Speaker 1: So Erica. I've been trying to like emulate something you
Speaker 1: have taught me over the last few weeks because it's
Speaker 1: it's been a very hard time in the world, and
Speaker 1: I've been trying to cultivate my Blue sky feed to
Speaker 1: be just pet pictures and drag queens and like pictures
Speaker 1: of hot guys like that is that is what I'm
Speaker 1: trying to teach the algorithm I want to see.
Speaker 2: Yes, it works when you do it right, it works.
Speaker 1: It does work. But there is a pitfall that I
Speaker 1: was not aware of, which is that every day or
Speaker 1: so you stumble across a post about a pet that's
Speaker 1: like this buddy went to the Rainbow Bridge today. He
Speaker 1: was such a wonderful pet and I loved him so much.
Speaker 1: And it's the picture of like this cutest cat.
Speaker 2: Can I tell you a dog I follow on Instagram
Speaker 2: passed away?
Speaker 1: Oh god, and I just lost it.
Speaker 2: It happened like a couple of months ago. It was
Speaker 2: it's men'swear dog for those of you do ressed away.
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry, Paul, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3: This is well.
Speaker 1: I did not know this.
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry, but yeah, men's don't pass away. And
Speaker 2: I got so upset like she buen that lives. I
Speaker 2: don't even think it's it's in the United States, pass
Speaker 2: away out in the world somewhere, and I am deeply
Speaker 2: fucking affected by it. Yeah, that's the problem with following
Speaker 2: pets online. I forgot to It's a danger.
Speaker 1: It's a danger. Y'all be aware. Hey, I'm Paul in America,
Speaker 1: and this is that aged.
Speaker 2: Well, yesterday's pop culture.
Speaker 1: Today, three Hon dreff episodes. Cue the confetti, cue the
Speaker 1: naked men dancing around. We want to do something special
Speaker 1: for the three hundredth episode, Erica. We want to do
Speaker 1: something unique. And you said, I.
Speaker 2: Said, Paul, we should do the film the three hundred
Speaker 2: because it has the title. I don't know if you
Speaker 2: get it, the title title, number of episodes that we've done,
Speaker 2: and also the number of spartans who died this battle
Speaker 2: a billion years ago.
Speaker 1: Now, Erica, you didn't watch closely. Apparently it was two
Speaker 1: hundred and ninety nine according to this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, David Wenham got out of their staff tree. Lucky bastard.
Speaker 1: All right. Before we get to three hundred, we do
Speaker 1: have a couple of five star reviews to read. Do
Speaker 1: you want to read the first one?
Speaker 2: Sure? The first review comes from Chili Pepper thirteen, longtime listener,
Speaker 2: first time.
Speaker 1: Caller love it.
Speaker 2: I discovered the show during the pandemic after moving out
Speaker 2: of New York to Florida. Hey, I am currently in Florida,
Speaker 2: Chili Pepper thirteen. It's a scene down here, man.
Speaker 1: It's the whole scene.
Speaker 2: It's the whole scene. And finding myself in the car
Speaker 2: for long stretches of time, I will admit it has
Speaker 2: become my savior. I have laughed out loud a bit
Speaker 2: too much while driving, but the mix of humor, the
Speaker 2: comfort of rehashing my generations, films and Erica, how shall
Speaker 2: we say, miamis okay? And Paul's New York nest.
Speaker 1: That's pronounced New York, Miss New York.
Speaker 2: Neis my Nie is pronounced like.
Speaker 1: This, Miami nas it pronounced like a Savia Fergara exactly.
Speaker 2: Hey, it's a It's a Gloria Stepan, all right. I
Speaker 2: feel seen on so many levels. I am for sure
Speaker 2: a lifelong fan. Five hundred stars.
Speaker 1: Ah, Chili Pepper thirteen, Thank you Cheese.
Speaker 2: Must ask yes, Chili Pepper thirteen. If you are in
Speaker 2: the Miami area, I hope we run into each other
Speaker 2: someday on the street.
Speaker 1: Yep, to carry your tote bag. If you want a
Speaker 1: toe bag, let us know and then Erica will recognize
Speaker 1: you from Afar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll jump on your car. Is that an actual topeg.
Speaker 1: We also have a five star review from pod Chaser
Speaker 1: today Erica. This one is from R. L. Gavrila and
Speaker 1: they write, one of my absolute favorites. I look forward
Speaker 1: to Mondays because I know I get to spend my
Speaker 1: commute with Paul and Erica. I have literally laughed so
Speaker 1: hard I cried. The alternate bathroom scene in Psycho nearly
Speaker 1: killed me. I love their friendship, their humor, and their tangents.
Speaker 1: Even when I disagree with their assessments, I shall hear
Speaker 1: no WILLI wanka slander. My day is brighter for this podcast,
Speaker 1: knowing that we have these two voices to keep us
Speaker 1: company in the dark times ahead. That will age.
Speaker 2: Well, that's the nicest thing that really is.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you you did miss my favorite. Oh
Speaker 1: damn Willy Wonka. Moment after mister Salt goes down the shoot,
Speaker 1: Grandpa Joe says, well, mister Salt got what he always wanted.
Speaker 1: Veruka went first. Oh damn oh damn, that's true. In
Speaker 1: Erica's defense, I think she did bring up that line
Speaker 1: and I cut it for time. Sometimes we'll just like
Speaker 1: mention a great line and we don't do anything with it,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I have to try to keep this
Speaker 1: to a manageable size, So I have to take some
Speaker 1: of this stuff out.
Speaker 2: You have to keep this to the size of a
Speaker 2: Florida commute to me.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly exactly. Chilli Pepper thirteen R. L. Gavrila, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for these reviews. If you want a
Speaker 1: tope bag so Erica can maraud you on the streets
Speaker 1: of Miami. Ah, please let us know this is you.
Speaker 1: I will send it off for you. Erica, we already
Speaker 1: know what movie we spoiled, the movie we're talking about,
Speaker 1: but tell us little bit about it. What kind of
Speaker 1: movie is three hundred?
Speaker 2: Today's film is the two thousand and seven Horny historical
Speaker 2: epic three.
Speaker 1: Hundred, three hundred, which was requested by no one because
Speaker 1: you didn't know we were doing this. It is requested
Speaker 1: by me, it was requested by Erica. It's a gift
Speaker 1: for Erica, and I think I think you all are
Speaker 1: gonna like it. I think You're gonna like what we
Speaker 1: have in store for you in this episode.
Speaker 2: Yes, Goddamn movie.
Speaker 1: Three hundred was written by Zack Snyder, Kurt Johnstaid, and
Speaker 1: Michael B.
Speaker 2: Gordon Not Jordan, not to be confused with actor Michael B.
Speaker 1: Jordan, Not to be confused with the stunningly beautiful actor
Speaker 1: Michael B. Jordan. Look, Michael B. Gordon, They also be
Speaker 1: stunningly beautiful. I don't know, we don't know.
Speaker 2: But also two thousand and seven, Michael B. Jordan was
Speaker 2: conservatively fourteen years.
Speaker 1: Old, so probably not probably not him, but present day
Speaker 1: Michael B. Jordan is a site to behold. Let's just
Speaker 1: say it, like he could have performed in this movie.
Speaker 1: That's how hot he is. It was based on the
Speaker 1: graphic novel of the same name by Frank Miller and
Speaker 1: Lynn Varley. It was directed by Snyder and stars Gerard Butler,
Speaker 1: Rodrigo Santoro, Lenahiiti, David Wenham, Michael Fossbender, and Dominic West.
Speaker 2: The gasp when I saw Michael Fossbender on my screen,
Speaker 2: I did not know he was in this. It was
Speaker 2: a total surprise. I've seen this before, and I remember
Speaker 2: Dominic West, and I remember like Gerard Butler obviously in
Speaker 2: Rodrigo Santo the Gasp. I was like, what are you
Speaker 2: doing here? It's like finding like a brilliant Shakespearean actor
Speaker 2: in your soap opera and you're like, why are you
Speaker 2: in this?
Speaker 1: I saw him and I was like, Magnino Noginos in this.
Speaker 1: They're gonna win.
Speaker 2: The principal cast of three hundred underwent an eight week
Speaker 2: training regime in order to sculpt their bodies into the
Speaker 2: shape the film required. I don't know if eight weeks
Speaker 2: is enough time to cry.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, they're starting from a seven and
Speaker 1: have to get to a ten. It's gonna take me
Speaker 1: a solid six months to a year.
Speaker 2: They have to get to like a fourteen. They're not
Speaker 2: getting to a ten. So the first of I saw
Speaker 2: this movie, I was convinced that it was all like
Speaker 2: CGI asked yes. I was like, there's no way these
Speaker 2: actors maintained because these physiques are impossible to maintain. Like,
Speaker 2: no one ate on that set, No one had lunch.
Speaker 2: Everyone between takes had to have just been like working
Speaker 2: out constantly to maintain that look.
Speaker 1: And not drinking any water. Probably, yeah, not drinking any water.
Speaker 2: Even that's true. I felt a little bad for the
Speaker 2: actors this time around. I was I came here to
Speaker 2: objectify them, and I feel a little bad because the
Speaker 2: amount of work they had to put in to make
Speaker 2: these bodies bodies.
Speaker 1: Like it's insane, Like Gerard Butler has said, is the
Speaker 1: hardest thing I've ever done, and he has like ongoing
Speaker 1: physical not terrible physical problems, but like aches and pains
Speaker 1: from like this shoot, like this is not what human
Speaker 1: bodies were meant to look like, but they are meant
Speaker 1: to be looked at.
Speaker 2: Oh but however, as bad as I feel about that,
Speaker 2: I am still going to spend the next two hours
Speaker 2: being disgusting.
Speaker 1: I put this in too because I had the same
Speaker 1: experience as you, where I was like, oh, well, they
Speaker 1: just enhanced because the look of this movie, they're trying
Speaker 1: to make it look like the comic book, So there's
Speaker 1: a lot of cinematography going on, has a very like
Speaker 1: kind of washed out sounds bad, but like almost like
Speaker 1: monochromatic tone to it. So it would be so easy
Speaker 1: to enhance these guys' abs in post, so easy, and
Speaker 1: they're not. But they're all real. I'm like Jesus Christ,
Speaker 1: like the actor.
Speaker 2: Who got away the easiest is the one who gets
Speaker 2: to play the hunchback.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because even though he's.
Speaker 2: Under like fifty pounds of prosthetic, he's like, well, at
Speaker 2: least I didn't have to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're wrong the one who got off the easiest
Speaker 1: with Dominic West. You know, so you just draped a
Speaker 1: toga across his chest the entire goddamn movie.
Speaker 2: Do we think Dominic West has no abs in this.
Speaker 1: I hope not. I hope he doesn't. I really really,
Speaker 1: these guys Erica, these guys don't have load roads. They
Speaker 1: don't just have cum gutters. They have like a spooge
Speaker 1: luge down their front.
Speaker 2: I felt so bad for Dominic Wes. He does not
Speaker 2: look good in this movie.
Speaker 1: He doesn't, but he looks perfect for the role.
Speaker 2: This is not his look because he's already got rested
Speaker 2: sat her face yea. And so you stick him in
Speaker 2: a movie like this and you're just like, you don't
Speaker 2: look human, and not in a good way, not in
Speaker 2: a Rodrigo Santoro sexy way, in a in a not
Speaker 2: good way.
Speaker 1: We are gonna have a long talk about Rodrigo Santaurro
Speaker 1: in this film. Nobody worried it is Coming Erica. Many
Speaker 1: Iranians were offended by the portrayal of the ancient Persians
Speaker 1: in the movie, claiming the.
Speaker 2: Racist oh guys, are you sure.
Speaker 1: President Amenajad of Iran called it American psychological warfare against Iran.
Speaker 2: I mean there's also a lot sexier, I'm sure, and
Speaker 2: homo erotic, more homo erotic than that man would have
Speaker 2: wanted it to be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a little bit, a little bit.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, yeah, no, I it's it's not good.
Speaker 1: It's good, you guys, It's not great.
Speaker 2: It's funny because it's racist in a way where that's
Speaker 2: like it doesn't even know it's being racist, which is
Speaker 2: worse than actual racism. I think.
Speaker 1: Well, the comic book creator and the director, Zack Snyder
Speaker 1: have responded to it, and their basic response is, none
Speaker 1: of this is meant to be taken seriously. This is
Speaker 1: not historically accurate. There's magic and whatever in this in
Speaker 1: this like Xerxes is ten feet tall for no reason,
Speaker 1: like and I kind of get that, but I'm like,
Speaker 1: but then, don't use the historical names of people or
Speaker 1: just make the.
Speaker 2: Three hundred not all white men and the other team
Speaker 2: all people of color.
Speaker 1: Like that's really easy.
Speaker 2: I had to do really easy swap out some of
Speaker 2: those actors.
Speaker 1: Put Michael B. Jordan today in the three hundred.
Speaker 2: That helps, yes, please, please, and thank you. Yeah no,
Speaker 2: But honestly, it's like it's an easy fix. Everyone who
Speaker 2: is in like a Greek or a Spartan in this
Speaker 2: film is white, and not everyone who most the people
Speaker 2: who are fighting for Persia there's supposed to be people
Speaker 2: from all over Asia and Africa are people of color.
Speaker 2: It doesn't make any sense. You know what they have
Speaker 2: plenty of in Greece, people of color.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And also the Greeks aren't even being played by Greeks,
Speaker 1: are being played by like irishmen, so they're like really white,
Speaker 1: super white.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. All the Spartans are being played by people.
Speaker 1: From the UK, people whose skin hasn't seen the sun
Speaker 1: because if they do, it lights on fire.
