Open Letter to Steven Grant

Dear Mr. Grant:

You write interesting, informative, and entertaining articles at Comic Book Resources. Your latest article (http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/?column=10) can be described as interesting, informative, and entertaing. However, I would posit that this article (and others) are also misleading.

(1) Your political leanings are well documented, and I do not mean to disparage your right to free speech. However, I would like to rebut, or at least challenge some of your statements. For example, you maintain that there is a secret plot by the current adminitstration to institute martial law of some kind in the United States. While I agree with you that this is one of the worst administrations in the history of our country, I challenge your theories as alarmist and generally misguided. Generally speaking, "the Ghost" has the best interests of the United States at heart. Beyond that, the administration, even if it did not have the best interests of the country at heart, does not have the wherewithal or the pull with the general public to institute martial law in this country. Why would that even be a realistic statement for you to make? I understand your frustration and general anger with the president, but I do not understand your alarmist and fairly fantastical attitude towards the future of the country. If I may be so bold, we will have a new president fairly soon, and that new president will likely be from the other side of the aisle, so to speak. Your writing on this and other such issues is both ridiculous and beneath you. Please continue with the political rhetoric, but stay away from this horrible attempt to scare everyone with unrealistic expectations.

(2) While I personally have an affinity for Rudy Guiliani, and, as such, am horribly biased, I find your demeaning of him to be in bad taste. You call him a lying, manipulative scumbag and indicate that he wants everyone to be loyal to the United States. I challenge you to come up with a list of ten names, preferably presidential candidates, who are not lying, manipulative, and/or a scumbag. I also challenge you to come up with a list of ten names of persons in and around politics that do not wish everyone living in this country to be loyal to this country. It seems to me that loyalty is kind of part of how we are. I think you can be both loyal and not support an administration. It seems you think Mr. Guiliani thinks that you cannot. That seems very strange, and, frankly, stupid of you. Again, I think this is rhetoric best left to the crazies who think that the Republican right is out to get them. Perhaps you belong in that group, but I'd like to think you don't. You also indicate that Mr. Guiliani is capitalizing on his role in 9/11. I would also like to point out, that of Mr. Guiliani's many opponents, at least one, Mrs. Clinton, is quite adept at spinning events in her favor, including, but not limited to, voting for the war in Iraq. While I do not have hard evidence to that fact at my fingertips, I would vehemently argue that the Village Voice is not really hard evidence of anything, but rather the type of tripe (ha, that's a good one) that generally permeates writing that leans far left or far right.

(3) Your readers and you yourself seem to find that the movie 300 is feeding us "jingoistic" and "right-wing" propaganda. I think this is a respectable view in some instances, but you fail to mention a few pertinent facts. First, the Spartans might be seen by some as not representative of the United States per se. Rather, they can be seen to represent, say, the Afghans or the Iraqis. So, there's that. Second, the Spartans are hardly a group of people that many in the United States would identify with. For example, they forsake and kill innocent babies, they shun deformed men, they relegate women to the back, and they, generally speaking, participate in quite a bit of violence towards each other. This is not something that 99% of Americans would identify with. Additionally, I tend to think that right-leaners would not see the movie because of the sex and violence inherent therein. Such right-wingers tend to shun movies of that ilk.

(4) Another problem with your analysis of the 300 movie lies with your friendship with Frank Miller. As far as I can tell, Mr. Miller's book and the movie were fairly similar in terms of rhetoric. Yet you seem to defend Mr. Miller and attack the movie. I'm not certain why that makes sense.

