Tuesday, March 20, 2007

300

Why is it, that film depicting one of the most pivotal events in Western Civilization has to based on a comic book? Oh, sorry, "Graphic Novel". I remember, when younger, reading the description of Thermopylae in Edith Hamilton's book "the Greek Way"( a book one reviewer correctly described as a "Loving Ode to the Greek Spirit" ) and getting chills down my spine: Xerxes walking among the dead, baffled that the Spartans would not accept tribute and turning to a Greek tratior "how do I defeat such men, come, tell me?" ...but no one could. If you start with "lite" material how do ever expect to end up with more than a comic book? It's rather like 'starting off' with a low resolution photograph and expecting to make an elaborate print....

Side note, I was glancing over the Amazon Reviews and found the musings of one Kevin S who found the book "headache inducing":

I just read this book for my history class.......And some chapters could've been summarized in a page or two, without much loss in information.

Well Kevin that's why the chapters are longer than a 'page or two'. If they could be summarized there would be no reason to pad them. Sorry sometimes book and other stuff require an attention span of over two minutes.

5 comments:

bluet said...

Finally does the movies worth to be seen?
Because I felt attracted to the images of the previews.
Like "Hero",I watched the previews while waiting for Kill Bill 2 and after seeing such beauty I was like "forget about Kill Bill,give me Hero right now".
Then I had to finally buy it because when I went to the movie,while I was crying by the beauty of the colors,the movements and the music all together,the typical idiots were expecting "fight and blood" and it was impossible to really enjoy the movie.
And about Kevin, he is probably one of thousand of kids to whom nobody teach to love the process of learning,sons of those mothers who rather feed them with formula because breast feeding is too much work.

The KnickerBlogger said...

Yes young Kevin was probably complaining about a history assignment. I didn't read half of the books assigned to me because they were just so boring....years later I would pick one up and read it in a sitting.

Regarding Kill Bill 2 I never saw it but I thought it was an interesting reflection of societal mores that, when I went to see "the Passion" which was playing at the same time, there was an explicit warning sign for the Passion, saying young adults shouldn't see it, its excessively violent and so on, and business as usually for Hollywood for Kill Bill 2. (no sign except a placard promoting it).

bluet said...

Kill Bill was just a reference,my question was about 300.
"Finally does the movie worth to be seen?"
May be I refered to that because KB,Hero, 300 are interesting visual works.
You can watch a movie a observe different aspects,to me -and depending a lot the directors or art designers- it can be a visual experience,some times is the screenplay,adaptation from an original play,etc.
About the passion,is long to say my point of view,but as an image of what I think, you don't keep a picture of your good friend resting in the coffer ones is dead right? you keep a picture of your friend smiling and alive.
"guiltiness,punishment,pain" (the dark triangle as I call it) has been the most addictive and corrupt signature of the jew-cristian culture,and look at the results.

The KnickerBlogger said...

haven't seen 300....will probably wait for DVD. I was just remarking on the basis of the film -a comic book. seemed to me a rather odd choice. Though, as literacy declines, perhaps it isn't.

bluet said...

well, if you have one of those flat big screens of course it worth to wait for the dvd but if not -like me- I do prefer visual super productions on a big screen, that's why I wait for the Battery Park theatre to show them,that's one of my fav.theaters :big, clean, great sound and pretty empty.
I like some comics on movies, like Tomb Rider,or Sky Captain.
I find it quiet an interesting options for screenplay writers and definetly a challenge for production teams, special effects, sound ingineers and costume designers.