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Capone Oggles Sweaty Men In Leather Diapers & Loves 300!!
Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here.
Two films I've been desperate to tell you about since last year are finally being released this week. One is THE HOST (see my separate review). The other, I saw in December at Butt Numb-a-Thon 8 in Austin. Director Zack Snyder (who made the well-done DAWN OF THE DEAD remake) was on hand after the screening and told us the film still needed some minor tweaking (mostly color correction and other things most civilians wouldn't even see as unfinished). When I re-watched 300 more recently, I didn't notice any real difference, but it was a good opportunity for me to judge whether the stunning visuals I remembered so clearly were simply hiding a run-of-the-mill sword-and-sandals tale, or if there was really some substance to this graphic and sensual tale of a small group of Spartan warriors fighting off the Persian masses who attempted to enslave the world one nation at a time. Glory be, this movie kicked even more shapes and sizes of ass on my second go-round, setting the bar ridiculously high for genre films in 2007.
First off, there's a great deal of yelling in 300. In fact, more than 50 percent of the dialogue is uttered at a raised volume (you probably gleaned that from the trailers). I thought this would bother me more than it did, but it actually heightened my overall interest in the goings on. Based on the Frank (SIN CITY) Miller graphic novel (which I'm totally unfamiliar with), the film tells the bloody and savage tale of 300 men against more than 100,000 at the battle of Thermopylae. Why did Sparta only send 300 men? Actually, Sparta didn't. The corrupt Spartan government (exemplified by Dominic West) refused to send an army to challenge the Persian hordes. So King Leonidas (Gerard Butler of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and TOMB RAIDER 2 fame, but don't hold that against him) defied the city elders and soothsayers by hand picking 300 "bodyguards" to accompany him on a long walk. Clever fellow, that Leonidas. What follows is almost solid sweaty, gory, clever and, above all, brutal battles.
By using some choice digital effects, director Snyder is not content to allow his sword and spear battles to look like those before. In almost every instance, you see swords go into bare chests. These guys aren't using bulky clothes and tricky camera angles to simulate weapon penetration. This is meant to look about as real as anything I've seen on screen, which is ironic since so little else about the film is meant to look like it even takes place in this world. Much like the textures and colors from a graphic novel, the skies and landscapes of 300 appear more like idealized planetscapes of some far off world. Many of the battle sequences are done in slow motion, so you don't miss a single lost limb or drop of blood. Even skin tones seem art directed by a painter. The visual backgrounds don't take away from the story. If anything, they add an archetypal feel to everything in this movie. It takes your breath away and absolutely demands that you see the film more than once, just to admire the craftsmanship.
For all its savagery, 300 also has its moments of sensuality. Leonidas' wife, Queen Gorgo, is a stone-cold honey played by Lena Headey (known more for her work in lighter fare on film; she's also set to play the title role on "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" TV series). While Leonidas is gone, Gorgo must do what she can to protect Sparta from its own politicians. Heady's performance is fierce and sexy, and I would very much like her to tie me down and punish me for whatever. One of the stranger characters is the towering Persian king himself, Xerxes (Brazilian actor Rodrigo Santoro, who occasionally shows up on "Lost" as Paulo), who believes he is a god and wears as much jewelry as any god I've ever seen. It's a bizarre but unforgettable performance.
It's safe to say that 300 is unlike anything you've ever seen before, with portions based soundly in reality and other sections seemingly ripped right out of some great lost fantasy novel. It exists in its own universe and will leave you utterly in awe of the story it tells. Snyder's command of the visuals (with more than a little help from Miller's source material, undoubtedly) shows a confidence I would not have expected and leaves me hopeful that he is the right man for the job to bring Alan Moore's WATCHMEN Watchmen graphic novel to the screen. This film is opening on IMAX screens this week as well; I'm drooling just thinking about it.
Capone
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hidden sexual message?
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that is pretty much all i have to say. sweaty, ultra-buff men, for all you metrosexuals out there to dream about. enjoy!
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which is bad. But good.
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to shooting films in the real world...you know that place we all live in? I don't want to see any more movies shot inside a green box. Apart from Avatar obviously. Gotta love Cameron. I'll pass on 300 though.
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Oh and kwisatzhaderach, shut the hell up. Get with the times. Besides, a movie based on the 300 novel wouldn't have the same feel as the book because find me a place on Earth that looks like that. If it wasn't like the novel, we'd all bitch about it.
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Just received my copy, bloody hell :O Turning it of to prevent spoiler moments though... 20 march in IMAX AMSTERDAM, HERE WE GO!!!!
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Okay, which of you guys filed this complaint?http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0305072fcc4.html
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http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0305072fcc4.html
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Just remove the space in the link (either between the "3" and "0" in my first post, or the "a" and "r" in my second). Still wanna know which of you guys filed the complaint...
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How gay is it? It makes "Supeman Returns" look like "Hedwig and the Angry Inch".
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So far, rev_sharekroe is first in the running for the guy who complained to CBS that Prince's half time show made his son gay. And BTW, rev: Takes one to know one. Looks like your gaydar's up and running. And we all know which demographic has the most fine tuned gaydar...
