Thoughtless for the Day

300 (2006)

Authenticity: -89 Out Of 100
Entertainment: 90 Out of 100
Gayness Factor: Fuh-laaaaay-ming! (Not that there's anything wrong with that)

In our search for The Worst Movie about the Classical World Ever Made it's important to be like the Spartans and not leave our buddy's behind…and trust me, the Spartans rarely left their buddies' behind (Not that there's anything wrong with that), so let's have a frank discussion about 300.

From the perspective of historical accuracy, 300 is roughly equivalent to making a film about the American Revolution in which George Washington has an invisible robot friend. Yes, there was a Persian invasion of Greece led by Emperor Xerxes; yes, 300 Spartans (along with several other groups of Greeks, including 1,500 Thespians) held the pass at Thermopylae against overwhelming enemy numbers, and yes, a Greek named Dienekes, when told that the Persian arrows would blot out the sun said "Then we shall fight in the shade". But the similarities between the story on the screen and what went down in real life pretty much end there.

While searching for a decent site to link the Thermopylae reference above to, I stumbled upon this review in Archaeology Online that does an excellent job (much better than I could do) of pointing out the numerous problems with 300 (although it does fail to mention the true hero of the Persian War: Themistocles), so let me just say that 300 is probably the Gayest movie ever made (Not that there's anything wrong with that). C'mon; oily, barely dressed men struggling with each other? That's Gayer than the closeted Republican Senator currently tapping his foot in a toilet stall (OK, there is something wrong with that) Just about every Gay dude I know owns at least one copies of this move: some own two, just in case something happens to the first one.

From a straight-male perspective, apart from reminding me that I really need to get to the gym and drop about fifty pounds, I have to admit that this film is actually a lot of fun. Sure, the acting is wooden; the characters are, at best, two dimensional; and the plot is hardly a plot, but who doesn't enjoy * watching limbs getting hacked from bodies, geysers of blood, and death-by-forced-cliff-diving?

* "suggestive eye movement"???