of the Persian force here is so weird that the first dozen times I saw a commercial I thought it was about Spartans fighting monsters or orcs or something.

― nabisco, Friday, 9 March 2007 20:56 (eighteen years ago)

it's fucking frank "fascist" miller, man. he's gotta dehumanize the enemy somehow.

― latebloomer, Friday, 9 March 2007 20:58 (eighteen years ago)

Miller's always leaned on clumsy racist/homophobic stereotypes

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 9 March 2007 20:59 (eighteen years ago)

Hot Gates! Hoooooooot Gatessss!

― latebloomer, Friday, 9 March 2007 21:00 (eighteen years ago)

Nathan Lee in the Voice:
On first glance, the terms couldn't be clearer: macho white guys vs. effeminate Orientals. Yet aside from the fact that Spartans come across as pinched, pinheaded gym bunnies, it's their flesh the movie worships. Not since Beau Travail has a phalanx of meatheads received such insistent ogling. As for the threat to peace, freedom, and democracy, that filthy Persian orgy looks way more fun than sitting around watching Spartans mope while their angry children slap each other around. At once homophobic and homoerotic, 300 is finally, and hilariously, just hysterical.

― milo z, Friday, 9 March 2007 21:00 (eighteen years ago)

lol "freedom is not free"

― jessie monster, Friday, 9 March 2007 21:01 (eighteen years ago)

i can't wait 2 see this

― latebloomer, Friday, 9 March 2007 21:01 (eighteen years ago)

So this sounds like Starship Troopers except on accident.

― nabisco, Friday, 9 March 2007 21:02 (eighteen years ago)

freedom is not free..but it is only $9.50 plus the optional giganto-bucket of popcorn!

― latebloomer, Friday, 9 March 2007 21:03 (eighteen years ago)

(or in NYC, $11)

― Dr Morbius, Friday, 9 March 2007 21:05 (eighteen years ago)

I swear I edited that review better btw

― Dr Morbius, Friday, 9 March 2007 21:06 (eighteen years ago)

i will b there for the hot gates.

― strgn, Saturday, 10 March 2007 03:15 (eighteen years ago)

fanboys be creamin' their jeans

― bobby bedelia, Saturday, 10 March 2007 03:33 (eighteen years ago)

how to search for this on p1r4t3 b4y???

― lfam, Saturday, 10 March 2007 03:36 (eighteen years ago)

and i'm sure they'll overlook the fact that this shit is racist (lol tarantino)

― bobby bedelia, Saturday, 10 March 2007 03:36 (eighteen years ago)

rendered in images that might have been airbrushed onto a customized van sometime in the late 1970s

He sold me right there.

― walterkranz, Saturday, 10 March 2007 03:41 (eighteen years ago)

I think 300 made me gay. For men.

Jordan on Friday, March 9, 2007 11:41 PM (2 minutes ago)

― Jordan, Saturday, 10 March 2007 05:44 (eighteen years ago)

haha two big thumbs up from Roeper & Kim Morgan

― marmotwolof, Sunday, 11 March 2007 01:26 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.imgplace.com/directory/dir238/1173578592_1285.jpg

― strgn, Sunday, 11 March 2007 02:04 (eighteen years ago)

HOTT GATES
http://ithaca.different-day.com/archives/billgates01.jpg

― gershy, Sunday, 11 March 2007 02:09 (eighteen years ago)

so THAT'S what bile tastes like.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Sunday, 11 March 2007 02:19 (eighteen years ago)

No wayz, young Bill is totally the sexy. I'd take him right there on that desk.

― Abbott, Sunday, 11 March 2007 03:02 (eighteen years ago)

"you can find many of the same themes, conveyed with more nuance and irony, in a Pokémon cartoon."

If there is one thing I can think of that is all pure and meekness and no irony at all, it is Pokemon. Has A.O. even SEEN Pokemon 2k? I suspect he hasn't, making me deeply distrust him as anyone with something to "say" abt movies.

― Abbott, Sunday, 11 March 2007 03:07 (eighteen years ago)

i wish i hadn't been away for this one :(

― s1ocki, Sunday, 11 March 2007 03:21 (eighteen years ago)

should i:
a) write paper
b) go to 300

plz advise

― strgn, Sunday, 11 March 2007 03:24 (eighteen years ago)

maybe b will get juices flowing for a?

― strgn, Sunday, 11 March 2007 03:25 (eighteen years ago)

Dude that is the worst BASIC programming I've ever seen.

― Abbott, Sunday, 11 March 2007 03:27 (eighteen years ago)

300: PRINT "HOT GATES";
310: GOTO 300;

― strgn, Sunday, 11 March 2007 03:31 (eighteen years ago)

Si!

― Abbott, Sunday, 11 March 2007 03:32 (eighteen years ago)

what's up with "twice as dumb as apocalypto" though?? apocalypto totally wasn't dumb!!

― s1ocki, Sunday, 11 March 2007 03:34 (eighteen years ago)

Maybe they meant Meggido: The Omega Code II?

― Abbott, Sunday, 11 March 2007 03:35 (eighteen years ago)

Or Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever?

― Abbott, Sunday, 11 March 2007 03:36 (eighteen years ago)

i don't know but i've got a feeling some pecs and some leather man-briefs will make bullshitting about google book search for six pages that much easier.

― strgn, Sunday, 11 March 2007 03:40 (eighteen years ago)

zomg anton comics

― JW, Sunday, 11 March 2007 04:20 (eighteen years ago)

I AM ABOUT TO GO SEE THIS

― Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved, Sunday, 11 March 2007 04:22 (eighteen years ago)

Just saw this today, and yeah... the script from what wasn't taken from the graphic novel is pretty fucking horrible. I can understand why they felt the need to add in the Queen's sub-plot, but those scenes were boring and painful to sit through. But I suppose the movie would have been overwhelming without those pauses.

Honestly though, fucking fantastic from a visual standpoint. For all that was said about Sin City or Spiderman, this was the first time I've really felt like I was watching a comic book come to life. The tracking shot of the last guy to fall down the hole, the overhead shot of the humpback character watching the Spartans from above, I thought it worked really, really well from that standpoint. Take away the visual style though, it would have been a trainwreck.

― jon /via/ chi 2.0, Sunday, 11 March 2007 04:24 (eighteen years ago)

lmao @ mcnulty cameo, gay xerxes

wtf @ any sort of "creature" character (guess this is where the comic book comes in)

gtfo @ dialogue, slow-motion action scenes, digital blood splatter, the film in general

― am0n, Sunday, 11 March 2007 04:48 (eighteen years ago)

See, those "creature" characters weren't even in the book!! wtf?

The one that killed me was the knife-armed executioner. wtf indeed.

The Grindhouse trailer was prob my faves part.

― jon /via/ chi 2.0, Sunday, 11 March 2007 04:49 (eighteen years ago)

But I suppose the movie would have been overwhelming without those pauses.

would have been 1000000x better

― am0n, Sunday, 11 March 2007 04:53 (eighteen years ago)

But I suppose the movie would have been overwhelming without those pauses.

would have been 1000000x better

Yeah, I don't get what a movie like this is supposed to do OTHER than overwhelm you.

― Clay, Sunday, 11 March 2007 05:19 (eighteen years ago)

there are monsters in this?? isn't supposed to be based on a true story or something?

― s1ocki, Sunday, 11 March 2007 05:21 (eighteen years ago)

perhaps they should have made FILM instead of "comic book come to life [sic]"

― Dr Morbius, Sunday, 11 March 2007 06:23 (eighteen years ago)

What's wrong with a comic book brought to life? I'd rather see something like this than another four-hour, bloated Hollywood "epic" period piece starring Brad fucking Pitt or whoever.

― jon /via/ chi 2.0, Sunday, 11 March 2007 06:55 (eighteen years ago)

nah it was basically gladiator with better battle scenes. no problem w/ the monsters but having not read the comic it was pretty wtf

― am0n, Sunday, 11 March 2007 07:19 (eighteen years ago)

perhaps they should have made FILM instead of "comic book come to life [sic]"

Dr Morbius on Sunday, March 11, 2007 1:23 AM (56 minutes ago)

(-.-)zzZ

― am0n, Sunday, 11 March 2007 07:24 (eighteen years ago)

FILM

― fies, Sunday, 11 March 2007 07:55 (eighteen years ago)

I've seen comic scenes come to life pretty well before, but this was like seeing a video game half the time! With the wide-angle scenes of the 300, it was like seeing a group of soldiers. I really remembered playing Myth a number of years ago. Is it just me or did they add six packs, or even EIGHT or TEN packs to the chests of some soliders in post-prod?

― mh, Sunday, 11 March 2007 08:04 (eighteen years ago)

haven't seen the flick yet, but one of the pre-flick hype bits was video talking about the physical regimen they put the actors thru

― kingfish, Sunday, 11 March 2007 08:31 (eighteen years ago)

At gym on Friday -

Some Guy: Dude, go see 300.
Me: …
Some Guy: It makes you want to work out.

― darin, Sunday, 11 March 2007 08:40 (eighteen years ago)

Despite the fact that it was pretty ridiculous, I enjoyed it a lot. My friend showed me the graphic novel and I was impressed by how many shots are right off the page, but none the worse for it.

― Oakland Mike, Sunday, 11 March 2007 08:45 (eighteen years ago)

man, this was a silly movie

― latebloomer, Sunday, 11 March 2007 09:29 (eighteen years ago)

O
H

M
Y

G
O
D

― Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved, Sunday, 11 March 2007 11:26 (eighteen years ago)

xerxes was like jambi from pee wee's playhouse

― am0n, Sunday, 11 March 2007 15:19 (eighteen years ago)

Jimmy, please elucidate.

― forksclovetofu, Sunday, 11 March 2007 15:39 (eighteen years ago)

gonna see this on IMAX

― teeny, Sunday, 11 March 2007 16:57 (eighteen years ago)

for SPAAAAARRRRTTTAAAAA

― latebloomer, Sunday, 11 March 2007 17:28 (eighteen years ago)

seriously the spartans in this movie are such smug motherfuckers. never wrong about anything, always better than the corrupt, fey, deformed world outside.. the part where dude's asking the akkadians, "what is your dayjob", and they're like "i'm a potter", "i'm a sculptor", you could practically hear the head spartan guy (unitas or whatever his frackin name) say to himself "pssshhh...fags".

― latebloomer, Sunday, 11 March 2007 17:35 (eighteen years ago)

i really liked that big platform Xerxes rode around on, that was cool

― latebloomer, Sunday, 11 March 2007 17:36 (eighteen years ago)

i must see this

― s1ocki, Sunday, 11 March 2007 17:37 (eighteen years ago)

I wonder if I could sneak outta work to see this?

― Dr. Superman, Sunday, 11 March 2007 17:48 (eighteen years ago)

[Removed Illegal Link]

― latebloomer, Sunday, 11 March 2007 20:42 (eighteen years ago)

70 odd million bucks for this weekend alone

― kingfish, Sunday, 11 March 2007 20:43 (eighteen years ago)



[Removed Illegal Link]

― latebloomer, Sunday, 11 March 2007 20:43 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFOkLb3Yt34

^^^^^^^^^^^
movie's leaked on y0utub3 already

― latebloomer, Sunday, 11 March 2007 20:44 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Movies/03/11/boxoffice.ap/index.html

The total for "300" includes $3.4 million from 62 IMAX theaters, a record opening weekend for the large-screen format.

[...]

Heavy on violence, the movie had an R rating, normally a damper on a film's blockbuster potential. But "300" wound up with the third-best debut ever for an R-rated movie, behind "The Matrix Reloaded" at $91.8 million and "The Passion of the Christ" at $83.8 million.

