The Spartans And The Persians

You'll never guess by the title what I'm blogging about...

Watched the movie '300' today. It wasn't what I had expected, but that's all right, because I had expected far less. It was a pretty cool movie, though not for the usual reasons. As a sort of opening comment though, I'm not recommending it. Whenever there was blood, there was a lot of it, and whenever there was a beheading (and there were a few) you get a very gruesome angle of the inside of their head, with their jugular spurting blood everywhere. Also, whenever they can think of a reason to flash boobs, they do so; when they can't think of any reason, they flash them anyway. It's hard to tell for sure whether that's a problem or not, as most of the men look very womanly with their long curly hair, black leather panty-things that seem to make up approximately 10% of their uniform (the other 90% are their capes), and beards. Plus they call the queen a warrior all the time.

It's a historical movie, so the plot's no secret. The directors waste no time on it. They just start out with some killing and keep cranking up the size of the opposing parties until everyone dies. It's a war movie. That's what they're supposed to do.

But at about this point, whoever was in charge took a look at the list of things a historical war movie was supposed to contain, said 'What the...', and beat it senseless with his shield.

The music in the dramatic bits is some sort of overdriven guitar and drum kit rock music. Which is sweet. I've had enough of the whiny Arab-sounding music that usually go into the dramatic parts of such movies. (though they gave in and played a bit at the end)

There were virtually no sets, the entire thing minus the actors (and not even all of them) was pretty much computer-generated. The only color ever really used is brown. Everything is always brown. The rocks, the sky, the grass, the water, the elephants, and the beards. Except for that guy who got his eye stabbed out, his was more of a yellow-ish tan color.

The combat scenes switch in and out of slow-motion rather quickly, but it's a cool effect overall. I've always liked action movies that mixed high-speed and slow-motion shots. Am I the only one who starts laughing in 'The Patriot' when, after ten minutes of dramatic battle, Mel Gibson is still running and screaming and killing and waving flags about in slow motion? Quite.

And there's blood everywhere. Lots and lots of blood. No more of this whimpy 'stab people and the camera conveniently misses most of the gory bits', every time someone gets maimed again, you get to see it in detail. It was kinda cool.

The best part of the entire movie was the sarcasm though. Sure, everyone saw the bit on the commercials where, after a Persian Emissary says 'Our arrows shall, like, blot out the sun and crap, yo?' one of the soldiers (no one every remembers the names of anyone in war movies) says 'Then we shall fight in the shade', and it's generally outrageously cool, but they say stuff like that all the time in the movie.
After battling since sunrise, the two generals meet:
Xerxes: "I find Spartan culture so fascinating. We could be great allies, and share much with each other. Join us. It is your destiny."
The Spartan King Feller (Leotardis or something. All Greek names sound the same to me): "Haven't you noticed, we've been sharing our culture all morning."

It really is quite funny. Sentry especially, you'll get a real kick out of all the sarcasm.

Oh, and the Persians had grenades.

Nothing I can say would sound cooler after that.

What I did today besides watch 300: Play Skillet on the big stereo while everyone shopped. The kitchen floor isn't nearly as stable as I had previously believed it to be.

SOTD: Skillet - A Little More