in short: the ultimate chick flick*
the weekend? fabulous. daylight savings time? can still eat a dick. but 300? OH MY FUCKING GOD!!! no…wait…OH MY FUCKING GOD!!!!!
300 was by far one of the most fabulous movies i have seen in a long time, one of the most fabulous movies made in a long time. the only thing that even comes close in the last 6 months or more is curse of the golden flower. i have not enjoyed a film that much in quite a long time.
everything about it was just stunning: the visual effects, the lighting, the framing of shots, the acting, the bloody fucking carnage, the driving soundtrack. i loved it, i love it…i’m completely enamored of it. completely.
i know the story, i’ve seen frank miller’s work — let it be known that he truly is a god of a graphic novelist — i’m familiar with the history…but i was not prepared. visceral and astonishing, the movie was everything i could’ve hoped for and more. it was perfect.
for me, a movie requires a few key components to enter the ranks of greatness in my heart: story (i’m not all about senselessness distractions), visual allure, characters worth a fuck (much like lack of story, if there are no engaging characters, what’s the point of watching), intriguing conflict, explosions/fire, violent outbursts/action, spectacular deaths, decided lack of nauseating mushiness, animal maulings, midgets, monkeys & destruction. these are they key elements in a movie i love. in nearly any combination, but they are important.
i do take umbrage with this point, however; as it is made in countless reviews of the movie:
300 is an erotic spectacle for men (straight and gay apparently) and this demographic should bask in the bombastic grandeur of discourse, domination and decapitations. – Mike Sage, Peterborough This Week
it must be said, i am exceptionally glad i only saw the tiniest bit of reviews before seeing the movie. even better that i saw fewer ads because a.) television sucks and b.) the anticipation could have likely killed me. as it stands, i had an exceptionally shitty week and wasn’t exactly in the mood for a movie when we got to the theatre; but when all was said and done and the credits were rolling and the music was washing over the darkness of the room…BAM! it was fucking exactly what i needed. a bolt of energy straight to the system.
bloody fucking magnificence.
hard, gleaming bodies full of raw male power. hordes of enemy forces barreling down with certain destruction for all. flying spears, arrows and clashing swords. beasts and mutants and seemingly otherworldly monsters. the carnage, the violence, the visceral power, the destruction. limbs and blood and corpses flying every which way, piles of the vanquished on either side…in short, the movie was totally and completely compelling. it’s been touted as the ultimate guy movie by some reviewers — the far less annoying of the reviewing crop, nonetheless — but i think they are dead wrong.
you can’t watch the spartans face off against the roiling onslaught of persians with their flowing crimson capes, gleaming shields, clenching their spears with tensely muscled arms and not just…sigh. they’re beautiful. power and strength and pure raw energy. they’re filthy, they’re strong, and more than a little frightening.
honestly, show me a man that gets the same tingle of excitement when leonidas is shouting on for victory, for glory, for sparta? it certainly wouldn’t be a straight man. it is pure limb-rending excitement, and that is exactly the kind of thing that sucks me in and turns every nerve ending, ever limb, every little excited molecule of me into pure goo.
from the first moment leonidas sends the persian messenger down into a pit of black doom, screaming for the glory of sparta, i was hooked. his 300 guards, all especially enticing and mesmerizing. even his wife, queen gorgo, was compelling — and it was refreshing to see a female in a story like this that wasn’t a mere flower, meekly whipping around in the winds of male frenzy around her. she was flinty, calculating, and stunning. not just a set of giant tits for decoration.
300 was visceral and entirely erotic. and not just a movie for the guys. fuck that, fuck that so hard.
aside from the decapitations, and the piles of defective babies, and the pure sexiness of it all, one of the best points of the entire film was the complete and utter lack of nauseating mush and fluff and “romantic interests” or “girlie bullshit”. you know, like braveheart or gladiator or any other epic battle movie — that unfortunately everyone is comparing 300 to, when it clearly blows them out of the fucking water — that introduces some willowy wench that the hero of the movie gets all swoony and ridiculous over.
there is a king and a queen in 300, and they love each other, true, but that is not what the fucking film is about and it stays thankfully out of the way. which is just, wonderful.
“come back with your shield, or on it.”
and that, ladies & gentlemen, is all the romance i need. anything more is just frivolity and excess.
and when leonidas growls out “tonight, we dine in HELL!” tell me you don’t just want to lick him.
ultimate guy movie? i think not.
300 has unbelievably succeeded on usurping rudy as my personal ultimate chick flick — heartwarming story, plus football, plus glory, plus action, plus a hobbit = awesome — by virtue of taking everything that made rudy great and substituting the football with pure sex appeal and plenty of gore. don’t get me wrong, the fighting irish and their hobbit are still high up there, but i finally have another chick movie just for me.
rock on.
and fuck the critics and reviewers and all the other douchebags who try and read too much into frank miller’s work and are wasting their time trying to figure out who is bush and what is iraq and blah blah fucking blah.
the film was great, and i can’t wait to see it again.
and that’s all that matters.
ETA: my photoshopping skillz sux0rx when i’m on a time crunch…meh.
* if you happen to be this particular chick, that is.
you mean crazy sexy!!
but yes, it probably wasn’t the brightest idea in the whole world but it was fucking bad ass. so fucking bad ass it broke march opening records!
must.see.again.