Watching "300." When I was a child X in alphabet books was usually for Xerxes and I don't recall him looking that way.* Anyway, it's a familiar history, and one I always liked, especially the "We shall fight in the shade," part, which just goes to show you that a good quip has legs. I don't recognise any of the actors but they all do a decent job. It's fun to see that Scottish man rolling his eyes at Xerxes, almost but not quite saying, "Yeah, yeah, whatever." Anyway it's not like I didn't know what it'd be like when I chose it. I like the stylisation. Visually interesting.

It's one of those cartoon films wherein the killing has no impact and the good guys are goood and the bad ones wear masks and file their teeth to sharp points. It seems like the filmmakers and producers must've cynically held up a licked finger to determine the way the fickle wind of public desire was blowing. It is rather a disservice to mankind to bolster the need of some people to feel things are black and white and there's an us and a them and ne'er the twain shall meet. Orthodontics versus filing one's teeth to sharp points = no common ground there.

However it's just a movie I suppose, and good fun in a way. There were scenes in Pan's Labyrinth that I couldn't watch - not at all stick man violence - it felt very real.** If you suck all the meaningfulness and complex human interactions out of something I reckon you can have as much violence as you like with no waxy yellow build-up or bitter aftertaste. Yummy, and can be fabulous propaganda! w00t!

*I think it's xylophone now.
*I have to say I draw the line at real violence. Depictions in aid of a story are fine, but I don't ever ever ever want to see any more terrible things like I saw recently. It's no argument to me that every day a billion times that cruelty goes on in factory farms. All of it should stop. I don't know how it is the human race thinks so much of itself when what has been done to cows, for instance, just to pick one animal, reveal what we are truly like.

Labels: Netflix