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Post by Banned on Mar 22, 2007 7:29:07 GMT -6
Custer's legend is back on big screen in an indirect way. "They Died with their boots on" has largely been used by Miller and/or the creators of the movie to depict Leonidas' last stand against the Persians in "300", which is what "They Died" was to people in the 1940s : a reminder of what the civilisation is fighting for, and what she's fighting against. I love this dialogue: Xerxes: It would be nothing short of madness for you, brave King, and your valiant troops to...perish...all because of a simple misunderstanding. There is much our cultures could share. Leonidas: Have you noticed we've been sharing our culture with you all morning? ;DIt's great to know that US movies can be normal again, after the PC mental disease. Heroism and valors are on stage again. Heroes are standing again for what's right - and are not asking themselves if surrender would be a better way. It seems that some people in Hollywood have stopped to be losers. It's time... Garry Owen, Frank Miller ! Gerard Butler... and George Custer... Even the names are similar...
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Post by Banned on Mar 22, 2007 7:40:06 GMT -6
See the reviews:
"Almost in the same vein as “Custer’s last stand”, “300” is about King Leonidas of Sparta (Butler) who leads a fleet of his 300 best men to the Hot Gates of Thermopylae to protect his city and thousands of advancing Persian soldiers, led by King Xerxes (Santoro) to destroy Sparta. Standing by side at home to care for his son is Leonidas’s beuitiful wife, Queen Gorgo (Headey), who seeks help from the council to send in more men to aid her husband’s battle, much to the dismay of councilman, Theron (West), who has his own agenda. As they battle through the days and nights, Leonidas provides the confidence in his men in that death is part of victory if meant to be." backfilms
"Though badly outnumbered by adversaries whose strength was said to be in the hundreds of thousands, the Greeks made one of the most famous last stands in the annals of military engagements, right up there along with Custer's and The Alamo." Eurweb
Custer's last stand is back when America is confident. The Vietnam and hippies times are over. Now, it's time to talk about heroism, valor, sacrifice, freedom. Bravo !
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Post by crzhrs on Mar 22, 2007 8:01:26 GMT -6
From the new play Custer by playwright Robert Ingham:
``In all the years that I have chewed over this indigestible concoction that my life became after I met George Armstrong Custer, I have never been able to be sure in my own mind whether I was working for a simple `Boy Wonder,' vainglorious and foolhardy, and self-absorbed to an almost criminal degree, or whether I was working for a monster,'' says Benteen . . .
Apparently someone has a different opinion.
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Post by Tricia on Mar 22, 2007 8:06:16 GMT -6
Hey, now. What the hell was wrong with hippies and the Summer of Love? More than one or two of them served with honour in Nam. And hey, Custer had long hair! The naivete you continuously express in your simplistic politics really, really amazes me, CSS. I so wish I could go back to the halcyon days when everything was black and white ... oh, wait ... those days never occurred!
I have heard that there are more than a few who believe "300" denegrates the Persian people (read as: Today's Dangerous, Untrustworty, Nuke-Wantin' Iranians--oh, I meant Islamists) to the same, personal extent that other groups felt slighted by "The Passion of the Christ." Ahmadinejad has very little support in his home country, if you bother to look at the numbers--he's generally regarded as a do nothing but talk Huey Long kind of character ...
"America is confident?" Of what? I think the vast majority of us are pretty angry--62%, I heard last. --t.
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Post by elisabeth on Mar 22, 2007 8:19:14 GMT -6
As bad, from the reviews it sounds like a rather dull movie -- nothing but CGI and shouting.
Why is it that when people make historical epics, they park their sense of humour at the door? Let's hope that when or if any new Custer's Last Stand movie is made, it'll have rounded characters and wit alongside the heroics ...
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Post by Tricia on Mar 22, 2007 8:28:29 GMT -6
I had meant to mention the rather horrid/tepid reviews. Thanks for doing it, Elisabeth!
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Post by Banned on Mar 22, 2007 8:30:17 GMT -6
Hippie times, good times ? Tell that to two million Vietnamese who were massacred and 58'000 boys abandoned by the drugs-dealers at home who celebrated "love" and "peace". I am sorry if I am not as happy as you are about treason. Maybe it's why you love Benteen so much .
The movie is about warriors from a tyrant who promised slavery, extermination (were you awake on 9/11?) and who wants to burn books (Mohammad cartoons, anyone?), against patriots, ready to die for their values, for their families and for honor ("freedom is not free", says Leonidas' wife in the movie). 30'000 people supported the Iraq war last saturday, in Washington DC, and only 10'000 hippies were there against it.
I really don't care about the Custer play and Mr Ingham's view, which is plagied on Benteen's comments (this is quite hilarious, copying a madman statement about Custer is like asking Hitler what his point about the Jews). I just see that a box-office triumph is talking about last stand, about honor, about heroism, and is just copying "They Died with their boots on" when it's time to talk about sacrifice.
Custer is still next door, sorry for the hippies and traitors. But you don't have to see the movie, for sure. You can wait on Weir Point and watch the show from far away, just like Fred and Marcus 131 years ago.
