300? . . .300 what?
I’m finally home from NYC. To be honest though, I would have liked to stay another week. Judging by the stress and trauma we felt after walking into the house and realizing how far we’d fallen behind the chaos vortex that is our daily lives, staying the extra week could have been a disaster.
I saw 300 this past week, from the comfort and safety of my laptop. Don’t ask how. I enjoyed it for what it was. God of War 2 has more plot, more blood, and better graphics. 300 did really impress me in one way, so I hope you can stick with me through the rant to get to it.
Allow me to tell you all about it without giving away a single detail. First there was 20 minutes of fakie scene setting and shallow plot, followed by 40 minutes of bloody battle, a queen raping, 10 minutes of last stand action, kill the queen raper, rip off the ending of Braveheart. The end. Hope you enjoyed that $10 tub of popcorn sucker.
Stupid #1 –the Spartans all fought in heavy armor. Head to toe. THAT is what made them such a pain in the ass on the battlefield. You couldn’t kill them.
Stupid #2 –the post 9/11 good white people all fight for freedom, against evil scary brown people, bullshit. Nevermind the fact that Greek society was birthed from Near and Middle Eastern culture, and that there were more slaves than Spartans in Sparta. Oh and Greeks are kind of brown too. (Seriously, they’re not British actors.)
Stupid #3 –was it me but were all the Persians gay? Wishful thinking on my part, or homophobia on the part of the movie makers?
Stupid #4 –the dialogue during the queen rape, and the subsequent reversal of said dialogue during the death of the queen raper. If any one thought that was witty they’re an idiot. Get back on the short bus, juice boxes will be handed out soon.
Some people have tried to discuss the movie on an intellectual level. Big mistake in my opinion. Still, if you actually want 300 to provoke some of those thought thingies in you, I recommend listening to this On Point show. But at the end of the day I think the On Point guys were looking for substance where none was to be found. This was a straight shot, mindless hack-fest.
And I enjoyed it on that level. (Perhaps it might be hard to glean that from this post.)
But if one more person, (I might as well say “dude†since no women I know have thought much of the movie), tells me how awesome 300 is I’m going to throat-punch them. Citizen Kane is awesome. North by Northwest is awesome. The English Patient and Indiana Jones are awesome. 300 was just fun, and in five years no one will remember it but the fanboys.
One thing I DID like about 300, a lot? The way they used CGI to make you feel like you were watching the graphic novel come to life. That was very well done. And, of course, the battle scenes were fantastic –the right amount of blood and guts without being gross.
There, I said something nice about it. Happy? But for me that doesn’t make a good movie. It makes a theme park ride.
So why so harsh on 300? Meh, its not the movie really, it’s the way the public reacts to it that gets my panties in a bunch. The movie is what it is. What chaps my ass is how the public goes apeshit over movies totally lacking in substance and the truly beautiful pieces of film just sort of slide by unnoticed by the great uncwashed masses. You disappoint me American Public, you disappoint me.
The direct result of The Public approaching movie watching with all the sophistication of a 12yr old is that Hollywood pumps out great steamy piles of crap for us to consume. And consume we do. And the more of this junk we’re exposed to the lower our standards drop. Partially, I think its linked to all the crap TV we watch. When we ditched cable and ripped out the rabbit ears 7 years ago my IQ leaps about 80 points.
Lets look at Star Wars for a second shall we? Its the perfect example of what irks me in mainstream movie making. You have the first three movies –lowish budget, classic plot given new a twist, heavily character driven. Then you have the new Star Wars movies. Totally driven by special effects, vague plot, and zero character development, hence, you don’t really feel anything but glee when Anikin falls in the lava.
Looking back at RoTJ you can see all sorts of sinister hints of what was to come. The special effects were improving, the budget was increasing, and in effect what they gave you was a lame remake of the very first no-budget Star Wars movie. With Muppets thrown in to daze and confuse you. And how did Mark Hamill’s acting go from bad to worse?!? I mean really, has anyone watched RoTJ lately? I just fast forward to the fighting over Endor –Admiral Akbar, Wedge Antillies, and Lando make RoTJ not suck in my opinion.
Which is exactly what I’ll do with 300 if I watch it again. Fast-forward to the hacking and chopping.