― kingfish, Sunday, 11 March 2007 20:59 (eighteen years ago)

ok, enough people agreed. we're seeing this in 45 min

― kingfish, Sunday, 11 March 2007 21:08 (eighteen years ago)

Hahaha teeny, I saw it on IMAX, too.

― Je4nne Fuhfuh, Sunday, 11 March 2007 22:02 (eighteen years ago)

HI JE4NNE

It was IMAXtastic. It's totally like the passion + matrix, so that makes sense.

― teeny, Sunday, 11 March 2007 22:13 (eighteen years ago)

Jimmy, please elucidate.

forksclovetofu on Sunday, March 11, 2007 11:39 AM (6 hours ago)

OK so everything everyone's said about this movie is correct. It's wonderful and awful and laughably bad in some spots and wonderfully crowd pleasing (to a downtown brooklyn crowd @ 12:00 AM, anyway) in some spots. It's not great cinema. I'd like to add that it reminded me v v much of a Harryhausen/Hercules Unchained! kind of film -- totally b-grade, totally disposable and made with such unblinking earnestness that it collapses under itself. The homoeroticisim runs DEEP and made me laugh out loud on several non-consecutive occasions. When the hunchbacked traitor comes out post-xerxes orgy with his funny hat my roommate, who was sitting next to me said, "OOO! WIZARD HAT!"

I dunno. Everyone should go see this, but not worth IMAX or an evening showing... shoot for the 7.00 matinee.

― Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved, Sunday, 11 March 2007 22:15 (eighteen years ago)

yeah the hunchback "LOOKEEE I GOTTA NEW OUTFIT" bit made me laugh

― latebloomer, Sunday, 11 March 2007 22:18 (eighteen years ago)

i know but the fact that it is CLEARLY A WIZARD HAT is what makes it so wonderful.

[Removed Illegal Image]

^^^^^ It looks like this

― Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved, Sunday, 11 March 2007 22:21 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.houseofthemes.com/Sorcerer's%20Apprentice%20wallpaper.JPG

^^^^just go here.

― Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved, Sunday, 11 March 2007 22:21 (eighteen years ago)

It's not really fair to blame the movie for making the Spartans smug Nazis. That really was the Spartans' whole schtick.

― Noodle Vague, Sunday, 11 March 2007 22:21 (eighteen years ago)

they could've filmed a cockfight, add some slow-mo and had the same effect

― latebloomer, Sunday, 11 March 2007 22:41 (eighteen years ago)

and it'd be 1000x wittier

― latebloomer, Sunday, 11 March 2007 22:41 (eighteen years ago)

just see this instead of the movie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo24YRJn5EU

― latebloomer, Sunday, 11 March 2007 22:55 (eighteen years ago)

It isn't out over here in the UK for a few more weeks, but I have to admit, I'm shocked at how well it did at the box office. I think I perpetually underestimate mainstream America's appreciation/desire for things that I thought would only appeal to a narrow fanboy/geek niche.

This thread has confirmed pretty much everything I thought it was going to be. I can't fucking wait.

― Gukbe, Sunday, 11 March 2007 23:00 (eighteen years ago)

It's astonishing how many dildo fights there are on youtube.

I think the connection with harryhausen is what makes me want to see this. Everything else, not so much.

― forksclovetofu, Monday, 12 March 2007 00:21 (eighteen years ago)

This movie was great & fuckin' goofy: Blood! Abs! Buttocks! Titties! Trannies! Deformed harlots! Montage sex scenes doin' it Greek-style!A brazillian Giambi as God-King! Piercings! Beards! A soundtrack that bit more than a little from Gladiator! Scottish Spartans!

and the dude who plays the narrator was the nebbish Q-wannabe sidekick from _Van Helsing_.

― kingfish, Monday, 12 March 2007 01:20 (eighteen years ago)

I am probably (hopefully?) never going to see this. But based on the ads, now whenever anybody makes a simple declarative statement of the this is X" variety, I want to scream "THIS! IS! SPARTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" at them at the top of my lungs.

― Oilyrags, Monday, 12 March 2007 03:09 (eighteen years ago)

good god people, how could you not want to see this? grow the fuck up.

― walterkranz, Monday, 12 March 2007 03:13 (eighteen years ago)

grow the fuck up.

hahahaha WHAT

― elmo argonaut, Monday, 12 March 2007 03:14 (eighteen years ago)

"how could you not want to see this?"

Just not that into super-buff dudes with leather codpieces and extreme body piercings I guess. If that makes me immature, so be it.

― Oilyrags, Monday, 12 March 2007 03:17 (eighteen years ago)

hell, i'll probably watch this on dvd eventually, but it will be with the sound off and my cock out.

― elmo argonaut, Monday, 12 March 2007 03:18 (eighteen years ago)

ALRIGHT DUDE

TMI

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Monday, 12 March 2007 03:40 (eighteen years ago)

YOU'RE WELCOME

― elmo argonaut, Monday, 12 March 2007 03:45 (eighteen years ago)

Hey, that's exactly how I watched "Saw III"!

― Oilyrags, Monday, 12 March 2007 03:49 (eighteen years ago)

With the sound down and your cock off?

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 12 March 2007 03:50 (eighteen years ago)

I'd like to add that it reminded me v v much of a Harryhausen/Hercules Unchained! kind of film -- totally b-grade, totally disposable and made with such unblinking earnestness that it collapses under itself.

YAY! the rebirth of swords & sandals movies!

― GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ, Monday, 12 March 2007 03:57 (eighteen years ago)

whichever reviewer called it "the 300 blows" wins

― impudent harlot, Monday, 12 March 2007 04:00 (eighteen years ago)

With the sound down and your cock off?


Look, the cigar cutter was just sitting there. Is it MY fault that it's such an inspirational example of the art of motion picture?

― Oilyrags, Monday, 12 March 2007 04:28 (eighteen years ago)

There is going to be at least another few weeks of my friends at work yelling SPARTAAAA every time we see each other. Yeah!

lol @ wizard hat

― mh, Monday, 12 March 2007 04:34 (eighteen years ago)

TS:

"SPARTAAAAAAAAAA!"

http://www.moviehole.net/img/300poster.jpg

vs.

"HECTORRRRRRRRRRR!"

http://stb.msn.com/i/BD/E56230B762BDD9F266B1FDA898D88.jpg

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 12 March 2007 04:39 (eighteen years ago)

Haha in the student paper here there's a praising review of 300 that begins "The story of the Battle of Thermopylae is perhaps the coolest in all of ancient history."

― Curt1s Stephens, Monday, 12 March 2007 04:42 (eighteen years ago)

ha ha @ "perhaps," like he's totally open to suggestions of other cool battles

― max, Monday, 12 March 2007 09:39 (eighteen years ago)

lucifer led a daring assault on GOD innit

― tremendoid, Monday, 12 March 2007 09:56 (eighteen years ago)

300? I thought all the cardboard cut-outs in our cinema foyer were advertising a movie called "Zoo"

― Ste, Monday, 12 March 2007 10:42 (eighteen years ago)

i can see this on imax? where?!

― lfam, Monday, 12 March 2007 13:21 (eighteen years ago)

70 odd million bucks for this weekend alone

All who went this weekend should be proud that we're now gonna see a few dozen variations on this thing in the coming years. Or rather, YOU'RE going to see em.

The smashes of 2007: 300, Wild Hogs, Ghost Rider, Norbit.
Come Armageddon, come...

― Dr Morbius, Monday, 12 March 2007 13:21 (eighteen years ago)

i found myself fidgeting a bit after an hour or so but it picked up again at the end.

― lfam, Monday, 12 March 2007 13:22 (eighteen years ago)

It has got Lena Heady in it, though. I have no idea what she looks like now, but I'll always remember her being very cute indeed in Peter Cattaneo's "Loved Up" (which the BBC still have no plans to release on DVD, the bastards, even though the VHS version is now swapping hands for £50-£60).
Mind you, Lena Heady or no, I'm still not watching it.

― peteR, Monday, 12 March 2007 13:28 (eighteen years ago)

I watched the trailer for this, it looms like a black metal video, I can totally imagine it being soundtracked by dimmu borgir or immortal. I can hardly wait 'till it reaches the UK. I might borrow a discman and listen to "death cult armageddon" while I'm watching it.

― Pashmina, Monday, 12 March 2007 13:53 (eighteen years ago)

i'm sure it'll be loud enough to hear over the music. (do they do that in the UK? make the soundtrack about 120 dB?)

― GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ, Monday, 12 March 2007 13:54 (eighteen years ago)

Morbs: how is this "LCD NOOOOOOO" box-office "syndrome" different than most any other year? Also, did my calendar break, or do we have TEN MONTHS LEFT in 2007?

― David R., Monday, 12 March 2007 13:57 (eighteen years ago)

Dave, the top 10 of a typical year has at least 3-4 movies I would CONSIDER seeing. When we get one in '07, yell bingo. And did you get my email?

― Dr Morbius, Monday, 12 March 2007 14:07 (eighteen years ago)

All who went this weekend should be proud that we're now gonna see a few dozen variations on this thing in the coming years. Or rather, YOU'RE going to see em.


I am all about filmmakers attempting to make stylish graphic-novel adaptations/ancient history war movies. Not that I've seen this yet, but I'm not against the idea for the future, no matter how bad this might be.

I'm also a big fan of Troy, so I think I'm easily amused as long as there is history/classical-related violence.

― Gukbe, Monday, 12 March 2007 14:15 (eighteen years ago)

I watched the trailer for this, it looms like a black metal video, I can totally imagine it being soundtracked by dimmu borgir or immortal.

there are a couple scenes with nu-metal breakdowns

― am0n, Monday, 12 March 2007 14:21 (eighteen years ago)

Gukbe, Nathan Lee of the V Voice argues that it's NOT an adaptation, the prob is that it's a slavish, posed recreation:

It's a ponderous, plodding, visually dull picture, but the blame shouldn't be put on Snyder's skills per se, and has nothing to do with his ambition to blur the distinction between CGI and photography. Frankly, it's the slavish, frame-by-frame devotion to Miller's source material that's the problem. That explains both the risible screenplay and why the movie, for all its liberation from the real world, never takes full-winged flight into its own peculiar universe. Bogged down by respect for Miller's medium—he's almost as faithful to 300 as Gus Van Sant was to Psycho—Snyder seems to have forgotten that where comic-book panels indicate movement, movies can actually move.

― Dr Morbius, Monday, 12 March 2007 14:24 (eighteen years ago)

Bah. nu-metal sux0r.

― Pashmina, Monday, 12 March 2007 14:24 (eighteen years ago)

I came here to ask if this was the most homoerotic film since Troy but Ned beat me to it.

― Edward III, Monday, 12 March 2007 14:26 (eighteen years ago)

there are a couple scenes with nu-metal breakdowns

I lolled when that music started (it was one lol among many).

― Jordan, Monday, 12 March 2007 14:27 (eighteen years ago)

It's such a bad movie but I wanted to see it again really soon! This hasn't happened since Troll 2.

― Jordan, Monday, 12 March 2007 14:28 (eighteen years ago)

I can't wait to meet the first dude in the line of many dudes who will consider this his favorite movie EVER cause it fucking RULED so awesome oh man

― TOMBOT, Monday, 12 March 2007 14:29 (eighteen years ago)

Gukbe, Nathan Lee of the V Voice argues that it's NOT an adaptation, the prob is that it's a slavish, posed recreation


This is disappointing. I noticed that it runs for about 2 hours, and I'm struggling to think how it could remain interesting for such a long period of time. A real shame, as I liked Snyder's Dawn of the Dead remake.

Still up for seeing it, though, if only because it has McNulty and it would be funny to see him as a Spartan warrior or whatever he is.

