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)

Skipping 314 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

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)

?! 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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