Slate on “300″: Crypto-Nazi war porn vaguely reminiscent of being raped
posted at 9:26 pm on March 8, 2007 by Allahpundit
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If 300, the new battle epic based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller and Lynne Varley, had been made in Germany in the mid-1930s, it would be studied today alongside The Eternal Jew as a textbook example of how race-baiting fantasy and nationalist myth can serve as an incitement to total war…
Here are just a few of the categories that are not-so-vaguely conflated with the “bad” (i.e., Persian) side in the movie: black people. Brown people. Disfigured people. Gay men (not gay in the buff, homoerotic Spartan fashion, but in the effeminate Persian style). Lesbians. Disfigured lesbians. Ten-foot-tall giants with filed teeth and lobster claws. Elephants and rhinos (filthy creatures both). The Persian commander, the god-king Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) is a towering, bald club fag with facial piercings, kohl-rimmed eyes, and a disturbing predilection for making people kneel before him…
“This will not be over quickly,” the villain warns as he pins [Leonidas's wife] against a temple pillar. “You will not enjoy this.” It might have been [director] Zack Snyder himself whispering in my ear, and he would have been right.
In a classic example of the epic understatement known as litotes, Variety’s reviewer observes that the picture’s vision of the West as a heroic contingent of sculpted badasses and the East as a cauldron perversion and iniquity “might be greeted with muted enthusiasm in the Middle East.” Replace the words “muted enthusiasm” with “a roadside bomb,” and you’ve got yourself a tagline for the Baghdad premiere.
The blockquote would have been longer except that fair use only allows me so much. I had to leave out the stuff about eugenics and fascist aesthetics, the griping about how the movie doesn’t so much as feint in the direction of anti-war sentiment (in a story about Sparta?), and her heart-ache over the absence of any overt political message given how “depressingly familiar” it is that the Spartan king feels himself entitled to kill people at will.
Which I guess is her way of saying that if you see this and enjoy it, you might be a redneck.
I wasn’t going to go, but now that she’s turned it into a blue state/red state thing, I sort of feel obliged. Good work, Dana.
Update: The studio’s expecting big, big money tomorrow.
Update: Was Slate right? NRO’s Andrew Stuttaford:
Leonidas had, wrote Herodotus, “proved himself a very good man.” No more needed to be said. The Spartan’s deeds spoke for themselves. Compared with this, the bombast and bluster of the Miller version is simply tacky, a transformation of history not into myth, but kitsch…
No less damaging, despite the occasional striking image, “300″ is as aesthetically clumsy as it is technologically sophisticated. For the most part its visual style is an unhappy mix of Leni Riefenstahl and Iron Maiden, a ridiculous combination better imagined than seen…
Perhaps even more revealing is the way that, like the graphic novel, the movie fails to address the central paradox of Thermopylae: the fact that freedom’s most effective defenders cared so little for individual liberty themselves.
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This sold it for me.
Nonfactor on March 8, 2007 at 9:29 PM
Seriously. I have not seen it but I am now!
EnochCain on March 8, 2007 at 9:31 PM
Come on. It’s Dana Stevens. This is typical for when she loses it.
Chris L. on March 8, 2007 at 9:35 PM
I was mildly interested in it…until I heard the main actor speak (He’s Scottish…meow). I was sold…but now THIS!! First day, first showing.
;o)
tickleddragon on March 8, 2007 at 9:36 PM
So, should I masturbate while watching it or wait till I get home?
lorien1973 on March 8, 2007 at 9:38 PM
I already have tickets preordered and I am seeing it tomorow. If the preview is ANY indication, I am sure I will be very happy.
SnakeintheGrass on March 8, 2007 at 9:40 PM
300…its rapetastic!
Seriously though, I love how this movie is driving some people insane.
Max Power on March 8, 2007 at 9:41 PM
HAHA!!
