300

Some movies just have to be seen NOW. Not next week, NOT on DVD (though you know you will pay full whack for the DVD the minute it comes out) and most certainly not on telly. Ugh. And this is regardless of the reviews they have had.

I've been a fan of Frank Miller for a while now - All the Dark Knight stuff, Ronin I thought was great, and I was grabbed by Sin City until I started wondering whether he had gone just a tad overboard. Does this happen to all comic greats? They stay anchored in their early days while writing for existing characters, but as soon as they cut loose they go all weird? Alan Moore for example? Watchmen and V for Vendetta scaled fresh heights, but Lost Girls sounds a bit dubious to me.

Though it has to be said that my acquaintance with the world of comics is madly out of date. I used to be fed choice tidbits, given the cream of the crop, without having to wade through all the garbage, until I discovered that my old friend and supplier had been cheating on my even older friend, his wife. This all came out about ten years ago, and I still can't look him in the eye. So my knowledge of comicdom is stuck around the mid-nineties.

But I digress.

Joe Queenan wrote a cracking review of 300 which makes me want to see the picture all the more. It seems the movie makers have wandered from Herodotus even further than Miller did in the comic, so I don't know whether to rejoice that the events at Thermopylae will have a whole new audience, or cry that the original story has been so thoroughly hi-jacked for dubious political ends. I don't know what they did to the text, but I sure hope they bought it dinner first.


ps Yay! Threshers are doing it again! The coupon is only good until 1st April though, so hurry along here for your copy.