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Post by Banned on Mar 22, 2007 8:31:56 GMT -6
Seen on Nationalreview:
I’m talking, of course, about 300, a gory retelling of the Spartans’ defense at Thermopylae, which has got the whole town buzzing, and not just about its first-weekend grosses. Is it an ode to Riefensthalian fascist militarism? A thinly veiled attack on the Bush administration‘s insane war-mongering? Or is it something else?
Help me out here, because I’m having trouble wrapping my mind around a few things: When, early in the film, a sneering Persian emissary insults King Leonidas’s hot wife, threatens the kingdom, and rages about “blasphemy,” the king kicks him down a bottomless well. And yet nobody in Sparta asks, “Why do they hate us?” and seeks to find common ground with the Persians on their doorstep. Why not?
The Spartans mock the god-king Xerxes (whose traveling throne resembles a particularly louche Brazilian gay-pride carnival float), mow down his armored “immortal” holy warriors clad is nothing but red cloaks, loincloths, and sandals, and generally give their last full measure to defend Greek civilization against superstition and tyranny. Where are the liberal Spartan voices raised in protest against this blatant homophobia, xenophobia, and racism?
The only way this bunch of refugees from a Village People show can whup our heroes is by dangling some dubious hookers in front of a horny hunchback who makes Quasimodo look like Tom Cruise, and by bribing a corrupt legislator to tie up reinforcements with various legalistic maneuvers. When the queen finally kills the councilor, the others call him a “traitor.” Isn’t that both blaming the victim and questioning his patriotism?
You’d think 300 was a metaphor for something…
(...)
As screenwriter-god Bill Goldman says, it’s all about the next job. So that noise you hear this morning is the wind created by hundreds of writers from Playa del Rey to Santa Barbara, sticking their fingers in the air to see if the wind’s suddenly shifted, wondering if they can shelve their metrosexual Syriana and Babel knockoffs and conjure up some good old-fashioned “men of the West” material.
Because the dirty little secret is, we used to write these movies all the time. Impossible odds. Quixotic causes. Death before surrender. Real all-American stuff, in which our heroes stood up for God and country and defending Princess Leia and getting back home to see their wives and children, with their shields or on them.
(...)
But then came psychiatrists and psychologists and Ritalin and global warming and racism and sexism and homophobia and the enlightened among us said the hell with John Wayne and Gary Cooper. Hollywood became one big Agatha Christie novel in the last chapter — you know, the one where the survivors of the homicidal maniac gather in the drawing room and realize: The killer must be one of us!
And then came September 11th and that was that. But now, I’m beginning to wonder.
Beginning to wonder if a $70-million opening weekend for a picture that was tracking at $40 million will get somebody’s attention. Beginning to wonder if a movie that has no stars, the look and feel of a video game, and the moral code of the U.S.M.C. might have something to say, even to audiences in New York and L.A.
But most of all, I’m beginning to wonder what it feels like to be the good guy.
— David Kahane is a nom de cyber for a writer in Hollywood. “David Kahane” is borrowed from a screenwriter character in The Player.
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Post by crzhrs on Mar 22, 2007 8:35:22 GMT -6
There was a Hollywood movie made back in the late 50s(?) starring Richard Egan: The 300 Spartans . . . one of those typical cast of thousands spectaculars in Cinemascope. I haven't seen it in years, but it was real movies and real actors, not computer generated special effects and robots and it was quite good.
The Sparatans weren't exactly the peace-loving, hugs & kisses type of culture.
Still love the name Xerxes . . . the Great King of Persia.
Let's not forget Iran (Persia) was a highly advanced civilization with culture, education, arts, engineering, etc., while Europe was still living in the Dark Ages.
Of course, Greece was one of the all-time greats civilizations and cultures.
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Post by Banned on Mar 22, 2007 8:38:27 GMT -6
Yes, yes, Persia was so great - in fact, all our classical music and buildings, our culture, is from Persia, right ? Mozart's ancestors were persians ? Christian buildings are inspired by... Persia ? I am schocked that the Iranian dictatorship is angry about the movie. I think some of the blame-America-first cowards will probably make an Holocaust-denial movie to calm down Ahmadinejad in the near future ! King Leonidas and the "great kind Xerxes". Pick the one you love. The real warrior or the gay pride buffoon.
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Post by Tricia on Mar 22, 2007 8:42:00 GMT -6
Oh, yeah, Crazy. Those nice, freedom-lovin' Spartans. BTW, did you mention treason? I sure didn't.
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Post by Banned on Mar 22, 2007 8:45:21 GMT -6
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Post by crzhrs on Mar 22, 2007 8:48:43 GMT -6
<King Leonidas and the "great kind Xerxes". Pick the one you love. The real warrior or the gay pride buffoon>
First you were Indian-bashing and now your a homophobe . . .
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Post by Banned on Mar 22, 2007 8:54:55 GMT -6
ha ha ha ! So, everybody must accept the gay-pride ? Is that the new fatwa of the gay lobby ? I really don't care about homosexuals, but the gay pride is the summit of ridiculous exhibition. If heterosexuals do the same, we would call that obcenity.
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Post by crzhrs on Mar 22, 2007 9:04:59 GMT -6
You have the right to accept or not accept anything you like. You are entitled to your opinions and believes. However, your bigoted remarks only cause some to think less of you.
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