I’m going to catch the matinee and maybe the evening show as well. Lets not forget Frank Miller’s cardinal sin of not being a dhimmi. All his work must be given a thumbs down. =(
Theworldisnotenough on March 8, 2007 at 9:50 PM
A friend of mine, 100% libertarian, made the same exact joke. A few months ago “If the trailer comes on I might just whip it out and start beating it right there in the theater.”
Nonfactor on March 8, 2007 at 9:53 PM
Allah, what do you make of this:
Is she worried about upsetting the people we are at war with?
If this babe’s historical perspective didn’t begin in 1966 (which I think is a safe assumption to assume it does, how do you think she would have reviewed Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator”?
bert169 on March 8, 2007 at 9:54 PM
That’s what makes it so brilliant!
There is no way any kind of “Pro-Freedom”, “Pro-Defend Ourselves”, (should I dare say it) “Pro-AMERICAN (in this case Sparta) movie could be made today.
Look at all the WWII movies that rallied the country, brought us together, called our enemies what they were, and pushed us on, even when things were grim, to fight, and fight, and fight until we achieved “Victory”!
My goodness…….. “Patriotic” has become a “bad” word, and the image of a strong leader, not selling his people out to slavery and submission is seen as “bad”?
I think Dana is pissed that this movie slipped past the censors in Hollywood, and she, along with her liberal facists, are scared to death what the American people may take away from it…….
Hey Dana, I’m going to see it, your reveiw didn’t stop me. Happy?
Bonus Question: Can anyone name a Anti-War movie in the past twenty years that included a pro-war sentiment, based on facts, and not anti-war propaganda?
PinkyBigglesworth on March 8, 2007 at 9:55 PM
As I understand it, manly love was quite common in Sparta. Perhaps someone will use a perjorative to describe the act and really make this movie an orgy of offensive content.
austinnelly on March 8, 2007 at 9:58 PM
Quick, add to “Favorites” before it’s gone……
PinkyBigglesworth on March 8, 2007 at 9:58 PM
Count me in as someone who was going to pass on the movie (until DVD anyway). I’ll be there now though, maybe I’ll buy some extra tickets just to do my part to pump up the gross.
I really don’t know how someone like Dana Stevens gets through life.
Well, actually I do know how, and that’s why I own stock in pharmaceuticals.
Long live the guilt-ridden, depressed, victimized, pitiful, whiny, miserable, hyper-sensitive lump of useless humanity that comprises today’s Left!
Keep buying those anti-depressants so I can retire in style!
reaganaut on March 8, 2007 at 9:59 PM
and?
BirdEye on March 8, 2007 at 9:59 PM
I’m surprised she didn’t slit her wrists during Lord of the Rings.
Jim Treacher on March 8, 2007 at 10:03 PM
Looky here babycakes, maybe the art dept decidid to let the inner troglodyte anti-civilization insides of the villians show through,mmmkay?
I’va seen it on the previews, but I cannot wait to see the Spartan kick the evil one down the well on the big screen and hear his Dean Scream in glorious surround sound.
bbz123 on March 8, 2007 at 10:03 PM
talk about someone with too much time on her hands. it’s a freakin’ movie for Buddha’s sake!
Opinionnation on March 8, 2007 at 10:10 PM
I plan to like it whether I like it or not.
Kevin M on March 8, 2007 at 10:12 PM
The die has been cast. Every movie must have leftist overtones to be acceptable for public consumption.
Do not disobey the prime directive.
Sammy316 on March 8, 2007 at 10:14 PM
What are the writers of The Half-Hour News Hour supposed to do now?
Stephen M on March 8, 2007 at 10:17 PM
Allah, did you make up that headline or did you get it from somewhere?
Jim-Rose on March 8, 2007 at 10:29 PM
Another insight from le belle Stevens:
Well that just tears it.
The Spartans being portrayed as warlike.
This just cannot stand.
Everyone concerned with historical correctness needs to take heed of this Important Action Alert.
billy on March 8, 2007 at 10:29 PM
It’s okay, Dana, I hear Clint Eastwood’s planning an anti-war “Letters from The Hot Gates” where he explores the feelings, misgivings and human side of the invading Persians and shows that they were just as ambivalent, mixed-up and confused about the whole “invasion of Greece” thing as the Spartans were.