― Gukbe, Monday, 12 March 2007 14:29 (eighteen years ago)

Or the guy who goes out and gets a blu-ray player or some such bullshit just for this disc

― TOMBOT, Monday, 12 March 2007 14:30 (eighteen years ago)

box office no no no

― and what, Monday, 12 March 2007 14:41 (eighteen years ago)

I love it when filmmakers go and make something like this and then act like they're surprised when people ask why they made a big steaming heap of racially tinged propaganda

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/05/movies/05spartans.html

― TOMBOT, Monday, 12 March 2007 14:46 (eighteen years ago)

re: big bucks for 300...

Pro: This means "Watchmen" will get made.
Con: This means Snyder will get "Watchmen" made.

― Simon H., Monday, 12 March 2007 14:55 (eighteen years ago)

This movie was really really really really bad.

― Alex in SF, Monday, 12 March 2007 15:17 (eighteen years ago)

OMG, I loved
300. This does not mean that I disagree with A O Scott's review. It really is a stupid movie. I, however, never got tired of the tricked-up color scheme and the video-game quality.

John, who feels very differently, identified this as the key line from the movie:

"This will not be over quickly, and you will not enjoy it."

I can't argue, objectively, with the films detractors. It's a cross between Gladiator, Clash of the Titans, and Apocalypto as realized by the creators of Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow--all of which I enjoy without irony.

300 has a sick kill count, great 3D Matrix-stylee spurts of blood, and the best dismemberment scenes since the decapitation of the reporter in The Omen, and from every conceivable angle!

It has the color palate of a lurid Pre-Raphaelite air-brushed onto acetate paper.

Also: lady boobies = nice, but not enough of.

Warning, if you like historical/anthropological accuracy or body hair, if you require original writing or if you refuse to believe that a hunchback is a muscle-group, this movie may not be for you.

― Fluffy Bear, Monday, 12 March 2007 15:33 (eighteen years ago)

fluffy bear: my friend and i determined that 300 has the potential to be one of the best drinking game movies of all time

― river wolf, Monday, 12 March 2007 15:43 (eighteen years ago)

Pro: This means "Watchmen" will get made.
Con: This means Snyder will get "Watchmen" made.

Simon H. on Monday, March 12, 2007 2:55 PM (1 hour ago)


http://www.empireonline.com/images/image_index/hw800/17518.jpg

― Gukbe, Monday, 12 March 2007 16:15 (eighteen years ago)

Andrew Sullivan agreeing on how gay the movie is.

― kingfish, Monday, 12 March 2007 16:19 (eighteen years ago)

holy shit was this movie an unbearable, unwatchable piece of crap.

― John Justen, Monday, 12 March 2007 16:20 (eighteen years ago)

is there a good movie set in ancient greece?

― Frogman Henry, Monday, 12 March 2007 16:31 (eighteen years ago)

Troy.

― Gukbe, Monday, 12 March 2007 16:31 (eighteen years ago)

Bill & Ted.

― chap, Monday, 12 March 2007 16:32 (eighteen years ago)

Also, i'm assuming people mean this movie, and Troy etc. are unintentionally homoerotic/gay? because a decent greek movie would surely feature those elements/themes proportionally.

― Frogman Henry, Monday, 12 March 2007 16:34 (eighteen years ago)

Alexander did it intentionally. It was still shit. Though a third cut is coming out on DVD soon.

In Troy, Achilles' lover was changed to his cousin. But we all knew what was really going on.

― Gukbe, Monday, 12 March 2007 16:36 (eighteen years ago)

[quote]is there a good movie set in ancient greece?[/qoute]

Time Bandits, maybe even Clash of the Titans (been a while since I saw this, though.)

― Oilyrags, Monday, 12 March 2007 16:39 (eighteen years ago)

Also, i'm assuming people mean this movie, and Troy etc. are unintentionally homoerotic/gay? because a decent greek movie would surely feature those elements/themes proportionally.

There's a line in the movie where one of the Spartans is dissing the other Greeks and their "boy toys" or something, but otherwise it's not homoerotic in an intentional, historical accuracy kind of way.

― Jordan, Monday, 12 March 2007 16:39 (eighteen years ago)

Ha - some dork on some comic blog was complaining that the Rorshach pic Gukbe posted (snuck into one of the 300 trailers - just like Mel did w/ Apocalypto!) means that Watchmen is gonna be CGI'd to death & feature no real actors & yadda yadda yadda.

BTW, all you people saying the movie is crap are OH SO WRONG. That is all.

― David R., Monday, 12 March 2007 16:41 (eighteen years ago)

yes Time Bandits has a great sequence
i don't know if Angelopoulos is relevant here.

― Frogman Henry, Monday, 12 March 2007 16:41 (eighteen years ago)

Though a third cut is coming out on DVD soon.

You have GOT to be kidding me.

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 12 March 2007 16:41 (eighteen years ago)

Arrgh I really hate when filmmakers produce some crapload of stuff that's just supposed to be "awesome" and then -- when people who actually think about stuff point out its boneheaded political / social / racial POV -- pretend that's terrific, as if it proves the work is deep, complex, and open to interpretation.

― nabisco, Monday, 12 March 2007 16:50 (eighteen years ago)

You have GOT to be kidding me.


Turns out, it was released a few weeks ago. The Director's Cut was shorter than the theatrical (Ditch the gay and pay attention to the ACTION), and now this one is longer than the theatrical, so I assume it has more of the gay to enhance credibility (?). I dunno.

http://ec2.images-amazon.com/images/P/B000MGB6NM.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_V46756181_.jpg

― Gukbe, Monday, 12 March 2007 16:55 (eighteen years ago)

Clash of the Titans was great, especially when you grow up watching it from repeated early-80s airings on HBO, and you're the eldest son of two english teachers who give you a copy of Bulfinch's Mythology as a christmas present when you're 9 years old.

(okay, this example might be a bit specific)

― kingfish, Monday, 12 March 2007 16:56 (eighteen years ago)

Clash of the Titans is a super-fun movie.

This looks unwatchable - especially for me considering how annoying I found Sin City.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 12 March 2007 16:58 (eighteen years ago)

I mean come the hell on, the dude sits down to make an adaptation of a completed comic book which is itself a retelling of a piece of classical history: dude has nothing but opportunity to think through subtext and meaning and how he wants stuff to play, and it seems pretty clear that he didn't have much in mind apart from "whoah awesome hardcore badass abs yeah." You do an adaptation like this, and if there's depth and subtext in there, you tend to know about it yourself, not be all like "it's interesting how many interpretations of this critics have come up with." (And truthfully he sounds more like he's thinking "wait, what? you're interpreting this? I just thought it was kind of cool and kick-ass.")

― nabisco, Monday, 12 March 2007 16:59 (eighteen years ago)

Ha - some dork on some comic blog was complaining that the Rorshach pic Gukbe posted (snuck into one of the 300 trailers - just like Mel did w/ Apocalypto!) means that Watchmen is gonna be CGI'd to death & feature no real actors & yadda yadda yadda.


If that comics blog was seebelow, that dork was me! And I stand by the statement that the still has that really obnxious fake-realistic crappy-pseudo-noir look that annoys me to no end.

― Oilyrags, Monday, 12 March 2007 17:06 (eighteen years ago)

I wonder what John Waters thinks of this movie - esp. given his position that something that's truly camp has to be unaware of its subtexts/potential interpretations.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 12 March 2007 17:11 (eighteen years ago)

Whahahaahshahgasdhjd I thought that Alexander DVD was a photoshop!

― THIS PIECE, RENDERED IN 1992-ERA CONSUMER-GRADE SOFTWARE, FEATURES A COMMENTARY , Monday, 12 March 2007 17:16 (eighteen years ago)

yeah it's funny since Snyder slipped in a shot of muslims praying in dawn of the dead-- at the time i took it as a daring tap into cultural fears, zeitgeist, etc., but now it just seems like "lol @ muslims for being zombies"

300 was just sort of boring. it really shot its load with the trailer, which is a kind of masterpiece, since it at least it allows you to imagine a good movie.

but it was just sort of....boring....and i cant really forgive that, despite all my patience for questionable politics in movies so long as they're GOOD.

― ryan, Monday, 12 March 2007 17:18 (eighteen years ago)

i thought alexander was sort of cool! i mean, i was doing laundry while watching it, but it caught my attention a few times....

― ryan, Monday, 12 March 2007 17:18 (eighteen years ago)

and they should have really gone whole hog with the nu-metal soundtrack, really. the whole movie was all sort of half-assed!!

but it did make me want to work out, if only so i can have stomach muscles that protrude as much as my pecks. that's sort of awesome.

― ryan, Monday, 12 March 2007 17:23 (eighteen years ago)

"In a key twist Mr. Snyder and his collaborators expanded the presence of Gorgo, the Spartan queen and Leonidas’s wife, including, among other things, a sequence in which she inspires a wavering populace and weak-willed council to resist the Eastern armies even at the cost of battle deaths. “Her story is that she is trying to rally the troops,” said Ms. Snyder, who dismissed as irrelevant a question about her and her husband’s personal political philosophies."

http://www.fantascienza.com/cinema/gorgo/media/Gorgo4.jpg ?

― latebloomer, Monday, 12 March 2007 17:25 (eighteen years ago)

http://i13.tinypic.com/3zse713.jpg

http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/315/n142170093252069469lm8.jpg

http://photos.pe.facebook.com/v66/36/77/22403568/n22403568_32830177_9318.jpg

http://photos-242.ak.facebook.com/ip002/v65/62/84/7707222/n7707222_33032242_812.jpg

― rogermexico., Monday, 12 March 2007 17:26 (eighteen years ago)

*I DIE*

― Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved, Monday, 12 March 2007 17:27 (eighteen years ago)

aahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

― river wolf, Monday, 12 March 2007 17:28 (eighteen years ago)

Burgess Meredith (?) told a story about an extreme-long shot in Clash of the Titans, shot without sound, where the "gods" (Olivier etc) marched along and sang, "We're making lots of moneeeeyyyy..."

― Dr Morbius, Monday, 12 March 2007 17:30 (eighteen years ago)

but it did make me want to work out, if only so i can have stomach muscles that protrude as much as my pecks.


made me want to go see an airbrush artist.

― The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall, Monday, 12 March 2007 17:34 (eighteen years ago)

The Sbarro picture is killing me.

― John Justen, Monday, 12 March 2007 17:38 (eighteen years ago)

I wonder what John Waters thinks of this movie - esp. given his position that something that's truly camp has to be unaware of its subtexts/potential interpretations.

Not to be nitpicker here, but isn't this in the original definition of camp lined out by Sontag?

― Tuomas, Monday, 12 March 2007 17:38 (eighteen years ago)

I dunno, probably.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 12 March 2007 17:39 (eighteen years ago)

something that's truly camp has to be unaware of its subtexts/potential interpretations.

this is otm!

― Taking Cuddlestein Mountain by Strategy, Monday, 12 March 2007 17:46 (eighteen years ago)

there is an awesome blocky ascii art of SPARTA out there but i can't find it at work. anyone?

― gff, Monday, 12 March 2007 18:12 (eighteen years ago)

Actually, I don't think Sontag was necessarily the first to come up with that definition, though in some of the earlier references to "camp" the word seems to mean a deliberately over-the-top performance (usually by gay men imitating women). I just wanted point out that this is a common definition of camp and not something Waters came up with himself.

― Tuomas, Monday, 12 March 2007 18:21 (eighteen years ago)

18. One must distinguish between naïve and deliberate Camp. Pure Camp is always naïve. Camp which knows itself to be Camp ("camping") is usually less satisfying.

― TOMBOT, Monday, 12 March 2007 18:27 (eighteen years ago)

this movie is supremely camp

― latebloomer, Monday, 12 March 2007 18:27 (eighteen years ago)

9. Camp taste draws on a mostly unacknowledged truth of taste: the most refined form of sexual attractiveness (as well as the most refined form of sexual pleasure) consists in going against the grain of one's sex. What is most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine.

