Frank Miller seems to be the hot topic du jour at the moment. I seem to be finding specials and articles about him all over the media from television, to radio, to print. Even Esquire magazine of all places has a brief interview of him in their most recent issue. Yes, we were all much more GQ than we realized back in the day when we were already talking about The Dark Knight Returns, Batman: Year One, and Miller's run on Daredevil. ;-)
Of course, this is all part of the publicity machine trying to build up buzz for the premiere of 300 this weekend. Wander has already posted about what we might expect with this movie, so I won't belabor the point. Interestingly, though, this movie is generating quite a bit of unexpected controversy, with some audiences trying to tease out political overtones in Miller's story that weren't his intentions. From The New York Times:Shortly after his press-junket grilling Mr. Snyder — an established commercials director, whose best-known previous credit was a remake of George Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead” — ran into some surprising reactions at the Berlinale film festival in Germany. Some attendees walked out of a screening there, while others insisted on seeing its presentation of the Spartans’ defense of Western civilization in the face of a Persian horde as propaganda for America’s position vis-à-vis Iraq and Iran. (By contrast it drew applause at a Los Angeles screening last month.)
Perhaps the oddest thing about this political slant on 300 is that different audiences have come up with completely opposite views of how this so-called allegory to the Bush administration matches up, with some seeing George W. Bush as the invading Persian emperor Xerxes and others seeing him as the Spartan king Leonidas. Stranger still, this is a story that predates the existence of modern civilization that has been used countless times simply as an example of sheer bravery, and not as some political flagpole. Or maybe Herodotus really was that prescient.
To be honest, though, I did have a slight wave of disgruntlement when I was watching the trailer for the movie a couple of nights ago. Is there something to be said about the racial aspects of a movie where the "good guys" are all essentially white and the invading "bad guys" are made up not only of Persians, but also deformed freaks of nature?
But now I'm convinced I'm thinking way too much. Frankly, I could care less about it's political or social implications. I just want to see it because it looks damn cool.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
With all the building hype, this better be much better than Cats...
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13 comments:
I agree. As a deformed freak of nature, I take offense to the way my kind has been portrayed in Hollywood.
I mean hell, when was the last time a deformed freak of nature was actually portrayed in a positive light in cinema? Sloth from Goonies I believe, and that was over twenty damn hell crap boobs years ago.
Fart.
As for the psuedo-intellectuals of middle Europe and their every-thing-looks-like-a-nail attitudes, I THINK WE KNOW WHO THE REAL FREAKS ARE!
The damn liberal media, that's who. Hell fart libs and dems. They should all be eaten by bears.
I'm going to answer this one even though it's almost 3 days old and no one will read it, but I have to... I wasn't going to because it would just be another anti-bush post by yours truly. But, really, what's one more going to hurt.
I think comparing Bush to the King of the Spartans is like comparing Corky from Life Goes On to JFK, because, hey, they both had wives! Bush is not royalty, he is not a leader of men, he does not have ANY military experience. He flew jets on the weekend in Texas while there was a real bad police action going on in southeast Asia. And he took a year off of doing that! My getting stabbed in an arcade outside the American Air Force base on Guam in 1990 gives me more veteran status then Bush has any right to.
Second, it is known history that the Spartans fought the Persians. Everyone fought the Persians. And the first film I see where a Persian looks like Brad Pitt, I get up and walk out. NOBODY was white that long ago.Europeans were still living in caves in dark forests while the Roman Empire was in decline after a thousand years of rule! The Greeks weren't white, the Spartans weren't white, Persians weren't white, the Moors weren't white, and Jesus was NOT white. He, most likely, was darker then Swany. You can't tell me 2000 years ago everyone in Jerusalem was white but moved away and then all the dark people that are there now moved in.
Third, I, as a huge horror film fan, and a huge horror zombie film fan in particular, saw Zach Snyder's Dawn Of The Dead in the theater twice, and bought it on dvd the day it was released. As a horror/action zombie film, there are none better. But, it had all the political savvy of a lead pipe. An action film, sometimes, can be just that.