Speaker 2: Like all redheads and shit. I'm like, yeah, that's what
Speaker 2: Greeks look like.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I want to be clear the film is racist. It's not,
Speaker 2: and it's almost worse because it's not trying to be
Speaker 2: racist and it just is doing it on accident. Yes,
Speaker 2: and that's no bueno. And like there are like the
Speaker 2: entire Persian army is not people of color, Like there
Speaker 2: are like lighter skinned people in there as well, but
Speaker 2: I did notice that for the most part, those are
Speaker 2: the folks who are covered up. Yeah, and so you
Speaker 2: almost don't see their faces. And then the people whose
Speaker 2: faces you do see are all black and brown. And
Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, you guys, Like no one on set
Speaker 2: was like.
Speaker 1: Hey, should we maybe diversify.
Speaker 2: Diversify the cast just a scoch So mahmudah majinadad and
Speaker 2: I agree on something cool cool.
Speaker 1: I love being in this position.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is fun, this feels good.
Speaker 1: I love being in this position. Is the title of
Speaker 1: your sex tape?
Speaker 2: Right? Yeah. Three hundred has a sixty one percent critical
Speaker 2: rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an eighty nine percent audience score. Paul,
Speaker 2: what do you think?
Speaker 1: Okay, Look, I understand critically being like there's something good
Speaker 1: in this movie, like it's it's doing a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff with like CGI and all that, So I could
Speaker 1: see giving it like a sixty percent critical rating for
Speaker 1: like a you took a big swing kind of kind
Speaker 1: of thing, leaving out the racism part of it. But
Speaker 1: it's like the technical achievement of the movie, Like, the
Speaker 1: movie is trying to literally recreate the comic book panel
Speaker 1: for panel. I think that sounds very limiting in the
Speaker 1: idea of an adaptation, but that's what they said to do.
Speaker 1: And then they added the Lenahiti scenes in Sparta once
Speaker 1: the three hundred leve that's all movie knew stuff. From
Speaker 1: my understand.
Speaker 2: Oh good. I'm glad because every time they cut to her,
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, thank god.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Then eighty nine percent audience score also doesn't surprise me,
Speaker 1: because I'm like, this movie is for a certain subset
Speaker 1: of people, and those people are going to fucking love it,
Speaker 1: and that's fine. I don't think it's anything inherently wrong
Speaker 1: with that. There is a lot of stuff. If you
Speaker 1: like Peel, if you like under the Cover of Sparta,
Speaker 1: the heroes of this film, there's stuff that you're like, well,
Speaker 1: that's not great. There's I think we can say safely
Speaker 1: there's some toxic masculinity going on, although that term would
Speaker 1: not have been used in Sparta. It's all very confusing,
Speaker 1: honestly though.
Speaker 2: That's part of it for me. Yeah, like in terms
Speaker 2: of the eroticism of the film, and I'm not I'm
Speaker 2: only literally like a third joking here the dumb, toxic
Speaker 2: masculinity in the film, like the adherence to like we
Speaker 2: will die on this hill today, tonight we dine I know,
Speaker 2: as they're like bodies are glistening and they're like running
Speaker 2: with spears. It's all part of it. For me. I
Speaker 2: find this movie very entertaining.
Speaker 1: It makes me laugh because it reminds me whenever I
Speaker 1: read like a book about a gay couple written by
Speaker 1: a woman, like a romantic comedy about a gay couple
Speaker 1: that inevitably, inevitably one of them is like a construction
Speaker 1: worker and then like inevitably they're like, oh man, just
Speaker 1: want to go, like go have pizza and beer, and
Speaker 1: then they fuck And I'm like, no one fucks after
Speaker 1: pizza and beer. That's not how it works. It's the
Speaker 1: toxically masculine stuff. I get it. I'm not judging, to
Speaker 1: be clear. I get it, like like it's it's it's hot,
Speaker 1: it's a hot Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2: Fun, like you are right by the way. The movie
Speaker 2: is not good and also and also the messaging is
Speaker 2: not great, and I know this movie is not for me.
Speaker 2: It's not for a forty year old woman who understands
Speaker 2: how stupid and funny. This all is. It's four teenage
Speaker 2: boys who will not understand the nuance of what they're
Speaker 2: watching and understand that like, Okay, yeah, sure, there's a
Speaker 2: certain historical context for all of this, like.
Speaker 1: Militaristic, macho shit.
Speaker 2: Lifestyle like that these that these people lived lived under
Speaker 2: like but and I think that's that's part of the problem,
Speaker 2: is that, like who who was the audience for this
Speaker 2: film and what message are they taking away from it?
Speaker 2: And none of the messaging is good. Now, if you
Speaker 2: are a forty year old woman, though, you just want
Speaker 2: to You just want to watch some hot dudes battle
Speaker 2: it out. This movie is awesome.
Speaker 1: So, Erica, when did you first see three hundred?
Speaker 2: Saw it in the theater? Paul, Okay, here's a great story.
Speaker 2: I mean, no shit, the horniest movie I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: And we saw Shame also starring Michael Fosspensers saw shait.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's actually not that horny, because yeah, depressing as fuck.
Speaker 2: But I saw this in the theater like the day
Speaker 2: after Christmas or the week of Christmas or whenever it
Speaker 2: came out, or maybe it was it was Thanksgiving, because
Speaker 2: I was in Miami for this and I watched it
Speaker 2: with my dad, my brother, and two of my uncles,
Speaker 2: and I'm sitting right in the middle of all three
Speaker 2: of them, and in the middle of the movie, all
Speaker 2: I could think is, I was like, I'm so glad
Speaker 2: women can't get erections because they would all see what
Speaker 2: is happening right now. And what is happening right now
Speaker 2: is a sexual awakening the likes of which I didn't
Speaker 2: think were possible in my mid twenties.
Speaker 1: Erica, as someone as a teen, as someone who wants
Speaker 1: a teen boy, I can tell you that's why you
Speaker 1: always buy the popcorn.
Speaker 2: You always buy the popcorn because you have a chance
Speaker 2: to diddle yourself a little bit.
Speaker 1: Well, I was saying, thinking of like a pillow, like
Speaker 1: a cover if.
Speaker 3: You needed it.
Speaker 2: Sure, But honestly, I was like, I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: you poke.
Speaker 1: Three es, the butter is lube, and you get yourself
Speaker 1: off real quick to go there you go.
Speaker 2: I never thought of myself as the kind of person
Speaker 2: who was attracted to this until I saw this movie
Speaker 2: and I was like, oh, I get it, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm into this.
Speaker 1: Sure so attractive.
Speaker 2: How about you, Paul, when did you first see The
Speaker 2: Three hundred.
Speaker 1: I have never seen this movie. When it came out,
Speaker 1: I strongly considered seeing it because like, it's so homo erotic,
Speaker 1: And even back then, I was like, is it though
Speaker 1: it's not.
Speaker 2: It's just erotic. It's not homoooic.
Speaker 1: As much fun as I have watching like these guys
Speaker 1: who have sculpted their bodies into these godlike figures, which
Speaker 1: I can absolutely appreciate, I do not find this movie
Speaker 1: particularly erotic, Like it doesn't like tickle my pickle at all.
Speaker 1: Like I was actually shocked at my reaction to this movie,
Speaker 1: which is I found a little boring.
Speaker 2: I will agree with you on that. So this is
Speaker 2: the second time I've seen it. I saw it one
Speaker 2: time in the theater a million years ago, when I
Speaker 2: had mixed feelings about watching it with all the male
Speaker 2: members of my family. Sure, And then the second time
Speaker 2: was yesterday when I saw it again with my dad
Speaker 2: and I'm like, why do I keep watching this with
Speaker 2: my dad? I found myself like looking up stuff during
Speaker 2: the movie, like now that it's a second screen experience,
Speaker 2: I was like, is that a real thing? Oh, it
Speaker 2: is a real thing. Oh, look at that they all
Speaker 2: did go through that training when they were kids, because
Speaker 2: there's long stretches of the movie that are just really repetitive. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and we all know how this well, maybe not, I
Speaker 2: imagine actually quite a few Americans will be like they,
Speaker 2: but I know how it ends because it's a pretty
Speaker 2: famous fucking battle. And yeah, I agree with you. I
Speaker 2: found it a little bit boring this time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I look, this is not a movie for Paul's
Speaker 1: quite clearly. I didn't hate it. It wasn't like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, this is terrible. I hate that I'm watching this,
Speaker 1: But I was bored. I was bored. I got tired
Speaker 1: of watching the battle scenes. I got tired of hearing
Speaker 1: the declamatory speeches. It did not make me want to
Speaker 1: read the comic book at all, because I'm like, as
Speaker 1: interesting as this is, the comic book must be even
Speaker 1: less so, because I know for a fact that less
Speaker 1: happens because all the semi interesting stuff happening in Sparta
Speaker 1: isn't in the comic book. So like we're just looking
Speaker 1: at pictures of men in Spartan armor killing persians. Okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: When I had to watch it again to do the recap,
Speaker 1: I was like ugh, And I was like you, I
Speaker 1: was like, usually I'm like pausing and getting everything, and
Speaker 1: I was like double screening, and it's like typing, typing, typing, typing.
Speaker 1: I don't think the writing's bad. I think like it's
Speaker 1: not deep, but it's good writing. It's very declamatory and inspiring. Erica.
Speaker 1: The tag line for three hundred is prepare for glory.
Speaker 2: Ha ha.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to do it my best. Yard Butler, who's
Speaker 1: trying to not have a Scottish accent but isn't quite
Speaker 1: getting there.
Speaker 2: Leonidas, the king of Sparta, who sounds like he's just
Speaker 2: inhaled a hagis the entire film. This sounds like he's
Speaker 2: one of the proclaimers. I would walk five hundred miles.
Speaker 1: For Sparta, who sounds like he has a money bin
Speaker 1: somewhere in Sparta.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Scottish. He cannot hide the accent.
Speaker 1: It's hilarious.
Speaker 2: It cannot. I kind of like this taglineer I.
Speaker 1: Think it's fine. Yeah, that's what it is.
Speaker 2: The movie is ambitious in a certain way and not
Speaker 2: ambitious in another way. I do appreciate that it stays
Speaker 2: in its lane. It knows exactly what it is.
Speaker 1: Do you want to read the iTunes synopsis?
Speaker 2: Sure? The epic graphic novel by Frank Miller, assaults the
Speaker 2: screen as sure as fuck does.
Speaker 1: Sure that is the correct verb.
Speaker 2: That is the absolute correct verb. Yeah, with the blood,
Speaker 2: thunder and awe of its ferocious visual style, faithfully recreated
Speaker 2: in an intense blend of live action and CGI animation,
Speaker 2: retelling the ancient battle of Oh dear Greek words are coming,
Speaker 2: Here we go, Here we go, retelling the ancient Battle
Speaker 2: of Thermopylay, Did I get it?
Speaker 1: I think. I don't know if it's Thermopylae or Thermopyli,
Speaker 1: but I think it's I.
Speaker 2: Think Thermopyli, Thermopoli one of those. If you're a Greek listener,
Speaker 2: I apologize.
Speaker 1: I do like that the movie was smart enough to
Speaker 1: be like, it means hot Gates. We're just going to
Speaker 1: call it hot Gates the entire time.
Speaker 2: When you change the name to hot Gates, myself so dumb.
Speaker 1: It's so dumb and so sexual.
Speaker 2: It depicts the Titanic clash, in which King Leonidas, Gerard Butler,
Speaker 2: and three hundred Spartans fought to the death against Xerxes.
Speaker 2: Rodrigo Santoro and his massive Persian army experienced history at
Speaker 2: sword point and movie making with a cutting edge. You
Speaker 2: know what. This person wanted to sell this movie, and
Speaker 2: goddamn it, they're selling it.
Speaker 1: They did. But I'm gonna tell you there is only
Speaker 1: one movie that has a cutting edge, and that's the
Speaker 1: cutting edge. That's the cutting edge, that is the cutting
Speaker 1: They claim that that is theirs.
Speaker 2: At one point, though, Rodrigo Santoro does tell Robert Butler
Speaker 2: to put his ass in the air.
Speaker 1: I did see that he did that. That was great,
Speaker 1: that was and he did it was fun.
Speaker 2: Paul, what's the actual synopsis for three hundred?
Speaker 1: How about three hundred Roadhouse in Ancient Greece and the
Speaker 1: Uncanny Valley. There are moments where the CGI it happens
Speaker 1: right away that there's like a CGI baby and like
Speaker 1: the Uncanny Valley on that baby.
Speaker 2: Is Yeah, it's very two thousand and seven. Yeah, get
Speaker 2: super through that. Like two thousand and seven doesn't seem
Speaker 2: like that long ago, but technologically it is. It is
Speaker 2: another era in the past.
Speaker 1: All right, everyone stick around, we're gonna come right back.
Speaker 1: We're gonna take you through three hundred. After a couple
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Speaker 2: And we're back.
Speaker 1: We're back today.
Speaker 4: We podcast in hell all right.
Speaker 1: Three hundred opens with a voiceover from Dilios, played by
Speaker 1: David Wenham. He is a Spartan soldier and he explains
Speaker 1: the Spartan way of life and narrates the tale of
Speaker 1: King Leonidas the First And as he speaks, we see
Speaker 1: these scenes play out, starting with the birth of Leonidas.
Speaker 1: Dilios tells us how every child born in Sparta was
Speaker 1: inspected and judged on their physical worthiness. Those judged inadequate
Speaker 1: were thrown off a cliff. So damn, damn, this is harsh.
Speaker 1: It's very like different time, right, like different standards of behavior, like,
Speaker 1: but it's hard to be like these are the heroes.
Speaker 1: All the baby has to be as small and they're
Speaker 1: like not big enough off the cliff, Like babies are
Speaker 1: famously very small. What's the measuring stick? How big does
Speaker 1: one have to be to not get thrown off the cliff?
Speaker 2: Also, I feel like girl baby has got a pass
Speaker 2: in that case, right, Yeah? Rarely am I like? Boy?
Speaker 2: Am I glad I'm a girl in this world?
