300 on DVD!

A movie that succeeds despite its roots.  

by Rocko

...watching it again right this second, even. Rented it from a machine outside McDonald's for a buck. The future is now. 

I like it, I'm sorry now I didn't go see it in theaters. It was super hip at that time, everyone I knew seemed to be into it. They had a brilliant advertising campaign; MySpace made it so you could put 300 pictures of yourself on your profile (up from the previous 12) courtesy of 300. As a born hustler i found that to be fucking brilliant. Although less brilliant than being able to rent a movie from a vending machine outside McDonald's.

 Anyway, I guess I skipped it because I'm as anti Frank Miller as the rest of you cats. I got a sneak peek pass to see Sin City and left the theater deeply embarrassed to be a person who read comic books beyond puberty. What a fucking hollow whack off geek loser power fantasy cliché. And worse, it really was a DIRECT TRANSLATION of the comic book. For once I couldn't say that the Batman comic book is much better than "Batman Forever" to someone I knew who caught me buying a fucking Batman comic book someplace girls hang out. To someone not raised on 4 colors and consecutive sequential panel drawn storytelling, it would be hard to convince an intelligent and developed person who just saw Sin City that I am not a potential pedophile and probable date rapist.

Anyway, watching 300 it occurred to me, "This is better than I remember it. There's much more of a story than I recall. I don't remember these characters being so gripping and interesting."  So I went back and had a second look at Frank Miller's book. It was like I was looking at a retarded kid's Young Authors Project adaptation of this movie, in which he disregarded the human pathos as mushy stuff and just drew a bunch of dudes poking each other with spears with their crudely drawn peckers flappin' around.

What the fuck is wrong with Frank Miller? It's like he's got this whole tough guy fixation, but there always ends up being some heavily uncomfortably primitive sadomasochistic homoerotic stuff happening. The All Star Goddamn Batman is so tough and mean that he's going to pull Robin's scaly trunks down around his ankles and pop him right in his ass to make him a tough guy, too. The Spartans of Frank's 300 love standing on the backs of other Spartans and making them do pushups and say they love it. And all anybody is wearing is a cape. I'm not saying I have a problem with gay people or gay stuff, not at all. You gay dudes are culturally indispensable. Imagine 13 year old Frank Miller in a kid's Batman Halloween costume dry humping his younger nephew and I think we're getting closer to what I think is up with Frank. I think he's a fucking embarrassing freak.

Anyway, great movie! If this director can polish a turd up to this level of shine, I can only imagine what he might do with Watchmen.

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