I hope the Penny Arcade guys won’t sue me for posting this. It seemed appropriate.
April 9th, 2007 at 7:44 am
I thought 300 was a great fable of an actual event. Sure it was historically inaccurate. But much in the same way that Star Wars was historically inaccurate. It COULDN’T be historically accurate and still be Miller’s graphic novel. He took a real event and created a myth. Some might say that was pointless. The real event was mythic enough already. But it was VERY pretty and a fun movie. Though I was surprised by the almost total lack of gay themes among the Spartans. As for the Persians coming off very gay… this was suppose to be a myth told from the Spartan point of view. Maybe they were “projecting”… Xerxes was a fabulous drag queen though…
I thought they should have been wearing proper armour as well. And their swords weren’t really a good choice for a phalanx… their spears were a tad short as well… they should have been in the 12′ - 15′ long range…
April 9th, 2007 at 9:35 am
It was good for a comic to movie adaption. Personally, there was to much unnecessary-but-necessary violence in 300 for me to sit through it all…
April 9th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
I have not seen the movie and probably will not until it turns up on HBO. If you’re looking for a more in depth fictionalized account of the battle of Thermopylae and a truer depiction of the greeks, check out “Gates of Fire” by Steven Pressfield. Now those were the Spartans I read about in my ancient history course back in high school.
As for the good white people fighting for freedom, lets set the record straight, there was nothing free about Spartan society. The “free” men of Sparta, with NO exceptions, were all soldiers and spent all of their time preparing to fight or fighting. The slaves, generally the folks that the Spartans had defeated in war, and the women whose soldier husbands didn’t have a lot of land or slaves did all the work. They, of course, were better off than the women whose husbands were well off, since at least they got out of the house. Wealthy women were relegated to the back section of the home where their chief occupation was raising/indoctrinating the next generation of soldiers.
The Athenians and their “democracy” were not that different from the Spartans. Although the Athenians pursued other interests besides war, such as art, architecture, literature and drama, only the free land owning males had the ability to pursue such interests or the right to vote. Not exactly what we think of when we talk of freedom.
As for the American Public, I’m going to come to their defense as the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of them are pretty much ignoring “300″ in the same way they ignore every film.
As of last July, there were approximately 300 million folks in the USA. “300″ - interesting coincidence there - currently has taken in approximately 180 million at the domestic box office - a boffo box office as they say in Hollywierd. Using an average ticket price of $7.00, that’s less than ten per cent of the population even without taking into account repeat viewers (You know, the young guys who made George Lucas rich and the young gals who did the same for James Cameron and Leonardo DiCaprio).
Consequently, over 90% of the American Public have not seen the movie and, at this point in its release cycle, probably don’t intend to.
April 10th, 2007 at 12:53 am
I liked 300 for what it was–an epic battle with very good special effects. I did like the “artificial” quality they gave the screen, as if it were the graphic novel and not reality.
Anyone who was expecting mind-bending dialogue was clearly mistaken. I, too, noticed that the Spartans weren’t bisexuals. I guess American audiences wouldn’t relate well to that in a hero. They also left out the dual kings, and all the slaves of past conquests. The “freedom” stuff was indeed complete rubbish. I’m not sure if there was some kind of actual point to the queen’s “negotations”. Couldn’t she have just stuck him anyway?
But all that said, the fanatacism was well portrayed, and I agree that the blood and guts were realistic and not Tarantino-esque. Decent flick, worth $6, but I won’t see it again until the small screen…
April 10th, 2007 at 7:53 am
All very good observations. Especailly Brian’s regarding the American Public -though what percentage normally goes to the movies I wonder?
I have so little time for watching movies, (except what I play on the PC while working -and that is more listening than watching). So the $30 to $50 dollars its going to cost me (factoring the possibility of needing a babysitter) means a movie has to be outstanding for me to go to a theater to watch it.
And for that money I can usually buy the DVD, and a used X-box game, and some snacks. So, no real question in my mind where I’d rather blow the clams.
April 10th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
I could have lived without the mental image the phrase, “blow the clams” gave me…
April 10th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Interesting statistic. Apparently, the average moviegoer is 31 years of age but a whopping 67 per cent of all moviegoers are under 39.