Speaker 1: By the way, I went down a little bit a
Speaker 1: Wikipedia hole. Apparently women in Sparta were treated very very well,
Speaker 1: very well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they weren't citizens, but they were close. Yeah, which
Speaker 2: is better than the Athenians. I'll put it that way.
Speaker 2: Oh did I Paul? I stopped watching this movie at
Speaker 2: like eleven thirty. It finished for me at eleven thirty,
Speaker 2: and then I like looked up one or two things
Speaker 2: on Wikipedia, and then I looked up and suddenly it
Speaker 2: was one thirty in the morning, and I was like, ah,
Speaker 2: I fell down such a Wikipedia rabbit hole with this movie,
Speaker 2: and so like, there the ancient world is fucking interesting.
Speaker 2: Let's just put it that way.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I got distracted. I'm trying to think the
Speaker 1: last time I stopped watching something at eleven thirty at
Speaker 1: night or went to bed that that was New Year's Eve,
Speaker 1: and I was not happy about it. I'm gonna put
Speaker 1: that out there right now. I was not pleased.
Speaker 2: Those people are listening, they hear you, They.
Speaker 1: Know who they are, and they know what they did. Okay.
Speaker 1: So as soon as Leonidas could stand, he was quote
Speaker 1: unquote baptized in the fires of combat, and to I
Speaker 1: would walk fight. He was taught never to retreat, never
Speaker 1: to surrender, and that death on the battlefield in the
Speaker 1: service of Sparta was the greatest glory he could achieve
Speaker 1: in his life. Then at seven, he's put into warrior
Speaker 1: training with all the other Spartan boys and taught to fight, steal, kill,
Speaker 1: and endure starvation and torture. Once he's a teenager, it
Speaker 1: becomes a total bang fast. The movie doesn't say that,
Speaker 1: but that's what happened in my head.
Speaker 2: You know what, though, if you read the Wikipedia entry
Speaker 2: about this particular training they all went through, the boys
Speaker 2: went through, it was a total bank.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are some different differing ideas, but some people
Speaker 1: think it was a total bank fast.
Speaker 2: Oh could it not be? What else are you gonna
Speaker 2: do teenage boys in the woods? Yeah, and force them
Speaker 2: to live on their wits. They're gonna all fuck each.
Speaker 1: Other a boys boarding school. Give me a break, Give
Speaker 1: me a break. So once it's a teenager, Leonidas and
Speaker 1: I presume all the other boys of his age are
Speaker 1: tossed into the wild to survive and return or perish
Speaker 1: and be forgotten. And we see him start getting stalked
Speaker 1: by this really gnarly looking quote unquote wolf, which it
Speaker 1: is a monster. It has glowing red eyes. It's not
Speaker 1: a wolf. He manages to kill the wolf and he
Speaker 1: returns to his people.
Speaker 2: I will say, like, and again, I don't know how
Speaker 2: sophisticated the audience for the film is once you put
Speaker 2: things in context of like this happened thousands of years
Speaker 2: ago in a land far, far away that has nothing
Speaker 2: to do with who we are anymore. This is a
Speaker 2: military society. We cannot tell you enough. This is the
Speaker 2: most militaristic society that maybe ever existed on the planet.
Speaker 2: That kind of takes some of the sting out of
Speaker 2: it for me in terms of like, yeah, these are
Speaker 2: our heroes, but look at the fucking context in which
Speaker 2: to which they were born into. So like that I
Speaker 2: have to say is maybe why my reaction to the
Speaker 2: film is a little bit softer than yours. But also
Speaker 2: I can't really exactly justify that it's terms of like
Speaker 2: art going out into the world, because I don't know
Speaker 2: that like your average viewer of this film is going
Speaker 2: to like internalize that dialogue of like, but this happened
Speaker 2: a million years ago in a land far, far away.
Speaker 2: We cut to Delios in person. Delios is the funniest name, right,
Speaker 2: he wins. He wins funniest name in the film because
Speaker 2: it sounds like Delio, like slang from the nineties. What's
Speaker 2: the videos? Yeah, and every time they said it, I left.
Speaker 2: He cut to Dilio in person. He's addressing a host
Speaker 2: of spartans with a bandage over one eye. Still looks hot.
Speaker 2: It still would still want Delios. He continues his tale.
Speaker 2: It's now thirty years later. Wait what, I didn't catch
Speaker 2: this part. It's thirty years later.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's thirty years.
Speaker 2: Oh, since the birth of Leonidas.
Speaker 1: Since Leonidas came back from the woods.
Speaker 2: Got it, got it? Got it? I got my timeline.
Speaker 2: Messed up there for a second. Never mind, it's been
Speaker 2: thirty so that baby is now a.
Speaker 1: Man, is now a man?
Speaker 2: M It's now Scottish Gerard Butler. It's thirty years later.
Speaker 2: Another beast is approaching Greece. Only this beast is not
Speaker 2: a wolf. This beast is made of men and horses,
Speaker 2: swords and spears, an army of slaves, vast beyond imagining,
Speaker 2: ready to snuff out the world's one hope for reason
Speaker 2: and justice. Okay, we ever pivoted, We look ancient, greased,
Speaker 2: did a lot. Didn take that away from them. They
Speaker 2: did a lot for us. But calm the fuck down.
Speaker 1: Everyone, take a breath.
Speaker 2: We take a breath. Delios I think the Persians had
Speaker 2: some civilization as well. Yeah, King Leonidas himself was the
Speaker 2: one who provoked this army. Paul, how how did he
Speaker 2: provoke this army? Explain it to me? Please?
Speaker 1: He also didn't, to be fair, this army was coming
Speaker 1: without provocation. This was an invading force.
Speaker 2: That's all people did back then. They didn't have television,
Speaker 2: so they were just like, do you want to invade
Speaker 2: our neighbors?
Speaker 1: Okay, they didn't have podcasts. It is our responsibility to
Speaker 1: stop the Jingo was the expansion of empires.
Speaker 2: You're absolutely welcome. If America does not invade Greenland. It
Speaker 2: is us who did that.
Speaker 1: We did it.
Speaker 2: We did it. You're welcome Greenland.
Speaker 1: Specifically us too, just the two of us, not any
Speaker 1: other millions of podcasters out there. So we cut to
Speaker 1: Sparta and to groan Leonidas, played by Gerard Butler doing
Speaker 1: his level best to look sexy through a Caesar cut
Speaker 1: and a rattail.
Speaker 2: Goddamn it, Paul, Though it's working, he does.
Speaker 1: A pretty good job. He does better than I could.
Speaker 1: I'll say that he's rough housing with his young son
Speaker 1: as his wife Gorgo played by Lena Heity looks on.
Speaker 1: They receive word that a Persian messenger played by Peter
Speaker 1: Mensa has arrived. So we have the immediate introduction of
Speaker 1: a black man playing a Persian messenger into it the
Speaker 1: all white Sparta. Right, yep, the messenger is already being
Speaker 1: attended by Theron played by Dominic West. Is there any
Speaker 1: way for a man to have a goateee without a
Speaker 1: mustache and not look like a villain?
Speaker 2: Well, the problem too is he has resting goat face. Yes,
Speaker 2: he's an extremely handsome man, but the under the wrong circumstances,
Speaker 2: Dominic West does look like a goat, like a half man,
Speaker 2: half boat. I'm not kidding, resting state her face.
Speaker 1: It's the curls too. He has the curls. And he
Speaker 1: has a kind of this is not a judgment, like
Speaker 1: a little like an evil grin to him, and like
Speaker 1: he looks like the pick up artist, or like or
Speaker 1: like he looks like he smells like axe body spray,
Speaker 1: even though that hasn't been invented yet.
Speaker 2: He invented it. Theron invented axe body spray cannon. I
Speaker 2: find Dominique West very attractive in most hundred per because
Speaker 2: of that devil may care smile and that like kind
Speaker 2: of evil glint in his eye. There's something sexy about him.
Speaker 2: Not in this I'm like, I genuinely felt bad for him.
Speaker 2: I'm like, he must have seen the way he looks
Speaker 2: in this movie and been like, WHOA, my.
Speaker 1: Career is over. My career is fucking over.
Speaker 2: I certainly hope they make a TV show about King
Speaker 2: Charles some days that I can play him and revive
Speaker 2: my career. What's funny is after this, Dominic West almost
Speaker 2: immediately went into like playing American cops in everything. And
Speaker 2: I've seen him play an American cop like seventeen times.
Speaker 1: All right. So Thearyn is with the messenger, and Theren
Speaker 1: is a politician for whom both King Leonidas and Queen
Speaker 1: Gorgo seemed to have a distaste. The messenger gives them
Speaker 1: his message. He says earth and water, and Gorgo responds,
Speaker 1: and the messenger wonders why this woman thinks she should
Speaker 1: speak amongst men, and she says, because only Spartan women
Speaker 1: give birth to real men.
Speaker 2: I do love Lenahiti. I will follow. I will follow
Speaker 2: her to the ends of the earth. So I was
Speaker 2: so into this. The messenger explains that the god Circes,
Speaker 2: who is approaching with a massive army, requires only an
Speaker 2: offering of earth and water as a sign of Sparta's submission.
Speaker 2: Who's wrong word? Wrong word, man, Leonidas Box. After all,
Speaker 2: the quote unquote boy lovers of Athens have already turned
Speaker 2: down Xerxes, and he has a reputation to protect.
Speaker 1: This movie has an interesting and interesting relationship with homosexuality.
Speaker 1: I can't quite get.
Speaker 2: My fie, that was a thing happening.
Speaker 1: It was a thing. Yeah, it was a thing. I
Speaker 1: can't tell. I can't tell. I can't tell.
Speaker 2: There's a part later where Michael Fossfender and another dude, I.
Speaker 1: Know exactly what you're about to bring up.
Speaker 2: I like flirting with each other.
Speaker 1: Correct.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I think this is real. I think this
Speaker 2: is a real thing.
Speaker 1: I agree.
Speaker 2: I'm confused, and I think that's just those two actors
Speaker 2: deciding to make it real. Like that's not on the page. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and those two actors are like, how about if instead
Speaker 2: of like goading each other with like you're gay, No,
Speaker 2: you're gay, we're into it. And they're like, yeah, let's
Speaker 2: do that. That sounds more interesting.
Speaker 1: Could be our last light night on Earth? Am I
Speaker 1: not going to get a blowjob? If I can?
Speaker 2: I need? Come on, I'm the flossbender. Yeah, and the
Speaker 2: other guy was hot too, anyway, moving on, moving on,
Speaker 2: So once again, Athens has already turned down Zerxis. They're
Speaker 2: willing to fight to the death. Sparta is certainly going
Speaker 2: to do the same. The messenger feels his meeting is
Speaker 2: going south, and he warns Leonidas to choose his next
Speaker 2: words carefully. Don't fuck with me. I am the messenger
Speaker 2: of the god King. Leonidas draws his sword on the messenger,
Speaker 2: and the messenger is.
Speaker 4: Like, whoa messenger. You're not allowed to kill me. That's
Speaker 4: like the rules of the of the world right now.
Speaker 4: You never kill messengers, that's the whole thing. Don't kill
Speaker 4: the messenger.
Speaker 1: Who saying about it?
Speaker 2: The messengers like this is madness, and Leonidas roar, is
Speaker 2: this is Sparta. This is the commercial of the film.
Speaker 2: You have seen this scene even if you've never seen
Speaker 2: this movie. Leonidas then kicks the messenger in the Solder
Speaker 2: Plexus and hell into like a seemingly bottomless pit that
Speaker 2: is just conveniently located outside the city. Yep.
Speaker 1: Look, if you have a city and you don't have
Speaker 1: a bottomless pit right outside of it to throw insolent
Speaker 1: messengers into when they when they when they annoy you,
Speaker 1: are you even a city?
Speaker 2: Are you even? Yeah? Are you even a civilization?
Speaker 1: Yeah? That's what Staten Island is for New York.
Speaker 2: Aha, we just kick coming the solar Plexus over there, like,
Speaker 2: go enjoy the fucking island.
Speaker 1: Leonidas heads to consult with the Ephors, who what's the
Speaker 1: Delo tells us in voiceover are quote unquote priests to
Speaker 1: the old gods in bread swine, more creature than man.
Speaker 1: You can tell that we're not supposed to like these
Speaker 1: people because they are. Their faces are all covered with
Speaker 1: like oozing pustules and like boils, and they have bad teeth.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The movie posits that they make their lepers into this,
Speaker 2: into their their ephors. I looked it up. Ephors are
Speaker 2: a real fig They were not lepers, and in fact,
Speaker 2: they were pretty pretty well liked Anyway, moving on.
Speaker 1: Still, the laws of Sparta demand that Leonidas must go
Speaker 1: seek they're blessing before riding to war. The Ephors are
Speaker 1: not impressed with his plan to use the Spartans fighting
Speaker 1: prowess and the terrain of Greece to take on an
Speaker 1: army of millions. And besides, also they say, there's a
Speaker 1: festival of Carnea that is approaching and it must be honored.
Speaker 1: You must honor the gods and celebrate Karnea A. Spartans
Speaker 1: do not wage war during the festival of Karnea.
Speaker 2: It's like spring break. It's like, hey, how dare you
Speaker 2: give me a reading assignment over spring break? This is
Speaker 2: spring break, this is sacred.
Speaker 1: It's like Christmas Day on the World War two front. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's true.
Speaker 2: We're gonna play soccer in this field at France and
Speaker 2: shut up. It's happy, Noel everyone. Leonidas insists that he
Speaker 2: will be able to break the Persian assault by stopping
Speaker 2: them at a mountain pass called the Hot Gates. Boy,
Speaker 2: I wish they've renamed it. Look, none of this is
Speaker 2: historically accurate. Anyway, Rename the fucking pass for your movie,
Speaker 2: so it's not called the.
Speaker 1: Hot Gates because that is apparently what Thermopyli or Thermopylae
Speaker 1: translates to that is the trans understood.
