Saturday, March 31, 2007

"300" Is Hilarious

The movie "300" is beautiful, has great fight scenes, and is completely over the top. The best part is the punchline: the Greeks are fighting the Persians to battle "tyranny and mysticism." Xerxes the god-king represents mysticism? The Spartan pagans, who show their own temple to be corrupt, are the defenders of clear-eyed rational faith? Wow.

The whole episode is enhanced by fact that the Islamic Republic of Iran – which surely would have condemned Xerxes to death as the worst kind of idolater – blasted the film as an attack on Iranian culture.

3 comments:

Stushie said...

I saw it on my 50th birthday. it was like a British camp movie of the sixties. The scene where Xerxes and Leonidus meet face to face was like a Mardi Gras parade meeting a bunch of Frat boys at the beach during Spring Break.

I laughed through most of it. Some teenagers in front of me giggled, too.

Gruntled said...

Camp is right. I wouldn't be surprised if the movie had a big gay following, both for the Spartans and for the gold-lame Xerxes.

Gruntled said...

Agreed. The film even has the standard "this is purely fictitious" disclaimer at the end, even though the battle and the main characters are real.