e4b3533b25d09cd298b4…

I will be back soon for more info!…

Some of us like our CGI and overly dramatized comic book style movies apparently.

Fair enough – but did you enjoy it? Not yet having seen 300 myself, I’m not sure, judging by your writeup.

SpartRan on March 17, 2007 at 12:25 PM

You get what you expect out of the movie.

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,…

300 is a fun film. I emptied my box of popcorn. But afterward I felt like what I’d seen on screen hadn’t been any more substantial than that snack.

Fair enough – but did you enjoy it? Not yet having seen 300 myself, I’m not sure, judging by your writeup.

That’s what I was at least TRYING to do.

Some people here are saying that your opinion is WRONG if you don’t agree with them.

Which is STUPID, ESPECIALLY with regards to art.

“I don’t like clams.”
“You’re WRONG dude! You just don’t understand clams!”

Which, of course, is stupid.

Bryan doesn’t like the movie all that much. I’m hip to that groove. One of the great things about this kind of place is we can all share our opinions.

I don’t think Bryan’s opinion is actually debateable, it’s his opinion after all, but we can discuss the merit of the movie all night long.

Oh, and Fred Thompson bends steel bars around his arms and legs to relax before bedtime – because a man like that NEEDS a little exercise to take his mind off work.

Mac vs. PC?

Now that Macs run on x86 architecture and can run Windows and OS X side by side, it’s more about your choice of operating system. I was mainly a Windows user through 2004, switched to Ubuntu Linux in early 2005, and then switched to OS X in the fall of 2005. Of course, due to the nature of my work, I use all three systems on a daily basis. They all have their places.

There is a word I would like you to remember. The word is “Homeric.” In Homer, the Helenes do not fight in the phalanx, they fight as a series of one on one battles (monomachia). They are supermen, fighting against other supermen. Homer, if I may remind you, was also a POET, an ENTERTAINER, and he knew what made a good story. 300 is in the HOMERIC tradition, an exaggerated story in the vein of Grecian pottery and poetry, extolling the martial virtues and prowess of the Spartans against the evil and depraved Persians. Frankly, I was surprised (and pleasantly so) that they showed ANY phalanx warfare at all! After that, the series of one-on-one fights that seemed to make up the rest of the movie were not only marginally more acceptable, but even excusable. Comparing this movie to historical reality is like comparing Homer to Xenophon or apples to oranges: they fall into the same category, but all similarity ends there.

Bryan, your analysis was spot on in that there was a decided lack of sinew in the story. But sinew is not what this story was about. Instead, Miller and Snyder told a simplified, Homeric (sorry, I like the word and it DOES apply) version of the battle and made it appropriate by revealing the narrator to be giving the pre-battle harangue at Plataea (NOT MARATHON!). As one of the five people who would be willing to sit patiently through all 22 hours of “Gates of Fire: the Movie” (but only if they retitled it “The Persian Wars: the Movie.” I demand both Salamis and Plataea!), I yearn for an accurate representation of hoplite warfare. However, lacking that, I am more than happy with the theater piece that is “300.”

BTW, PC all the way!

I’m starting to question my conservative politics because.. if hot air is wrong about the 300.. what else could you possibly be wrong about?

Huh. interesting point. This is starting to worry me as well.

But I know some other people around here are probably itchin’ for that fight.

Mac vs. PC?
Now you’re just tryin’ to start a flame war, buddy!

Bryan on March 16, 2007 at 8:37 PM

“Blasphemous……..This is Madness……”

Go with it Bryan, go with it, I know you want to…….

“THIS IS SPAAAAAAARRRRRRRTTTTTTTTAAAAAAA……….”

I’m starting to question my conservative politics because.. if hot air is wrong about the 300.. what else could you possibly be wrong about?

Scary. I don’t want to go to dailykos. They’re weird.

Mac vs. PC?

Now you’re just tryin’ to start a flame war, buddy!

Rusty was being facetious, unlike St. Andrew. Did you follow the link?

And I posted that to promote Rusty’s review of the movie. He is my boss, after all.

All opinion of art, be it paintings, movies, books, plays, et. al. is not objective, it’s subjective.

Art is in the eye of the beholder. Therefore, neither St. Andrew nor Rusty can be “wrong.” And your review doesn’t make you right. It doesn’t make you wrong, either.

Then again, it’s you versus the box office record books.

You’re not wrong in your opinion, but, follow the money.

BTW, Mac vs. PC?

:-)

http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson101106.html

Oh for the love of…

Bryan on March 16, 2007 at 7:03 PM

Bryan,

It sounds like you are having a bad day. I have an idea, why don’t you go out and see a movie and try to relax.

I hear 300 is pretty good………

Then again, had Fred Thompson been at the Battle of Thermopylae, the movie “300” would’ve been called “1”

And lasted 30 minutes…

…with 28 1/2 of it in slo-mo…

…and the Persians would’ve lost.

And there wouldn’t be any Iranians giving us crap now, because after defeating X’s army, he’d have walked back to Persia, kicking ass and taking names all the way. Well, maybe he’d have had some scribes along to do the ‘taking names’ part for him. And some pack mules to carry the scrolls with all those names.

This is why Lord of the Rings is a bit superior to Star Wars, less emphasis on examining WHY someone wants to enslave you and more resolve on actually stopping them. The Jedi endlessly got caught up on politics and failed meanwhile a band of hobbits with no powers but thier strength of will go to vitory.