300
Saw 300 last night. Loved it. No, it was not historically "precise," especially, especially the battle scenes. Spartans would never break rank and fight one on one like in the movie, the phalanx was life (even the phalanx depictions aren't right, the front guys used swords). And at one point Mrs Blogger leaned over and asked if "Xerxes was really a drag queen?" (which was a bummer because I was hoping she was leaning over to neck). And there's a throw away line about the Athenians being "boy lovers," when its the Spartans who, famously, took up with boys (my bet is that line's meant to counter that unpleasant fact, and throw "which Greeks slept with boys again" into the coversation). There's more, but it was a movie and movies are meant to entertain. If you want to get really historical, the Greeks were famous back in the day for taking "liberties" with actual events, soooo you could say that 300 pays homage not only to the Spartans, but to the Athenians and their theater.
300 Graphic novel was pretty good too, but the book "Gates of Fire" blows both away.
What I find really interesting is that I keep reading how this is a "Bush" movie, or that it really appeals to the "Bush" crowd. Granted, I bet that most movie reviewers are pretty liberal (read anti-war), and that most supporters of the Iraq War voted for Bush, but I'm not sure this is a good movie for Bush. Yes, it's very pro combat, its very pro leadership, and very pro fight to the end, but its also, repeatedly a conflict about reason v. mysticism aka religion. It's a very, very anti-religion movie. The Greeks mystics are deformed beyond recognition, molest young girls and are corrupt to the coin. The Persian mystic is a man who thinks himself a God and is both humiliated and defeated. Somehow Frank Miller manages to offend both the peacenicks (good for W) and the religious (bad for W). As much as this is a movie about fighting for actual freedom, its a movie about fighting religion in the name of reason. If anything its key group is the prowar, anti-religion crowd (or teen-age boys, take your pick).
Finally, Iran banned 300 from its movie houses. 3000 years later and my people are still sticking it to the Persians. OPAH!
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2 comments:
Two-fisted humanism's been Miller's M.O. since Dark Knight Returns, for which liberals called him a fascist, while conservatives (those few that paid comics any mind)said he was dragging kids' comics into the sewer.
I lost my taste for Miller long before either the 300 comic or movie, somewhere in the early issues of That Yellow Bastard (?), which I think was the Bruce Willis/Elijah Wood story in the Sin City movie. Rage--which is all Miller's been on paper--I got; gimmie some mirth with the mayhem!
Didn't know you were keeping up with any comics. What else have you read in the last few years?
iojfoeThe British-like mispronounciation of "Leonidas" was a pesky distraction. The "i" in Leonidas sounds like the "i" in "machine" not the "i" in "shine."
This is from one who knows a Leonidas or two.
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