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Saw 300 last night, with Zale, green_trilobite and theengineer, and enjoyed it despite the teenagers behind us who giggled everytime someone was nude or nearly nude (which considering the setting, happened frequently). I'd actually been under the impression it was going to be animated, but it was live actors filmed in a very stylized, painterly way, probably with mostly greenscreen backgrounds.
Good sense of the epic, although I've a terrible feeling that George Bush is going to watch this over and over and identify himself with Leonidas, the king of a tiny city state, bending the rules to defend his country against all odds and without much support from his subjects, rather than with Xerxes, the ruler of a vast empire, trying to take over the world because he thinks he's a god. I also worry that someone's going to accuse the film of supporting the Bush Republicans* because of this. Well, it's not Frank Miller's job to out-guess George Bush, especially given that he wrote this one a while back.
*although the Spartan's "no child left behind, unless it's sickly in which case we kill it at birth" policy would not go over so well with pro-life Republicans, one assumes.
(Spoilers and a certain degree of bitchiness)
I was a little disappointed in the queen - they apparently increased her role from the book, but in the parts I've read, she's there when Leonidas has to set out for the Hot Gates without appearing to go to war, and she's the one who says, "Well, my husband, if you're going for a long walk, I insist you take your personal body guard - all 300 of them." (Wooh!) She didn't get to do that here, and later she seems genuinely surprised when the sleazy council member she's trying to convince to support Leonidas demands sexual favours - I kept thinking it was going to turn out she'd anticipated that from him, and had prepared witnesses to leap out and catch him in the act, thus discrediting him, but no, and it's pretty much by luck that she later defeats him (although her killing of him, and her dialogue when she does, got big applause from the audience).
Anyway, all pretty enjoyable, with wild, stylized costumes (Xerxes appears to have started his career by capturing Radio City Music Hall, and in the tradition of the bad guys having way more fun thatn the heroes, his army sort of looks like an evil gay pride parade, complete with floats - oh, and did Leonard Nimoy dub his voice?).
Good sense of the epic, although I've a terrible feeling that George Bush is going to watch this over and over and identify himself with Leonidas, the king of a tiny city state, bending the rules to defend his country against all odds and without much support from his subjects, rather than with Xerxes, the ruler of a vast empire, trying to take over the world because he thinks he's a god. I also worry that someone's going to accuse the film of supporting the Bush Republicans* because of this. Well, it's not Frank Miller's job to out-guess George Bush, especially given that he wrote this one a while back.
*although the Spartan's "no child left behind, unless it's sickly in which case we kill it at birth" policy would not go over so well with pro-life Republicans, one assumes.
(Spoilers and a certain degree of bitchiness)
I was a little disappointed in the queen - they apparently increased her role from the book, but in the parts I've read, she's there when Leonidas has to set out for the Hot Gates without appearing to go to war, and she's the one who says, "Well, my husband, if you're going for a long walk, I insist you take your personal body guard - all 300 of them." (Wooh!) She didn't get to do that here, and later she seems genuinely surprised when the sleazy council member she's trying to convince to support Leonidas demands sexual favours - I kept thinking it was going to turn out she'd anticipated that from him, and had prepared witnesses to leap out and catch him in the act, thus discrediting him, but no, and it's pretty much by luck that she later defeats him (although her killing of him, and her dialogue when she does, got big applause from the audience).
Anyway, all pretty enjoyable, with wild, stylized costumes (Xerxes appears to have started his career by capturing Radio City Music Hall, and in the tradition of the bad guys having way more fun thatn the heroes, his army sort of looks like an evil gay pride parade, complete with floats - oh, and did Leonard Nimoy dub his voice?).
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Date: 2007-03-20 05:26 pm (UTC)From:Second, remember when we were going in to the movie you commented on "The Number 23", that they choose a number not known for people to obsess over? I just read in the Fortean Times that none other than William Burroughs collected occurances of the number 23! I wonder if that comes up in the movie at all?