Citizen Duck on March 8, 2007 at 10:57 PM
Here’s why she doesn’t like it-
And when a liberal gets their panties in wad, you know it won’t be long before they start in on their most hated thing in the world…..white males-
So yeah, i’ll be going to see it.
forged rite on March 8, 2007 at 10:57 PM
Haven’t you heard? Western Culture is something to be pitied and maybe even tolerated. Allah/Vishnu/Buddha forbid that it be something we can be proud of.
Decoy256 on March 8, 2007 at 11:01 PM
I am going to see this thing, like, twelve times now.
Savage on March 8, 2007 at 11:02 PM
My thoughts exactly. Anti-war and Sparta don’t belong in the same paragraph, let alone the same sentence.
Troy Rasmussen on March 8, 2007 at 11:03 PM
One of Bush’s speech writers has to work, “Madness? This is America!” into a speech. In fact, maybe we can trick Kofi Annan into saying, “…but this is madness.”
BTW, Frank Miller is not a moonbat. What I love is the little “hmmm” that comes from the interviewer after Miller finishes a sentence. As if, hmmm, I am completely shocked by what you are saying and want to scream that in your face but I have to maintain a professinoal appearence.
Bill C on March 8, 2007 at 11:04 PM
What!? I am surprised at all of you. Aren’t any of you going to wait until Rosie O’Donnell and Joy Behar have seen it — so that they can tell you whether or not it meets with their approval?
/sarc off
BTW, what if Rosie likes it?
CyberCipher on March 8, 2007 at 11:14 PM
If she has so much White Race Guilt she should alleviate her suffering immediately by opening the veins of her wrists. Geeze, it is a movie based on a fancy comic book about something that really happened re: a bunch of chiseled white guys beating the crap out of a bunch of brownies.
Neo on March 8, 2007 at 11:22 PM
i can’t believe that dobbson got sh*t for the purple teletubby thing. that was literalism compared to this.
she even aknowleges that the movie, based on a comic book released in 1998, isn’t politically motivated.
so, what’s at work behind her hysterical misinterpretation? her totalitaeian, monopolitical conviction that no work of art or entertainment can be allowed which isn’t expliscitly antiwar.
indeed, 300 is…
jummy on March 8, 2007 at 11:30 PM
Righteous soldiers defeating a corrupt enemy. And she wants some anti-war sentiment?
Have they (The “Can’t we all just get along“-ers) all gone completely bananas?
“The Sands of Iwo Jima” where the Marines feel bad about using flamethrowers?
Has the bizarro zone slipped completely through?
What did she think of “Ghost Soldiers“?
(A book about the real Japanese treatment of our soldiers in WW II that strangely sentimentalistic Clint Eastwood didn’t dare make a movie of.)
Keep these defeatists out of my foxhole!
Time for a re-issue of “The Scourge of the Swastika“.
Or would we have to present a sweet side to Ilsa, Bitch of Buchenwald? (How really thoroughly she dusted her human skin lampshades, perhaps?)
As Heraclitus put it: “War is the father and king of all.”
profitsbeard on March 8, 2007 at 11:34 PM
Cool. But what are Ace’s thoughts?
Jeff G on March 8, 2007 at 11:36 PM
I HAD IT FIRST, DUDE.
Allahpundit on March 8, 2007 at 11:39 PM
Oddly enough, Ace doesn’t seem at all pleased with this review.
billy on March 8, 2007 at 11:40 PM
If I didn’t kill Jews after watching “The Passion,” and I didn’t kill Mexicans after watching “Apocalypto,” am I free to not kill Persians after I see “300″?
You see, Dana, in the real world art does not determine the character and actions of New Soviet Man. There is a thing called “free will” that was not explained to you by Marx, Lenin, or your film-studies professor.
We get it: Frank Miller is guilty of thought crimes. Good for Frank!
Like many others who have commented, I had very little interest in this comic-book movie prior to the fuss on the left side of the blogosphere. Now this is on my must-see list.
