Windmill

A Brief Comment on why I like films based on Frank Miller's comics

On Thursday after school we went into town to see 300 at the new-fangled cinema complex thing dubbed "The Brewery" despite the fact that it appears to lack any alcohol whatsoever. We got in 10 minutes late, but since there were the normal pointless adverts and bloody nonsense before the film, that didn't really matter a whole lot.
I think the word to describe 300 is "awesome". It was just a lot of fun to watch, very entertaining, very violent - obviously - and just very cool. The style the film was shot in helped contribute to this; very sepia colours, and like the comics everything is stylised and larger-than-life. It isn't all violence, though obviously that's one of the main drawing points - there is a semi-factual plot and a good voice-over from time to time from the only su-
Whoops. That was nearly a spoiler.


One of the main complaints/comments - depending on which US State the reviewer is from - of 300 is that it is apparently very homoerotic. I disagree. With the exception of deformed old men and giant-fat-sawblades-for-arms-and-nipple-tassles-man, most of the film is stylised violence. Unless you have a particularly strange (and lethal) fetish, men getting brutally mauled by other men isn't going to turn you on all that much. And the only man-to-man touching that went on the film was someone being kicked off a cliff, stabbed in the face, or picked up and chucked onto the corpse wall.
The best death of the film was probably one of the Persian soldiers who, while leaping through the air, has his leg sliced off. Leg and man then part and go their seperate ways, trailing lazily through the air in slow-motion arcs. At the same time, the soldier realises that he's now closer to Heather Mills-McCartney the Peg-Leg Porn Star than a fearsome warrior of the Persian Empire.


And they are not without humour. Unless you're one of the fucked-up few who go on a real-life killing spree after watching a violent film or playing a violent game, there is amusement to be had in such surreal situations. In Sin City, when Jackie Boy has his hand chopped off while holding the gun, he picks his hand back up with his other hand and uses his teeth to try and free the gun. In 300, the Spartans are standing around on a field filled with corpses. Leonidas is casually eating an apple while his men walk round, lazily plunging spears into those still struggling. Another soldier announces that someone has come to talk to him, and around screams of the dying and the wet noises of spear-plunging, Leonidas replies "Well of course I'll talk to him. No reason we can't be civilised."
Next, the death count. It was suggested to me by one my very favourite people that 300 had 300 deaths in. However subtle this suggestion may be, I'm sure the deaths number in the thousands. And that is on-screen deaths - if we meant all deaths, I don't think LotR could be surpassed what with Helm's Deep and the massive armies of Orcs whatnot.

Sin City is also great, but I feel the blog entry is long enough already. Suffice to say, I do have it on DVD, it is very good, and Sin City 2 is just going to ruin things. Lastly, I know it has been a fortnight since the last blog entry, and as such a second will arrive on Thursday.

So what did everyone else think of 300 and/or Sin City?