Speaker 2: Yeah but still yeah, but dumb, dumb, or just have
Speaker 2: Gerard Butler say Thermopylae the entire film and the rest
Speaker 2: of us will have to deal with it. Because every
Speaker 2: time he snarled the words the hot gaze, I had
Speaker 2: water come through my nose from snorting so hard. The
Speaker 2: ephers say they will consult the oracle. I actually thought
Speaker 2: this part was kind of cool. There's like, there's a
Speaker 2: shot of this young woman. Oracles are fascinating their teenage
Speaker 2: girls who were either drugged out of their minds all
Speaker 2: the time and or full fucking con artists who just
Speaker 2: told people that they had visions.
Speaker 1: We should write the movie of them being con artists.
Speaker 2: I absolutely love the idea of the oracles. And so
Speaker 2: they show this young woman in like in this in
Speaker 2: this world, she's not she's drugged out of her mind, right.
Speaker 2: They gave her like the ancient version of peyote, and
Speaker 2: we're like, tell us your visions, young lady. And there's
Speaker 2: a really beautiful dance scene with this character. It's clearly
Speaker 2: they just hired a fantastic dancer.
Speaker 1: To play this role. And they also they filmed her underwater.
Speaker 1: Apparently that's how they did that.
Speaker 2: Can tell her face, you can see the water pressure
Speaker 2: on her face. Yeah, this is maybe one of my
Speaker 2: favorite moments of the entire movie right now.
Speaker 1: It's visually stunning.
Speaker 2: It's so visually stunning. So what's the Delio tells us
Speaker 2: that even though the Ephors are diseased old mystics, Leonidas
Speaker 2: must respect them, for no one in Sparta, not even
Speaker 2: the king, is above the law. Remember that this is important.
Speaker 2: No one is above the law. And they told him
Speaker 2: he can't go to war. So I guess the end
Speaker 2: of movie, right, none, Thank you guys, thanks for coming.
Speaker 2: The oracle arises and parrots the position of the Ephors,
Speaker 2: telling them, telling Leonidas it is it's the carnelia or whatever.
Speaker 2: Carnea carnea, and we won't we don't fight during carnea.
Speaker 2: That's a that's a true thing. I looked it up.
Speaker 2: Leonidas leaves. He is disgusted. He is sure that somehow
Speaker 2: the Ephors have tricked the oracle into into giving into
Speaker 2: giving him this message. Once he's gone, we see as
Speaker 2: your messenger along with Serron. That's Dominic West telling you
Speaker 2: ex body spray, ex body spray, telling the Ephors that
Speaker 2: they have won the favor of Xerxes. They so now
Speaker 2: we know there actually is a conspiracy.
Speaker 1: We cut to Leonidas in Gorgo's bedchamber at night. Leonidas
Speaker 1: stands nude, staring out at his kingdom.
Speaker 2: Not mad at it, No, not mad at it at all.
Speaker 1: The queen sleeps in his bed, and the king is
Speaker 1: at war within himself. He sits at the bed and
Speaker 1: Gorgo wakes as he touches her back, and she says,
Speaker 1: your tongue can finish what your fingers started.
Speaker 2: Hell.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Then she looks at him. She sees he's pensive, right.
Speaker 1: She wonders what's bothering him, and he says he doesn't
Speaker 1: know what to do. He's a king, but the very
Speaker 1: laws that he has sworn to protect tell him to
Speaker 1: do nothing, and he fears doing nothing will set Sparta
Speaker 1: on a path to destruction. She tells him that he
Speaker 1: should not think of what a king should do, he
Speaker 1: should think of what a free man should do. And
Speaker 1: this is so hot, Erica, they cannot help fo fuck.
Speaker 2: I counted at least four different sexual positions in this scene.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's excessive.
Speaker 2: I look, I have no problems with sex scenes, but like,
Speaker 2: I got uncomfortable watching this one. I was like, can
Speaker 2: we you guys, this is going on way too long?
Speaker 2: This is a movie?
Speaker 1: Is she coming with every thrust? Because I feel like
Speaker 1: the movie posit she comes every time he thrusts.
Speaker 2: Lena, that's just Lena, Heidi, that's just doing her best. No.
Speaker 2: I mean again, this is the movie for teenage boys.
Speaker 2: Can we not? Can we just not calm down? Everyone?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: The next day, Leonidas inspects the three hundred men that
Speaker 2: his captain Artemis played by Vincent Reagan, has gathered. This
Speaker 2: includes Dilios, who you've already met as the narrator, but
Speaker 2: this time he's got both eyes. Astinos played by Tom Wisdom,
Speaker 2: who is Artemis's eldest son. He's in his twenties. Stelios
Speaker 2: played by Michael Fossbender. Yay, yay, Astinos best friend and
Speaker 2: a true believer in Leonidas and Sparta. These two are lovers.
Speaker 2: You cannot tell me they are not lovers. Astinos and Stelios.
Speaker 2: I agree, these two, if not actual lovers, are just
Speaker 2: deeply in love with each other. We find out in
Speaker 2: this scene that, like Artemis, has been told to gather
Speaker 2: only men who have sons so that their bloodlines will
Speaker 2: carry on. So because they kind of know this is
Speaker 2: a suicide mission, so they're like, okay, so we cannot
Speaker 2: kill bloodlines with this suicide mission because this is technically
Speaker 2: not war. This is a walk. This is just a
Speaker 2: walk in the park, is what we're doing.
Speaker 1: Yep. Sharron arrives and he's going to chastise Leonidas for
Speaker 1: riding to war with a Spartan army against the wishes
Speaker 1: of the Ephors, and Leonida says, the army's not riding
Speaker 1: to war, just taking a stroll with my personal bodyguard.
Speaker 1: We're going to go to the hot gates. There are
Speaker 1: brief moments of a sense of humor in this movie
Speaker 1: that I desperately wish were multiplied by twenty because because
Speaker 1: Gerard Butler, to his credit, lands every joke he has given.
Speaker 1: There is a joke coming that I laughed out loud at.
Speaker 2: I have seen him be really funny in things.
Speaker 1: He can do it. Uh So Gorgo gives Leonidas her
Speaker 1: necklace and she tells him to come back with his
Speaker 1: shield or on it, which is apparently how these two like.
Speaker 1: That's how they say I love you, Like, don't come
Speaker 1: back unless you're fucking dead or you've won, Like, do
Speaker 1: not fucking retreat.
Speaker 2: Well, it's not gonna put that in my wedding vows.
Speaker 2: Never retreat, never surrender.
Speaker 1: Leonidas heads off the three hundred, and we see a misshapen,
Speaker 1: hunchbacked figure watching them from like a like a far
Speaker 1: away cliff.
Speaker 2: Yes, by the way, there's some erasure in this film.
Speaker 2: They had like seven hundred people from another town joined them.
Speaker 2: Fair enough, they add one of the like the two
Speaker 2: towns that joined them, but like there's another one that
Speaker 2: actually like tripled the size of their army, and he
Speaker 2: never it's the Thespians.
Speaker 1: We know what they think about the Thespians, because.
Speaker 2: I would have loved a movie where they where we
Speaker 2: would have seen someone go Thespians charge. What if there
Speaker 2: was an army of Thespians? What if what if there
Speaker 2: was just an army of corus is following Leonidas.
Speaker 1: In the background, just tap dancing.
Speaker 2: Just doing Grid and Sullivan, four.
Speaker 1: Little maids from school? Are we three little maids? Four
Speaker 1: little maids?
Speaker 2: Just do the tap dance sequence from Anything Goes?
Speaker 1: Just performing the entirety of a chorus line switching off
Speaker 1: parts tits and yes.
Speaker 2: On the march, Leonidas encounters Daxos, played by Andrew Plevian.
Speaker 1: Please Levin Pleavin.
Speaker 2: He's an Arcadian general. So this is the other this
Speaker 2: is this is somewhat true to fact. They were joined
Speaker 2: by others, including folks from other folks with the Peloponnesian Peninsula,
Speaker 2: the Arcadians. Daxos is there to allie with Leonidas against Xerxes,
Speaker 2: but a surprise at how few men are with the king.
Speaker 2: They're like, you only have three hundred. I got five
Speaker 2: hundred behind me. Leonidas assures him that his three hundred
Speaker 2: spartans are worth far more than the legion of men
Speaker 2: from Arcadia. There's a scene here where he's like what
Speaker 2: do you do? And he's like, I'm a baker, what
Speaker 2: do you do? I'm a potter And he's like, what
Speaker 2: do you He turns to his men and he's like, Spartans,
Speaker 2: what do we do? And they're like soldiers and he's like,
Speaker 2: so I brought three hundred soldiers, and you brought the
Speaker 2: volunteer fire brigade.
Speaker 1: Cool the costume they have put Daxos in it is
Speaker 1: it is a diaper right, it is it?
Speaker 2: Well, Daxos just came from Vivian Westwood. That's his new fit.
Speaker 2: It looks incredible.
Speaker 1: I mean he looks hot, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 2: Arcadians are dressed like a Vivian Westwood fever dream.
Speaker 1: That's very accurate. That is very, very accurate.
Speaker 2: They're all wearing harnesses. They look like an Alexander McQueen
Speaker 2: collection from like two thousand and six.
Speaker 1: So the group continues on their march. They note the
Speaker 1: misshapen figure that's following them. They know that figure is there,
Speaker 1: but they're not overly concerned about it. And they find
Speaker 1: a village raised to the ground by the Persians, and
Speaker 1: the villagers have all been murdered and their corps is
Speaker 1: speared into the trunk and the limbs of a great tree.
Speaker 1: So a point about this movie. It is obviously very violent,
Speaker 1: but it's all extremely stylized and it's not particularly gory
Speaker 1: like like there's not there's some blood spray or whatever,
Speaker 1: but it's it's very very stylized, very comic book. As
Speaker 1: someone who's not like violence, I was not like repulsed
Speaker 1: by any of this.
Speaker 2: That's so interesting because I found it to be very gory,
Speaker 2: but like, as someone who does like violence, I was like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: Like there's so many close ups of spears dripping blood
Speaker 2: in this movie. I was shocked that that's that didn't
Speaker 2: ring your bell.
Speaker 1: No, because I don't mind is spear dripping blood. I
Speaker 1: just don't want to watch the spear like going through
Speaker 1: someone's head, which they usually did that a lot, but
Speaker 1: it's always in silhouette.
Speaker 2: I guess. I, Hey, look, I'm not I'm not. I'm
Speaker 2: not mad at it. I think it's fun but like it,
Speaker 2: and it is. It is highly stylized, but it is
Speaker 2: I find it to be very violent.
Speaker 1: I think the stylization is doing the heavy lifting for
Speaker 1: making it okay for me.
Speaker 2: This tree is like the little gross but like the
Speaker 2: literal fan tree. It's just a bunch of people in
Speaker 2: tree formation. That is a really striking image.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks like a comic book. It's one of
Speaker 1: the moments in the movie that's really like, I can
Speaker 1: see that panel on a comic book page. Daxos, that's
Speaker 1: the Arcadian general from the Alexander McQueen show, says that
Speaker 1: the Immortals, an infamous Persian regiment, must have done this
Speaker 1: and Leonidas says, they will put that name to the test.
Speaker 2: Leonidas and company arrive at the Hot Gates, New York's
Speaker 2: hottest club is Hot Gates.
Speaker 1: Hot Gates.
Speaker 2: It's got everything. It's got. It's got men and men
Speaker 2: and harnesses, it's got men and diapers. It's got a
Speaker 2: family tree made out of an actual family. They watch
Speaker 2: and cheer as a giant storm sinks a number of
Speaker 2: Persian ships in the A, G and C. So they look,
Speaker 2: they look over the sea. They see a thousand ships approaching,
Speaker 2: and then it's as though Zeus himself intervened and Posieton
Speaker 2: himself intervened to murder of a bunch of Persians. Everyone
Speaker 2: is thrilled. Leonidas still looks pensive because he is not
Speaker 2: an idiot, and he knows that this is just a
Speaker 2: fraction of the Persian army.
Speaker 1: We cut back to Sparta the Loyalist. This is the
Speaker 1: name that the movie gave this character, the Loyalist, So
Speaker 1: in case you're wondering.
Speaker 2: He got tired of making up Greeks.
Speaker 1: Like we don't have a historical reference for this one.
Speaker 1: So the Loyalist m Nicolo ni Alexander like a just like.
Speaker 2: A regular Greek name from today.
Speaker 1: The Loyalist is played by Stephen mccattie. He calls Gorgo
Speaker 1: to the courtyard to speak with her, and he makes
Speaker 1: a comment like, it's good for us to speak in
Speaker 1: the courtyard and on your bedchamber, because we don't want
Speaker 1: any rumors to start about you, like sleeping on me
Speaker 1: or whatever. They're concerned that Theron and his allies are
Speaker 1: moving against Leonidas. So Gorgo's plot in this movie is
Speaker 1: she is constantly trying to get the Council of Sparta
Speaker 1: to send reinforcements to the three hundred.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: She wants him to actually activate the real Spartan army,
Speaker 1: not just the personal bodyguard quote unquote that Leonidas took,
Speaker 1: and send them to the hot Gates to defend against Persia.
Speaker 1: The Loyalist says he will gather the council in hopes
Speaker 1: of convincing them to send more aid to the three hundred,
Speaker 1: and he says, you should speak there, and Gorgo says,
Speaker 1: and what I will, and what I'm gonna say is
Speaker 1: freedom is not free at all. It comes with the
Speaker 1: highest of costs, the cost of blood. That is something
Speaker 1: in the movie that I'm like, that's a that's why
Speaker 1: we got involved in World War two, right, Like, that's
Speaker 1: a message that actually does resonate well.
Speaker 2: And also, Lenahiti is so damn good I believe she
Speaker 2: can give a rousing speech like that will kickstart an army.
