300

[Usually Lurkin]

Originally Posted by Five-ofan

achilles had some amazing fight scenes in troy. The crap with his wife and the politician was much worse than any overreaching troy did. In fact the storyline with his wife and the politician was the worst story since it turned out the kid in superman returns was actually his kid.

edit- and brad pitt was ALOT better than butler. the more i think about it, the more obvious it is that troy was better and to be honest its really not even that close(and this is damn sure not because of the greatness of troy)

hmm, I guess all I can say is "right, wrong, right, wrong, way wrong (and agreeable)."

[rmacomic]

Originally Posted by sike

Some lines that are good in comics...totally blow in live action.

That pretty mch sums up Frank Miller's work.

[Murphy3]

well, it got good reviews overall from the critics and very good reviews from the vast majority of the audiences that have seen it..so, that leads me to believe that a few of you just aren't too bright when it comes to movies.

[Usually Lurkin]

Originally Posted by sike

it did kick ample booty...but it also sucked the life out of a great story. Bland direction, poor acting, and cheesy as all get out lines. Some lines that are good in comics...totally blow in live action.

of course, in this case, some of the cheesier lines were written a couple thousand years before the comic book.

[Murphy3]

don't worry about sike... he usually doesn't like scripts that don't include the f-bomb every other word...

[rmacomic]

Originally Posted by Murphy3

well, it got good reviews overall from the critics and very good reviews from the vast majority of the audiences that have seen it..so, that leads me to believe that a few of you just aren't too bright when it comes to movies.

So did Police Academy 4.

[rabbitproof]

wow, if the critics and the majority of people say it is so, then Nash must be the best player of his generation...

[rabbitproof]

god, my signature is dope. thanks, windmill. hope you find this.

[Murphy3]

MVP voting isn't always about who the best player in the league is.... you know that. Nice attempt..

[rabbitproof]

Agree. Just saying the majority can always be wrong... let's just say you thought it was good and some people didn't.

[Murphy3]

RP, you're taking my comment entirely too seriously...

[sike]

Originally Posted by Murphy3

don't worry about sike... he usually doesn't like scripts that don't include the f-bomb every other word...

I'm a huge fan of the Spin Off from "the L word": "The F Word"

[rabbitproof]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=gNqiSkd1M6k

Nice.

[Five-ofan]

http://www.dailymotion.com/visited/s...7a9_300-part-1

you can find the rest from there. I warn you, the best parts of this movie and the only things that make it worth watching are the epic battle scenes which a computer will never do justice but if you just want to see it, here it is(its in 6 parts all of which you can find from there.

[sike]

for the record...300 is down to 61% on rottentomatoes.

61% is not solid.

[Usually Lurkin]

This sums up a lotta what's great about the movie:

300 Fumes [Victor Davis Hanson]

Why the liberal furor over 300? Aside from criticism leveled against the plot, cinematography, dialogue, etc. there seems to be an almost elemental anger that such a 'simplistic' take on good and evil—West good, East bad—reduced to comic book simplicity has hoodwinked the Neanderthal class in the way they were led by the nose to Iraq by the Bush/Cheney nexus.

But what they fail to grasp is why 300 took off, and, say for example, Oliver Stone's Alexander bombed, a take that had all the hot-button Hollywood issue from easy homosexuality to the inner crisis over 'what it all means.' But critics forget that there were 4 key differences between those two films:

1) Thermopylae really was an unambiguous and heroic last stand to preserve freedom against tyranny, while Alexander's invasion of Asia was morally ambiguous even to the Greeks, who died in droves as mercenaries in service to the Persians to stop him. So the rub was not just the attitude of the filmmaker toward his material, but his material itself. Leonidas and his Spartan and Thespian hoplites did not murder pages, kill prisoners, or murder most of their associates.

One of the most vehement attacks I 've earned (mostly from the Greek-American community) was an article I wrote a few years ago "Alexander the Killer" for the Military History Quarterly, that sort of counted the corpses of both Alexander's friends and enemies.

2) Once you jettison the conventions of realism you don't suffer from historical inaccuracy. So Stone's accents, his dialogue, his recreations were all inexact and campy—and he had no excuse since he wished to make the past come alive as he thought it actually happened. And even the uniformed sensed rightly that "It couldn't have really been like that".