Anton on March 8, 2007 at 11:41 PM
She did, but it was that sideways attention whore method.
Big difference. Huge.
ScottMcC on March 8, 2007 at 11:43 PM
USA Today also had a negative review … all the more reason to see it.
Hey Dana, wanna hear somethingh craaaaaazy? In the movie “Troy”, half naked muscular Greeks fight half naked muscular Trojans! How DARE they?! (Hmmm, I guess that’s why Mrs.737 likes that movie so much!)
Stupid anti-Western lib, it’s because of war like Spartans, Athenians and Romans … and AMERICANS … that you have the right to give us your opinion on this movie.
Tony737 on March 8, 2007 at 11:44 PM
300 guys hold back a million man army at the narrow valley of Thermopylae for a few DAYS. So what!
In America, it only takes 51 Democrats to hold back 300 million of us for years.
Mojave Mark on March 9, 2007 at 12:57 AM
Don’t forget about the the “fisting” scene now required in every movie, ……… along with the burning of the American Flag……
PinkyBigglesworth on March 9, 2007 at 1:12 AM
“….her way of saying that if you see this and enjoy it, you might be a redneck.”
What’s not to like? Greeks represent the good, the valiant, the noble. “Greater love hath no love” and all that. Persians represent the evil, self-centered, treacherous left.
Works for me.
georgej on March 9, 2007 at 1:23 AM
For those who missed it…….
PinkyBigglesworth on March 9, 2007 at 1:25 AM
profitsbeard wrote:
Actally, if he had, it have been a remake as John Dahl had already made it into a movie for Miramax.
The Great Raid, based on the books The Great Raid on Cabanatuan and Ghost Soldiers, was in the theaters about 2 and 1/2 years ago, staring Benjamin Bratt, James Franco, Max Martini is available on DVD.
If you haven’t seen it already, buy it or rent it. I promise you, Dana Stevens wouldn’t like this one either!
georgej on March 9, 2007 at 1:39 AM
Lest we forget a bit of odd perspective, “Lysitrata”
http://www.theatredatabase.com/ancient/aristophanes_005.html
The lesbian wet-dream of sorts, where the ladies decide to forgo realtionships with the Greek males in order to force peace.In the big picture they would have wound up in the hands of the invaders. Foolish wenches then and now.
bbz123 on March 9, 2007 at 1:39 AM
I have pre-purchased my tickets to see this tomorrow morning at the local IMAX theatre….I soooo win!
TBinSTL on March 9, 2007 at 1:46 AM
So what did the critics expect…..it is Leonidas vs Silky Pony. I’ll pay to see that.
Limerick on March 9, 2007 at 1:50 AM
…..”Cymbal, Snar tap, BOOM!”
Limerick, Happy St. Patty’s day, in advance……..
PinkyBigglesworth on March 9, 2007 at 2:02 AM
Takeing my boy to see it Saturday…
Romeo13 on March 9, 2007 at 2:04 AM
Well to be fair to the lady (and I have no idea who she is apart from this review), having watched the 5min extract of the other day, she seems to have it right. The good guys are all white and in fact baddies and goodies are portrayed exactly the way she described. Now when I went to Greece the vast majority of people I saw were in fact pretty dark skinned. The further south you went the darker they became and Sparta was in the south was it not? So it’s perhaps a bit unrealistic that the spartans in this movie are indeed all white guys. Then again I don’t know what the ethnicity of the region was 3000 odd years ago. Maybe they were all white in those days.
Other than that I don’t really care about all that, if it’s entertaining and it sure looks like it is then it’s a good movie as far as I’m concerned.
Aylios on March 9, 2007 at 2:39 AM
I was going to see Children of Men as a matter of sci-fi/what if interest until I learned of its politically correct overtones and fandom.
I was not going to see 300 as a matter of I’m not really interested in war movies, but now that I see politically correct loathing of it, I just might. I may just wait to rent on DVD, though, as a matter of still not interested in war movies and not so willing to spend movie prices for it.
hadsil on March 9, 2007 at 3:44 AM
That’s Gerard Butler – quite possibly the most attractive guy – wait, wrong word – man I can think of.
