I liked the movie. And I liked that neither the oracle or Gorgo had large breasts. Just because usually when you see a naked breast in a movie, it's going to be big, ya know? So a little diversity in size is refreshing. Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Storm Saxon: No one, I think, is arguing for historical accuracy. Certainly not me.
Sorry, that first paragraph was just for some fun background info. I wasn't criticizing the movie based on it.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Okay, so -- where's the comparison? How is this at all similar to a QT movie?
quote:2. I have read the graphic novel. It just seemed to me that they took away some of the deepness of the story. For example, when I read the novel I was legitimately upset when Leonidas knelt before Xerxes. It was such a huge moment on paper, but in the movie it didn't seem like a big deal.
Huh. Okay. So that's the example (in a movie where 90% of the dialogue and images are lifted directly from the comic) of unfaithfulness. Not that it was actually unfaithful, but there was this one moment where -- even though it played out exactly the same way and contained exactly the same dialogue and looked exactly the same -- it didn't seem faithful. Well, that makes sense.
1. I didn't offer a comparison. To me all Quentin Tarantino movies have great actions scenes and decent, if not poor acting.
2. Whats the problem here? Because I didn't feel the same attachment to characters and didn't feel the emotion of the story as much when I watched the movie, I don't make sense? Faithful to the story must mean two different things to you and I. Some books (or graphic novels in this case) are just meant to be read. Sort of how some things will have to be changed in the Ender's Game movie in order to make it a winner. If they used the book itself as their screenplay it wouldn't work too well.
Posts: 1401 | Registered: Jun 2004
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I liked the movie. And I liked that neither the oracle or Gorgo had large breasts. Just because usually when you see a naked breast in a movie, it's going to be big, ya know? So a little diversity in size is refreshing.
*whispers* I liked the fact that they had an older chick that looked good doing naked scenes. Gives me hope.
And, uh, it also gave me hope that they had a buff older dude. But in a different, completely non-gay way. Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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See, you are not focusing on the bit about looking good doing naked scenes. That's the the important part. Not the age. See. Or Mr. Saxon's apparently not so good age detector. Yep.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Leonidas showed a sureness in all his actions. Gorgo's surprise at Theron's betrayal, after her speech, leaves her looking desperate. Her unnecessary and perhaps obligatory submission is a misstep as Theron makes his points stronger to the council. In contrast, when Leonidas kneels, the narration begins and it all is a calculated effort, a last hurrah. Gorgo becomes panicked. There is no coins jingling to clue her and there should've been something to prove her composure. I just watched Out of the Past and believed Kathie Moffat's love for Jeff Markham. Her spin controls all the men about her. Is Jeff somewhat more her 'true' love than chump? As a femme fatale, she looses her composure at the end. Panicked, she snarls, “You rat!” I see Gorgo similarly. Instead of the attempted slap and the guards restraining her, show her command of the situation, her perception to the weight of gold on Theron's waist and then precede with the short sword stab. Her retribution is solid without the falter under Theron's accusations. Someone here or at IMDb felt the slow-mo lost impact with its overuse. And now I think the final spear toss needed the frame rate quickened. Then the jump/cut of the spear's point, through the dais backboard, and the reveal of Xerxes horrified face has the surprise that the slow-mo built toward. Xerxes kept the grotesques in his circle and now this scar makes him imperfect. The music, the guitar riffs, improved this movie and the fighting on screen.
Would this have been a good opportunity to spotlight actors from Greece?
Posts: 61 | Registered: Aug 2003
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Good grief, bluenessuno. You've been registered here since 2003 and only 23 posts. That's got to be some kind of record or something (he said, baiting the other lurkers).
I am about 300ed out for today, but I just wanted to tell you that I found your post interesting.
And just to be clear, I want to make sure it's clear, I really enjoyed the movie, too.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Here's the BBC article about this. Iran thinks "American Cultural Officials" researched how to attack Iranian culture. Which to us, of course, is ridiculous, but since that's the way things work there, I'm sure they believe it's the way they work here, too.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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In the process of looking for a TIME magazine article written from the Iranian perspective about 300, I came across this, which is also from the Iranian perspective.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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I'm amazed that, according to this guy at least, Hollywood has now decided to depict Pres Bush as the great war hero!
Posts: 867 | Registered: Dec 2003
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I do not endorse that guy's viewpoint. I just provide it for contrast.
For instance, he wants to make the Spartans the equivalent of modern Americans, but then goes on for several paragraphs about how the Persians aren't representative of real classical Persians.
Maybe, you know, the movie Persians are a kind of symbol for the modern Persians.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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I don't think anyone in the movie is a symbol of anything. All politics are being placed on it.
That's fine - that's part of what art is for. However, as far as I can tell, the filmmakers just wanted to make a bloody, fighting, awesome comic book movie.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:One paper said Iranians' ancestors were shown as "dumb savages"
<shrug> That's Hollywood, I guess. They're not the first, they won't be the last, and they're probably in good company. I don't think symbolism [as in, hawkery] is the goal.
Storm: Is this the TIME article you were looking for? This one is more about the reaction from the Iranian population than from the government.
posted
Yeah. I wasn't trying to say it was from the perspective of the government, but, yeah. Thanks. Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: I don't think anyone in the movie is a symbol of anything. All politics are being placed on it.