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since when do all the dateless wonders in here have any concept of the real world?
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"Metrosexual" is not the same thing as "homosexual". Metroes are straight guys who've co-oped some of the gay stereotypes. As in, designer clothes, expensive haircuts, becoming total gym rats. But they aren't sexually attracted to other men. Glad to clear that up.
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are closeted homosexuals with no friends. I can just picture you at your computer looking at a Talkback thinking, let me rain on the parade because i like men.
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"Special" friends. Friends who, for $25, can keep his little secret.
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Wow! I quake in the shadow of your manliness and your prowess with the ladies... No wait a minute, yer a dink. That sounds about right. I love how those who seem so insecure with they're masculinity feel threatened by those of us who like cool looking movies with men dressed in the garb of the era, and need to call us names. Ow you really got me. One last thing homosexuality involves sexual intercourse with a member of the same sex and does not extend further to any other attributes. Glad I could edjumacate you's.
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i mean, duh, the metrosexual isn't attracted to men (supposedly), yet somehow strangely admires and covets the "uber" male qualities to an almost bizarre point of feminization (just look at the eyeliner on those boys in loincloths!). doesn't mean i won't see it, nor does it mean i am anti-gay or anti-metrosexual, just means i find it funny that pretty guys like to watch other guys looking pretty and, gee, they get a little sensitive about it when you mention it....
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Coming in 2009, "300 part 2: Dining in Hell".-----"S P A R T A N S! PREPARE F O R SSSOUPPP!!!!"
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You guys are so gay. You're so gay, Richard Simmons is all like "Whoa turn down the flames there, honey!" You're the ones the cast of "Queer Eye..." calls when THEY need a makeover. You're so gay that you enjoy putting your penis into other men's anuses, and you enjoy having them do the same to you.
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It's OK. I think for "300" we're all allowed to express our inner fag. After that your inner fag quota is up, dog.
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Rev man...you have the fucking internet and those are the fucking comebacks you can come up with. Ill give you a little help..goto google.com search gay comebacks. Then come back to us and enlighten us. HAHAHA that shit wasn't even funny. Im just laughing how you probably have no friends and prob do like the penis. As for everyone talking about how they are barely wearing any clothes, well thats how they rolled back in the day. And we know that you all would probably be upset if they were all rocking Valor suits at battle.
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...But I AM GAY! So, like, do you go up to black people and say, "You are SO BLACK!. You're the one who cast Eddie Murphy in 'Dreamgirls'!". Because, really, it's having pretty much the same effect. Which is none. Well, it is having one effect: pity. Man, you must be one sad example of the human race if that reply is all you could come up with. Unless, of course, your response was supposed to be lame. But I got a feeling you thought you were really burning us. Sorry, girlfriend. Good luck figuring yourself out and don't break a nail!
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It took you nearly 3 hours to come up with THAT retort??!!! Now that's lame...
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how was the new trailer...did we see venom punch spideys nuts?
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It was pretty awful. Not groundbreaking at all. The whole thing looked like it was on a soudstage. In fact, the lack of scope was a digression for films. So far 300 was the biggest disappointment of the year.
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and pull him upwards very quickly. There's also a quick shot of Venom himself after it gets on Brock. If you're seeing 300 then savor the preview, because it's a lot better than the actual movie.
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And it was bad ass. The cgi backgrounds were very well done and didn't bother me at all. Looking forward to what Snyder does next.
Also wtf is up with all the Spider-man videos? I feel like I seen the whole movie now, fuck. -
Fucking spears everywhere. Boring as hell.
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and as usual we got fucked out of the new trailers...so i didnt se spider-man 3...fucking lame...gonna see 300 again today so hopefully ill see it this time
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Not quite as funny as Quint's mistaken use of "primitively" for "pre-emptively." That was a hilarious headline.
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"Fucking spears everywhere. Boring as hell." Yeah, that's what Kevin Federline said led to the divorce. [http://frogstar.soylentgeek.com/wav/rimshot.wav] Thank you! Thank you! You've been a great audience! I'm here all week! 3 shows daily! Goodnight!
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...This film should be called 301 for I am Spartan!
Hail Arrius!
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I caught a mantinee of it this afternoon. It has a good solid story and is presented like a moving Boris Vallejo painting. If I had one problem with it, this is it: during the wolf flashback scene, the narrator says the wolf had red glowing eyes, when everyone could see the wolf had yellow glowing eyes. How do you fuck up a narration when you are looking at what's being narrated?
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and that is perfectly okay. we need variety. they already have a gay cowboy movie so whats wrong with a gay conan movie?
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UNMATCHED SOUND AND EXTREMELY SHARP DETAIL
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because when they showed leonidas nekkit in the moonlight, you went up and licked the screen. it's ok, man- I was right behind you,
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Looks like the new BO king : )
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Not only did they wear skimpy outfits back then, deodorant hadn't even been invented yet. GAH!! Thank heavens the movie wasn't in smell-o-vision.
