The website for 300

Admittedly, I am totally going to see this because Gerard Butler x buffed-up+leather underwear=drooling DrSnark, but the story seems very interesting. I read Frank Miller's 300--it's not bad. Not bad at all.

I find the history of Athens and Sparta to be extremely interesting. But I don't know if the movie is going in that direction, and don't want to just see a bunch of guys get chopped up. I need to see the reviews for this one, I think.

I hadn't really heard anything about this at all, and until just a moment ago never even knew Miller had done a Thermopylae graphic novel. From Wikipedia, it looks like the film is going to be a shot-by-shot recreation of that graphic novel. Sure hope that works better than it did in Sin City. It also turns out the production is apparently recycling spears and perhaps some armor from Troy -- a good-luck charm if I've ever heard one.

Looks like the cast is made up of largely unknown actors, although it's always nice to see Dominic West getting work outside of The Wire.

If the army wearing only banana hammocks beats the army with shields and armor, I'm gonna say the fix is in.

I saw the movie opening night. As a recreation of the Frank Miller graphic novel, it's aces. I don't know how well that will play for people who haven't seen the Miller work, however. I am usually a compleat history geek who cringes when I see a zipper on a Greek costume or the like, but the departures from actual history didn't bother me at all in this flick. It was obvious a fantasy version of 'reality', and they kept all my favorite quotes from history (my favorite macho response of all time, to the threat of facing a host of arrows that would blot out the sun: "Then we will fight in the shade!"). Gerard Butler was magnificently muscled, but bellowed every line he had. It was like watching a bull try to act but what the hell, I wasn't there for the acting. Great slow-motion and even stop-motion work, fabulous backgrounds, and art direction that should at least earn an Oscar nomination. I'm definitely going back for another viewing.

I am a fucking moron.

I went to see this on Friday...and I hated the movie. Oh, yeah, Gerard Butler and his motley crew of leather speedo wearing Hot Cops were fun to watch...when they weren't screaming/bellowing their lines which usually had something to do with "freedom," or how shitty the Persians were, or how the shitty Persians were going to trample "freedom" to death with superstition (who was it who had to visit the oracle to freakin' get permission for a war? Oh, yeah).

I have to laugh at how a few critics stress that there's female nudity, too, just so nobody's shaky masculinity might be questioned by seeing a movie where a large part of the cast is comprised of almost naked extremely buff guys.

It's definitely the most HoYay-tastic film I've seen in ages. And I hated it. But that won't stop me from bellowing, "SPAAAAAARTA!" and doing everything I do "FOR SPAAAAARTA!" from now on.

Maybe if I bellow my lectures the way the Spartans seemed to bellow about what they ate for breakfast that morning, I might have my students' attention. Of course, if I wore a red cape and leather speedo every day, I'm sure I'd have their attention as well.

So it wasn't just lighting effects that accentuated those abs: Spartan Training. Talk about a grueling workout. If only I had that kind of discipline.

I'm not sure what I thought of this movie. It was interesting. I'm not sure I like a movie that is more visual than story, or character driven. I don't know if that's what I even mean. But I did like the digitally enhanced abs on the pretty, pretty, nearly naked men in leather panties.