A little eel, a little rice, some outfielders at a good price...

[wombat_socho]

Not everybody is excited about The 300. He could be right about the movie; what worked well for the extremly noir Sin City may not work nearly so well for one of the great battles of history. He's definitely right about Gates of Fire, which I'm going to re-read this weekend.

Made the annual pilgrimage to B&N to get the Sporting News Fantasy Baseball Owners Manual. Considering he sucky cash flow, I'll probably pass on the Baseball Prospectus this year, especially since I'm not as enamored of sabermetric analysis involving higher forms of algebra as I was when I first started playing these games. Speaking of baseball, let me add my voice to the chorus led by Aaron Gleeman: "WTF are the Twins thinking"? Not content with signing a worthless starter who was released by the clueless, hopeless Nationals for not pitching well at RFK, they fucked up and allowed a real outfield prospect to be claimed off waivers by the Snakes. I swear, just when you think Terry Ryan is showing signs of not being completely brain-dead...

...and the less said about the Nationals, the better. It's not that nothing's happening in the pitcher-friendly confines of RFK, but that none of it seems to be very good. Kind of like the long miserable seasons with the Twins in the mid/late 1990s.

Yes, sushi is comfort food.

Comments

[chebutykin.livejournal.com]

The reviewer misses the point of the movie (which isn't surprising, as he's making assumptions about a movie he hasn't seen). 300 isn't meant to be a historical film (or historical book, for that matter). It's meant to meant to be more like a Spartan fever dream.

Does it do well at being a Spartan fever dream? Oh yes. Is it violence porn? Most definitely. Historically accurate? No way. But neither the book nor the film claim to be anywhere near historically accurate.

I enjoyed it. I don't think it's a great movie, but it's certainly a feast for the eyes. The comic was better, but only in the arena where the comic didn't feel the need to inject more female characters into the plot.

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm looking forward to seeing the movie myself, if for no better reason than the "THIS IS SPARTAAAAAAA!!!!" meme. ^_^

Seriously, though, I can sort of understand where he's coming from. On the one hand, Frank Miller's comic book gets the big Hollywood treatment, but Pressfield's best-selling novel doesn't even get an outside shot. It would be kind of like somebody putting Donna Barr's Desert Peach into production while giving a solid biography of Erwin Rommel a pass because it wasn't colorful enough. Or something.

Icon chosen for its Spartan goodness. ;)

[chebutykin.livejournal.com]

On the one hand, Frank Miller's comic book gets the big Hollywood treatment, but Pressfield's best-selling novel doesn't even get an outside shot.

Ah, but Hollywood likes to do things in pairs. You can bet that if 300 does well, Hollywood will gobble up screenplays for a more historical version. "Hey, Spartans sell popcorn! Let's put more Spartans on the screen!"

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

You'd think they would have learned the draw of brawny guys in short leather skirts after Gladiator.

[chebutykin.livejournal.com]

But they did! Troy, Kingdom of Heaven, Alexander...

As per usual, they didn't figure out that they should make the movies good as well.

But it's not unheard of to have a good echo. Look at Dangerous Liasons and Valmont. Same book, only a year apart, and the second film was better.

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

I try to forget the bad movies, which is why I lack your encyclopedic knowledge.