And apparently a lot of those great one-liners (”Tonight we dine in Hades,” “Come and get them,” “Then we will fight in the shade”) are straight from Herodotus’ writings, which I think is uber cool. So says Wikipedia anyways.
emmaline1138 on March 9, 2007 at 4:11 AM
I saw it tonight. Just got back.
100% Grade A Rock N’ Roll, Dipped In Awesome Sauce!
Lot’s of blood. Lot’s of slow-mo kills. Excellent character developement for a movie made anytime in the last decade. Xerxes is definitely creepy gay club guy with hands the size of your head. The bad guys are bad and the good guys are good. A hell of a lotta fun all the way to the end. Starts a tad slow if you already know the basics of Spartan culture, but looks so beautiful you really don’t care that you already know all this stuff. A lot of blood, but it’s digital so it doesn’t look really gross.Which is to say it does not look like Hostel or Saw or Saw II or Saw III or The Hills Have Eyes. I won’t say more cause I don’t wanna spoil it for anyone.
Go see it and have fun.
The Apologist on March 9, 2007 at 4:12 AM
How about Viggo Mortensen doing the whole Bush-bash lefty celeb schpiel for the press…after shooting, like, a 15-hour-long Us vs. Them war epic. Can’t we just sit down and talk with the Orcs and understand where they’re coming from?
John Rhys-Davies (Gimli the Dwarf), though, is a whole ‘nother story. He gave some amazing interviews. “Into the West” indeed!
saint kansas on March 9, 2007 at 5:22 AM
P.S. 300 was directed by Zack Snyder, who blew me away with the sweet, sweet, sweet zombie gun porn of Dawn of the Dead. Oh my God is that a beautiful film of man-gun love. Shit, even Ann Coulter wouldn’t dare say out loud that it was better than the original, but I will.
That said, I’m not sure why Dana’s upset with elephants being depicted in league with the “bad” side, though RINOs are indeed filthy creatures.
saint kansas on March 9, 2007 at 5:53 AM
Further proof that BDS is systemic. When you cant distinguish between fantasy and reality.. oh yeah thats right, the left never could do that.. nevermind..
Viper1 on March 9, 2007 at 6:01 AM
Children of Men: its all Bush’s fault women cant have babies… saw it, waste of money.
Viper1 on March 9, 2007 at 6:03 AM
No anti-war message? No anti-Bush sentiment? No PC?
Are you sure this came out of Hollyweird?
LonelyMassRepublican on March 9, 2007 at 6:28 AM
“Spartans for oil,
Spartans for oil”
Everyone knows it was the Greeks that attacked Persia to force democracy on the rest of the world and get cheaper oil.
Leonidashitler
Hening on March 9, 2007 at 7:00 AM
Praytell??
Darksean on March 9, 2007 at 7:28 AM
Shun the f-word user! Shun!!! SHUUUUUUUNNNNNNNN!!!
fusionaddict on March 9, 2007 at 7:46 AM
Hey! You got your politics in my comics again! Stop that!
And I’m with fusion addict, why’s it o.k. for the reviewer to say “fag”?
SouthernDem on March 9, 2007 at 8:37 AM
PinkyBigglesworth: Thanks. Top of the morning to you also.
(more green beer please).
Going to the 11:15 showing this morning. HoooooohRahhhhh!
Limerick on March 9, 2007 at 8:46 AM
Apologist: “The bad guys are bad and the good guys are good.”
I haven’t seen a movie like that since “True Lies”. It’s always about a bad guy in the C.I.A. and understanding why they baddies are bad and stupid crap like that ’cause this is how Hollywood sees the world. But in real life, the good guys are good and the bad guys are bad. American troops in Iraq ane Afghanistan are good, their jihadi enemies are bad. It’s really that simple. There is no evil C.I.A. guy trying to get our troops killed so that he can increase his budget for the next fiscal year. The jihadis really are evil pricks who wanna kill people just because they sunscribe to a different cult. It’s black and white good vs. evil and it’s about time somebody made a movie about it.
