The Soph was here for the weekend. She is still here but I'm at work. I was supposed to have a long call this morning, so I came early. As it always happens, always, the thing I was supposed to be here early for was no longer going to happen. My life. It. Sucks.
The Sis was pissed that I did not ply her with alcohol. And that I was such a lazy bum. She has known me for 21 years, how did that come as a surprise? She got me brownies pretending to be fudge, so I'm not going to say another word. Yummy.
Anyway, we saw Pursuit of Happyness and 300. Pursuit - very good. I liked it a lot. The kid was cute, Will Smith was good. Nuff said.
Spoilers -
300 - what were they thinking? I had no expectations for the movie and fully expected it to suck, Gladiator style. Then I saw it. I had totally overestimated it. Everything I expected was there - the burnished bodies, the stilted conversations, the beautiful women, the horrible monsters, the poncy persians, all that I had heard and read about.
It was much much more than that. There were the charging rhinos and elephants, the 10 ft tall god-king, the hunchback, the gleaming eyes of the wolf, the corrupt politician, the faithful soldiers, the dying "It was an honour to die by your side", "it was an honour to have lived by yours", Faramir! the narrator, the "council", the gorgeous oracle, the lecharous priests, african persians, whipped slaves, trolls, giant, twisted men, the 10 ft tall king, the jewellery, the thrones, the rhino and the elephants ... I could go on and on.
//I wrote a load of stuff here but Blogger lost it. Damn you Blogger.//
Overwhelming East versus West crap - West good, East bad. We got it. Move on. East - fat men, dark men, slaves, pompous, arrogant, delusions of divinity. West - strong, fearless, honorable (except the politicians, but seriously, does that surprise you?), free, victorious even in death, blah blah.
If they had to make a movie about the Battle of Thermopylae, why did they not use The Gates of Fire instead of a half assed, unresearched, uninteresting, comic book. Sorry, Graphic Novel. I felt like I was watching a video game on the big screen. I was more emotionally involved during Monster House. It was very blah. Not even the cute kid getting his head chopped off made me wince. How terribly sad is that?
Watch the movie. Enjoy the popcorn.
Did you see how young Oracle was in the movie... Try to place it along with Matrix... Refer my blog for details.... But great reviews nevertheless!!! :)
ReplyDeleteyou know what's funny is that frank miller was inspired to write the comic books after seeing a 1962 movie about the war. so it's even more second-hand.
ReplyDeleteAnd frank miller admits that he pretty much did comics to draw obscenely attractive nude women and hyper-masculine men killing each other in the most bad-assed way he could think of.
So the history clearly wasn't the point. I walked into it expecting nothing else but hyper-stylized killing, and it did not disappoint.
I had to stop midway through your blog, coz I haven't seen 300 and am just itching to watch it (being released here next week), have a feeling though that you haven't said good things about it......
ReplyDeleteAnyway, on other subject, someone suggested this trilogy fantasy novel to me..."The dragonriders of pern" by Anne McCaffrey. I haven't read it yet, but thought since you are big on dragons...you might want to read it.
Soph - hah!
ReplyDeleteSid - watch it. Suffer. "Thish ish Shpartah"
Agree with you on 300...glorified violence with some of the most dramatic dialogues...
ReplyDeleteWatched Apocalytpo - Brilliant.
The Black Dahlia & The Prestige were neat as well.