Snyder et al. had no such aims, but like ancient vase-painters or tragedians were always radical impressionists, exempt from such demands.

In this regard, note the success of the British - produced "Rome" which, while taking detours from history, and adding a few too many Anglicisms in the dialogue, was nevertheless a brilliant take on both the Roman ruling class and the nature of ancient life in general, so much so that most believed rightly that the modern movie and the ancient reality were nearly one and the same.

3) There is a great yearning among the public for just a small, rare chance to see some issue presented in terms other than moral ambiguity. 300 provided that in a way other costume dramas like Alexander or Troy either could not or did not. The 300 and those beside them were better than the alternative, had the moral high ground, and were willing to match deed with word. That proved more receptive than Oliver Stone's fantasizing for a public weary of sorta, kinda judgements (the latest being the Iranian hostage taking where the West is engaged in moral anguish over GPS data, possible provocations, a prior lapse in "engaging" the Iranians, conspiracy theorizing over the Bush role in all this, etc. rather than just a simple: "The Brits appeared vulnerable and would not act, and so for the Iranian thugocracy it was too good a chance to pass up—given its prior success with the serial kidnapping of Westerners.

4) Luck. A movie comes out with a stereotypical view of the Persians as aggressive, imperious, arrogant, and autocratic; it is criticized for such simplicity; but then an aggressive, imperious, arrogant, and autocratic Iranian ruling caste 2500 years later at almost the moment of its release continues to defy the world over nukes and is reduced to sordid piracy and hostage-taking.

[SaltwaterChaffy]

I'm grunching this thread:

Got around to seeing this the other night. Not all people think this way (including myself at times), but a decent way to judge a film is to determine if it accomplished what it set out to do.

300 did exactly that. It was an attempt to put a graphic novel onto film, and more than any other "comic book" movie, it achieved it's goal. I felt that I was watching a graphic novel. The problem with that is something sike brought up (one of the few posts I read). Comic book lines sound cheesy as dialogue. That's what will happen when you try to foist one medium onto a completely different medium. The transition cannot be perfect.

But, whatever. I enjoyed it for what it was. It wasn't trying to be historically accurate, it wasn't trying to be a sweeping epic. It was trying to be an exciting recreation of an embellished myth, and it did that.

[sike]

Originally Posted by SaltwaterChaffy

I'm grunching this thread:

Got around to seeing this the other night. Not all people think this way (including myself at times), but a decent way to judge a film is to determine if it accomplished what it set out to do.

300 did exactly that. It was an attempt to put a graphic novel onto film, and more than any other "comic book" movie, it achieved it's goal. I felt that I was watching a graphic novel. The problem with that is something sike brought up (one of the few posts I read). Comic book lines sound cheesy as dialogue. That's what will happen when you try to foist one medium onto a completely different medium. The transition cannot be perfect.

But, whatever. I enjoyed it for what it was. It wasn't trying to be historically accurate, it wasn't trying to be a sweeping epic. It was trying to be an exciting recreation of an embellished myth, and it did that.

that is no reason to have poor acting...the cheesy dialogue maybe...but not poor acting.

[SaltwaterChaffy]

Originally Posted by sike

that is no reason to have poor acting...the cheesy dialogue maybe...but not poor acting.

It can be hard to deliver comic book style lines without acting like a comic book character. I didn't find any of the acting particular horrible (by no means good, though) and i'm usually a stickler for that sort of thing.

Also, it was nice to see Dominic West getting some work. I hope he'll get more once he ends his role on the greatest TV series of all time.

[capitalcity]

I will fight you.

[Flacolaco]

Originally Posted by capitalcity

I will fight you.

but I fight like a girl

[jthig32]

Stumbled across this looking for the Studio 60 thread. I saw this a couple weeks ago, and thought it was good. Very good, for what it is. It's an adrenaline movie. I agree with what BBL said to his friend, it shouldn't even be compared to Braveheart. Totally different movie.

I might compare it to Gladiator, but Gladiator was still a bit more...refined.

However, anyonen comparing it to Troy...well....I'm not sure what to say. Troy was a pretty bad movie, and the fight scenes aren't even comparable.

BTW BBL, I COMPLETELY agree on the narrator's voice. It was terrible. Really took away from the final scenes for me.

Anyone that sees this on DVD or TV needs to understand that it would've been quite a bit better in a theater.