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So I finally went and saw 300 the other day - and boy was it awful... awesomely awful.
I think I'm too old and perhaps of the wrong gender to think that this is a good movie - a fact that was punctuated by the 15 year old teenage boys behind us that were yelling "sweet!" at key moments and commented afterward that they'd thought it was the most awesome movie they'd ever seen.
Still, it was bad in an awesomely bad and entertaining way. There were a ton of hot guys wearing next to no clothing - although I have to admit that I was hoping that at some point, somewhere, we'd get to see a dude that had a bit of chest hair (sadly, that did not happen). It's amazing how hairless the men of Sparta apparently were. It was like they all stepped out of an Anita Blake novel.
It was also pretty sweet how the actor Leonidas shouted nearly every single one of his lines. There were several moments in the movie that I broke out into inappropriate laughter - one of which was when the dudes dressed as ninjas showed up.
It was also kind of interesting how they cherry picked from Spartan history. There were several things that were actually accurate. The opening sequence about how their children were raised was entirely truthful. So was the fact that women in Sparta had a hell of a lot more freedom than practically anywhere else in the Greek world. They even included my all time favorite Spartan saying "come back with your shield, or on it" which was something that Spartan mothers told their sons before they went off to battle. They also had the coolest version of phalanx formation fighting that I've ever seen - I really wish there'd been more actually instead of falling back on the matrixesque one on one fighting that got rather boring after awhile.
But man... there was some stuff that was so bullshit. For one thing, Sparta’s fighting for "freedom" when they themselves had a society built on slavery (and actually, not only did they have slaves but they made slaves out of their Greek neighbors - which was huge bone of contention between Sparta and other Greek city states).
Also there is no historical evidence that I've seen that Xerxes was a drag queen. Nor is there really any evidence that he was any more evil than any other conqueror at the time (like you know... Alexander the Great... a Greek). Even more crazy was the idea that Sparta was full of heterosexual men. Men and women were pretty much segregated in a lot of ways. Men of fighting age didn't live with their family - they lived in barracks with the other guys. And while a man was expected to marry (and I use that term very loosely) and have children, he generally had a male lover. The same was true with the women.
Not that I expected historical accuracy, but it was kinda interesting how they chose the stuff they thought was cool and completely ignored everything else.
All and all, a hilarious time, mostly due to the kids sitting behind us.
I think I'm too old and perhaps of the wrong gender to think that this is a good movie - a fact that was punctuated by the 15 year old teenage boys behind us that were yelling "sweet!" at key moments and commented afterward that they'd thought it was the most awesome movie they'd ever seen.
Still, it was bad in an awesomely bad and entertaining way. There were a ton of hot guys wearing next to no clothing - although I have to admit that I was hoping that at some point, somewhere, we'd get to see a dude that had a bit of chest hair (sadly, that did not happen). It's amazing how hairless the men of Sparta apparently were. It was like they all stepped out of an Anita Blake novel.
It was also pretty sweet how the actor Leonidas shouted nearly every single one of his lines. There were several moments in the movie that I broke out into inappropriate laughter - one of which was when the dudes dressed as ninjas showed up.
It was also kind of interesting how they cherry picked from Spartan history. There were several things that were actually accurate. The opening sequence about how their children were raised was entirely truthful. So was the fact that women in Sparta had a hell of a lot more freedom than practically anywhere else in the Greek world. They even included my all time favorite Spartan saying "come back with your shield, or on it" which was something that Spartan mothers told their sons before they went off to battle. They also had the coolest version of phalanx formation fighting that I've ever seen - I really wish there'd been more actually instead of falling back on the matrixesque one on one fighting that got rather boring after awhile.
But man... there was some stuff that was so bullshit. For one thing, Sparta’s fighting for "freedom" when they themselves had a society built on slavery (and actually, not only did they have slaves but they made slaves out of their Greek neighbors - which was huge bone of contention between Sparta and other Greek city states).
Also there is no historical evidence that I've seen that Xerxes was a drag queen. Nor is there really any evidence that he was any more evil than any other conqueror at the time (like you know... Alexander the Great... a Greek). Even more crazy was the idea that Sparta was full of heterosexual men. Men and women were pretty much segregated in a lot of ways. Men of fighting age didn't live with their family - they lived in barracks with the other guys. And while a man was expected to marry (and I use that term very loosely) and have children, he generally had a male lover. The same was true with the women.
Not that I expected historical accuracy, but it was kinda interesting how they chose the stuff they thought was cool and completely ignored everything else.
All and all, a hilarious time, mostly due to the kids sitting behind us.
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Then again, he probably wasn't supposed to be scary - he's probably just there to show how awesome and manly the Spartans are.
I haven't seen the movie--only YouTube stupidity surrounding the movie (so bits and parts and some really wacky shit), but this really baffled me, as well. Then I remembered it's Hollywood, and doesn't have to make sense. As long as the banana-hammocks are properly stuffed and the cgi-six packs are properly waxed, the money--it rolleth in.