― TOMBOT, Monday, 12 March 2007 18:27 (eighteen years ago)

[quote]is there a good movie set in ancient greece?[/qoute]

Time Bandits, maybe even Clash of the Titans (been a while since I saw this, though.)

Oilyrags on Monday, 12 March 2007 16:39 (1 hour ago)


jason & the argonauts is gr8

― am0n, Monday, 12 March 2007 18:28 (eighteen years ago)

http://festivals.carolinatheatre.org/retrofantasma/Jason%20Argonauts%20%231.jpg

― am0n, Monday, 12 March 2007 18:33 (eighteen years ago)

distinctions btwn Greek mythology and Greek history, pls?

― Dr Morbius, Monday, 12 March 2007 19:00 (eighteen years ago)

well herodotus is kind of both

― gff, Monday, 12 March 2007 19:01 (eighteen years ago)

well, both set in Ancient Greece, right?

The skeletons still look awesome.

― Gukbe, Monday, 12 March 2007 19:02 (eighteen years ago)

Dudes, speaking of Sontag, this film is like 100% in the scope of her "Fascinating Fascism" essay -- which is actually a review of a Leni Riefenstahl photobook ogling the abs of a Sudanese "warrior society" is basically the exact same way as this.

― nabisco, Monday, 12 March 2007 19:37 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah okay sorry for the giant block quoting here, but like half of that essay actually reads like a review of this film. These paragraphs are not continuous, obviously:


Although the Nuba are black, not Aryan, Riefenstahl's portrait of them evokes some of the larger themes of Nazi ideology: the contrast between the clean and the impure, the incorruptible and the defiled, the physical and the mental, the joyful and the critical.

What is distinctive about the fascist version of the old idea of the Noble Savage is its contempt for all that is reflective, critical, and pluralistic. ... Riefenstahl strongly recalls fascist rhetoric when she celebrates the ways the Nuba are exalted and unified by the physical ordeals of their wrestling matches, in which the "heaving and straining" Nuba men, "huge muscles bulging," throw one another to the ground—fighting not for material prizes but "for the renewal of the sacred vitality of the tribe."

Fascist aesthetics ... flow from (and justify) a preoccupation with situations of control, submissive behavior, extravagant effort, and the endurance of pain; they endorse two seemingly opposite states, egomania and servitude. The relations of domination and enslavement take the form of a characteristic pageantry: the massing of groups of people; the turning of people into things; the multiplication or replication of things; and the grouping of people/things around an all-powerful, hypnotic leader-figure or force. The fascist dramaturgy centers on the orgiastic transactions between mighty forces and their puppets, uniformly garbed and shown in ever swelling numbers. Its choreography alternates between ceaseless motion and a congealed, static, "virile" posing.

In contrast to the asexual chasteness of official communist art, Nazi art is both prurient and idealizing. A utopian aesthetics (physical perfection; identity as a biological given) implies an ideal eroticism: sexuality converted into the magnetism of leaders and the joy of followers. The fascist ideal is to transform sexual energy into a "spiritual" force, for the benefit of the community.

― nabisco, Monday, 12 March 2007 19:45 (eighteen years ago)

i wanted more from the masked grenadiers

― kingfish, Monday, 12 March 2007 20:00 (eighteen years ago)

Some people, obviously did not heed this poster.

http://www.empiremovies.com/posters.php?id=16742&300.htm

― Fluffy Bear, Monday, 12 March 2007 20:21 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.empiremovies.com/images/posters/300-e.jpg

― Fluffy Bear, Monday, 12 March 2007 20:22 (eighteen years ago)

haha

― river wolf, Monday, 12 March 2007 20:22 (eighteen years ago)

distinctions btwn Greek mythology and Greek history, pls?

fckoff plz

― am0n, Monday, 12 March 2007 22:04 (eighteen years ago)

Um about the grenadiers? Did they really have gunpowder all the way back then?

― Alex in SF, Monday, 12 March 2007 22:09 (eighteen years ago)

I'll say one thing though, they've cast the perfect looking Leonidas up there. Not some handsome playboy like in "The 300 Spartans".

― Frogman Henry, Monday, 12 March 2007 22:11 (eighteen years ago)

Whether he can act or not i haven't a fucking clue and i'll probably never find out.

― Frogman Henry, Monday, 12 March 2007 22:16 (eighteen years ago)

he was pretty good actually. the whole movie should've been as ott as his performance. the persian army looked really cool too.

― am0n, Monday, 12 March 2007 22:45 (eighteen years ago)

My friend tried to track the times that his accent thickened or thinned out

― kingfish, Monday, 12 March 2007 22:56 (eighteen years ago)

So this isn't a "slam" of 300, but more a reaction against Sullivan's review...

Via St. Andrew of the Sacret Heart-Ache, who tries to use anti-gay sentiment to undermine a movie's box office when he's he's already indicated he's predisposed to object to.

In the first link, he engages in the same sort of "playground taunting" as Ann Coulter in titling a post, "How Gay is 300?" In the second link, he quote's the amateur leftist webzine Slate's goofball reviewer Dana Stevens for the proposition that 300 stands with 24 on a contiunuum of "sadist-bigot trend... in the popular culture."

So obviously he's not claiming 300 is gay "in a good way."[...


Which I don't agree with -- though it's pretty crazy where the author implies calling John Edwards a "faggot" is somehow equivalent in scale to calling this brawny crypto-porn of a flick "gay.

― elmo argonaut, Monday, 12 March 2007 23:13 (eighteen years ago)

Possibly already mentioned in the "skipping 5,000,000 messages here" no-man's-land, but the "Team America" reference is most OTM in regards to the big sex scene in the movie, between Gerard Butler and his wife, which goes ON and ON and ON, with him flipping her over and all the crazy dissolves and wipes.

― Ben Boyerrr, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 16:26 (eighteen years ago)

fckoff plz

I do, regularly, shitbag.

― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 16:28 (eighteen years ago)

scans of the graphic novel on some swedish forum

― elmo argonaut, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 18:16 (eighteen years ago)

The movie is a telling of the battle by a soldier Leonidas sends back to Sparta to convince the council that fighting the Persians is the right thing to do (or a story he tells the troops before they actually run into the Persians), so any conflation between history and mythology, and any excessive characterizations and/or embellishments of the enemy, and other sorts of gross liberties taken w/ the facts, are totally in line w/ that sort of emotional petition.

― David R., Tuesday, 13 March 2007 18:31 (eighteen years ago)

i think this might be the funniest:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6446183.stm

Javad Shamqadri, a cultural advisor to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said it was "plundering Iran's historic past and insulting this civilization".

He branded the film "psychological warfare" against Tehran and its people.

But Iranian culture was strong enough to withstand the assault, Mr Shamqadri said.

"American cultural officials thought they could get mental satisfaction by plundering Iran's historic past and insulting this civilization," he said.

"Following the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Hollywood and cultural authorities in the US initiated studies to figure out how to attack Iranian culture.

"Certainly, the recent movie is a product of such studies."

― gff, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 18:35 (eighteen years ago)

frank miller only wishes he had that much influence, lol

― latebloomer, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 18:38 (eighteen years ago)

lolz @ "cultural authorities"

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 18:39 (eighteen years ago)

"American cultural officials" == O'Reilly, obv.

― elmo argonaut, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 18:43 (eighteen years ago)

it's kind of sad to see people who don't have a lot of press or media freedoms reacting to all the garbage america churns out just for kicks. "cultural officials" yeah if only man!

― gff, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 18:48 (eighteen years ago)

its just funny to me - a case of projection ... a la Iranian culturual officials initiating studies into the Zionizt Holocaust conspiracy etc. ... while meanwhile, back in Hollywood, Rob Reiner and Barbra Streisand have just reviewed the results of their latest study indicating that an anti-Iranian sword-n-sandals epic would present an excellent opportunity to embarass the Members Only Mahmoud...

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 18:51 (eighteen years ago)

In Iran, movie watches you!

― Sock Puppet, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 18:56 (eighteen years ago)

but enough about that, here's why the Left hates 300.

It is no surprise that the Iranian regime -- the embodiment of evil in today's world -- objects to a movie depicting a conflict between ancient Western civilization and ancient Persian civilization as a conflict between good and evil. And it is not surprising that the left objects to any movie pitting freedom against tyranny and coming out squarely on the side of freedom.

― kingfish, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 16:48 (eighteen years ago)

wow, count on townhall to deliver. on my commute i thought, ok, the emm ess emm thought this film was bad, now Iran says it's an attack, how long before some BRAVE pundit CONNECTS the DOTS.

(bad link btw kingfish)

― gff, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 17:14 (eighteen years ago)

Bah. Hit the front page, should be linked from there. Click on Ben Shapiro's section.

Feel the genius from the worldly 23 year old virginal mind shower down upon you

― kingfish, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 17:44 (eighteen years ago)

Feel the genius from the worldly 23 year old virginal mind shower down upon you

ewwwww

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 17:44 (eighteen years ago)

Hahaha it's no surprise that the American right would consider ancient western civ amid an age of empires some kind of representation of "freedom."

(Note: "freedom's" just another word for "white people running stuff.")

― nabisco, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 18:21 (eighteen years ago)

"freedom's" just another word for "white people running stuff."

http://www.jesuslist.com/blog/images/janis-joplin.jpeg

― elmo argonaut, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 18:24 (eighteen years ago)

well honestly isn't it about "freedom" meaning "running your own shit and not letting your stronger neighbors do it" in which case you'd think Iran and other middle eastern countries tired of american hegemony would love the movie!

w = xerxes!

― ryan, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 18:26 (eighteen years ago)

Hahaha it's no surprise that the American right would consider ancient western civ amid an age of empires some kind of representation of "freedom."


And the Spartan's were slave-owners, so that's another plus :)

― Noodle Vague, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 18:27 (eighteen years ago)

in fact the movie seems to implicitly support the notion of a small band of insurgents defending their homeland despite the wishes of their government (which is clearly in the pay of the hegemonic power anyway)!

― ryan, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 18:28 (eighteen years ago)

lol hungover punctuation

― Noodle Vague, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 18:28 (eighteen years ago)

running your own shit and not letting your stronger neighbors do it

Those Spartans must have been totally upset a century later when some Macedonian took over Persia, then.

― nabisco, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 18:39 (eighteen years ago)

if you mean the fake ones in the movie then yes, probably!

― ryan, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 18:55 (eighteen years ago)

when some Macedonian took over Persia

haha the Iranian culture ministry complained about that too!

― gff, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 19:00 (eighteen years ago)

They had an Iranian culture ministry in 333 BC?

― Noodle Vague, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 19:01 (eighteen years ago)

some Macedonian = colin farrell, here

― gff, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 19:03 (eighteen years ago)

Greeks fighting Persian invasion = DEFENDING FREEDOM
Greeks invading Persia = HEROIC CONQUERORS
i.e., "white people running shit"

Iranian Cultural Ministry can't be wrong all the time.

― nabisco, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 19:14 (eighteen years ago)

Not that it's like surprising or unnatural that the white western people of today tend to root for the white western people of yesterday in fights like this -- just better not to pretend it's about standing up for freedom or something. I seriously wonder about the experience, enough decades back, of non-western people who wound up in western education, and would get Euro versions like "and these were the Dark Ages, which consisted of total barbarism, which your people didn't notice because they were too busy inventing higher math."

― nabisco, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 19:22 (eighteen years ago)

non-western people who wound up in western education, and would get Euro versions like "and these were the Dark Ages, which consisted of total barbarism which your people didn't notice because they were too busy inventing higher math. we have no idea what other people were up to

fixed.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 19:24 (eighteen years ago)

goddammit

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 19:24 (eighteen years ago)

And then the Spartans later allying with the Persians against the Athenians....

