300 review (and other stuff)
Mar. 26th, 2007 08:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexxkayOn Saturday, the weather being so nice, and me not being at work, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kestrell and I went out on our first date in way too long. She had been asking to see 300, and I had at least mild curiosity, so we did that.
We went to see it at the Boston Common theater, which proved unexpectedly interesting. There were quite a lot of anti-war protesters (hundreds at least) rallying, demonstrating, and even picketing the army recruitment center. There were also a *lot* of cops, in large groups, some on horseback, tensely waiting in case a riot broke out. Hmmm... (pause while Alexx checks the next seat for a Metro and flips through it.) No mention of it at all in the Monday Metro. Anyways, it added a surreal touch, while we were going to see such a pro-war movie. I took a couple pictures with my cell phone.
Once we got to our seats, we were a *long* way from a snack counter. But just as I was about to get back up to trek back, one of those traveling snack carts they sometimes have these days came in and stopped right in front of us. Timing! Not only that, but he commented on our t-shirts (Kes was wearing a Marv shirt and I had a Mage lightning bolt on mine) -- turns out he's a comics fan, so we chatted in between his sales pitches. Kes made him blush when she mentioned her Slytherin Schoolgirl Outfit :)
The final preview before the movie was certainly attached to the right film. It was for something called "Pathfinder", which involves Native Americans vs Vikings, and a similar degree of extremely macho violence.
The movie was surprisingly faithful to the comic. I hadn't found the comic all that memorable, yet I still recognized lots of dialog snippets and images as being exactly what was there. Heck, even the color balance of most scenes was clearly taking its lead from Lynn Varley's work.
One other place the director impresed me was during the fight scenes. Although he was somewhat spastic about alternating between normal speed and slo-mo, he *did* do long, complicated takes, where he showed a lot (30-60 seconds) of carefully-choreographed stage combat in one continuous shot. In a movie that has so much artificiality suffusing it, it was good to get at least a partial feeling of realism from this. While it may not be a real battle you're watching, you *are* watching trained and athletic men doing difficult things impressively.
The sound design was in keeping with the story -- very LOUD! On the one hand, this is the first time I've seen two armies clash and heard something that sounded remotely like the awesomeness of the field battle at Pennsic. On the other hand, it was relatively less impressive in context, where every time someone banged his spear on the ground, it sounded like a thunderclap. One unexpected side benefit was that I felt no compunction in giving Kes a descriptive track in low tones; the soundtrack was so overpowering that I doubt any one more than three feet away could have heard me.
Speaking of Pennsic, that experience did change one part of the movie for me. When the Persians are first charging the Spartan shield wall, and the king wants to order his men to stand firm, he repeatedly yells out, "HOLD!" Even though I knew it was wrong, some part of my brain kept wondering why the Persians didn't stop :)
The story itself is Frank Miller's quirks and fetishes distilled to almost toxic levels. Afterwards, Kes just couldn't stop talking about how obvious it was that Miller was raised Catholic, as he had such a stereotypically Catholic fantasy life. It did remind me of a certain infamous web comic about his writing... foibles.
Recommended for fans of violence and/or beefcake, as long as they have a tolerance for hyper-macho posturing.
kestrell and I went out on our first date in way too long. She had been asking to see 300, and I had at least mild curiosity, so we did that.We went to see it at the Boston Common theater, which proved unexpectedly interesting. There were quite a lot of anti-war protesters (hundreds at least) rallying, demonstrating, and even picketing the army recruitment center. There were also a *lot* of cops, in large groups, some on horseback, tensely waiting in case a riot broke out. Hmmm... (pause while Alexx checks the next seat for a Metro and flips through it.) No mention of it at all in the Monday Metro. Anyways, it added a surreal touch, while we were going to see such a pro-war movie. I took a couple pictures with my cell phone.
Once we got to our seats, we were a *long* way from a snack counter. But just as I was about to get back up to trek back, one of those traveling snack carts they sometimes have these days came in and stopped right in front of us. Timing! Not only that, but he commented on our t-shirts (Kes was wearing a Marv shirt and I had a Mage lightning bolt on mine) -- turns out he's a comics fan, so we chatted in between his sales pitches. Kes made him blush when she mentioned her Slytherin Schoolgirl Outfit :)
The final preview before the movie was certainly attached to the right film. It was for something called "Pathfinder", which involves Native Americans vs Vikings, and a similar degree of extremely macho violence.
The movie was surprisingly faithful to the comic. I hadn't found the comic all that memorable, yet I still recognized lots of dialog snippets and images as being exactly what was there. Heck, even the color balance of most scenes was clearly taking its lead from Lynn Varley's work.
One other place the director impresed me was during the fight scenes. Although he was somewhat spastic about alternating between normal speed and slo-mo, he *did* do long, complicated takes, where he showed a lot (30-60 seconds) of carefully-choreographed stage combat in one continuous shot. In a movie that has so much artificiality suffusing it, it was good to get at least a partial feeling of realism from this. While it may not be a real battle you're watching, you *are* watching trained and athletic men doing difficult things impressively.
The sound design was in keeping with the story -- very LOUD! On the one hand, this is the first time I've seen two armies clash and heard something that sounded remotely like the awesomeness of the field battle at Pennsic. On the other hand, it was relatively less impressive in context, where every time someone banged his spear on the ground, it sounded like a thunderclap. One unexpected side benefit was that I felt no compunction in giving Kes a descriptive track in low tones; the soundtrack was so overpowering that I doubt any one more than three feet away could have heard me.
Speaking of Pennsic, that experience did change one part of the movie for me. When the Persians are first charging the Spartan shield wall, and the king wants to order his men to stand firm, he repeatedly yells out, "HOLD!" Even though I knew it was wrong, some part of my brain kept wondering why the Persians didn't stop :)
The story itself is Frank Miller's quirks and fetishes distilled to almost toxic levels. Afterwards, Kes just couldn't stop talking about how obvious it was that Miller was raised Catholic, as he had such a stereotypically Catholic fantasy life. It did remind me of a certain infamous web comic about his writing... foibles.
Recommended for fans of violence and/or beefcake, as long as they have a tolerance for hyper-macho posturing.