Speaker 2: Stelios and Daxos lead a small party to scout ahead
Speaker 2: and see the vast Persian army that has set up
Speaker 2: camp on the shore, so much like Leonidas figured, the
Speaker 2: number that were that perished last night in the sea
Speaker 2: were just a small fraction of the army.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Daxos is shocked that the Persians still have so many
Speaker 2: troops left, and Stelios is hopeful that one of them
Speaker 2: might be up to the task of giving him a
Speaker 2: beautiful death. And Daxos is like, what's that, laughs and says,
Speaker 2: that is my dream is to die in battle. That's
Speaker 2: how I get off that.
Speaker 1: That is what they are brainwashed with from the very
Speaker 1: beg from their earliest age in Sparta. The greatest glory
Speaker 1: you can have in this life is to die in
Speaker 1: the battlefield in service of Sparta, exactly.
Speaker 2: Right, And Daxos is like, oh, okay, Well, in Arcadio,
Speaker 2: we have books, so we have a different mindset. We
Speaker 2: have lives. Wait, what do you do in your spare time?
Speaker 2: Do you not have spare time?
Speaker 1: Do you not have a Netflix subscription? Stelios?
Speaker 2: This is your favorite thing is dining this?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Okay, man? Have you tried hand jobs?
Speaker 1: Hand jobs are a hot gate to a great many
Speaker 1: other things that are so fun.
Speaker 2: That's a way better use of your time than dying.
Speaker 1: Have you considered going to your friend Astonos and seeing
Speaker 1: if he wants to don't know, suck your dick on, spitballing?
Speaker 2: Yeah, or just you know. Have you tried swimming in
Speaker 2: the ocean. That's pretty nice, that's nice, nice time time
Speaker 2: do that instead of dying, instead of dreaming of your tests.
Speaker 1: And all of you are like not hung up on
Speaker 1: clothing anyway, so like you can go like skinny dipping
Speaker 1: in the ocean, which feels great, let's be.
Speaker 2: Honest, so good, And a thousand years from now people
Speaker 2: will pay top dollars.
Speaker 1: And they won't be allowed to take their clothes off.
Speaker 2: Can I say out loud? I said out loud while
Speaker 2: watching this movie, I go, I'll give you a beautiful death. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'll give you a thousand beautiful deaths.
Speaker 1: We cut to a Persian emissary coming across Stelios Daxos
Speaker 1: Ostinos and a small group of men who have reconstructed
Speaker 1: this wall. I'm going to murder this word, the Phocian wall,
Speaker 1: which used to stand. They need to reconstruct it in
Speaker 1: order to force the Persian army through. Say it with
Speaker 1: the erica the hot gates. So they have reconstructed the
Speaker 1: wall and they've used Persian corpses as mortar. This doesn't
Speaker 1: feel to me like they would be could mortar. I
Speaker 1: don't quite grasp the idea behind shoving men underneath stones
Speaker 1: in order to create a more sturdy wall.
Speaker 2: But I think it's psychological warfare, right, Yes, it's it's
Speaker 2: Dracula putting a bunch of people on spikes so that
Speaker 2: the Ottomans are like, what the fuck.
Speaker 1: The emissary is furious, and he reaches back with his
Speaker 1: whip and he's going to crack the whip at the spartans.
Speaker 1: Stelios Michael Fossbender leaps through the air, wearing just his loincloth,
Speaker 1: his muscles rippling slowly, and he severs the emissary's arm.
Speaker 1: It falls to the ground and the emissary shouts, my
Speaker 1: arm and Stelio says it's not yours anymore.
Speaker 2: Ah, are you not entertained? Fault?
Speaker 1: I'm pretty entertained by this part because it's not boring yet.
Speaker 1: We haven't gotten to the boring bart yet.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: Stelios tells the Persians to go back and tell your
Speaker 1: host about what you have encountered here, and Emissary swears
Speaker 1: that all the men here will die and all of
Speaker 1: your people will be enslaved. He says the Persian arrows
Speaker 1: will blot out the sun, and Stelio smiles and says,
Speaker 1: then we will fight in the shade. Excellent, excellent, excellent.
Speaker 1: Who knew Stelios is like the Oscar wild of this contingent?
Speaker 2: Ha. Honestly, they had no idea what they had on
Speaker 2: their hands when they had When we cast Michael Fassbender
Speaker 2: in this role, they were like, he's cute and he
Speaker 2: has a nice smile. I believe him as like a
Speaker 2: devil may care soldier. And then you're like, oh shit,
Speaker 2: we got Michael Vossbender. We cut to Leonidis and Artemis. Artemis, remember,
Speaker 2: is the like captain of the guard, confident that the
Speaker 2: wall is solid. The wall of putrid rotting corpses.
Speaker 1: Is solid to be fair. I would rather just go
Speaker 1: through a hot gate than through a wall of putrid,
Speaker 1: rotting corpses. But I don't think the enslaved Persian army
Speaker 1: had much choice about stuff like that.
Speaker 2: So New York's hottest nightclub is Persian.
Speaker 1: It's got rotted corpses, it's got putrid corpses, it's got it's.
Speaker 2: Got the severed arm of a slave master.
Speaker 1: It's got bloated corpses.
Speaker 2: It's got Michael Fossbender.
Speaker 1: And enough pigeons to eat all of the corpses, not vultures.
Speaker 2: To take out all their eyes. Okay, so Leonidas is like, great,
Speaker 2: the wall is solid. The Persians will now go for
Speaker 2: the hot gates, saying all of this out loud. This
Speaker 2: movie is funnier than I thought. Artimist assures Leonidis there
Speaker 2: is no route through the hills that the Persians can take,
Speaker 2: that that they can use to outflank them. But the
Speaker 2: misshapen man that has been following them around since Sparta
Speaker 2: scuffles forward and says, indeed, there is such a route.
Speaker 2: He is, oh, man, this name, I'm gonna this is
Speaker 2: a real person that really existed, and so they had
Speaker 2: to use his real name. But it is the hardest name.
Speaker 2: F Filates, flats Fields, e Filates, Pilates.
Speaker 1: His name is Pilates Judas Iscariot.
Speaker 2: He's a real person that existed, and so they had
Speaker 2: to use his real goddamn name. But his real goddamn
Speaker 2: name is really hard to say.
Speaker 1: Filtes FTEs, that's it.
Speaker 2: He is e Filts. I'm just gonna call him Spartan Gollum.
Speaker 2: That's his name. He is the He's Gollum of Sparta.
Speaker 2: No notes, no questions.
Speaker 1: This this episode is in the running for the most
Speaker 1: nicknames for characters that we have ever used on this podcast.
Speaker 1: What's the Delio Spartan Gollum, Alexander McQueen model.
Speaker 2: These these fucking names are so hard. So Gollum is
Speaker 2: played by Andrew Tiernan. He wears a Spartan cloak and
Speaker 2: carries his Spartan shield and spear, and he says that
Speaker 2: his parents fled Sparta when he was born to save
Speaker 2: him from the infanticide because he is Misshaven right, He's
Speaker 2: a hunchback.
Speaker 1: To be clear, like this this character, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a comic book representation, so he is deformed in it
Speaker 1: in a in almost like fantastical sense, like he is
Speaker 1: this enormous hunchback. His fingers are extra long. He his
Speaker 1: one eye is bigger than the other, like he he
Speaker 1: looks like a like a fantastical creature.
Speaker 2: Basically genuinely looks like Gollum.
Speaker 1: Ye, Spartan Gollum. Spartan Gollum is very accurate.
Speaker 2: He says, his dream has to be a Spartan warrior
Speaker 2: and restore his father's name right like, because the shame
Speaker 2: of being born misshapen. Yeah again, just move to Arkadia,
Speaker 2: man Like. They may not be much nicer to you,
Speaker 2: but they won't try to kill you. They'll just you know,
Speaker 2: they'll make you into like a baker or whatever. It's fine,
Speaker 2: Leonidas hears him out, and to his credit, he's very
Speaker 2: kind and empathetic to this person. He's not like gross.
Speaker 2: Get away from me, he tells him. Listen. Unfortunately, your
Speaker 2: deformities make you unable to participate because of the Spartan philanx.
Speaker 2: It's like the specialized way that we fight. If there
Speaker 2: is even one weak link, the whole thing collapses and
Speaker 2: you cannot The man physically cannot carry his shield high enough.
Speaker 2: He says, you can still participate, in the battle by
Speaker 2: clearing the dead and bringing water and take carry like
Speaker 2: tending to the wounded. Yeah, which I think is a
Speaker 2: fantastic offer.
Speaker 1: It's a pretty good offer and also like pretty enlightened
Speaker 1: for a Spartan king that was raised in this society
Speaker 1: to be like, you avoided death as a child and
Speaker 1: you've come like it really makes me like Leonidas. It's
Speaker 1: the only like depth of character the movie ever affords
Speaker 1: a single person with this moment with Leonidas where you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you actually are a thinking human being.
Speaker 2: I disagree. I think there's a few of these in
Speaker 2: the movie, like and some of it too is just
Speaker 2: these actors are incredibly good, but like, yeah, Leonidas is thoughtful,
Speaker 2: Like he thinks ahead, he thought to have men who
Speaker 2: already have sons. I think Gorgo is also quite thoughtful
Speaker 2: and like very smart. It's not all just like chest
Speaker 2: thumping and fighting. It's a lot of that, yeah, but
Speaker 2: it's not all that. It's most but there are these
Speaker 2: moments of like real characterization. So unfortunately, Spartan Gollum does
Speaker 2: not care for this offer. He turns him down and
Speaker 2: he shouts that Leonidas is wrong about him and he'll
Speaker 2: show them I'll show you all before he like scurries away.
Speaker 1: Yep, not Eric, if you'll believe. It's about halfway through
Speaker 1: this movie. So why don't we take a quick commercial
Speaker 1: break here. We'll come right back and we'll get to
Speaker 1: all the fighting.
Speaker 3: Yay, and we're back.
Speaker 1: This is that ish? Well, maybe we should change our
Speaker 1: opening greeting to that try to pull in more heterosexual
Speaker 1: male listeners. Yes, please, by the way, to our current
Speaker 1: heterosexual male listeners, we see you, we love you.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Listening.
Speaker 2: So, Leonidas tells Artemis to dispect men to watch the
Speaker 2: path that Spartan Gollum told them about.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: The Spartans then form their their phalanx. I hope I'm
Speaker 2: pronouncing that word correctly.
Speaker 1: I think you're right.
Speaker 2: Hold on, I'm just going to read this the sentence
Speaker 2: exactly as Paul wrote it. Ready. The Spartans then form
Speaker 2: their phalanx at the mouth of the hot gates as
Speaker 2: the as the first wave of Persian soldiers approach. What
Speaker 2: the fuck is this movie?
Speaker 1: We are now entering the part where Paul starts to
Speaker 1: lose interest and he starts to allide like five minute
Speaker 1: sequences into a sentence.
Speaker 2: They form a failanx at the mouth of the hot gates.
Speaker 2: That yeah, that is illegal in a lot of states.
Speaker 1: It is called a dental damn.
Speaker 2: Hundreds of Persians charge at the phalanx. But for those
Speaker 2: of you who don't know what the hell of phalanx is.
Speaker 2: Long story short, all the Spartans gather underneath their shields
Speaker 2: to form They look like an enormous turtle. Yep, like
Speaker 2: a giant human turtle.
Speaker 1: Urdle the turtle urdle the turtle.
Speaker 2: Kind of like slowly moving forward. It's honestly, the Romans
Speaker 2: later did this as well, so you've definitely seen this
Speaker 2: in any movie that had like an ancient fighting scene.
Speaker 2: The Persians charge, but break against the strength of the
Speaker 2: Spartan defenses, Like the Spartans are just so good at
Speaker 2: pushing back and pushing back and pushing back, and they
Speaker 2: eventually are pushed back so far that the Spartans literally
Speaker 2: pushed them all off a cliff.
Speaker 1: The Spartans rejoice briefly, but then they see the promised
Speaker 1: hail of arrows blot out the sun. They all duck
Speaker 1: behind their shields and laugh at the Persian coward shooting
Speaker 1: at them from a distance. Another wave of Persians approaches
Speaker 1: and Leonida says today no Spartan dies, and the Spartans
Speaker 1: continue to slaughter the invading force. This is now ten
Speaker 1: minutes of movie. That's all of this goes on for
Speaker 1: so long, so long.
Speaker 2: In case you're wondering, what do the Persians look like,
Speaker 2: they have a few types of fighters. It's not just
Speaker 2: one type of fighter, because remember the Persian Empire spanned
Speaker 2: it most of Asia at this point in parts of Africa.
Speaker 2: So you had you know, you had the Lawrence of Arabias. Yep,
Speaker 2: you had the belly dancers.
Speaker 1: You sure do you have the Chinese mystics, Yeah, the mystics.
Speaker 2: You have the Chinese mystics. Eventually you're gonna have the
Speaker 2: drama masks. You haven't shown up yet.
Speaker 1: These are like gangs from the warriors.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Lawrence of Arabia's made me laugh every time
Speaker 2: they showed up. Meanwhile, back in Sparta, Gorgo receives word
Speaker 2: from the loyalists the person they didn't bother the name
Speaker 2: as he's managed to get to just name him some
Speaker 2: like random Greek name with I'm going to give him
Speaker 2: a name right here, you go. Argos, the loyalist Theos
Speaker 2: the loyalist. The loyalist has managed to get Gorgo, the
Speaker 2: Queen of Sparta, a chance to address the council in
Speaker 2: two days now.
Speaker 1: Can I ask a question in your research, were you
Speaker 1: able to figure out what the government of Sparta like?
Speaker 1: Were the king and queen kind of ceremonial?
Speaker 2: Actually, you know, this is interesting. Spartan's had two kings
Speaker 2: at a time. They all came from like the same
Speaker 2: family lines, and there was one that was a more
Speaker 2: senior and the one that was more junior, and so
Speaker 2: for for a lot of their history. I think by
Speaker 2: the time of Leonidis it was now down to a
Speaker 2: one king sort of situation. But for a long time
Speaker 2: it was actually two kings at a time, and the
Speaker 2: council was created because they were often at war for
Speaker 2: so long and the king had to go to the
Speaker 2: war that there was like a group of elders that
Speaker 2: were kept behind to manage things while they were gone.
