Like Kevin McCullough, I had no interest in "300", until I started reading a couple of Dean Barnett’s posts, regarding some buzz around the movie. It seemed liberal reviewers were not too keen on the "pro-military/pro-warrior-ethos&quo…

300, the new movie adapted from Frank Miller’s graphic novel from the late 1990s, has scored a remarkable success at the box office with at least 70 million dollars. I wonder if it has anything to do with Miller’s patriotic standings. I have no idea,…

…

where’s the out rage?

Oh my bad. She’s not a republican.

Crypto-Nazi war porn vaguely reminiscent of being raped?

You must have had some interesting dates in your past.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/reviews/?id=2267&p=.htm

Best part:

The script is filled with words—tyranny, freedom, reason—that go completely unsupported and have no meaning. The Spartans, portrayed as snarling animals seeking hostility for its own sake, claim superiority over mysticism, but cartoonish mystics inflict real damage, thereby negating the power of reason over faith.

Faced with giants, monsters and Rodrigo Santoro as a transgendered God/king/queen in golden eye shadow, the doomed Spartans, who appear to shave their bodies, put up a helluva fight. But with a military philosophy—the Spartan king regrets that he has so few lives to sacrifice—resembling the Bush administration’s foreign policy, the mighty Spartans lack the mind to match the muscle.

If sacrifice is noble, why bother to fight—why not hurry up and die? And why—oh, never mind, this latest message of Doomsday nihilism, which sidesteps history, serves one purpose: to validate chronic fear.

100% Grade A Rock N’ Roll, Dipped In Awesome Sauce!

The Apologist on March 9, 2007 at 4:12 AM

…With A Side Order Of Whoopass And A Tall Frosty Glass Of Awesome To Wash It Down With!

I saw it this afternoon, and all I can say is that anybody who believes that there are things in this world worth fighting and dying for should see this movie. No wonder liberals don’t like it.

It’ll gross twice what the 5 Oscar nominees brought in combined.

LOTR, Narnia, 300…

The left hates real heroes because the Left doesn’t “believe” in right&wrong.

Excellent flick. Truly…I thought it was fantastic.

This flick has some pretty clever lines. Is it a comedy? Because it sure seemed like it judging by the clips he showed…

A bunch of the best lines, like “we’ll fight in the shade” are taken directly from Herotodus.

I just saw it as well, and it is magnificent. I’d say that everyone in our military should go see it, but they obviously already understand the ethos and principles exemplified in this movie. People like the Slate reviewer are the ones that could learn from it, but they never will.

Just saw it with the Hubby in IMAX..HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT..Wonderful REAL manly men talking about “freedom isnt free” and “Honor and Duty” AND the Queen is GREAT!!!!
It is a visually arresting movie with a GREAT cast (love that Gerard Baker!!) and a TERRIFIC storyline! The affects are amazing and the story will hold you! RUN OUT AND SEE IT THIS WEEKEND!!

I haven’t really been following the progress of 300, but I caught a few minutes of its “making of” video on HBO in my hotel room last week, and thought it certainly looked intriguing–lots of actors dressed as ancient soldiers……

Any way, it was blood and violence from start to finish. Maybe I’m just a dumb red stater, unable to comprehend nuance, but I really enjoy good guys fighting and killing bad guys. How sad that Slate is unable to recognize evil, even in a movie.

Sons, take your dads. Dads, take your sons. This is an all-out, balls-to-the-wall, righteous good vs. bloodthirsty evil movie.

I walked out of this flick ready to beat somebody’s ass.

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.
Aylios on March 9, 2007 at 2:39 AM

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.

I’m surprised she didn’t slit her wrists during Lord of the Rings.

Jim Treacher on March 8, 2007 at 10:03 PM

Haha!

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.

An obvious stretch.

They also said the movie wasn’t historically accurate, but as someone else said, you want history go read a book.

Here are just a few of the categories that are not-so-vaguely conflated with the “bad” (i.e., Persian) side in the movie … Ten-foot-tall giants with filed teeth and lobster claws.

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.