TONIGHT! WE DINE! AT DENNY'S!!!!

[thehefner]

300 turned out to be everything I'd expected it to be, everything it could possibly have been. Which is to say, the living embodiment of Frank Miller'd Id, a completely over-the-top spectacle of awesomeness utterly devoid of subtlety, and one of the manliest fucking manly things to ever man a man. All that was missing was whoreswhoreswhoreswhoreswhores, but that was all replaced by shouting.

Oh lord, the shouting. I mean, in the comic, when Leonidas kicks the messenger (who was shouting, "This is blasphemy! This is madness!") into the pit, he does it with a cool, badass "This is Sparta." But as I'd seen in even the earliest trailers, he delivered it instead with the now-almost-infamous, "THIS! IS! SPARTARARARARAHHH!!!"

It's been three hours since I've seen the film, and I still feel like shouting everything. "I! WANT! NACHOOOOOS!" "A thousand tortilla chips of the Persian Empire descends upon my tummy! This queso shall blot out the sun!!!" "Then *I* shall munch in the shade." "I! NEED! A! NAPKINNNN!!!"

That said, there's plenty for women to enjoy. Namely, lots and lots of ripped man-flesh on display. Wow. I mean... wow, there was nothing less than a six pack on pretty much every guy in that film.

I'm not saying 300 is a brilliant film, and it didn't hit me on a pure visceral personal comic geek level like SIN CITY did, but it's great that a comic-based movie (especially one that is very much flaunting its graphic novel roots) is getting this much attention. Things like this are, I think, better for the industry than even the best superhero movies, and I certainly do hope it brings in more customers.

My only complaint is that no one got any arrows in either the head or their crotch. I suppose some might think that would detract from the moment to see arrows through the eyes and/or balls, but it kinda annoyed me to see people as human pincushions save for miraculously those two areas. But that's my only real complaint. The rest of the movie is... well, it's what it is, and gloriously so, in its way.

With apologies to Dethklok and Denis Leary, if I see this film again, it will have to be with a hundred beers and a big, fat steak. Raw steak, dripping with blood. In fact, forget the steak, give me a live cow. I'll cut off what I want and ride the rest home!

Home! TO SPARTARAHARARAHHH!!!!

Comments

[kwsapphire.livejournal.com]

You want a Hollywood movie based on a comic book to be historically accurate? You're asking too much! They're too busy making it cool to pay attention to facts! No one cares that the trojan war took ten years, that's boring! >.>

[interdisciple.livejournal.com]

Not even seeking the accurate so much as balanced or fair, as obviously, exaggeration on both sides for comic glory's sake is to be expected...

Oh well, you're right. I'm being silly. It's just taken so long to shake the notion of Persians as Barbarians in the collective Western consciousness (only now starting to wear away) that it hurts to see the progress take ten strides backward, so to speak. :( Even Alexander himself wanted to be the next great Persian king after conquering Persepolis... And the Greeks take all the credit and glory for everything... *sigh*

/persian emo rant

[kwsapphire.livejournal.com]

The Persians have a reputation for being barbaric? Really? That's odd. Of course, my initial impressions of the Persians were from their many D&D ripoffs, which made them out to be elegant and sophisticated, master strategists, and so on and so forth. I've been randomly reading up on ancient cultures, and so far have only explored ancient Sumerian/Babylonian and Egyptian, but I've read enough about their dealings with the Persians to wonder how anyone ever thought they were barbaric. As compared to what, the Romans? (Scoff.) I mean, give me a break.

[interdisciple.livejournal.com]

LOL, thank you. It's just the Greeks (Herodotus and others) commonly referred to the Persians as "barbarians," not necessarily meaning it in the way we think of it now, but rather, as their term to signify any "Other" --

Surprisingly, there are few or no references to the barbarians as inferior, effeminate, cruel etc.; the term 'barbarian' in the funeral orations has either the historical meaning of Persians or the generic one of non-Greeks (p. 7).

And so over time, this tag and perception of Persian as Barbarian took on a life and demonization of its own which, again, only now seems to be setting itself straight with the advent of accurate historical info so readily available to anyone (in the developed world) with even an inkling of curiosity.

Anyway, I guess I should watch this movie or read the comic before expressing any further dismay... or better yet, get back to the business of work! :)

[kwsapphire.livejournal.com]

Ahh, I see. And now that you say that, I remember my Humanities teacher talking about how the Greeks couldn't understand the Persian language, "It all just sounded like 'bar bar bar bar' - hence the term Barbarian."

[interdisciple.livejournal.com]

Wow, fascinating--didn't know that! Thanks for that bit of etymological history!

[kwsapphire.livejournal.com]

You're very welcome! ^_^

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Barbarians? I don't think they come off as barbaric... at least, no more than the Spartans do. In this movie, both sides do things with corpses that just shouldn't be done, purely to intimidate the other side.

But I see what you're saying, yeah. All I can offer for comfort is that this is an incredibly hollow film full of mindless action and chest-pounding manliness. Anyone who takes this as an accurate history lesson is a fool, and perhaps it'll actually drive people to read up on some history to see how things really were.

Because I'm not sure what your definition of barbarians is in this case, but the Persians are at the very least depicted as incredibly formidable and worthy of awe. If nothing else, this could well spark more interest in people wanting to learn about them as much as the Spartans themselves.

[interdisciple.livejournal.com]

True data. This all makey the sensy and comforts the ruffled Persian feathers a bit. Please excuse the visceral overreaction... It's just, you know, The Man, what with His always trying to keep the Persian/Iranian down and all that... :) (I kid. Sort of.)

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Dude, I sympathize. 'Sall good. I'd react exactly the same if the tables were turned.

Now, I don't mean to compare your family lineage, your very blood, to, oh, say, my comic geekdom and the world-at-large's stereotypes about comic and the people who read comics (like how just as I was looking for theatre parking, some DJ on DC101 was going on about how there are no female comic readers, and if there are, they probably are about as attractive as male comic readers)... no, no, I wouldn't do that...

... but to *some* degree at least, I feel ya. ;p

[interdisciple.livejournal.com]

;P ?

That's quite a face. Imagine making it in real life.

If you didn't just laugh out loud, there's something wrong with your sense of humor. :) Either that, or there's something terribly wrong with mine.

Anyway, glad to be felt, and cheers to bucking the system and turning stereotypes over on their heads. Then again, SOME stereotypes about my people are accurate (many are hairy, some are shorter in stature than the Euros, some are wealthy beyond belief and live in Los Angeles, and most have issues with punctuality and are overly polite). Might the same be true of your adopted family of comic-istas? ;)

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's my emoticon! Mmmmine! No automatic-formatting yellow-smiley-face bullshit on AIM for me! And you don't so much make that face in real life as you do in your attitude. It says, "hey, I'm winkin' at ya, but I'm still stickin' my tongue out at ya!"

Well that's the sucky thing about stereotypes, isn't it? Guh.