Susan Hated Literature

Dir: Zack Snyder
Writ: Zack Snyder, Kurt Johnston, Michael Gordon and based on the graphic novel 300 by Frank Miller & Lynn Varley

• Gerard Butler - King Leonidas
• Lena Headey - Queen Gorgo
• Dominic West - Theron
• David Wenham - Dilios
• Vincent Regan - Captain
• Michael Fassbender - Stelios
• Tom Wisdom - Astinos
• Rodrigo Santoro - Xerxes

I have a feeling that how you feel at the end of seeing this film will be hugely coloured by your mindset before the film began. Personally I loved it. Wonderful visuals and a great story. Wasn’t overly impressed with the characterisation, but you can’t have everything.

The film begins with a voice-over, and this narrator pipes up throughout the film, sometimes describing the action that we are watching on screen. I have no doubt that some will find this redundant, but, given the ending and who the narrator is I think this device actually works really well. Plus he does add to the melodramatic, over the top atmosphere that make this such a good film.

Overblown and over the top, almost pompous in its grand vision. And yet it just works. Somehow they’ve managed to draw the viewer in, using dialogue and visuals that could so easily have done nothing but remind you that this is a highly stylised film. The visuals are often lacking in realism. The characters are larger than life, the action is brutal, the culture hugely strange. And it is great.

There were one or two instances when I did find myself thinking that the constant references to freedom and the evil tyrant were overdone and not a little incorrect given the fact that if you were a slave in Spartan society then life back then was pretty far from easy. But this isn’t really historical fiction, it is an action film, and as such it is almost perfect. I also loved the soundtrack. So much so that I did just try and buy it online, but the official website wants you to use iTunes, I don’t, so I was forced into borrowing it.

Top marks all around for a violent, visceral, blood-splattered film, and I can’t finish my review without saying, my god, did you see those abs?

IMDb | Wikipedia on the Battle of Thermopylae | Dark Horse | I am the Lizard Queen | Villagers with Torches | Stainless Steel Droppings

Today, as Donncha points out, is Daffodil Day, so he has offered two headers for anyone’s use.

If you haven’t bought your daff in support of the Irish Cancer Society then why don’t you go do so now.

We’ll begin with the vague; this morning, or possibly last night^[1] there was an ad on the radio. This of course is not a rare occurrence. There are many radios in the world, and usually they have ads. Every 15 minutes or so seems to be standard. But, getting specific here, I’m referring to a particular ad that I heard. It was a Cadbury ad.^[2] but I’m not sure exactly what it was for^[3] although it did mention Creme Eggs^[4] and something else. Cow related^[5] so possibly^[6] Dairymilk related. Then again, possibly not.

Whatever the products mentioned, they were advertising some product of some description, but that isn’t important. What is important is the method of advertising. See they were going on about the love affair between the Creme Egg producing chicken and the the creamy milk producing cow. Fair enough, I have nothing against inter-species love affairs. However I am concerned that they managed to produce an offspring.^[7] Let us call this offspring, cowick-egg, purely because I don’t think that that works as a snappy product name. So Creme Egg Chicken is female, cause only hens lay eggs right? And creamy-milk cow is female, on account of male cattle being bulls and producing a different sorta milk

Now this doesn’t mean they can’t get it together and fall madly in love. God no! Fair play to inter-species gay romances. The do tend to liven up farmyards and make them more entertaining places. So, fair play^[8] to those two crazy kids for getting it together. But the fact that their love resulted in this new product, well colour me disturbed. Either one of them has secretly been infected with frog DNA^[9] and so has gained the ability to swap sex and so has turned male, or, and to my mind^[10] much more likely, one of them has had an affair with a male animal. Now whether this was a rooster or a bull I can’t say, the ad didn’t go into detail about which produced the wonderful new creamy-milk-chocolatey-eggy-goodness that makes up the new product. But either way, for Cadbury to be promoting this is wrong. Wrong, wrong wrong! After all radio is just like telly, only without pictures and different, and we all know how influential The Television is on everyday lives. We all live our lives according to the high moral standards of The Television^[11] and the characters that live in that little box. Now, okay, radio isn’t quite a great as The Television, but still, with this example of non-monogamous behaviour, before you know it the world will be gone mad in an orgy of sex and partner swapping. And then it’ll be a short skip, hop or jump before we’re all murdering each other in our beds, for once you begin to step off the moral path, it is a slippery step slope all the way to the bottom.

Cadbury! I blame you for the moral decline of the world!

Either that or the cow or chicken have used some sort of genetic experimentation to produce their cowick-egg. And while, obviously not as bad as moral decline, messing about with the Natural World is never a good thing, and science is evil, and no doubt anyone eating this new chocolate goodness will die of some horrible, long-term, painful disease.

Or maybe the ad-makers are just stupid?