Tony737 on March 9, 2007 at 8:49 AM
Typical of the abysmal ignorance of history on the left.
Here’s the reality:
The Achaemenid (Persian, ed.) monarch was absolute and, though not divine himself, the regent of the god Ahura Mazda on earth. The practice of proskynesis—kneeling before the Great King—was required of all subjects and foreigners. Aristotle later saw this custom of worshipping men as gods as proof of the wide difference between Eastern and Hellenic notions of individualism, politics, and religion.
-Victor Davis Hanson, Carnage and Culture
N. O'Brain on March 9, 2007 at 8:53 AM
Well, I guess Ford has its new advertising line for the 626…”Chariot of the Gods”!
HA! I slay me.
fusionaddict on March 9, 2007 at 8:59 AM
Everything she wrote may very well be true but what was she expecting? Who goes to a movie like this hoping for some sort of great political message?
I’m going to see it and the only way I’ll be dissapointed is if there is a lack of violence, blood, screaming, and general badassery. It’s escapist and there’s nothing wrong with that. Escape and enjoy it. Horrible review.
JaHerer22 on March 9, 2007 at 9:18 AM
re: Gimli, A Man Among Dwarves
I wish I could remember more of it, but Rhys-Davies (remember him in Raiders?) did a rather lengthy interview with Michael Medved. The man is 100 percent pro-West, no apologies.
National Review interviewed him as well here:
And the money quote:
Sadly, no.
saint kansas on March 9, 2007 at 9:21 AM
No, it’s not unrealistic at all for 480 B.C.
reaganaut on March 9, 2007 at 9:28 AM
I don’t think Stuttaford knows what he’s talking about re the Greeks. Sparta’s oligarchs might have been illiberal compared to the Athenian democrats, but even in Athens’ heyday it was routine for legislatures to vote to put people to death for purely political reasons — and they were both models of civil liberties compared to Persia, where there was little concept of rights for anyone.
As for his visual complaints, he didn’t seem to particularly like Sin City, either, and he probably finds South Park nauseating. But as VDH pointed out this kind of outsized portrayal is typical of how the Greeks themselves told their stories.
TallDave on March 9, 2007 at 9:31 AM
Well, I wasn’t going to see it, either. A magnificent story of courage that led to the saving of Western Civilization from the Persian empire transformed into a comic-book style, digitized, fictionalized war flick.
And yet, after reading that review, I can’t help but think that anything that woman finds so objectionable must have some merit to it…
morganfrost on March 9, 2007 at 9:31 AM
http://pbfcomics.com/archive/PBF209-Now_Showing.jpg
Savage on March 9, 2007 at 9:51 AM
I decided to click on over to read the rest of the review. I hate it when people use ten dollar words to create twenty-five cent sentences.
James on March 9, 2007 at 10:01 AM
Much appreciation, Saint Kansas. Excellent read, and awesome to know.
Darksean on March 9, 2007 at 10:10 AM
Makes you wonder.
‘Brokeback Mountain’ = good
but ‘300′ = bad
I’m not saying BM was a bad movie, but you get the idea. Hopefully.
So…something like ‘if you act like the victim, you get their sympathy; if you decide to do something about it, THEN you’re a traitor’
Reaps on March 9, 2007 at 10:13 AM
FWIW a terrific movie with political, good guy-bad guy bent is Breach. Sounds like a lot less work than this one!!!
honora on March 9, 2007 at 10:30 AM
honora, this is exactly what they were talking about with the ’supposed good guy is really the bad guy’ thing. They said they wanted a straightforward, ‘good guy is good’ movie, not a cynical ‘my government has bad people in it’ movie.
James on March 9, 2007 at 10:40 AM
This is going to become the “Must See” movie of the next two months. That will really piss off the left. White guys kicking ass!