― kingfish, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 19:53 (eighteen years ago)

arab mathematicians need to get off this fuckin planet

― and what, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 19:54 (eighteen years ago)

so THAT's who i should blame for that D in college.....

― ryan, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 20:32 (eighteen years ago)

ethan I was trying to point out that most western history classes (at least up until I went through high school) tended to omit the accomplishments of other cultures, not the least of which were Muslim/Arab preservation and advancement of math, astronomy, architecture, etc. during the Dark Ages

but html got the best of me

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 20:36 (eighteen years ago)

botched html joke

― and what, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 20:36 (eighteen years ago)

I guess nununuilx is good for some things.

― Nicole, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 20:37 (eighteen years ago)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b3/GovJohnSununu1.jpg/180px-GovJohnSununu1.jpg

― and what, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 20:38 (eighteen years ago)

non-western people who wound up in western education, and would get Euro versions like "and these were the Dark Ages, which consisted of total barbarism, which your people didn't notice because they were too busy inventing higher math."

I know, right? my parents never talk about this, annoyingly. all my dad tells me about his britishized education=having memorized wordsworth's "i wandered lonely as a cloud." maybe it's an imperialist allegory at heart?

― horseshoe, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 20:41 (eighteen years ago)

well isnt the Dark Ages itself a sort of christian-centric convention? i dunno this whole discussion is bonkers...

― ryan, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 20:45 (eighteen years ago)

greek people are white? I thought they were like italians?

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 20:47 (eighteen years ago)

passantinopolous to thread

― and what, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 20:48 (eighteen years ago)

http://elitemrp.net/iat/examples/bananas.jpg

― river wolf, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 20:48 (eighteen years ago)

The National Italian American Foundation, a bipartisan organization that has supported Nancy Pelosi[14], has stated the use of the "Scalito" nickname "marginalizes [Alito's] outstanding record."[15]

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 20:49 (eighteen years ago)

i'll tell you one thing: greek people are hairy.

― ryan, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 20:50 (eighteen years ago)

Umm yeah, that's the only real point here, which isn't all that complicated or controversial: our versions of history (and who we're inclined to think of as the protagonists in stories about history) are totally Eurocentric. That's not weird in the least, and it's not exactly malicious in intent. But people should recognize it enough not to make bullshit kneejerk claims that the Euro side of any conflict necessarily represents "freedom" or "good" or anything. (And even beyond that people should at least blush a little when they root for "western civilization" just on the basis of it being the home team.)

― nabisco, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 20:51 (eighteen years ago)

Sorry, that was an xpost to "aren't the Dark Ages a Christian convention" -- yes, people should admit when things are conventions and not pretend they're moral distinctions.

― nabisco, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 20:53 (eighteen years ago)

Nabisco, do you TA freshman-year comparative literature survey courses?

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 21:08 (eighteen years ago)

No the point here is indeed that Greek people are hairy.

― The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 21:12 (eighteen years ago)

Also greek women give up anal easily so they can compete with the men.

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 21:13 (eighteen years ago)

Thus western culture > Persia

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 21:13 (eighteen years ago)

No sir. I taught an undergrad creative-writing workshop once, but it was really early in the morning, so hardly anyone signed up.

― nabisco, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 21:14 (eighteen years ago)

^ smart thinking

I only TA'd 9 am sessions.

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 21:14 (eighteen years ago)

Persians. Greeks. Up the ass is up the ass.

Or is that moral equivalence?

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 21:17 (eighteen years ago)

Actually no -- a tiny writing workshop is like 800 times more work for the teacher! I'd rather have had a big one, but I had a weird work schedule that year.

― nabisco, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 21:18 (eighteen years ago)

greeks didnt do it up the ass!! it went between their legs.

― ryan, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 21:18 (eighteen years ago)

philosophical pedagogy requires anal insemination, duh, it's how we transmit our knowledge of the Forms

― elmo argonaut, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 21:20 (eighteen years ago)

haha elmo you should read plato's phaedrus if you havent already!

― ryan, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 21:23 (eighteen years ago)

haha do you "get" jokes?

― elmo argonaut, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 21:24 (eighteen years ago)

greeks didnt do it up the ass!! it went between their legs.

ryan on Wednesday, March 14, 2007 5:18 PM (5 minutes ago)


I thought it was just because they didn't know how to draw anal secks on vases as well as I some people can on the wall at McDonalds.

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 21:25 (eighteen years ago)

\*/

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 21:26 (eighteen years ago)

i only "get" jokes that are funny!

― ryan, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 21:26 (eighteen years ago)

;*;

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 21:30 (eighteen years ago)

i have no idea what that is but it's gross.

― ryan, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 21:31 (eighteen years ago)

weeping anus emoticon lol

― elmo argonaut, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 21:37 (eighteen years ago)

so you're all calling for more asses to be rendered in the movie's desaturated color palette up on the screen?

― kingfish, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 21:48 (eighteen years ago)

lol bleached ass

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 21:53 (eighteen years ago)

Kurt Vonnegut often signs his autograph with an eight-pointed asterisk next to his name, which he says represents an 'asshole'[citation needed] as it does in the preface for Breakfast of Champions.

― kingfish, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 21:58 (eighteen years ago)

P.S. it doesn't end, cf Bernard Lewis at the AEI gala:

What did surprise me was Lewis' denunciation of Pope John Paul II's 2000 apology for the Crusades as political correctness run amok. This drew applause. Lewis' view is that the Muslims started it by invading Europe in the eighth century. The Crusades were merely a failed imitation of Muslim jihad in an endless see-saw of conquest and re-conquest.


I.e. done to Europe = bad, done by Europe = good

― nabisco, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 22:03 (eighteen years ago)

ya know, I've read a few of Lewis' books and found them totally engaging and informative - I'm surprised they don't convey the irritating politics he seems to personally espouse.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 22:05 (eighteen years ago)

ahhhh great thread

hilarious, awful movie

― deej, Thursday, 15 March 2007 05:59 (eighteen years ago)

What happens when history isn't taught anymore:

300 is more than a tale of good versus evil

...Where last year's despicable, pro-terrorist comic-book-based flick, V for Vendetta, made pathetic claims for cultural relevance, 300 is the real deal. The filmmakers didn't have to impose parallels with today’s geo-political reality; history had already done it for them.

[...]

Sparta's Ephors, the cloistered academics of their time, claim that the gods don’t want war and won’t support Leonidas' stand...

[...]

The problem isn't that it 300 offers too few theories of Spartan greatness, it is that, behind all the stylized blood spatter, it offers so many. Not the least of which is that that a people that honors its artists and scholars above its warriors eventually becomes a weak, effeminate people. The grim efficiency of the Spartan career soldiers stands in stark contrast to the brave but incompetent Athenians who hack away at the enemy like, well, like a bunch of actors and craftsmen.

Going hand in hand with this is the demonstration that high military standards must be kindly but firmly maintained, regardless of the hurt feelings such standards might engender. When a well-meaning but physically unfit applicant is turned away from battle, it is clear that Leonidas does not mean to be cruel but to preserve strength of his troop.

Then there are the ideals of Sparta itself, disciplined, controlled, and committed to excellence on every front. Clearly these ideals were taken too far (though does modern America really have room to feel superior to the Spartan custom of discarding imperfect infants?), but their demand for achievement produced achievement. And their unwillingness to become slaves to an ideology from the East helped preserve the tenets of Western Civilization for generations.

Yup, those were Athenians alright, and the priests in priestly robes living in a priestly cloister and calling upon the gods were obviously secular humanist academics. That's the only possible thing they could be.

― kingfish, Thursday, 15 March 2007 21:58 (eighteen years ago)

Seriously, fascist aesthetics are SO alive and well in the post-9/11 US.

― nabisco, Thursday, 15 March 2007 22:01 (eighteen years ago)

But don't you see, Nabisco? Their demand for achievement PRODUCED achievement! A brutal, slave-holding militaristic society got results! They made the trains run on OH WAI-*

― kingfish, Thursday, 15 March 2007 22:06 (eighteen years ago)

ugh - I talked a friend out of seeing this movie last weekend

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 15 March 2007 22:13 (eighteen years ago)

Dialogue that USA Today’s Claudia Puig calls laughably bombastic, like the Spartan reply, "Come and take them," to Xerxes demand that they throw down their weapons, are copied straight from the pages of history, as are numerous other bits of the movie’s most braggadocios exclamations. It may sound like something conjured up in a Hollywood brainstorming session, but a Spartan soldier did indeed jeer that if the Persian arrows blot out the sun, "we will fight in the shade."

― botero, Thursday, 15 March 2007 22:22 (eighteen years ago)

That's the fun bit, going on about how historical relevant(& accurate) it is for today, then completely blowing the actual history b/c either you can't be bothered to pay attention, or refuse to see anything except thru the prism of ideology.

I mean, Christ, the whole cult of masculinity comes in with her confusing the Arcadians and the Athenians, and denigrating the latter for being effete academic appeasing terrorsymp homos/actors, all the while having no fucking clue whatsoever and not being too particularly bothered by it with what the Athenians(and, say, their navy) actually did when Xerxes came to town.

― kingfish, Thursday, 15 March 2007 22:39 (eighteen years ago)

lolz @ "authentic dialogue"

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 15 March 2007 22:49 (eighteen years ago)

confusing the Arcadians and the Athenians,

hey what does it matter they're all a bunch of homos, amirite?

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 15 March 2007 22:50 (eighteen years ago)

Went and saw this tonight with Beth Parker. Totally made me want to join the army. They should have recruiters outside every movie house! Dug the mayhem. Didn't dig the queen at home scenes though. Those scenes needed more mayhem.

― scott seward, Saturday, 17 March 2007 02:01 (eighteen years ago)

scott otm.


SPARTAAAAAA

― mh, Saturday, 17 March 2007 02:05 (eighteen years ago)

Going hand in hand with this is the demonstration that high military standards must be kindly but firmly maintained, regardless of the hurt feelings such standards might engender. When a well-meaning but physically unfit applicant is turned away from battle, it is clear that Leonidas does not mean to be cruel but to preserve strength of his troop.

Just say "homosexuals" -- no need to beat around the bush.

― Hurting 2, Saturday, 17 March 2007 03:40 (eighteen years ago)

There is something really weird and funny about reactions to this: "OMG this movie is so authoritarian / fascist" versus "yes, this movie is an excellent depiction of why authoritarianism and fascism are great!"

― nabisco, Saturday, 17 March 2007 04:02 (eighteen years ago)

well at least both sides can agree it was authoritarian and fascist!

― latebloomer, Saturday, 17 March 2007 04:03 (eighteen years ago)

I would have hate sex with all this fascist-adoring blonde girls.

― Hurting 2, Saturday, 17 March 2007 04:12 (eighteen years ago)

i still dont think it was authoritarian! they are insurgent rebels!

― ryan, Saturday, 17 March 2007 04:17 (eighteen years ago)

This movie finally made more money than "Norbit".

― kingfish, Monday, 19 March 2007 02:03 (eighteen years ago)

i had a huge argument with someone yesterday who thought the idea that 300 has any political implications is 'contrived' and sounds like a 'conspiracy theory.' ugh

― modestmickey, Monday, 19 March 2007 02:20 (eighteen years ago)

The oracle was pretty hot.

Otherwise, it was a good recruiting video for the Marines.

― Jeff, Monday, 19 March 2007 02:22 (eighteen years ago)

he even said the idea that the movie is 'propaganda for military recruitment' is 'preposterous' because the military has more than enough members...