Speaker 2: This is all, by the way Wikipedia research. So take
Speaker 2: everything I've just said, grit Assault. I am not an
Speaker 2: ancient history buff. I know someone who was up till
Speaker 2: one thirty last night watching like looking at Wikipedia. Gorgo
Speaker 2: is concerned that in two days, they're all already going
Speaker 2: to be dead and it's going to be too late.
Speaker 2: And the loyalist tells her, no, no, this is a
Speaker 2: great this is a good thing. Use this time to
Speaker 2: get there on on your side. You know that he's
Speaker 2: going to be your biggest problem in the council, so
Speaker 2: try to get at him to see your point of view,
Speaker 2: and if the two of you work together, you're guaranteed
Speaker 2: to win. Meanwhile, back on the battlefield, Leonidas is eating
Speaker 2: an apple. They brought food.
Speaker 1: They brought food.
Speaker 2: None of these men have pockets. I know that because
Speaker 2: I can see everything. Who brought food? Is it the Arcadians?
Speaker 2: Is there one Arcadian in the back who brought like
Speaker 2: a covered wagon full of food.
Speaker 1: There's one Arcadians who's in charge of mess.
Speaker 2: Like the Spartans didn't think of that. They're like, oh,
Speaker 2: we only have soldiers. Do you have food? Can we
Speaker 2: have some food? He's eating an apple. He's looking over
Speaker 2: the battlefield. There's there's half dead Persian soldiers everywhere, and
Speaker 2: his men go around finishing off all of the living enemies.
Speaker 2: There's a moment in this scene where one of the
Speaker 2: extras doesn't realize I think he's on camera. He's like
Speaker 2: supposed to be a half dead Persian soldier and he's
Speaker 2: just like like moving around like a normal guy. But
Speaker 2: he's just like he like sits up and then he's like,
Speaker 2: oh shit, and he goes right back down.
Speaker 1: I missed it.
Speaker 2: Stelios hot. Stelios runs up to report that a Persian
Speaker 2: contingent is approaching, but it's too small to be an attack.
Speaker 2: It must be another messenger of sorts. Leonidas heads out
Speaker 2: to meet them. Artemis protests, but Leonida says, it would
Speaker 2: be lucky if you were assassinated. If they kill me
Speaker 2: in this manner, in a cowardly manner, that will force
Speaker 2: the Spartan army to come out and finish this fight.
Speaker 2: So like we'll be lucky. Like best case scenario, I'm
Speaker 2: assassinated and now we win the war. Worst case scenario,
Speaker 2: I have to hear what these Jubbronis have to say.
Speaker 1: So Leonidas goes to meet with the contingent. Okay, a
Speaker 1: band of slaves I presume carries an enormous platform on
Speaker 1: their back as they walk forward. The platform looks to
Speaker 1: be made of gold, with statues of lions and antelopes
Speaker 1: adorning a grand staircase that leads up to this platform,
Speaker 1: upon which stands the odd king Xerxes Rodrigo Santoro, who
Speaker 1: looks like Poseidon's favorite boy toy, essentially a He wears
Speaker 1: only a golden speedo, yes, but is adorned with chokers,
Speaker 1: draped with jewelry, has hoops piercing his ears and cheeks,
Speaker 1: and painted on eyebrows. He he looks. He looks like
Speaker 1: whatever Jerry Folwell thinks of when someone says the words
Speaker 1: Broadway musical, Like that is what Jerry follwell.
Speaker 2: He's also kind of dusted with gold.
Speaker 1: Yes, he looks like he's been dipped in gold. He looks,
Speaker 1: he looks like, he looks like the head waiter at
Speaker 1: Carson Kresley's pool party for Fourth of July.
Speaker 2: He looks like boy George after a weekend in Mikonos.
Speaker 1: He looks like Elton John's sleep paralysis demon.
Speaker 2: He looks like a gold dildo that came to life
Speaker 2: and became a.
Speaker 1: Real boy Pokenocchio. Nice, thank you, thank you all right.
Speaker 1: So he is also for some reason, a giant. He
Speaker 1: towers over Leonidas. He's literally like nine feet tall or
Speaker 1: doing like the thing they did in the Lord of
Speaker 1: the Rings movies with with the aspect ratio or whatever
Speaker 1: it's called perspective. Yeah shift. Xerxes, who is fully convinced
Speaker 1: of his own divinity, to be clear, tries to cajole
Speaker 1: Coerce and ultimately intimidate Leonidas into bowing down to him.
Speaker 1: When Leonidas refuses, Xerxes swears that he will burn everything
Speaker 1: to the ground and the world will not know that
Speaker 1: Leonidas even existed. They lowered Rodrigo Santoro's voice in Post
Speaker 1: like a full octave, so everything he says sounds like
Speaker 1: it's coming through like a megaphone tube. Yeah, very weird.
Speaker 2: It's also it's a very American accent. He's you hear
Speaker 2: a little bit of resilient in there as well. I'm like,
Speaker 2: I'm curious what his speaking says because he barely speaks
Speaker 2: in love. Actually, it's which is the only other movie
Speaker 2: I've ever seen this guy in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, by the way, if you don't know who Rodrigo
Speaker 1: Santoro is, he's the guy that Laura Lenny doesn't fucking love. Actually,
Speaker 1: that's the guy we're talking about.
Speaker 2: Ah, he's so hot in this though. I love him.
Speaker 1: This Uh, Leonidas responds to the god king that the
Speaker 1: world will know that free men stood against a tyrant,
Speaker 1: that few stood against many, and before this battle was
Speaker 1: over that even a god king can bleed, and also,
Speaker 1: why do you look like Liberachi's pool boy?
Speaker 2: Ha. They do sort of hit on something interesting in
Speaker 2: the movie that like, the Persian army is mostly manned
Speaker 2: by slaves and other by other cultures that they have dominated,
Speaker 2: whereas that Spartans, for better or worse right are born
Speaker 2: into Spartan society and get to do get to do
Speaker 2: the one thing Spartans do. So it's a free how
Speaker 2: quote unquote free these people are either. But that's that's
Speaker 2: sort of the idea of why this movie I think
Speaker 2: things It thinks it's okay to villainize the Persians in
Speaker 2: this way is because ostensibly the people who are fighting
Speaker 2: and dying for them are slaves, right, But if you
Speaker 2: scratch that surface, even a touch, it's also it's still
Speaker 2: a really bad look because it means that like, a,
Speaker 2: all the people who are getting disemboweled and beheaded violently
Speaker 2: in the course of this movie are people of color,
Speaker 2: and b like they're fucking slaves. Again, it's a historical epic.
Speaker 2: This really in some small way happened, Like not really,
Speaker 2: but in a small way happened. So I get like
Speaker 2: they're a little hamstrung in that regard. They can't there's
Speaker 2: no like, there's no moment where Leonidas turns to the
Speaker 2: slaves and is like fight with us instead, and the
Speaker 2: slaves are like, yeah, that's not gonna happen. But like
Speaker 2: they didn't care so much about historical accuracy anyways, I
Speaker 2: don't know why they're hitting this the nail so hard
Speaker 2: on the head. Yeah, this point we cut to Stelios
Speaker 2: and askting flirting broing out do I mean it is
Speaker 2: my favorite scene in the movie.
Speaker 1: Exchanges basically, oh were you too tired to watch my
Speaker 1: back And the other guy's like, no, I was all fighting.
Speaker 1: And the first one is like you were more likely
Speaker 1: getting fucked by a bunch of actors. The other guy's
Speaker 1: like jealous much.
Speaker 2: No. The line is because I wrote it down offering
Speaker 2: your backside to Thespians. But I don't think it's actors.
Speaker 2: I think it's the town. Yeah regard so I but again,
Speaker 2: would an audience in two thousand and seven know that
Speaker 2: that's a town and not actors?
Speaker 1: I don't think so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right. I think you were right that you're
Speaker 2: doing like a joke there. Yeah, somebody's got to watch
Speaker 2: your back. Not now, I'm busy.
Speaker 1: I mean, kiss, kick kids, Kiss.
Speaker 2: We have more battles. Black blank, big blam boom. Battles
Speaker 2: are happening. The immortals show up. They're the ones that
Speaker 2: look like they're wearing drama masks.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: They the immortals are xerxes personal guard, and they are
Speaker 2: supposed to be like the most fearsome warriors in all
Speaker 2: the land. At one point, someone's mask is knocked off
Speaker 2: and there were revealed to be actual demons behind the masks.
Speaker 2: So these are like not even humans. These are like,
Speaker 2: these are demonoid humanoid things.
Speaker 1: Now is that a problem when we're talking about historically
Speaker 1: people who are humans.
Speaker 2: No, No, this is historically accurate.
Speaker 1: Okay, I found the Wikipedia.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure it's accurate. No. Yeah, obviously this is
Speaker 2: not a good look for the film either. Their Onslaught
Speaker 2: includes a giant, a literal giant, who nearly gets the
Speaker 2: better of Leonidas in single combat. He gives him that
Speaker 2: sexy scar that Gerard Butler has the rest of his face.
Speaker 2: The rest of the movie on his face. The Spartans
Speaker 2: call for their allies, the Arcadians. Remember the Arcadians, the
Speaker 2: Alexander mcqueens.
Speaker 1: Yep, the Arcadians joined.
Speaker 2: The fight and they managed to beat back the immortal assault.
Speaker 2: Right of the immortals. What's the Delio tells us in
Speaker 2: voiceover that a man who fancies himself a god feels
Speaker 2: a very human chill crawl up his spine when he
Speaker 2: sees like how quickly his forces are being eliminated.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Spartans celebrate that night, and what's the de
Speaker 1: Leo tells us that even Leonidas allowed himself to feel
Speaker 1: hope that maybe they could win. Dawn breaks and Erica.
Speaker 1: Would you believe there's more fighting?
Speaker 2: What I thought this was over?
Speaker 1: No, Astinos, that's that's Magneto's boyfriend. Astinos manages to throw
Speaker 1: a spear through a war rhinos eye from one hundred
Speaker 1: yards away. Yes, I said war rhino. No, I am
Speaker 1: not pausing to further explain that that is what it is.
Speaker 1: It's a war rhino.
Speaker 2: It was pretty fun. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 2: When they brought in animals, I was like, yeah, Also,
Speaker 2: these are so clearly fake animal. Yet I was never
Speaker 2: in any moment being like, oh that poor rhino.
Speaker 1: They're all cgi.
Speaker 2: You're all massively cgi'ed.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The Persians turned to quote unquote magic, which seems
Speaker 1: to be more just like gunpowder. It's like grenades. That's
Speaker 1: not breaking the Spartans. The Spartans drive the Persian war
Speaker 1: elephants off of a cliff. Again, war elephants. I'm not
Speaker 1: I'm not dwelling on it safe. In his camp, Xerxes
Speaker 1: looking like looking like looking like Sonny von Buloh's interior designer.
Speaker 2: Ha ha, looking like the job of the Hut's Palace DJ.
Speaker 1: Xerxes rages and executes his generals who have failed him.
Speaker 1: The executioner in the Persian camp is another giant who
Speaker 1: appears to, rather than have arms, have enormous like crab
Speaker 1: like mandibles that he uses to behead the generals at
Speaker 1: xerxes command.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: The movie.
Speaker 2: The movie gets weird, gets fucking weird.
Speaker 1: Still, the Spartans take some losses as well as Astinos
Speaker 1: takes a little too much time posing and gets beheaded
Speaker 1: by a Persian riding by on horseback. No, no, his
Speaker 1: father Artemis goes into a berserker rage, and what's the
Speaker 1: Delio tells us that his cries of rage are more
Speaker 1: frightening to the enemy than any battle drums, as he's
Speaker 1: cutting through enemies, slaughtering persons left and right. I mean,
Speaker 1: isn't this, like, though, like the greatest thing that could
Speaker 1: have happened to his son?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I know, right, Like he's so lucky he got
Speaker 2: to die in battle.
Speaker 1: He got a spectacular death, right, spectacular death.
Speaker 2: Honestly, Like, don't put your son in the battle, if
Speaker 2: you know, if you can't afford to lose him, right,
Speaker 2: just saying, yeah, should we talk about Artemis's haircut for
Speaker 2: a minute.
Speaker 1: You mean you mean the cut It kind of looks
Speaker 1: like it's a little bit Ali Sheety in the Breakfast Club, Right,
Speaker 1: it's a.
Speaker 2: It's a Christian whig character, Yes, I get you right,
Speaker 2: he is full Christian wig character in this haircut. And
Speaker 2: it is such an attractive man. I feel like they've
Speaker 2: done him dirty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's older.
Speaker 2: He's like probably the oldest of the Spartans, which again
Speaker 2: like at the actor, I mean, which again like still
Speaker 2: has that fucking body, well done useder.
Speaker 1: He's probably like our age now and I am not
Speaker 1: going through an eight week training regimen. I would break.
Speaker 1: I would break like a china egg.
Speaker 2: Like, yes, Gerard Butler's probably like actually thirty thirty five
Speaker 2: maybe when he made this movie. I don't know. This
Speaker 2: guy is, yeah, he's easily forty five fifty and he
Speaker 2: looks so buff, but they have saddled him with the
Speaker 2: dumbest like teenage girl haircott.
Speaker 1: You know what it is. It's it's it's Peppermint Patty.
Speaker 2: Artemis is Peppermint Patty.
Speaker 1: Okay, so Peppermint Patty is Magneto's boyfriend's father.
