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Two movies!
Nov. 27th, 2009 10:38 pmSince I just saw New Moon for the second time, and then finally gave in to curiosity and watched 300 on TNT, I guess I might as well record all the teal deer that came to me while I was watching.
( New Moon! Ah, lolariousness. )
It was fun to watch purely for the lulz, but if I start thinking about the meta, it makes me itch to rewrite the books - not as fic, just for myself, so I could read something silly and fluffy that wouldn't annoy me if I thought about it too hard. The Twilight franchise is a bunch of brain-twinkies, sure; but some twinkies are crappier than others.
The highlight of the movie was definitely seeing the Sherlock Holmes preview that showed beforehand. I seriously faint with joy every time I see ads for that movie, and I am going to see it the day it comes out, and then possibly a couple more times.
( And 300 - more abs, more racism, but also slightly more plot! )
Overall, the "it's a subjective account from a Spartan!" line of reasoning will only excuse so much. I mean, there's plenty of media about Thermopylae from the Spartan point of view; did you really need to make more? And one that so dedicatedly turned the Persians into one-note, literally monstrous villains? Really? And it was a particular shame that Queen Gorgo was the only woman with basically any role at all. I was under the impression that Spartan women actually had a modicum of rights and privileges, and a revamp of the stand at Thermopylae would have been a pretty good opportunity to do something cool with that - instead of tying the extraordinariness of Spartan women to their ability to bear manly sons, which, of course, is what they did. Sigh.
... So, weirdly, I have practically the same complaints about both movies; to me, they actually kind of fall into the same category. New Moon was emotional porn; 300 was bravery porn. They both had the same kind of single-minded focus plus implications regarding race and gender that ranged from vaguely to seriously uncomfortable, and for me, that equals ... something I might watch if it happened to be on, so that I could yell at the TV, and not much else.
( New Moon! Ah, lolariousness. )
It was fun to watch purely for the lulz, but if I start thinking about the meta, it makes me itch to rewrite the books - not as fic, just for myself, so I could read something silly and fluffy that wouldn't annoy me if I thought about it too hard. The Twilight franchise is a bunch of brain-twinkies, sure; but some twinkies are crappier than others.
The highlight of the movie was definitely seeing the Sherlock Holmes preview that showed beforehand. I seriously faint with joy every time I see ads for that movie, and I am going to see it the day it comes out, and then possibly a couple more times.
( And 300 - more abs, more racism, but also slightly more plot! )
Overall, the "it's a subjective account from a Spartan!" line of reasoning will only excuse so much. I mean, there's plenty of media about Thermopylae from the Spartan point of view; did you really need to make more? And one that so dedicatedly turned the Persians into one-note, literally monstrous villains? Really? And it was a particular shame that Queen Gorgo was the only woman with basically any role at all. I was under the impression that Spartan women actually had a modicum of rights and privileges, and a revamp of the stand at Thermopylae would have been a pretty good opportunity to do something cool with that - instead of tying the extraordinariness of Spartan women to their ability to bear manly sons, which, of course, is what they did. Sigh.
... So, weirdly, I have practically the same complaints about both movies; to me, they actually kind of fall into the same category. New Moon was emotional porn; 300 was bravery porn. They both had the same kind of single-minded focus plus implications regarding race and gender that ranged from vaguely to seriously uncomfortable, and for me, that equals ... something I might watch if it happened to be on, so that I could yell at the TV, and not much else.