(5) Finally, and this is something that does not begin or end with, you, you have overemphasized the effect a movie will have on society. Additionally, you have taken themes out of the movie that, frankly, are probably not there. I watched the movie for three reasons: (1) I read the comic and liked it, (2) the movie had the requisite amount of violence and war; and (3) I'm Greek. None of these reasons indicate that I watched the movie to be politically moved or to develop my jingoistic or right-leaning attitudes. I watched the movie because it LOOKED good. Not because it sounded good. The narrative was fairly simplistic (as was the comic book's, I might add), and there were no themes of note (although "freedom" was spoken of at length). Being a history major, I found that it was woefully inaccurate in terms of its potrayal of Greeks and ancient warfare. But, again, that's not why I saw the movie. Finally, I'm uncertain why you link the movie to the Republican Party. As far as I know, the right-leaning, close-minded, mean, violent, and stupid are quite underrepresented in Hollywood. And, certainly, the left-leaning, free-thinking, kind, gentle, and intelligent are quite well represented. Perhaps the latter had a hand in making this movie. Perhaps it is them you should be chastising.

I will continue to enjoy your articles. I enjoy the ridiculousness of your political leanings, sure. I enjoy your elitist attitudes when it comes to writing, drawing, and publishing comics, specifically your inclination to assume stupid until proven published. But, I mostly enjoy your take on comics, and your reviews of same. Please keep up the... work.

Sincerely,

The Beast

Nick's Movie Reviews - 300

So, I watched 300 on Friday night. My wife went with her sisters to the Beyonce concert, so I had the house to myself until about 1 AM.

Initially, I was told by a co-worker that it was "great." My brother told me, "it sucked," mostly because of the horrendous storyline and dialogue.

Needless to say, I loved it... it was the kind of movie that you can sit there and enjoy the ridiculousness of it. I have read the graphic novel, which was okay (I like my comics to have some kind of extensive dialogue and I'm not that impressed by great art). The movie itself was un-freaking-believable in terms of the epic violence, blood, and general visuals. They evidently shot it in a combined Sin City and Gladiator style, which was extremely effective. I enjoyed the motion capture violence of the whole thing. The acting was fine for this kind of movie. I enjoyed seeing my boy McNulty from The Wire, but he had a small part. I didn't really have any sympathy for the characters, which is fine, because this was not that kind of movie.

I have to criticisms in an otherwise excellent war/action flick, both from a history-major standpoint:

(1) Spartans (and Greeks generally) only fought in phalanx formation. They did not use swords as a group, they did not fight like the Roman legions. I understand that, visually, it looks better in a movie to have sword-fighting one-on-one (especially with the Immortals). However, I believe it would have been just as good to continue the phalanx fighting (a la the first battle scene). That's how we Greeks rolled back in the day.

(2) The whole freedom B.S. annoyed me immensely. Sparta was a republic, sure. But all that stuff in the beginning about weeding out the malformed, etc.... that was true. So, let's do away with all the freedom and equality nonsense. It was about fighting for your city-state, I guess. There was no fighting for freedom. I really hated that stuff. When one makes a movie like 300, one does not have to appeal to the U.S. reasoning for fighting (i.e. freedom, justice, equality). You can deal with those issues in Saving Private Ryan. It's my same critique with Braveheart, possibly the greatest movie ever made. Why have William Wallace shout freedom, when the war was really about who gets to rule Scotland - a Scottish king or an English king.

Anyway, I understand, for visual reasons (on the first one) and business reasons (on the second one) why they did what they did. All in all, 300 was just what I expected it to be and I was not disappointed.

Dilemma

So, long story short, my wife went into the hospital (no emergency) for headache diagnosis and treatment. So I was in and out of the office this entire week (and we were on vacation last week), visiting her at the hospital and whatnot. Anyway, she's doing much better now and is going to get released on Friday most likely.

In other news, I was promoted to senior associate at my firm... kudos to me.

The dilemma is this - my wife recently informed me that I MUST go to the promotion party on Thursday. Two reasons not to go: my wife is in the hospital and I haven't really worked that much this week. Two reasons to go: my wife is fine and told me to go and it's my promotion party.

My solution to the dilemma is to see how things play out at the hospital tonight, see if Jenn can convince me to attend, and play it from there. Wish me luck.