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Just saw "300" last night and I am now officially a neuter, cuz that shit tore off my nads and smoked 'em thru a bong carved from the skull of a retarded Persian kid. If I could shit out "cool", I'da crapped myself stupid. This movie was a personalized hand-job from Frank Miller to everyone who thought "Sin City" choked on stale faggot balls.
Please, do yourselves the favor of seeing this on the big screen -
Mar 11, 2007 12:26:01 AM CST
How come 300 soldiers seemed like 20 on the screen?
by gibsonusa returns
Awesome movie. But it didn't seem like 300 Spartans, more like 20 or so. Maybe they did that visually to make them seem more outnumbered and heroic.
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...and it also makes Sin City look like fucking Shakespeare. Face it: the story is paper thin, coulda been told in ten pages; and every time Xerxes spoke, I kept thinking of some cheap-ass slow-down-the-voice effects guy who probably watched Saw one too many times and thought an artificially deepened voice was like real cool and stuff. For all of that, Butler did credibly, Wenham was solid as always, Headey was hot (but Xerxes's "ho"s were hotter), and visually, sure, there were several cool moments. But overall, it's two hours of eye candy for anyone who gets off on the stupidity of excess bloodletting. (Any asses comparing this to Kill Bill, which intentionally parodied the violence into a cartoon; or any of the LOTR films, need to have what passes for their heads hollowed out and used for fucking waste baskets.) God of War on the PS2 had more substance than this.
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Being invaded by an army led by Rupaul. Loved the soft core porn blood bath, hated to vapid queer bashing. Dip me in honey and toss me to the Spartans.
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When I looked up the movie times for the IMAX in San Antonio, I noticed the IMAX was 12 min. shorter that regular reel time. Anyone know what the difference is? Why is it shorter? I really want to see it in IMAX but my husband's like if they're cutting out 12 min. never mind.
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Saw this on Friday. The show we went to see and the one after it were sold out, so we had to see a very late showing. So I didn't need to see the box office numbers to know it was killing. The action and effects were very good. It was a nice eye candy film, but halfway through I was looking to see how much energy Lionadus had and where the next power-up was. It went-Battle-boss giant, battle-boss rhinothing. battle-boss Xerxes, end game. Not a masterpiece by any means, but fun to watch.
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...Were any of you expecting fucking Spartacus or The Ten Commandments? This was never supposed to be "High Art".
Frank Miller?
"Graphic Novel"?
"Batman Returns"?
Which one of these screams "Literary Classic"? Eye candy; a kick-ass Saturday diversion, nothing more. And for that, it kicked ass!
Folks decrying its "lack of substance" really need to calm down and consider source material. It ain't fuckin' Faulkner, man. -
Mar 11, 2007 9:35:28 PM CDT
I wonder what these nerds are like in the theater..?
by gibsonusa returns
I went with a bunch of friends and had an awesome time. So did the rest of the sold out crowd. Everyone looked to be there to have a fun time watching an intense movie. I NEVER see any of the nerds here who start b*tching and moaning about every little thing and getting all anal that it's not "high art" and just geeking out like a fool. NEVER. Maybe they go to like the morning shows by themselves, with a notepad or something to anally write down their whines. Sucks to be them.
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Why does everything have to be such vapid shit? ONE person suggests that we look at the stars from the gutter and gets pounded for being an elitest. Miller is about the worst very-popular comic writer in the world. Kinetic rubbish. Other people, like Grant Morrison and Warren Ellis, are trying to make the medium evolve into something glorious, something that Kubrick would be grateful to adapt, and neanderthals put Miller up on a pedestal and suck his little weasel dick.
'"Graphic Novel"? Which one of these screams "Literary Classic"?
Oh man, you really are just scratching at the surface.
I have no problem with this 'it's just fun' shit, but DON'T tell us that we shouldn't expect something better. Films are not supposed to be a substitute for sports. Pan's Labyrinth was worth the ENTIRE career of Tim Burton so far. -
'The hummersexual, you see, doth protest too much. Rather than “reclaiming your manhood”, as the recent US Hummer ad campaign trumpeted, hummersexuality tends to make people wonder whether there’s some kind of compensation going on. This is a fetishised, “strapped-on”, unsustainable, gas-guzzling masculinity which, like the metrosexuality it is supposedly a reaction against, is a needy product of consumerism and media. After all, it is Madison Avenue - with its Hummer, its Burger King “manthem” (”We are men, hear us roar”) and its Dodge “Anything but cute” ads - that styled it.
However, unlike his better-looking metrosexual younger brother - whom he usually refers to as ‘that fag’ - the hummersexual is in denial. He thinks he reeks of heterosexuality, but is blissfully unaware that he often seems to have just stepped out of the funkier kind of gay leather/bear bar.
Despite his best efforts to convince you, the hummersexual is not retrosexual. Since when did “regular guys” need several tons of military hardware, or “new macho” lifestyle magazines such as Best Life, or books such as the bestselling Alphabet of Manliness and Men Don’t Apologise, to be “regular”? The hummersexual is clearly, hilariously, faux-retrosexual. He’s an off-the-peg, drag-king idea of “real” masculinity: stuffed crotch and joke beard included at no extra charge.'
Mark Simpson in The Guardian -
bitch!
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