― modestmickey, Monday, 19 March 2007 02:23 (eighteen years ago)

Also, there were so many kids in the theater today. Like under 10 years old.

― Jeff, Monday, 19 March 2007 02:24 (eighteen years ago)

So much for the theory that R movies can't rake in dough, I guess.

― Alex in SF, Monday, 19 March 2007 02:35 (eighteen years ago)

In other news, Wild Hogs made almost as much money as this movie, but not as much as "Ghost Rider".

― kingfish, Monday, 19 March 2007 02:52 (eighteen years ago)

R for violence = $$
R for sex = flop?

― strgn, Monday, 19 March 2007 04:34 (eighteen years ago)

R for RAD.

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 19 March 2007 04:45 (eighteen years ago)

R is for this movie sucked the shit out my ass in slow motion.

― Eric H., Monday, 19 March 2007 05:09 (eighteen years ago)

yeah seriously can there please be a law put into effect banning slow-motion from all future films ever?

― latebloomer, Monday, 19 March 2007 05:12 (eighteen years ago)

I want to see it again with a stopwatch. I bet two-thirds of this movie is racked down, easily.

― Eric H., Monday, 19 March 2007 05:15 (eighteen years ago)

I just saw this. I read it as pure propaganda aimed at Iraqi insurgents! I wish George Bush would get carried around on a massive throne like that. And had nose rings and elephants.

The oracle was hot, but so was the queen.

― Alba, Monday, 19 March 2007 14:03 (eighteen years ago)

My favourite line was "Prepare your breakfast, and eat it heartily, for tonight we die in hell!" (for the breakfast bit).

What was it the hunchback traitor asked for, on top of women and wealth? I missed it.

― Alba, Monday, 19 March 2007 14:07 (eighteen years ago)

Omelettes, I'd guess.

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 19 March 2007 14:07 (eighteen years ago)

A uniform.

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Monday, 19 March 2007 14:10 (eighteen years ago)

What was it the hunchback traitor asked for, on top of women and wealth? I missed it.

If I were on top of women and wealth, I don't think I'd ask for much at all, har har har!

― Hurting 2, Monday, 19 March 2007 14:11 (eighteen years ago)

i thought he said DINE in hell.

― scott seward, Monday, 19 March 2007 14:11 (eighteen years ago)

Has anybody seen right-wing editorials incorporating themes from the movie?

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Monday, 19 March 2007 14:12 (eighteen years ago)

i loved the fancy hat they gave the hunchback!

― scott seward, Monday, 19 March 2007 14:12 (eighteen years ago)

i thought he said DINE in hell.

I haven't seen the movie, but having seen the commercials I thought that is what he said.

― Nicole, Monday, 19 March 2007 14:15 (eighteen years ago)

This movie finally made more money than "Norbit".

kingfish on Sunday, March 18, 2007 9:03 PM (

lolz

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Monday, 19 March 2007 14:26 (eighteen years ago)

Oh, "dine in hell" is much better. Up the Spartans!

― Alba, Monday, 19 March 2007 16:33 (eighteen years ago)

Carry On Up the Sparta

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 19 March 2007 16:37 (eighteen years ago)

It's dine, otherwise the breakfast bit makes no sense!
The site of hunchback dude in his little elf hat pointing the way gave me teh gigglez

― The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall, Monday, 19 March 2007 16:40 (eighteen years ago)

Newsweek piece on this

― kingfish, Monday, 19 March 2007 19:23 (eighteen years ago)

have fun with more dumbass bloggery:

the media is like the athenians

yay for propaganda



― kingfish, Monday, 19 March 2007 19:32 (eighteen years ago)

Dear Newsweek: finding something aesthetically fascistic is not the same as "taking it seriously."

― nabisco, Monday, 19 March 2007 19:41 (eighteen years ago)

As you know, I wasn't going to see the movie for fear that it would be a 2 hour advertisement for joining the gays. You know, something about a bunch of guys prancing around in banana hammocks that creeps me out. To quote Sarah Silverman: it doesn't really matter if you're homosexual or bisexual--both are equally gross

― latebloomer, Monday, 19 March 2007 20:05 (eighteen years ago)

the Iranian dudes protesting about the movie (obv. the comic was fiiine) should chillax given snyder's next movie will entail NYC getting blown up.

― blueski, Monday, 19 March 2007 20:31 (eighteen years ago)

I sure hope he keeps the hoaxed giant space squid from Dimension X

― latebloomer, Monday, 19 March 2007 20:35 (eighteen years ago)

http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/1004/dineinhellkj5.jpg

― deej, Monday, 19 March 2007 20:55 (eighteen years ago)

That is the best thing ever.

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Monday, 19 March 2007 20:56 (eighteen years ago)

Aphex Twin's latest single.

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 19 March 2007 20:57 (eighteen years ago)

awesome

― latebloomer, Monday, 19 March 2007 21:00 (eighteen years ago)

more fun

"Awesome: Amateur Leftist Webzine Slate's Politically-Corrupted And Pussified Reviewer Hates "300" With A Passion Usually Reserved For Bush"

Neal Stephenson in the NYTimes this last Sunday

― kingfish, Monday, 19 March 2007 23:07 (eighteen years ago)

Stephenson, the master of saying nothing with a lot of words.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 19 March 2007 23:17 (eighteen years ago)

what is his point with that piece, that nerds are "cool" and don't need other people telling them what to like?

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 19 March 2007 23:18 (eighteen years ago)

Stephenson is making the point that 300 only makes sense from a science fiction/fantasy perspective; to approach it as a historical film is to get it all wrong, because the filmmakers (and Frank Miller) made it without any such context, Thermopylae and all its trappings are simply the inspiration for a story that is for all intents and purposes set ALTA,IAGF,FA. Critics trying to watch the movie as if it is something akin to Gettysburg or Alexander or imagining that Xerxes and Leonidas are supposed to be people instead of simple archetypes in a contextless universe born fully-formed out of Frank Miller's ugly head are of course having a terrible time sitting through this thing.

He's right, of course, and explains the reason this movie made so much goddamn money despite being actually crap.

Braveheart is similarly idealized nonsense dressed up in sort-of-period trappings, stealing names from people who did at one time exist, and nobody gave that nearly as much shit, IIRC. Less interesting times, for sure.

― TOMBOT, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 14:19 (eighteen years ago)

"Braveheart is similarly idealized nonsense dressed up in sort-of-period trappings, stealing names from people who did at one time exist, and nobody gave that nearly as much shit, IIRC"

Well apart from Britishers, but they don't count, obv.

― Frogman Henry, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 14:24 (eighteen years ago)

? its still utterly fascist, real world parallels or not.

― deej, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 14:26 (eighteen years ago)

The thing is that there are people who think you can make a movie or whatever in a context-free zone, which is what Miller and Snyder have done, and there are people who think that you can't or shouldn't do this, like all the critics lambasting it and walking out on the screenings and etc etc. otaku/trekkies already try to live in a context-free zone, so they don't know or even care what all the fuss is about, this movie rules.

― TOMBOT, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 14:28 (eighteen years ago)

Tombot OTM, though thinking on 'geek tradition,' I can also see how '300' fits easily into the Charles-Atlas / spandex-bodysuit continuity of eroticized, idealized masculinity in comix.

FREDRIC WERTHAM WAS RIGHT etc etc

― elmo argonaut, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 14:28 (eighteen years ago)

I don't know whether I agree with the geeks or the professionals on this one, mind you.
I do sometimes wish that show business could just be hermetically sealed away from political discourse and vice versa, but you can't turn back the clock etc. blah blah blah

― TOMBOT, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 14:33 (eighteen years ago)

honestly, i feel like attributing "fascism" (or whatever unacceptable or "out of bounds" political discourse you want to name) to 300 gives it a lot more relevance and value that it deserves.

on the other hand, it's like a non-black comedy version of the first half of fight club, i guess. the "authentic" non-reflective resistence to modernity and capitalism perhaps? (i'll get stoned for that one!)

― ryan, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 14:40 (eighteen years ago)

Is that jawa report guy actually for real?

― Pashmina, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 14:41 (eighteen years ago)

yeah and perhaps in some ways the film's (and synder's, and miller's) determination to stay hermetically sealed off from the "real" world only contributes to such a resistence.....

(I am NOT throwing my support behind this, btw. just pointing out a way to approach it)

― ryan, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 14:43 (eighteen years ago)

I thought the movie was fun. There's something to be said for the fascist aesthetic, don't you think?

I am getting a huge kick out of the political reaction to this flick. The hand-wringing, the hyperbole:

If 300, the new battle epic based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, had been made in Germany in the mid-1930s, it would be studied today alongside The Eternal Jew as a textbook example of how race-baiting fantasy and nationalist myth can serve as an incitement to total war.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

The nutty, reactionary stance of the right-wingers:

Why-beside the blood-spattering violence and often one-dimensional characterizations-will some critics not like this, despite the above caveats?

"Ultimately the film takes a moral stance, Herodotean in nature: there is a difference, an unapologetic difference between free citizens who fight for eleutheria and imperial subjects who give obeisance. We are not left with the usual postmodern quandary ‘who are the good guys’ in a battle in which the lust for violence plagues both sides. In the end, the defending Spartans are better, not perfect, just better than the invading Persians, and that proves good enough in the end. And to suggest that unambiguously these days has perhaps become a revolutionary thing in itself.

Jesus Christ. The conservative revolution will be televised: SPAAAARTAAAAAAAA!

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 15:15 (eighteen years ago)

I don't understand how anything can be created, or critically considered, "context-free".

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 15:52 (eighteen years ago)

I also coulda sworn I was in Tombot's killfile

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 15:52 (eighteen years ago)

It's all a front; Tombot actually likes everyone.

― Frogman Henry, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 15:53 (eighteen years ago)

I don't understand how anything can be created, or critically considered, "context-free".

http://images.amazon.com/images/G/01/dvd/dvd-dune-sting.jpg

― TOMBOT, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 15:58 (eighteen years ago)

i thought that was one of ally's wedding pictures for a second

― gff, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 15:59 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.brainyhistory.com/years/1966.html

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 16:01 (eighteen years ago)

January 9, 1966: Polish government denies exit visa to Cardinal Wyszynski.
February 10, 1966: Harmel government in Belgium resigns.

Think about it.

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 16:04 (eighteen years ago)

"I don't understand how anything can be created, or critically considered, "context-free"."

Yeah and Tolkein to thread, though i don't actually agree with the proposition myself.

― Frogman Henry, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 16:04 (eighteen years ago)

Is that jawa report guy actually for real?

hell yeah. He's quite the character.

The ghost of Ronald Reagan, where art thou? Uncle Ronnie, why hast thou forsaken us?

OR!

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/187006.php

― kingfish, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 16:11 (eighteen years ago)

Tolkien and Herbert don't have any context?!? I'm stunned anyone could reasonably suggest this. Sure both made deliberate efforts to obscure or deny any real-world parallels in their work but that doesn't mean those parallels aren't there. Tolkien's experience in WWI and his love for archaic English literature (Beowulf, etc.) certainly provide some relevant context for Lord of the Rings... I'm not saying that direct one-to-one analogies or parallels can be made with either's work, but they were not created in a vacuum and neither was 300. They have precedents, they have archetypes (archetypes by definition are a context!), they bear relations to the other works and events of their times.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 16:15 (eighteen years ago)

A creator saying their work has no political or social context is just in denial - what they're really saying is that they're uncomfortable consciously addressing those subjects.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 16:17 (eighteen years ago)

so it's impossible, completely impossible, for you to fathom somebody going and watching a movie inspired by any of those works without giving a fuck about real-world events?

― TOMBOT, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 16:18 (eighteen years ago)

You're not saying anything besides that you agree with the critics instead of the dork horde as I described above!
And you want to bitch about Stephenson using lots of words to say a little!

