Sex and the City and 300
I went to see the Sex and the City movie, mainly because my good friend R really wanted to go. She loves the show (like a billion other women) so I said I'd go with her. Did I really want to go? Not really. I was not a huge fan of the show, not like M, who loves it and all the seasons on DVD, or D, who every time we went traveling and the hotel had a TV, asked if we could see if it was playing. I finally gave her the entire series on DVD for Christmas a couple of years ago and it was the best gift I've ever given-she loved it. However, I don't look for it on TV (in fact, I usually avoid it) and I just didn't really care-it wasn't my show. However, the movie was very entertaining. Yes, it was filled with drama and consequences and far too many fashion montages, but it was still good. I would have cut the 80's montage, although it was nice to see the tutu again but they had to keep the wedding montage-those dresses were amazing. Still, I didn't care for most of the shoes. Yes, the were high, but the blue Manolos were not special (especially glitzy, maybe) and those sandals that had a sort of sock covering most of the foot were fugly. I did covet Charlotte's dress at the big wedding-it was black and skinny that flared out at the bottom like a saucer and it was beautiful. All in all, it was entertaining, although I wasn't really invested in these character, so their drama didn't really get to me. Also, it did not need to be 2 1/2 hours long-jeez.
My antidote for Sex and the City was finally watching 300, which has been hanging around my apartment for practically a month now. Did I like it? It's hard to say. There were many things to like about it-the script was good, the performances in it were good-Gerard Butler, Lena Heady, even Rodrigo Santoro, (endlessly mocked for his short-lived appearance on Lost) were all good. I liked the endless sub-text of the small force fighting the oppressors who rule the world. It is the Iraqis fight the US? But the Spartans talk about fighting for freedom, the must be the US and the Persians they fight are from present day Iraq, so it must be the other way. I enjoyed myself by switching it around throughout the movie and deciding which side was which.
Do we need a summary? The might of the Persian Empire and the god-king Xerxes is about the display his wrath unless the Spartans bow down to him. The freedom-loving Spartans (ignoring the fact that Sparta was a fascist state and didn't like freedom anymore than the Persians, they just liked their version better and fought so much that they wouldn't give in to anyone, let alone the Persians) take their 300 warriors and make their last stand under the leadership of King Leonidas at Thermopylae. Yes, they all died but it gave the rest of Greece a chance to band together and defeat the Persians a few years later.
So, the script was good, the perfs were good, what's not to love?
Well, I felt like I was watching some sort of fetish show. The Spartans all wore boots, some kind of trunks and long red cloaks (which seemed to me to be very impractical when fighting-they weren't much cover it looked like the could easily get caught in something or would be easy to grab onto so the enemy could pull you down and kill you. But that's me). The Persians, on the other hand, wore chains and piercings through every possible place. This was mainly Xerxes-and I found that kind of funny, because every sculpture of this time and place shows the men with long hair beards-all elaborately braided. But honestly, it was one scene away from turning into a gay porn movie. And as for how it was filmed-that extremely annoying. Yes, I get the whole "stylized to look like the comic book" thing and if you take it on its own terms, it was fine. But I kept hoping for something better and more real. The great thing about the movies being made lately of comic books (the good ones, anyway) make the comic book real-and this made the comic book into a comic book. I could have been really good-but it just missed.
I had to laugh when I went into the comic book store and was griping about Sex and the City though-the guy in there and I agreed that we would rather see Iron Man again and are anxiously awaiting The X-Files-those are MY movies.
My antidote for Sex and the City was finally watching 300, which has been hanging around my apartment for practically a month now. Did I like it? It's hard to say. There were many things to like about it-the script was good, the performances in it were good-Gerard Butler, Lena Heady, even Rodrigo Santoro, (endlessly mocked for his short-lived appearance on Lost) were all good. I liked the endless sub-text of the small force fighting the oppressors who rule the world. It is the Iraqis fight the US? But the Spartans talk about fighting for freedom, the must be the US and the Persians they fight are from present day Iraq, so it must be the other way. I enjoyed myself by switching it around throughout the movie and deciding which side was which.
Do we need a summary? The might of the Persian Empire and the god-king Xerxes is about the display his wrath unless the Spartans bow down to him. The freedom-loving Spartans (ignoring the fact that Sparta was a fascist state and didn't like freedom anymore than the Persians, they just liked their version better and fought so much that they wouldn't give in to anyone, let alone the Persians) take their 300 warriors and make their last stand under the leadership of King Leonidas at Thermopylae. Yes, they all died but it gave the rest of Greece a chance to band together and defeat the Persians a few years later.
So, the script was good, the perfs were good, what's not to love?
Well, I felt like I was watching some sort of fetish show. The Spartans all wore boots, some kind of trunks and long red cloaks (which seemed to me to be very impractical when fighting-they weren't much cover it looked like the could easily get caught in something or would be easy to grab onto so the enemy could pull you down and kill you. But that's me). The Persians, on the other hand, wore chains and piercings through every possible place. This was mainly Xerxes-and I found that kind of funny, because every sculpture of this time and place shows the men with long hair beards-all elaborately braided. But honestly, it was one scene away from turning into a gay porn movie. And as for how it was filmed-that extremely annoying. Yes, I get the whole "stylized to look like the comic book" thing and if you take it on its own terms, it was fine. But I kept hoping for something better and more real. The great thing about the movies being made lately of comic books (the good ones, anyway) make the comic book real-and this made the comic book into a comic book. I could have been really good-but it just missed.
I had to laugh when I went into the comic book store and was griping about Sex and the City though-the guy in there and I agreed that we would rather see Iron Man again and are anxiously awaiting The X-Files-those are MY movies.
posted by SHbookworm at 7:47 AM
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