No homo

Rating: Null/10 (12 December 2012)

When I was a kid I couldn't get enough high octane action ... gunfire, car chases, one-liners, occasional T&A- I liked my pseudo testosterone dripping off the walls with squib hits & bloodstains,loud proud & no holds barred. It was many movie highs of stylish destruction wrought by wise cracking tough guys. I worshipped at this neon altar once upon a time; Schwarzenneger, Stallone, Van Damne- patron saints, their monosyllabic sermons preaching ultra-violence without irony to spoil the arias of bodily desecration, of wide- scale property levelling. Come all ye faithful, its time to kick ass & chew bubblegum.
300 lets me to really see what had me in thrall years ago, the same tropes blown up to IMAX proportions, every step & heave of chiseled chests like nuclear explosions on screen, super-size big gulp generation EPIC, highway to the danger-zone! Fascist homo-eroticism doesn't begin to describe this numb skull opera, retroactively making me recognize all those other youthful movies for their peaCOCKing cartoon masculinity....its soooo GAY!
Beyond that, reactionary Frankie Miller's tale of spartan strongmen fighting girly god-king Xerxe's brown skinned hordes is as cartoon gorgeous as it's retarded, hyper-real & video game perfect. Its pure spectacle, sound & fury yadda yadda, glorious while espousing the most backward iron age exploits. Its a diseased piece of work but it tickles the lizard brain something fierce with its strongman chic. SIN CITY had the same frighteningly empty, sterile charm. Both are illuminating in the worst ways.
Its a treat to see movies completely lay it out like 300 does, to stop pussy footing around & admit they're down with the sickness. It doesn't matter if its not intended as a political primer or a history lesson, that kind of defence betrays profound ignorance of how completely this communal dream-time called the movies subconsciously shapes us. More discernment helps separate meaningful self expression from superficially attractive power fantasies. Films don't just show up without connection to the wider world, even sword & sandal peplum.
Sick yes but it's hilarious lack of shame really lets the makers go all out in their fantastic exaggerations- cavorting slave girls, inbred mystics, freak berserker's that are like end level bosses, high artifice carnage- its overblown & straight faced like a camp movie, lurid & grotesque. The movie delights in xbox warfare lovingly rendered for all those CALL OF DUTY addicts out there, a manly mythic tone of gods & heroes past that even got me pumped. There's great pleasure taken in abstracted set pieces, hight-lighting chiseled Spartan ubermenschs delivering fatalities (FINISH HIM) to eastern cannon fodder; if there was a movie to make war look like porn this has to be it. These orgasmic moments are very disconnected, like pieces of framed blood art; you can practically hear the director going 'that's sick!' & 'wicked!' for every money shot. I'd really like to know what he thought he was making.
The Iranians-*ahem* PERSIANS are so clearly other, Xerxes like an 8 foot Brazilian tranny on steroids- degenerate effeminacy that the hunky Spartan manly men must put down like a rabid dog.... yeah movies like this don't really help even though they ARE a guilty blast (first you have to KNOW its a guilty blast, though). Its another sealed hermetic CGI universe, a copy of a copy. Exquisite soma. I've see enough of fan boy director Zack Snyder I think- nice depth-less imagery but nothing more (*how* did he end up with WATCHMEN?). A Tarantino media junkie, he's Hollyweird perfect. Insight spoil sexy bang bang. Go Sparta (semper fi)!
....Sometimes there's nothing left to do but LOL