Speaker 2: Yes, are you with us? Moving on, we cut to
Speaker 2: the Persian camp full of women performing for the pleasure
Speaker 2: of men. It is an orgy. Whoa, we're in the
Speaker 2: ancient world. We're gonna have some orgies. Woooo and who
Speaker 2: should be there amongst the Orgians but Spartan Gollum, and
Speaker 2: he is speaking with Xerxes, and Xerxes basically is like,
Speaker 2: how would you like to participate in the orgy? And
Speaker 2: Spartan Gollum is like, I will tell you literally anything
Speaker 2: you want. I will sell out my homeland so fast. Yeah,
Speaker 2: if even one of these women touches my Penis. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he gets the most half assed lap dance. It's general.
Speaker 2: It's literally just a bunch of women like kind of
Speaker 2: grinding in his direction.
Speaker 1: It's really more of a hunch dance than a lap dance.
Speaker 2: It's not actually touching him. They're just like they're just
Speaker 2: like grinding the air around him. And he's like, sold, sold, sold,
Speaker 2: I will sell out my entire country.
Speaker 1: For this, to be fair, the only reason he's alive
Speaker 1: is because he fled his country. I don't know how
Speaker 1: much loyalty he owes to Sparta, he owes.
Speaker 2: The Spartans loyalty. Now, you're absolutely right. Also, you know what,
Speaker 2: things go south enough here? You offer me one orgy,
Speaker 2: I might, I might bounce, I might be like, you
Speaker 2: know what guys moving. Yeah, Xerxes is like, if you
Speaker 2: show me the path to defeat the Spartan defenses, I
Speaker 2: will give everything. I will give you everything you've ever wanted, wealth, women,
Speaker 2: And then Galam is like I want that and a uniform.
Speaker 2: I want to be part of the army, even in
Speaker 2: an unofficial capacity. And Xerxes is like, well that was easy. Sure,
Speaker 2: Someone get this man a dumb hat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do we have a small do you have a
Speaker 1: small uniform.
Speaker 2: Do we have any dumb hats available for this man
Speaker 2: to put on his head so he feels like a man.
Speaker 1: Don't okay, kill that enslaved man and take his give
Speaker 1: it to him.
Speaker 2: Honestly, the women in the orgy were like, phew, all
Speaker 2: he wanted was a hat. I'm good, I'll take it.
Speaker 2: I do not want to grind against this thing anymore.
Speaker 2: The final test, Xerxe says, all you need to do
Speaker 2: is kneel before me to prove your loyalty, and you're
Speaker 2: one of us, and of course Spartan Gollum does.
Speaker 1: We cut back to Sparta and Gorgo meets with Theron.
Speaker 1: She has called him to the courtyard and she asks
Speaker 1: him for his support in sending aid to Leonidas. I
Speaker 1: think maybe in a slightly more sophisticated movie, we could
Speaker 1: have done something more with Gorgo to allow her to
Speaker 1: have an actual plan to try to get his support,
Speaker 1: because she kind of calls me. She's like, will you
Speaker 1: help me? And I'm like, that's not how shit works.
Speaker 1: You know that, girl, You're not stupid.
Speaker 2: The genius of this whole he, like Leonidis, looks to
Speaker 2: her for ideas, and I'm like, you're the idea guy.
Speaker 2: Come on, you forgot to bring ideas.
Speaker 1: You just are asking. So Barron admits that he could
Speaker 1: help her, but he's not sure why he would, and
Speaker 1: he's like, I'm a realist, and Gorgo says, you're an opportunist.
Speaker 1: He says, I don't think you or any woman could
Speaker 1: sway the council. If you go before the Council without
Speaker 1: me backing you up, Leonidas will get no reinforcements. And
Speaker 1: then even if he does survive what's going on and
Speaker 1: he does return, he'll be jailed or executed for attempting
Speaker 1: to wage war and what basically amounts to a loophole
Speaker 1: in the law because the Ephors told him no and
Speaker 1: he went anyway. Gorgo wonders what a realist wants with
Speaker 1: his queen in exchange for his assistance with the Council,
Speaker 1: and then hisses that he thinks she knows, and he
Speaker 1: rapes her, whispering in her ear. This will not be
Speaker 1: over quickly. You will not enjoy this.
Speaker 2: I am not your king.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hate this scene. The scene is rough. Before
Speaker 1: we get to the roughness, can I just make one
Speaker 1: stupid point? Yeah, does it feel like Dominic West just
Speaker 1: got his veneers and they haven't quite settled.
Speaker 2: In the scene, there's a lot happening with Dominic West's face.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in this.
Speaker 2: Movie, none of it is good and none of it
Speaker 2: I've never seen an attractive person look so unattractive, but
Speaker 2: like not trying to look on a track, like, he
Speaker 2: just looks bad.
Speaker 1: I think he's also like he's an oily character. Like
Speaker 1: he we know from the first second he's on screen
Speaker 1: that he's a villain. Yeah, and he he's a good actor,
Speaker 1: so he's playing into it. He's being disgusting all of
Speaker 1: the time and menacing.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the only female character in this movie is sexually
Speaker 1: assaulted in this quid pro quo kind of situation.
Speaker 2: Ask you, because I have to admit at this point
Speaker 2: I knew what was coming because I've seen this movie before,
Speaker 2: and I kind of like look down and started typing notes,
Speaker 2: wouldn't have to watch. She does sort of offer to
Speaker 2: trade sex for his help. Right, it's not it's it's
Speaker 2: it's still an assault, don't get me wrong. But I'm just
Speaker 2: trying to figure out her her arc here. So she's
Speaker 2: like she kind of is like, oh, okay, if that's
Speaker 2: all it takes, and then he makes it violent.
Speaker 1: Right, I don't think it's quite Oh, if that's what
Speaker 1: it takes, it's it's you're gonna make me do this?
Speaker 1: And then you know, like part of this whole thing
Speaker 1: is like how strong the Spartan women are. Like earlier
Speaker 1: Leonidas has it lined to Xerxes where he's like, I
Speaker 1: should have brought the women with all the people you're
Speaker 1: throwing against me. You don't have soldiers, you know, Like
Speaker 1: I think the movie intends it to be this moment
Speaker 1: of like her battlefield.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like kind of a quid pro quo kind of yeah.
Speaker 1: And it's like she never says no, she never says stop,
Speaker 1: she doesn't fight him at all, but she's also obviously
Speaker 1: forced into this well.
Speaker 2: Well because he's decided to not. He's like, this isn't
Speaker 2: going to be romantic. I'm doing this. I'm doing this
Speaker 2: as a fuck you. She thinks that he is on
Speaker 2: her side after that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she thinks I'm gonna do this to help my husband.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that I'm going to do this to help Sparta.
Speaker 2: The one small, small, small sliver of like okay, I'll
Speaker 2: give this scene is that like she doesn't even flinch.
Speaker 2: She's not victimized so much until he starts to make
Speaker 2: it violent. I still hate the scene. I'm not trying
Speaker 2: to justify the scene's existence. The movie does the best
Speaker 2: with what it's given, I think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it gives her a perspective. She is not
Speaker 1: simply a victim. She is an active player in the
Speaker 1: scene that ends in a sexual assault. Yeah, so it's
Speaker 1: like you said, it's kind of the best of What
Speaker 1: if this is what the story is going to do,
Speaker 1: then they at least give her, the character a chance
Speaker 1: to like participate in it. Sounds like it's a weird.
Speaker 2: Because also we're seeing it from her perspective.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, Ron's perspective.
Speaker 2: It's annoying because paul I came here to fantasize and
Speaker 2: this really puts a damper on it. This makes it
Speaker 2: not fun anymore. Agreed, But it's gonna get fun in
Speaker 2: a minute again. Don't worry you guys. Back on the battlefield,
Speaker 2: the naked writing spartans patch themselves up after a hard day.
Speaker 2: What's the Delios has lost an eye but still would do.
Speaker 2: Still looks fucking hot even with an eye patch. Daxos
Speaker 2: the Arcadian appears in reports that the that Gollum has
Speaker 2: led the Persians to the hidden path behind them. The
Speaker 2: battle is going to be lost. They have no choice
Speaker 2: but to retreat or surrender, and Leonidas growls that Spartans
Speaker 2: do neither, no retreat, no surrender, no mercy. It's it's
Speaker 2: cobra kai. We're doing a Cobra kai.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Daxos is like, okay, girl, but the rest of us
Speaker 2: are gonna are gonna retreat because I don't want to
Speaker 2: die here today. I'm a baker, not a soldier.
Speaker 1: Remember, I really like books.
Speaker 2: The Arcadians have something else to live for, so we're
Speaker 2: gonna live another day. So we're out. Bye, and they
Speaker 2: peace out and leave.
Speaker 1: Leonidas rallies the Spartans, all of whom are one hundred
Speaker 1: percent on board with the whole not retreating, not surrendering thing.
Speaker 1: And then he takes what's the Delio aside? Can I
Speaker 1: say briefly, I'm concerned about what's the Delio's eye wound.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like this dressing is sanitary. I don't
Speaker 1: feel like the wound has been cleaned. I don't know
Speaker 1: what's going on there, but apparently he'll be fine. There's
Speaker 1: no infection. He tells What's the Delio that he must
Speaker 1: go back to Greece and tell the tale of what happened.
Speaker 1: He says, like you're a storyteller, you can you can
Speaker 1: tell the people. He gives him Gorgo's necklace to return
Speaker 1: to her, and What's the Delio departs and Leonidas addresses
Speaker 1: the remaining troops and he tells them, ready your breakfast
Speaker 1: and eat hearty for tonight we dine.
Speaker 2: In Ah And then he plays a bagpipe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then he rips out a tartan starts to a.
Speaker 2: We cut to the council meeting in Sparta. Gorgo addresses them,
Speaker 2: looking fucking fierce. Through the rest of the movie, she
Speaker 2: will be wearing this black dress that is so sunning.
Speaker 2: No notes on this, actually really no notes on anything.
Speaker 2: She wears the entire movie. She looks fierce the entire.
Speaker 1: Movie, outside of Peppermint Patty's haircut. I think we're on
Speaker 1: no notes fashion wised throughout the whole thing.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't as much as I enjoy seeing
Speaker 2: the Spartans in all their glory, I don't love their diapers.
Speaker 2: I think diapers are ugly.
Speaker 1: If diapers could be tighter, they could be more speedo less.
Speaker 2: Diapers, not be diapers, honestly, could not be diapers. I
Speaker 2: think realistically, historically they would have worn something closer to
Speaker 2: like kilts.
Speaker 1: No, I think Erica. Historically, they would have fought naked,
Speaker 1: and that's what we should strive for. They should have
Speaker 1: been completely new to this entire movie.
Speaker 2: I don't wait, No, there's no way they.
Speaker 1: Poss a kimbo or I'm not watching.
Speaker 2: Do you know I believed you for a minute and
Speaker 2: I was actually fought naked. That's not that's not true.
Speaker 1: Does it feel right?
Speaker 2: Armor? By then, so we cut to the council meeting.
Speaker 2: She's addressing the Haunseil. She asks them to send the
Speaker 2: Spartan army to Leonidas for the preservation of liberty and justice,
Speaker 2: for law and order, for reason, and most importantly, for hope.
Speaker 2: She throws everything in there, She's thrown everything in the
Speaker 2: stud of see what what what lands? She's like, four
Speaker 2: flowers and four kittens?
Speaker 1: Is any of this sitting you, guys?
Speaker 2: Any of this landing? Farren stands up and she smiles.
Speaker 2: She thinks, Okay, this is it. He's gonna he's gonna
Speaker 2: lower the boom and I'm gonna get everything I ask for.
Speaker 2: But instead of supporting her as promised, that son of
Speaker 2: a bitch, that sneaky, slimy rapeiet son of a bitch
Speaker 2: accuses her of adultery. The men in the chamber gasp,
Speaker 2: what an unclean oore. He claims that she attempted to
Speaker 2: seduce him the prior night, that you offered your body
Speaker 2: in exchange for my support? Do you deny it? And
Speaker 2: of course, because she has so much integrity, she doesn't
Speaker 2: not deny it. Yeah, she can't deny it. She's like, actually,
Speaker 2: that's not exactly.
Speaker 1: What happened, but but it's not not what.
Speaker 2: Happens, not not what happened basically. He then also claims
Speaker 2: that she seduced the loyalist your same way, your ghosts, yourgos, lanthemos,
Speaker 2: the same way. So now everyone's like, hor hoor to
Speaker 2: dear queen. Does queen mean nothing to these people?
Speaker 1: This shit? It really doesn't.
Speaker 2: So does she have no fucking power here? He turns
Speaker 2: the counsel against her, but she will not be bowed today.
Speaker 2: She grabs one of the guard's swords and runs thereon through,
Speaker 2: killing him, and as he dies, she leans into his
Speaker 2: ear and whispers, this will not be over quickly. You
Speaker 2: will not enjoy this. I am not your queen, to
Speaker 2: which point my father, my seventy eight year old father,
Speaker 2: stood up and cheered, and I was like, Okay, he's
Speaker 2: into this. As she removes the sword from his belly,
Speaker 2: Persian coins fall from Arran's pockets and the council realizes
Speaker 2: that he has been a trader this entire time.
Speaker 1: Back on the battlefield Spartan, Gollum leads the immortals to
Speaker 1: flank the Spartans, while Xerxes approaches directly on with more soldiers.
Speaker 1: Xerxes looking like looking like the twink on the Atlantis
Speaker 1: gay cruise, about whom all other passengers are like, He's
Speaker 1: a lot, a lot.
Speaker 2: Xerxes looking like Ibiza's worst lifeguard.
Speaker 1: Looking like Aquaman's raver half brother.
Speaker 2: Looking like an entire Flamenco troop, all into one, all
Speaker 2: in one person.
Speaker 1: The Spartans, except for sit in a huddle protected by
Speaker 1: their shields, and now they're a real turtles. It's just
Speaker 1: a little igloo of shields.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Xerxes makes another play at getting Leonidas to kneel right.