That's fine - that's part of what art is for. However, as far as I can tell, the filmmakers just wanted to make a bloody, fighting, awesome comic book movie.
It doesn't have to be, that's true, but considering that the author of the graphic novel that the movie is heavily based upon doesn't see it that way, I'd say there is room for the other interpretation, too.
I can't find the full transcript of the interview, but here are some relevant bits posted on another site:
quote: our country is up against an existential foe that knows exactly what it wants, and we’re behaving like a collapsing empire. All collapsing empires collapse from within. … Ok, let’s talk about who we’re up against, because for some reason nobody ever talks about them or the sixth century barbarism they represent. … Where I would fault President Bush the most is that in the wake of 9/11 he didn’t mobilise our military … against our common foe. … [I explain my thoughts on this] mainly in historical terms… The country that fought Okinawa and Iwo Jima is now spilling precious blood but so little in comparison, it’s almost ridiculous, ant the stakes are almost as high as they were then. Mostly, a lot of people say, why did we attack Iraq, then?
Well, we’re taking on an idea. In the same way that nobody questioned it when we took on Japan after Pearl Harbour.
Q: But [Japan] did declare war on us, right?
MILLER: Yeah, well so did Iraq.
Note, I am right in line with Islamicism, Islamofascism, whatever you want to call it being a threat. It's not clear to me that the best way to deal with it is the military, but then again, it's not clear to me that it's not. So, I'm not against being militant against the 'barbarian hordes'.
On the other hand, this doesn't excuse propaganda and lying, or at least listening to what all sides have to say regarding what is true or false in how a film depicts a group.
Sometimes a cigar really isn't just a cigar in a film.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Originally posted by James Tiberius Kirk: Ack, that's not what I meant to imply that you said, though reading my post I can see where it came from. Sorry.
--j_k
No problem. I'm sure it's my fault I didn't read what you said more perceptively.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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I'm alittle late on this, but I finally got to see "300" today. This is after months and months of my brother eagerly anticipating and talking about this film.
I was seriously disappointed.
I could complain about the goat or the sword-arms guy. I could point out that my favorite part of the movie was simply the half-naked men.
But more than anything, I just want to smack whoever A) made the decision to have a narrator and B) wrote his dialogue.
So many times the narrator was describing in words what I could see on the screen with my own two eyes. I see the Greek men leaving the battlefield with Sparta's messenger following reluctantly. But I'm so having to listen to some guy SAY "a hundred men left and only one looked back." I kept wanting to scream, "I KNOW." I know because you're showing me. I can SEE. He kept describing the action or telling me what the characters felt, which was a shame since the cast was excellent and I could read their emotions in their eyes. I kept wanting to put the movie on mute.
My roommate and I decided it suffers from "George Lucas Syndrome." The oversized elephants and mutant humans were so unbelievable that it completely took me out of the movie experience. I wasn't looking at the ephrons or the hunchback and seeing scarred, diseased, deformed men. I was seeing alot of latex makeup and it ruined it for me. The CGI rhino and elephants were a nightmare. Add in some unnecessary, ridiculous attempts at dramatic dialogue and you have stylish George Lucas film. I felt like there needed to be someone on the set or in the editting room playing Devil's Advocate and pulling in the reins on the "creative department."
Posts: 1733 | Registered: Apr 2005
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The narrator is integral to the movie. It's the reason why, within the movie, so many on the Persian side look monstrous, that, for instance, Xerxes is ten feet tall and speaks with a kind of cosmic voice.
These things are not just the director being goofy.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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If the narrator is so integral, he should say something other than a description of the onscreen action. But by repeating the obvious, he became redundant rather than adding anything to the storytelling.
Posts: 1733 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Cool movie, very much in keeping with the over the top comic book style of Sin City. I thought it was worth the price of admission. Plus it put me in the mood to kill Persians, which could prove useful in the near future...
I actually did not care or particularly concern myself with the Persians, I wondered if, like Braveheart for the Scot's this movie would be received with pride by the modern day Greek's. It is nice that they have something (besides that gay porn flick Alexander), Hollywood has done the Chinese, Scots, Romans, Irish, British and Jews. I am glad the Greeks get a turn.
Posts: 231 | Registered: Feb 2007
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The narrator was completely necessary. The entire structure of the film is based upon there being the narrator, as the movie is nothing more than the narrator's mythical retelling of events. That's how the sto--
nevermind. I guess you know this, just didn't like it anyway.
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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I understood what it was trying to do, and I appreciated the narrator-myth thing going on, I was just bored. The fights weren't that cool, I didn't give a rat's about any of the characters so I didn't really care what their eventual fate was and... yeah. Very meh.
Sometimes I wonder if, like Shakespeare was meant to be witnessed and not read, graphic novels were meant to be read and not witnessed.
Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
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I didn't mind the narrator for some of the scenes. The scene Shanna mentions where David Wenham is the only one leaving while the others remain, that I think would have been much cooler in silence. Other than that, he went back and forth from cool to superflous.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Saw this movie last night. I wasn't going to see it because I really didn't like Sin City, so I figured I'd give Frank Miller a pass. Other than the Frank Miller thing, I went into it with a pretty open mind, saw no previews, and didn't know anything about the hype or politicizing that has happened. It was incredible. I'll definitely buy it, and very possibly see it in the theater again.
Plus, anything that makes the Iranians start ranting about American cultural officials has entertainment value beyond the theater.
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