RedinBlueCounty on March 9, 2007 at 10:51 AM
So let me get this straight. 300 is offensive to lefties why? because its a war movie with no anti-war sentiment? because the Persian king has piercings? maybe its because he’s portrayed as I dare say a “f****t” – meaning of course “effeminate Persian style” not gay in the homosexual sense of the word. Wait.. someone tell Ann that she should have said the word gay instead. Or is it only ok for lefties from slate to refer to effeminate people as homosexual regardless of the slang? I’m heading out to get my tickets right now. I’m not missing out on my share of “crypto-war porn” Hell no.
RobertCSampson on March 9, 2007 at 11:05 AM
I just love the line
Does whoever wrote this know nothing of history? Xerxes I arrives in Greece with an army whose size is estimated at a minimum of 400,000 (more likely 500,000). The Persians had every intention of utterly destroying the Greeks. If this wasn’t the biggest emergency to emerge in centries, I cannot imagine what was. Who cares about individual liberty when you are all going to be killed or enslaved?
Henry Bowman on March 9, 2007 at 11:05 AM
That should be the tagline.
I haven’t seen it yet, but this one has me excited. I’m a 25-year-old, 5 ft. 4 in., 120 lbs. woman, but watching the trailers makes me wish I could be a Spartan.
There’s something to be admired in their dedication.
Esthier on March 9, 2007 at 11:25 AM
VDH already gave his thumbs up to this one, and that’s good enough for me. The fact that a leftist review has his man-panties in a twist because there’s no anti-Bush or anti-war message in this movie is just sweet icing on the cake.
thirteen28 on March 9, 2007 at 12:08 PM
Shalit just gave it his own “thumbs up” on NBC.
I’ll go see it anyway.
This flick has some pretty clever lines. Is it a comedy? Because it sure seemed like it judging by the clips he showed…
wccawa on March 9, 2007 at 12:51 PM
Esthier, there is a chance that I am your 2″ shorter twin.
I’m 25, 5′2″ and 115 lbs and the trailers made me want to be a Spartan too!
I see about 1 movie (in theaters) every 3-4 months. I’ll be seeing this movie opening weekend with my friends.
JadeNYU on March 9, 2007 at 1:45 PM
Had to come back to this thread after seeing the Rosie-turnover one.
Whew! The color is starting to return to my face.
Darksean on March 9, 2007 at 1:54 PM
Yeah, I hate those guys. We should close the borders in, um, New England, I guess. So the tall lobster people don’t come and, like, blow up our buildings and take away our jobs and stuff. This is going to be a dominant issue in the 2008 election.
Sheesh. Talk about getting so drunk on your own venom that you forget your original point.
JackOfClubs on March 9, 2007 at 2:34 PM
I rarely see movies in the theater, but anything that upsets the Left this much deserves to be supported. Not only will it rock, but like Rush Limbaugh, it pisses off all the right people.
ReubenJCogburn on March 9, 2007 at 2:36 PM
Just got back from it. I doesn’t hold up as history, and it could’ve done with probably 1/2 as many speeches, but it’s still the most satisfying movie I’ve seen in years. The film is a glorious island of testosterone standing alone in a sea of cloying Hollywood PC.
Blacklake on March 9, 2007 at 2:41 PM
There was a special on this on the History channel and every historian said that this battle saved democracy. If Leonidas hadn’t held off Xerxes for a few days to allow the retreating Greek forces to meet up democracy would have most certainly been lost to history.
They also said the movie wasn’t historically accurate, but as someone else said, you want history go read a book.
Sammy316 on March 9, 2007 at 2:49 PM
An obvious stretch.
Nonfactor on March 9, 2007 at 3:04 PM
Haha!
PRCalDude on March 9, 2007 at 3:06 PM
I think they may have had a shortage of chiseled, appropriately skin-toned actors whose ability to speak clear English would not have had an adverse effect on the box office. Do we want accurate skin color or do we want understandable dialogue?
Let’s just be happy they didn’t try to speak with affected Greek accents.
TexasDan on March 9, 2007 at 3:12 PM
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