I have tickets for the 8 pm show of 300 tomorrow night. I can't wait to see what Bush's extraction plan against a million Persians 3000 years ago is, because he has balls all one against a million Iraqi's today.
What?! You mean to tell me that the Spartans weren't actually all buff Englishmen, like in the movie trailers for 300?
Seriously, though, it's interesting how the artistic medium of film can really skew our perception of what the world long ago must have looked like. Instead of Jesus looking like a man of Middle Eastern descent, we get Willem Dafoe, Christian Bale, and Jim Caveizal. Instead of the more plump "big-boned" ladies of the Middle Ages that were the epitome of beauty back then, we're presented svelte women like Gweneth Paltrow and Kiera Knightly. Heck, somedays I have to remind myself that Davy Crockett probably looked nothing like John Wayne, and Charles Lindbergh was probably a much bigger asshole than portrayed by Jimmy Stewart.
I guess now that cameras are so pervasive in our culture now, manipulating history in terms of how future generations perceive what we looked like today will be a bit more difficult in the future.
Anywho, where was I going with this? Oh yeah--Corky was married?!
yep he was married and they had an episode where on the honeymoon they were laying next to each other both face up, and Corky asks if they were doing it yet. Quite funny I must say.
Wander, I am interested to hear who your choices would be from both parties for the 08 presidential campaign.
When did Christian Bale play Jesus? And, I'm not so certain that video will be a truthful witness to future history, given how well we can digitally manipulate images.
And while not 'white' Spartans, Greeks, and Persians are all Caucasoids. The racial classifications go by the structure of the skull rather than skin pigment. There's your irrelevant trivia for the day.
And Wander's idea of 'both parties' is the Green Party and the Communist Party.
Damn pinko Commie. I've got a bear waiting for your ass.
And Corky's wife's response was?
Christian Bale depicted Jesus in a TV movie that told the story from the perspective of Mary. The woman that played Anakin Skywalker's mother in the Star Wars films played Mary.
Caucasoid? Sounds like some childish insulting slur. I think this is what I'll use anytime I feel like making fun of you. "You Caucasoid!" Anywho, not so irrelevant. Just goes to show you how blurry racial lines really are, depending on what classification system you use.
I think so.
Yeah, typical woman response. It would have been that or "I've got a headache." ;-)
Well Willie, my fine feathered friend, since you ask: My choice for the Dem's right now is John Edwards. Hillary is way too contraversial and snooty, and Obama has NO street cred. Edwards though is really laying down some jive that has my ears perked.
As for the Repubics, I've said before, and shall say again... McCain runs for president, and doesn't roll over for the christian right, I may just vote Rebuplican for the first time ever depending on who he is against for the Democrats.
Don't get me wrong, Crackah is right... I'm a Kennedy Democrat with Socialistic leanings. But, in this day and age, I could be lynched in some states for admitting to it, although it's getting better then it was for several years there. I really do think we if had one more terrorist attack after 9/11, Democrats are being registered for internment faster then the Jews in Germany, 1936. And, Nascar would become the national past time... I'd rather die in an oven.
John Edwards? But isn't he a faaaa...scinating figure who's being overshadowed by Hillary and Barack these days. Whew. Great save for myself. Please don't alert the blogosphere.
I haven't made up my mind about Edwards. I'm always a bit suspicious of personal injury lawyers. Perhaps it's because of the business I'm in, or perhaps it's all those ads that plaster billboards and the airwaves. I mean, the guy accumulated a net worth of multiple millions of dollars on medical malpractice suits and the like.
Truth is, no one excites me yet, except for maybe Obama, although that may be just a product of the hype machine at work. And I'm not sure this country would vote for him, not only because he's black, but also because his middle name is Hussein. It's not right, but probably the reality.
You're a mongoloid. That's a term that used to be synomynous with Downs' Syndrome.
Take that, sucker.
I'd have to retierate Obama or McCain for me, although I need to do some digging to cement my choice.
Touché.
What about the governor of Virginia? Is he in the democratic running. I think that is who it was that I heard give a rebuttal to one of the state of the union addresses. I liked what he had to say and how he said it.
We should all be proud. This is our first post that has hit the double digit comments.
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