300

So I illegally downloaded and watched 300 the other day. It probably would have been better to see it in theatres with the sound layering (blockbuster Hollywood movies have a large number of sound layers, I forget the exact number but it's fucking high), and the actual FILM being screened. But hey, what are you gonna do?

I have to say that I liked it. It was pretty bad ass. It was essentially one long fight scene, repeated over and over again. It grew a bit tiring, but you found yourself rooting for the Spartans. But you don't root for them to live, you root for them to win or die trying. That was pretty bad ass. You don't want to see them surrender. you'd rather watch them die.

It wasn't too complex of a movie, though. I deleted the file right after watching it, because I don't think I'll ever watch it again, unless it's on TV.

Historically, they got the battle of Thermopylae down, at least thematically. There were details that were ignored for cinematic reasons. Let me just say that people who complain about historical inaccuracies in historical fiction should be dragged behind a Buick for 10 miles. It's historical FICTION. In the real battle of Thermopylae, 300 Spartans defended the Hot Gates, but were accompanied by 700 Thespians, and 1,400 other Greeks. But the movie doesn't work so well if you throw in 2,700 other non-Spartans after we've focused on the Spartans for so long.

The battle scenes were pretty cool, then they got a bit old. They had a very Lord of the Rings quality to them, especially when non-humans attacked, like the Persian phantoms, and the gigantic elephants. I was expecting Legolas to come sliding down one of their trunks firing off arrows.

The narration was nice sometimes, but a bit unnecessary at others.

Xerxes was simply too ridiculous, and the movie ventured off into Too Fucking Weird territory way too often, with the piggish priests, and the fucked up monsters, and what the fuck was the deal with the guy who had crab claws for arms?

The best part of the movie would have been when Leonidas yells "THIS IS SPARTA!" and kicks a Persian down a hole. However, I had seen it 1,000,000 times in commercials, so it lost its surprise and spectacle. Once you see the big hole, you know the Persian is going down.

All in all, it was decent, nothing spectacular, but still entertaining. It won't get you thinking that much, but it was fun. Rent it, don't buy it, because once you've seen it once, you've gotten all the entertainment value out of it that you will get.

The South Park episode "D-Yikes" was an hilarious and ingenious satirization of 300. There are a lot of really funny similarities, and the whole premise of the episode is funny just by itself.

Missile Defense

For a few decades now, the US has been noodling with missile defense systems to protect itself against a nuclear attack. And the rest of the world is pissed. Why? Well, imagine being in a room full of people with guns, and you're the only one with a bullet proof vest. Everybody would hate you, because you can shoot them in the chest, but they can't shoot you in the chest.

A missile defense system is a smart idea. If it works, there are no drawbacks for the United States. We'd be able to protect ourselves from nuclear attacks. But there would be drawbacks for the rest of the world. The scales of power would be dramatically tilted in our favor. Of course, nuclear war is not imminent, but you never know. The fact that Russia is getting really pissed at our efforts to establish missile defense is both understandable, and worrisome.

If we have missile defense, Russia's nuclear arsenal would theoretically be obsolete. In other words, they could be attacked by us, but would not be able to attack us. The Cold War is over, but many people conveniently ignore the fact that it wasn't that long ago that Russia was the USSR. People here don't really pay attention to the problems Russia is having in becoming a capitalist democracy. People also don't realize that Russia has an estimated 16,000 nuclear warheads (about half are operational).

The point is, a missile defense system is a tactically defensive weapon. It prevents us (in theory) from being attacked, or minimizes the damage of an attack. But this makes it a strategically offensive weapon.

There's a difference between tactics and strategy. Tactics are small scale methods that apply for an instant. Strategies are larger scale methods that apply for a duration of time. For example, a tactical bomber in World War II would go out and attack individual tanks in the battlefield. And a strategic bomber in WW II would bomb an entire tank factory. Tactics have an immediate impact, strategies take longer but can have much larger impacts. Tactics win battles, strategies win wars.

So the missile defense system is tactically defensive. It can only be used as a defensive weapon. But it gives the holder of the system theoretical immunity to launch nuclear attacks. If the system works, there is no threat of a successful counterattack.

As I said above, a missile defense system is good for the US, but it's horrible for the world. And it isn't just because the US would have an upper hand. Mutual Assured Destruction (Wikipedia Listing) is a fundamental element of nuclear deterrence. In short M.A.D. means that nuclear powers like Russia or the US won't attack each other because both are so loaded with nukes, that neither could possibly survive full-scale nuclear war. But with a working missile defense system, M.A.D. goes out the window. There'd be no deterrent for the US to start a nuclear war. Now, we're not close to that, but you never know what might happen 10, 20, 30, or 200 years down the road.