― TOMBOT, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 16:20 (eighteen years ago)

fascist themes exist within that movie whether people are willing to recognize them or not!

― deej, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 16:20 (eighteen years ago)

Shakey i'm agreeing with you,. I just felt like putting tolkein's ugly mug in here as he is relevant to the discussion.

― Frogman Henry, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 16:21 (eighteen years ago)

so it's impossible, completely impossible, for you to fathom somebody going and watching a movie inspired by any of those works without giving a fuck about real-world events?

I'm sure people watch things without thinking about them very much all the time. That's quite different from saying that a work does not actually HAVE a context.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 16:25 (eighteen years ago)

Has any of these reviews heavily focusing on the context(either fer or agin' it) actually mentioned that this book came out in mid-1998, and the battle began to work its way into Miller's books as early as one of the Dwight Sin City series in the early '90s? Y'know, when the contemporary potilics were of a slightly different flavor than it is now?

― kingfish, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 16:42 (eighteen years ago)

what they're really saying is that they're uncomfortable consciously addressing those subjects.

I don't disagree with this at all btw
and think snyder in particular is kind of making himself look like a bone-dyed yokel for avoiding the questions

deej saying that the movie is any kind of propaganda, fascist or otherwise, and is therefore intrinsically bad is still the same as saying "rap music is rape music" and suing video game programmers when your kid shoots himself

movies are perfectly good at being terrible on their own merits, just like all the rest of showbiz, implicit political bias doesn't factor in (for me)

― TOMBOT, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 16:42 (eighteen years ago)

kingfish: no

― TOMBOT, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 16:43 (eighteen years ago)

I agree that its not propaganda per se - it wasn't created with deliberate political intent (Snyder's willful obtuseness would seem to make that clear)... but Miller's always been basically a racist and a fascist, and its something that's bothered me about his work since the mid-80s. Over the years it has made me less inclined to give him my money.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 16:48 (eighteen years ago)

frank miller being another dude who helped me stop reading comics altogether in the early 90s is good enough reason to keep me out of the theater. dude sucks, he uses violence to hide the fact that his characters are trite, boring and thoroughly inconsequential

― TOMBOT, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 17:02 (eighteen years ago)

I mean that in the most particular-to-frank-miller sort of way, because I like Michael Bay movies

― TOMBOT, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 17:02 (eighteen years ago)

tombot otfm

― latebloomer, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 17:05 (eighteen years ago)

dude sucks, he uses violence to hide the fact that his characters are trite, boring and thoroughly inconsequential

yep, OTM. Even in his best work this is true.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 17:06 (eighteen years ago)

perhaps someone needs to make a Blazing Saddles for the pecs-and-loincloth genre? (NOT the Scary/Date/Epic Movie guys, tho you know that's coming)

― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 17:09 (eighteen years ago)

FM comics pissed me off because Sin City books devolved into this "30 pages -> 30 panels" thing, where the art was stark & fairly simplistic. I'm assuming he wanted the reader to linger over the page or something, but dude pack that shit Geoff Darrow/Manasume Shirow style if you want that.

I loved his & John Romita Jr's Daredevil series, tho. I got JR jr to sign half of them for me.

Oh yeah, and lest we forget, his upcoming "HOLY TERROR, BATMAN!" Wooo-eeee! Batman's gun' whup on ol' Bin Laden!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/"Holy_Terror,_Batman!"

(lolz at wiki entry titles containing punctuation)

― kingfish, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 17:10 (eighteen years ago)

i can enjoy dumbass macho silliness just fine as long as its fun or interesting. the problem is that for me '300' was neither.

― latebloomer, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 17:10 (eighteen years ago)

Geoff Darrow definitely made Miller more palatable.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 17:15 (eighteen years ago)

Note: The title 'Holy Terror' had been used for a Batman story in the Elseworlds series during the 1990s. In this earlier story Batman fought against an ultra-conservative Christian theocracy which was controlling the alternative America of the story.

ironeez

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 17:18 (eighteen years ago)

i'm old enough to remember when frank miller was truly a breath of fresh air. i remember buying that wolverine mini-series when it came out and just being really happy that it wasn't the work of john byrne. and daredevil and the elektra stuff. the darker later more adult stuff didn't do much for me. but i think they are great looks for movies. i just look at all this stuff as a test of technology. the masterpieces will probably come later. people are still figuring out what they can do. it'll take a million birth of a nations till they get it right. not that i'm not digging it now too. i am. and i am hotly anticipating grindhouse.

― scott seward, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 17:26 (eighteen years ago)

i know 300 is making a lot of money, but are people really liking it that much? i cant imagine so but maybe im out of touch.

endlessly examining the broad cultural implications of works of art that the general public was probably indifferent to at best has always seemed like an elephant in the room of literary criticism to me. i can just imagine people coming out of the first performance of hamlet: "what the hell was that all about?" "I dont know, let's get a beer..."

― ryan, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 17:32 (eighteen years ago)

there were lines out the door for the IMAX screening of this on Saturday at the Metreon, so yeah I think people are lovin this.

(I was there to see Zodiac, which I'm sure is 10,0000x more thoughtfully constructed than this piece of shit)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 17:40 (eighteen years ago)

*sticks nose in air, frowns on lowly plebians*

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 17:40 (eighteen years ago)

different categories of thoughtfulness

― TOMBOT, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 17:41 (eighteen years ago)

Has anybody seen this?

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 18:15 (eighteen years ago)

it'll take a million birth of a nations

No pun intended, Scott?

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 18:22 (eighteen years ago)

saying that the movie is any kind of propaganda, fascist or otherwise, and is therefore intrinsically bad is still the same as saying "rap music is rape music" and suing video game programmers when your kid shoots himself

OTM

Has any of these reviews heavily focusing on the context(either fer or agin' it) actually mentioned that this book came out in mid-1998, and the battle began to work its way into Miller's books as early as one of the Dwight Sin City series in the early '90s? Y'know, when the contemporary potilics were of a slightly different flavor than it is now?

Exactly, and if we're talking about context, remember that the original fascists turned to Roman and Greek culture for inspiration. Sparta is pretty much a template for early Italian fascism.

Any movie made about Greek wars, especially Spartan wars, is going to have a fascist aesthetic.

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 18:41 (eighteen years ago)

On the bright side, it did fall off 50% the second weekend. ie, Grandma & Grandpa aren't curious -- Comic Book Guy is going 8x.

― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 18:50 (eighteen years ago)

Nah I disagree with that
I wasn't saying its 'intrinsically bad,' but that its intrinsically fascist. That doesnt mean you can't enjoy it, or even say 'good movie,' although i wouldn't be able to say that w/out the addendum "...although it was extremely fascist"!

― deej, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 19:29 (eighteen years ago)

I have enjoyed fascist films in the past, ie Gabriel Over the White House

― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 19:30 (eighteen years ago)

I liked "Starship Troopers"!

― HI DERE, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 19:33 (eighteen years ago)

I think "Starship Troopers" was a little more tongue-in-cheek. ;)

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 19:44 (eighteen years ago)

NO WAI

― HI DERE, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 19:52 (eighteen years ago)

I'd go see 300 if it co-starred Doogie Howser.

― milo z, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 19:56 (eighteen years ago)

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/178/428417489_3f63b5ae4f.jpg?v=0

― Bnad, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 19:58 (eighteen years ago)

It's afraid. It's afraid!

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 19:59 (eighteen years ago)

I'd go see 300 if it co-starred Doogie Howser.

So would I!

Although Gerard Butler's crazy fans are kind of funny -- I remember reading about them a long time ago on the internet, they're all obsessed w/him because of Phantom of the Opera and have sex with real doll versions of him and stuff like that.

― Nicole, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 20:13 (eighteen years ago)

WTF Nicole are you trying to outkingfish kingfish, coming around here and telling people that shit?
"I wonder when the inevitable yaoi bukkake versions of this movie are gonna be reviewed on somethingawful.com"

― TOMBOT, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 20:19 (eighteen years ago)

I am going to see this movie again in the IMAX.

(if I can dupe any of my friends into it)

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 20:28 (eighteen years ago)

Sorry Tombot! It's just weird that the only time I'd ever heard of this actor before his movie was mentions of his crazy fans, like here for instance:

http://snarkphoenix.15.forumer.com/index.php?showtopic=24&st=575

― Nicole, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 21:15 (eighteen years ago)

I liked "Starship Troopers"!

HI DERE on Tuesday, 20 March 2007 19:33 (2 hours ago)
I think "Starship Troopers" was a little more tongue-in-cheek. ;)

Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows on Tuesday, 20 March 2007 19:44

unless you mean the book. heinlen himself, obv, rather fasco.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 21:47 (eighteen years ago)

What is it with fascistic sci-fi dudes, anyway?

Also: [Removed Illegal Link].

It's in there, but it's more about Miller's tendencies than it is about the axis of evil.

And what if it is trying to be politically relevant? In any way that 300 might point to something outside of itself, contemporary or historical, the movie is so stupid that you learn more about the analyst than you do about the object of analysis.

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 22:09 (eighteen years ago)

stupid illegal link

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 22:10 (eighteen years ago)

I dunno if fascist sympathies are more common in sci-fi than they are in any other genre. For every Orson Scott Card or Robert Heinlein you can find an Octavia Butler or Philip K. Dick

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 22:12 (eighteen years ago)

Missed a bunch of this, but I do want to note the important and pretty clear distinction between having a political angle and just having a social context. When the people who made this say they intended no political correspondence to current events, I believe them 100% -- they were not exactly constructing a complex allegory here. That doesn't mean that your aesthetic decisions don't suggest some kind of worldview, and when your POV on entertainment seems to amount to "beardy muscled white men purge the weak/different and commit heroic violence against teeming horde of dark-skinned bisexuals in effeminate dress and the monsters they bring with them," it's not exactly a stretch to say there's something stupid happening. Saying "we did not intend anything political" is of course a total non-response to that, because that's not about political intent and all about your POV and aesthetics.

Snyder's interviews about this are funny: half the time I can't tell if he's really good at playing blank-faced stupid or whether maybe he really IS that blank-faced stupid. (It's not exactly a leap to imagine he might be: it would seem that there are plenty of people who go see this movie, eat it up as awesome entertainment, and would be equally annoyed by any suggestion that those aesthetic decisions could possibly mean or suggest anything.)

― nabisco, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 02:21 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.chud.com/index.php?type=interviews&id=9172
Anybody else approaching this material, that would be the first thing they’d cut. It’s interesting to see how you’re approaching this – keeping that in really shows how you’re thinking.

snyder: For me it goes back to the why of Watchmen. The why of it is almost like what I was saying about Frank’s point of view. It’s funny, because Watchmen, politically – I don’t think Alan Moore could be any more opposite of Frank Miller. I think it gives you a little bit of an idea of how I approach it; the fact that I go from Frank to Alan shows that to me it’s about the work, what they work is, what they’ve done with the work and what it represents. They’ve both, in their own way, innovated, and they’re both geniuses in this convention we call graphic novels or comic books.

― latebloomer, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 02:31 (eighteen years ago)

I really wish that people would just leave Watchmen alone, but given the frenzy to make a movie out of all things comic book related I guess that's not going to happen.

And sorry for temporarily killing the thread earlier. To be compared with kingfish is still one of the cruelest insults I've ever had -- but Tombot was right.

― Nicole, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 15:53 (eighteen years ago)

I'll ignore another one of Nicole's lazy slights and post this bit, where an actual funnybook-/screenwriter writes about the flick, and notes how weirdly un-American it actually is, since the vast majority of American mythos is regular guys reluctantly going off to war(e.g. the Greatest Generation), overcoming the odds, etc, yet you have these Spartans openly sneering at/rejecting both Arkadian citizen-soldiers and the underdog desperately training his whole life to redeem his name and earn his honor.

I don't need or want a king, or metaphors to help me convince my fellow citizens that another Great War is upon us, that we're just as special as the Greatest Generation and it's time to send more under-armed Tennessee National Guardsmen to fight Xerxes while I cash my think-tank check. I just needed two hours of entertainment. 300 got that job done.

― kingfish, Monday, 26 March 2007 18:31 (eighteen years ago)

I finally saw 300 this weekend. BLOOD AS SURROGATE SEMEN, folks. SO GAY.

Also, I did not even get a boner. ZERO STARS.

― elmo argonaut, Monday, 26 March 2007 18:35 (eighteen years ago)

"Since when do Americans cheer when truce parties are murdered?"

― kingfish, Monday, 26 March 2007 18:52 (eighteen years ago)

haha i love war nerd!!! i'm kind of embarrassed about it, but i do

― gff, Monday, 26 March 2007 19:00 (eighteen years ago)

In the ancient world, gay was a matter of who was on top. If you were a topper, that was fine; if you were the one getting in the ass, not so cool. In other words, prison rules. Sparta's leather-bar ways were a running joke to the ancient Greeks. The Spartans were stone killers - but they also preened like teenage girls before a battle. They grew their hair long, and before a fight they'd comb it, oil it, try out fetching new styles, put little baubles in their ears, anything to die young and leave a beautiful corpse.

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Monday, 26 March 2007 19:07 (eighteen years ago)

In the ancient world, gay was a matter of who was on top. If you were a topper, that was fine; if you were the one getting in the ass, not so cool. In other words, prison rules.

uh... [citation needed]

― elmo argonaut, Monday, 26 March 2007 19:10 (eighteen years ago)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_%28literary_and_historical_analysis%29

― elmo argonaut, Monday, 26 March 2007 19:11 (eighteen years ago)

yes! just reading through the part of Herodotus where all this comes from and you realize that

it's funny, i absently worked on a long post to this thread on a lunch hour last week and then abandoned it, but what the hell, here it is:

ugh i kind of want to see a boring learned essay on this now, because there is actually a lot going on, maddeningly. forgive me for going on and on, but i don't have a blog, so:

1. conservative historians valorize Thermopylae as a Big Deal, the moment when everything could have gone to hell and didn't, Western openness and deliberation narrowly avoiding being snuffed out by Eastern mysticism and authoritarianism. It's one of those "what if" moments right-classicists like to talk about: if "we" lost then, there would be no West to speak of at all, "we'd all be reading zoroaster and not socrates" blah blah. I have no idea whether that's true. But:

1a. the Spartans were not really part of this "openness and deliberation" thing anyway! The Athenians, for all their toga wearing pussified villainy, ARE the precious West that got saved, not the baby-staking Spartans. There could be a comment made about this, a la Orwell's "decent people sleeping soundly bcz rough men with guns protect them" but all the right wing shit you hear about the issue just blames the non-warriors as complainers and a drag on a pure society (fascism, plain and simple)

1b. even as Herodotus tells it, the stand of the 300 happened in the context of a stunning naval victory by the Athenians (I have no idea what the movie makes of this), so it's not like the democrats were doing nothing or waiting for Better Men to save their bacon.

1c. the bits of Greek masculine culture that read to us as GAY GAY GAY, the Spartans had in spades! Herodotus writes: the Persian spy who checks the Spartan defenses sees them running around naked and doing each others hair! It freaks him out! "Get your swerve on, bitches, for tonight we dine in hell" would be more appropriate, frankly.

2. never read a page of Frank Miller but y'all are telling me he's a pig and I'm inclined to believe you.

3. I'm also inclined to believe that Snyder et al are a bunch of blinkered tech-y trekky NERDS who really just looked at the comic and said COOL and made a movie out of it. Are they really expressing surprise that people are making a big deal about what a movie about war with Persia means re: our own war in "Persia"?? Wow, they must be pretty stupid!

― gff, Monday, 26 March 2007 19:15 (eighteen years ago)

whoa something got clipped in my cutnpaste job there:

"you realize that... everyone involved in making and defending this movie just doesn't get it"

― gff, Monday, 26 March 2007 19:16 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, I got the impression that homosexuality in ancient cultures was a little more complicated than that. He did get the preening before the battles thing right, though.

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Monday, 26 March 2007 19:17 (eighteen years ago)

(xpost)

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Monday, 26 March 2007 19:17 (eighteen years ago)

Did the sex scene in this movie strike anyone as slightly weird?

― Bnad, Monday, 26 March 2007 19:45 (eighteen years ago)

Not at all sexy, despite the boobies. Edited by an asexual anthropologist with no sense of rhythm, or like some dude spliced together all the sex scenes from a low budget cinemax feature.

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Monday, 26 March 2007 20:02 (eighteen years ago)

More like a fascist neocon fantasy of fucking Ann Coulter--two perfect (in the movie and the neocon fantasy) bodies, grimly grunting out some shared expression of Randroidian ubermenschdom.

― Bnad, Monday, 26 March 2007 21:45 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, it's imbued with a juvenile fascist sentiment, but you are seriously projecting a political value on the movie that far surpasses the thought that went into it.

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Monday, 26 March 2007 21:50 (eighteen years ago)

Political significance isn't limited by the amount of thought going into it, though! Just about every "ism" you care to start dissecting -- nationalism, Nazi-era anti-Semitism, fascism, Soviet-era communism, whatever -- expresses as a gut feeling just as much as a high-level political ideology. And every such thing is at some point found expressing itself in art and narratives that are supposedly just, you know, "cool." (It's not clear that the makers of German alpine epics had political motives in mind -- probably just stuff about heroism and valor and dignity and whatnot -- but it's not hard to figure out which directions the subtexts suggested.) (Thankfully the world is such now that 300 presumably gets taken a lot less seriously than those alpine films.)

― nabisco, Monday, 26 March 2007 23:05 (eighteen years ago)

Throw the Persian down the well
So my people can be free

― M.V., Tuesday, 27 March 2007 02:12 (eighteen years ago)

http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/300+director+Zack+Snyder/

DRE:
Tell me about your tattoos.
Zack:
[points to his right forearm] This one is my wife Debra’s name. This one means white and this other one means red. That’s my alert status. This one on my back has a Buddha.
DRE:
It’s not done though.
Zack:
Nah, it’s not done yet but it will be black and white so I’m just going to get it shaded a bit. The top of it is going to say "Present beware, future beware." [laughs]
DRE:
Are you getting a new one in honor of 300 anytime soon?
Zack:
I don't think so. The movie isn’t that good [laughs].

― latebloomer, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 08:55 (eighteen years ago)

I read suicidegirls for the articles.

― Bnad, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 22:11 (eighteen years ago)

http://philostudios.com/images/gifs/lmao.gif

― ghost rider, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 22:12 (eighteen years ago)

wait he has a tattoo of that brad neeley george washington video?

― max, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 22:13 (eighteen years ago)

oh shit, i forget one source we haven't checked yet: the Liberty Film Festival

By now, dozens of critics have weighed in on the massive box office success of 300, but not one I’ve read has figured out the reason for it. I have: it’s a terrific picture, one of the best in years. When I compare it to the movies that were nominated for Best Picture Oscars last year, it makes them seem to be exactly what they were: watered-down warm milk for liberal baby boomers who want to close the curtains on World War III, and snuggle down under their tie-dyed covers for a long winter’s nap full of tangerine dreams.

http://www.libertyfilmfestival.com/libertas/?p=4725

On my Shooter review many of our readers commented that Hollywood’s plan for that loser was to sucker audiences by slipping blue-state politics into a red-state film. It is possible to get away with that, but it helps if your movie doesn’t suck. Red Staters aren’t stupid, you know. The fates of both Kerry and Gore proved that.

― kingfish, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 17:14 (eighteen years ago)

Red Staters aren’t stupid, you know. The fates of both Kerry and Gore proved that.

what did the fates of dole and goldwater prove

― and what, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 17:25 (eighteen years ago)

that Blue Staters are stupid, of course

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 17:26 (eighteen years ago)

Hahaha Gore's fate was winning the popular vote -- I think he is suggesting that red-staters are smart enough to relocate to red states and game the electoral college system!

― nabisco, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 17:33 (eighteen years ago)

The consensus among my office-working friends seems to be that 300 was pretty but not all that great. That Liberty films dude is seriously justifying it as a great film due to political insight while ignoring the bad sex scenes, mediocre acting, and crazy use of slow motion? Now who's blinded?

― mh, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 17:41 (eighteen years ago)

wait, there are sex scenes in 300? what do these look like? rape? if so, i'm in.

― deeznuts, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 17:54 (eighteen years ago)

VDH indulging in a bit of neocon kulturkampf, about how those hollywood leftist movie critics woulda preferred blockbuster success for Oliver stone's Alexander, conveniently forgetting that almost every hollywood librul critic dumped on the film when it premiered. but why let history, real or not, get in the way of a good narrative?

For other NRO persian-focused cultural nuttiness, check out Iran vs Hipsters

― kingfish, Friday, 30 March 2007 23:20 (eighteen years ago)

300? I thought all the cardboard cut-outs in our cinema foyer were advertising a movie called "Zoo"

-- Ste, Monday, 12 March 2007 10:42 (3 weeks ago)

http://www.nervepop.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e10380#10380

― Oilyrags, Thursday, 5 April 2007 19:21 (eighteen years ago)

I hope that doesn't overshadow the upcoming Bobcat Goldthwait bestiality pic (which I am dying to see - hooray Shakes the Clown)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 5 April 2007 19:29 (eighteen years ago)

shakey mo clownier

― and what, Thursday, 5 April 2007 19:34 (eighteen years ago)

that dog fuckin movie came and went already, mo collie

― rps, Thursday, 5 April 2007 19:35 (eighteen years ago)

r

― rps, Thursday, 5 April 2007 19:35 (eighteen years ago)

?! did it just not get any screen time in SF?

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 5 April 2007 19:59 (eighteen years ago)

three weeks pass...
via Greencine:


"[Slavoj] Zizek is typically, and willfully, perverse in his praise of 300," writes Steven Shaviro. "[E]veryone else on the Left has denounced the film as a fascist spectacle, allegorically praising militarism and the American war in Iraq, so of course Zizek must instead praise the film as a revolutionary allegory of struggle against the American evil empire." Shaviro then pinpoints where he feels Zizek's gone wrong, adding that "the denunciation of 'hedonist permissivity' is certainly not the way to go - Zizek's loathing for this, like the similar loathings on the part of fundamentalist Christians and Jihadist Muslims, is a false response, based upon a misrecognition of the basic problem."

― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 13:42 (eighteen years ago)

reminds me a little of the dude from the nation (klawans i think) defending red dawn.

― gff, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 14:00 (eighteen years ago)

I stopped reading the Zizek review after the first sentence where he misspells Thermopylae

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 16:17 (eighteen years ago)

translation innit

― gff, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 16:23 (eighteen years ago)

yes Zizek didn't write anything there

― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 16:24 (eighteen years ago)

three months pass...

SUGGESTED EDITS
TO THE MOVIE 300
FOR THE DVD RELEASE OF
300: THE DEFINITIVE,
HISTORICALLY ACCURATE
CUT

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2007/7/31kellett.html

― Dr Morbius, Monday, 13 August 2007 19:17 (eighteen years ago)

Um what about crabclawhand man?

― Alex in SF, Monday, 13 August 2007 19:55 (eighteen years ago)

none of those "slams" were actually funny tho

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 13 August 2007 20:03 (eighteen years ago)

http://i17.tinypic.com/53yw2vo.gif

― Heave Ho, Monday, 13 August 2007 20:40 (eighteen years ago)


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