But there's a solution. Instead of the US constructing its own nuclear defense system, we should be spearheading an effort to construct a global missile defense system. Each country could control their own defensive area. Russia would be able to operate their own system, the US their own, the UK, France, China, and so on. This system would function as a deterrent to any nuclear attack, even an attack by rogue nuclear nations (which are unaffected by the M.A.D. doctrine).

The world will probably never be free of nuclear weapons, but it could be free of the threat of attack if there were an effective global missile defense system. In the history of the world, no weapon has ever been totally banned, benevolently abandoned, or agreed to be dismantled. H0wever, countless different weapons have been forgotten and never used because they are obsolete. A GLOBAL missile defense system can make nuclear arsenals obsolete, but a missile defense system owned and operated by the US, probably shared with NATO but still run by us, does not make nukes obsolete.

Knocked Up

I saw Knocked Up yesterday. Normally, I'm a hater of romantic comedies, but this one was pretty good. It was formulaic (which you expect from a rom-com (HAHAHA, I just invented the next Hollywood buzz word: pronounced Rawm-Cawm)) but it was still hilarious and somewhat romantic. There were moments that made me go "Awww" but that's probably because I'm a big softy at heart. The true strength of this movie, however, was the cast and the hilarity that ensued. The side characters were, without a doubt, the best part of the movie.

Paul Rudd (40 Year Old Virgin, Anchorman, Wet Hot American Summer) was great, absolutely hilarious. If there were an Oscar for best supporting actor in a comedy, he would win, hands down. The guy's just fucking funny. His attitude and the way he delivers his lines are genius.

I wasn't all that familiar with the other supporting actors and actresses, but they were all excellent. The funniest parts of the movie weren't the punchlines you'd see in commercials or trailers, they were lines that needed context to be funny, but were perfectly hilarious within the context of the scene.

It was nice to see the leading man of a romantic comedy not be a gorgeously handsome man. Seth Rogan was decent, nothing too special. To be honest, I never really liked his character, but that's just me. And there were parts of the movie, as his character grew, that seemed way too easy.

Katherine Heigl did a solid job as the love interest. She was much funnier than Rogan, I felt. But maybe her lines were better.

I did have a slight problem with the focus of the film. In the style of The Break-Up and most other contemporary romantic comedies, the movie had two perspectives: the man and the woman. However, the perspective was definitely more on the man. Moreover, Katherine Heigl's character never really did much growing or changing, at least not in a clear way. This irked me a bit, because the movie is more about a guy dealing with impregnating a woman as opposed to a woman dealing with being impregnated. There's a difference there. It's somewhat typical of "Hollywood" films to focus on men dealing with problems, even if they're much bigger problems for the female character. But anyway, that's the film theorist in me deconstructing a movie in a genre that never stands up well to deconstruction.

If you want a laugh, a good laugh, see this movie. I don't know if all the funniness has much staying power, but some of it definitely does, as I woke up laughing about Paul Rudd's character.

Sidenote: I saw a preview for Evan Almighty a quasi-sequel to Bruce Almighty with Morgan Freeman returning in the role of God, and Steve Carrell being the main character. In short, Carrell plays a US Congressman who is told by Freeman that he must build an ark for an impending world destroying flood. So Carrell becomes like Noah, everyone thinks he's crazy, he grows a beard, and pairs of animals follow him around.

Apparently, the producers, and screenwriters never read Genesis 9:11:

"I [God] establish My covenant with you; and all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood, neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth."

I know, Catholic school ruined me, and even though I think the Bible is 100% symbolism and not history, the fact that I know this verse exists, and it's a very important verse, has already destroyed this movie for me.

I also think it's odd that this movie is coming out only a few years after Katrina and the Indian Ocean tidal wave. I would not be at all shocked if this project was supposed to be made earlier, much sooner to 2003's Bruce Almighty but was pushed back due to those disasters (tidal wave in '04, Katrina in '05). That's the bizz for you. The first Spiderman got pushed from winter to summer so they could remove the World Trade Center from the skylines after 9/11, and it wound up having the biggest opening weekend ever. And many other movies with certain types of violence and deconstruction were put on hold because of 9-11.