Speaker 1: He really wants this goddess surrender. He doesn't want to
Speaker 1: have to kill him. He offers him everything he could want,
Speaker 1: if you will only submit to the god King. What's
Speaker 1: the Delio tells us in voiceover that, just as with
Speaker 1: the wolf thirty years ago, remember the gnarly wolf from
Speaker 1: the opening, it is not fear that grips Leonidas, only restlessness,
Speaker 1: a heightened sense of things. His helmet is stifling, he
Speaker 1: takes it off. His shield is heavy. He drops it.
Speaker 1: He looks at Spartan Gollum, who's in the front lines,
Speaker 1: and he curses him. He says, may you live forever,
Speaker 1: essentially denying him the glory of ever dying in battle,
Speaker 1: the greatest thing a Spartan could ever do.
Speaker 2: Do you know until you said that, I didn't realize
Speaker 2: it was a curse.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, maybe he's seeing nice to him,
Speaker 2: like I kind of see you did. But no, you're right,
Speaker 2: you're right, and I'm wrong.
Speaker 1: He drops his spear. He goes to his knees. He bows,
Speaker 1: and on his platform Xerxes, looking like looking like looking
Speaker 1: like Van Cleef and Arpels asked Robert Maplethorpe to make
Speaker 1: them a mascot raises his arms in triumphs.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. Leonias studies the ground and remembers Gorgo
Speaker 2: and their son. He is such a wife guy.
Speaker 1: He is, yeah, a wife guy the whole movie.
Speaker 2: He just keeps fantasizing about his hot wife and I
Speaker 2: am I'm you know what, I can't be mad at
Speaker 2: a wife guy. No, he grins and shouts. Stelios and
Speaker 2: Michael Fassbender emerges from the Spartan formation. He leaps off
Speaker 2: of Leonidas's back and spears. The closest Persian battle breaks out,
Speaker 2: and what's the Delio explains that Leonidas's helmet narrowed his
Speaker 2: vision and his shield threw him off balance as his
Speaker 2: target was far away, and as the melee rages, Leonidas
Speaker 2: leaps up, grabs his spear and hurls it at Zyxes,
Speaker 2: Zigfried and Roy's butler. You think it's gonna be a
Speaker 2: kill shot, but it's not. In fact, he is so
Speaker 2: goddamn accurate with his targets. We didn't really accurately explain Xerxes.
Speaker 2: Xerxes has a bunch of face piercings. He has like
Speaker 2: hoops through his cheeks and through his nose, and Leonidas's
Speaker 2: spear goes through those hoops and rips open the God
Speaker 2: King's cheek. So it's worse than death. He's now a
Speaker 2: proven that you are in fact mortal, and b he's
Speaker 2: destroyed his vanity and I guessed not Rodrigo's face.
Speaker 1: Do we think he should have just gone for the
Speaker 1: kill shot though, like you kill ye just ends that?
Speaker 1: Then then we're pretty good here. Yeah, probably, like we
Speaker 1: prove the god kings no god and uh.
Speaker 2: He can go back to being Cleopatra's go go dancer.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Xerxes panics at the sight of his own blood.
Speaker 1: The Spartans fall to a barrage of arrows. Migneto gasps
Speaker 1: that it was an honor to die by Leonidas's side.
Speaker 1: Leonidas says it was an honor to have lived by
Speaker 1: his With all of his Spartan men dead around him,
Speaker 1: Leonidas staggers to his feet, arrows sticking out of his torso.
Speaker 1: He shouts, my queen, he says, my wife, He whispers
Speaker 1: my love. He stands in silhouette as a hell of
Speaker 1: arrows blacks out the sun.
Speaker 2: Yeah it's a real it's a real sing Sebastian moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: We see what The Delio return home and return Gorgo's
Speaker 2: necklace to her, basically telling her without saying it, your
Speaker 2: husband didn't make it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: We see him addressing the council, telling them that Leonidas's
Speaker 2: last words were remember us. And in case anyone thinks
Speaker 2: this movie is subtle, we cut to the bloodless battlefield
Speaker 2: where Leonardo Leonidas lies pierced by arrows. Very I mean,
Speaker 2: it is Saint Sebastian, it is paintings after painting of
Speaker 2: Saint Sebastian.
Speaker 1: All of these men felled by so many arrows, not
Speaker 1: a single one taken to the genitals, even though they.
Speaker 2: Are wearing cloth diapers entirely. We see what's the Delio
Speaker 2: addressing the same group of Spartan warriors we saw him
Speaker 2: addressing at the beginning of the film, giving this rousing speech. Right,
Speaker 2: the battle is going to continue, and they are joined
Speaker 2: by seven thousand other Greeks. So it's the Spartans in
Speaker 2: the front and the arrest of the Greek basically the
Speaker 2: entirety of the of the Greeks behind them, ready to
Speaker 2: fight the Persians in the final battle that actually, historically
Speaker 2: the Persians will lose.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: What's really funny about this is like He's standing right
Speaker 2: in the front of like thousands of thousands of men,
Speaker 2: and he's like, he's like, we will remember everything that
Speaker 2: happened that day at the hot gates. We will do
Speaker 2: this for Leonidas, for Greece. And I can just imagine
Speaker 2: like even three guys behind him being like, what did
Speaker 2: he say?
Speaker 3: Them go?
Speaker 2: Do we go? He's talking. I don't, I don't. I
Speaker 2: can't hear what he's saying. What's happening?
Speaker 1: That's the theater trainining Because I had the exact same thought, like, bitch,
Speaker 1: those people can't hear you. You'ren't even facing them, You're
Speaker 1: turning around, projecting away from them.
Speaker 2: The guy like one foot behind him can't hear him.
Speaker 2: How's the seven thousand soldier in the back supposed to
Speaker 2: hear him?
Speaker 1: The exact same note.
Speaker 2: So he inspires the men onward to defeat Xerxes in
Speaker 2: the name of Leonidas and the three hundred end of film.
Speaker 1: Yes, so stick around. We will be right back with
Speaker 1: our random observations and final rankings for three hundred. And
Speaker 1: we're back, Erica. Give give me some give me some
Speaker 1: random observations on this movie. That is, that is that
Speaker 1: has given us so much Paul, I.
Speaker 2: Would rather die than disappoint you. Right now. I will
Speaker 2: make these the most random observations.
Speaker 1: They will be truly random.
Speaker 2: No randomness will be left unobserved. Does it snow in Greece?
Speaker 2: Because there's a lot of snow in this movie.
Speaker 1: I had the exact same thought, and I was like,
Speaker 1: maybe it doesn't, like before climate change?
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe, Yeah, this is Sparta, is Peloponnesia. I don't
Speaker 2: think it snows there. I really don't. I don't. There's
Speaker 2: a lot of weather in this movie and snow, there's lightning,
Speaker 2: there's heat, just just too much weather in Sparta.
Speaker 1: Yeah, agreed. I have something we kind of brushed over
Speaker 1: in the movie when the oracle came up. We talked
Speaker 1: about how like it was beautiful, which it was. It
Speaker 1: was a beautiful visual thing. But there's this line that
Speaker 1: just simply doesn't need to be in there, which is
Speaker 1: about how the ephors choose the oracle I know, and
Speaker 1: they say they choose only the most beautiful Spartan girls
Speaker 1: to live among them as oracles. Their beauty is their curse,
Speaker 1: for the old wretches have the needs of men and
Speaker 1: souls as black as hell. And then one of these
Speaker 1: like lepers basically with all of these boils, like leans
Speaker 1: down like licks this woman's face and I'm like it,
Speaker 1: we just don't need this.
Speaker 2: Also super not historically accurate, right, Like the oracles were
Speaker 2: like vessel virgins, like you don't fuck with them. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they were seen as like actual like conduits to God. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that would never have happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Spartans seem to.
Speaker 2: Have a really good wheat crump. Did you notice that?
Speaker 1: Okay, why do all of these movies it wasn't. Weren't
Speaker 1: wheat fields strongly featured and Gladiator as well? Was wheat
Speaker 1: that big of a deal?
Speaker 2: I think wheat was a big deal? Paul? Okay, Also,
Speaker 2: shouldn't they be in agrarian society? Like why are they
Speaker 2: so militaristic if they have all this wheat?
Speaker 1: Yeah, they have stuff people need, they can buy it.
Speaker 2: Do they have farmers? Are there any farmers in Sparta?
Speaker 2: Or every is every man just forced into military service?
Speaker 2: And I guess the women have to be the farmers.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, it sounds like it's something that's
Speaker 1: women's work in Sparta. That's what it sounds like to me.
Speaker 1: It sounds like something else women can do while men
Speaker 1: go off and do push ups and suck each other's
Speaker 1: decks in the war camp.
Speaker 2: It's Rosy the riveter, but with a scythe Yeah. Well,
Speaker 2: which also begs the question, what other like normal jobs
Speaker 2: are there in Sparta that are not military?
Speaker 1: There's not librarian? Yeah, I know that.
Speaker 2: Is there someone who's just like I fixed shoes? Like,
Speaker 2: is there a cobbler?
Speaker 1: Is there a milliner?
Speaker 2: Is there someone's making those adult diapers?
Speaker 1: Yeah, someone's making those cloaks.
Speaker 2: Is there an it guy who's fixing things for people
Speaker 2: in Sparta?
Speaker 1: Who's fixing the line to the oracles?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Is there an air conditioning repair guy in Sparta?
Speaker 1: Is there a Colagan man? Hey, Coulagan man in Sparta?
Speaker 2: Like? What is this? How do they monetize this society?
Speaker 2: I hate to bring things back to money, but like,
Speaker 2: what do we do? What goods and or services do
Speaker 2: we provide in Sparta?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Just asking a lot of questions.
Speaker 1: Outside of total bank fests. While we're on the subject
Speaker 1: of what they're wearing. I have to believe so this
Speaker 1: is not the actors faults, but obviously the costume designer
Speaker 1: and the costumes, the cloaks on the costumes are very cinematic, right,
Speaker 1: and they're very long because they're constantly like blowing in
Speaker 1: the wind and everything. But there's the scene where like
Speaker 1: Leonidas says goodbye to Gorgo, he has all the three
Speaker 1: hundred turn around and start to walk away, and the
Speaker 1: men like they can't look graceful because they're carrying like
Speaker 1: really heavy shields and these spears. They kind of all
Speaker 1: start like clanking away with these long cloaks starling behind them,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, there is no way that there's not
Speaker 1: bloopers of someone stepping on the cloak of the guy
Speaker 1: in front of him and creating like a domino effect,
Speaker 1: like like all of these gorgeous men falling over each other.
Speaker 2: Also, the sandals have to be so slippery.
Speaker 1: After slippery and heavy heavy.
Speaker 2: There's a moment in that awful scene with Dominic West
Speaker 2: and Lena Heity. There's a moment where Lena Heaty slaps
Speaker 2: him in that scene when he first basically offers to
Speaker 2: trade sex for his Dominic West totally telegraphs it. I
Speaker 2: feel like in rehearsal he gave him like a heart.
Speaker 2: He's like, you could just really slap me. It's fine.
Speaker 2: I'm not how hard could it actually be forgetting that.
Speaker 2: Lena Heaty also did the Eight Weeks of Training prior
Speaker 2: to this movie because she's got Michelle Obama arms. She
Speaker 2: is jacked. Connor fucking hauls off on him and so
Speaker 2: like in rehearsal, he's and he's like, oh that really,
Speaker 2: because no ship she's she like was, takes a step
Speaker 2: forward like she's about to slap him, and Dominic West
Speaker 2: flinches and in the movie they can't take they can't
Speaker 2: take it out of the movie, which means there is
Speaker 2: not a single take where Dominic West.
Speaker 1: Well, maybe the other option is that that's like he
Speaker 1: knows that she's physically more a depth than he is,
Speaker 1: because it seems like he's not a warrior, like they say,
Speaker 1: he's not a warrior. So I don't know how he
Speaker 1: fits into the Spartan society. Maybe he's an immigrant to
Speaker 1: Spartan society. I don't understand, but like it seems like
Speaker 1: that moment could mean like he knows that she can
Speaker 1: take him.
Speaker 2: Sure, But honestly, Paul, it's just the actor.
Speaker 1: I know the actor.
Speaker 2: It's just the actor being like, let's get hit and
Speaker 2: he can't hide it.
Speaker 1: I only have one more, because I talked about this
Speaker 1: in the opening that I forgot to bring it up
Speaker 1: during the course of the movie. The joke that made
Speaker 1: me laugh out loud. Oh it's it's the scene where
Speaker 1: Leonidas is eating the apple. They they've won the first battle.
Speaker 1: They're going around killing people that are still alive, and
Speaker 1: Artemis is like, oh, my lord, you can't oh and
Speaker 1: he's like, no, we would be lucky if they assassinated me,
Speaker 1: because then the Sparta will have to go to war.
Speaker 1: And he says we should pray the Persians are that
Speaker 1: stupid and that we're that lucky, And then he takes
Speaker 1: a big part of the apple and he goes, besides,
Speaker 1: there's no reason we can't be civil. There's not a
Speaker 1: lot of moments of humor in the movie, and that
Speaker 1: one was like, it really felt like a breath of
Speaker 1: fresh air to me. At that point, I was like,
Speaker 1: this is getting a little boring, Like, let's pep this
Speaker 1: up a little bit of a touch, all right, Erica,
Speaker 1: how how are we gonna rank three hundred? How are
Speaker 1: we gonna rate this this epic film?
Speaker 2: Polios? We should rank it one to ten. Wife guys,
Speaker 2: what we love a wife guy? And Leonidas is a
Speaker 2: wife guy in this movie Wife Guy. There is a
Speaker 2: sequel to this movie in which Gorgo is the narrator.
Speaker 2: I believe, Oh isn't Lenahidi.
Speaker 1: It's Lenahiiti. Apparently it's not very good. But there is
Speaker 1: a sequel to this movie that I didn't really look
Speaker 1: into too much.
Speaker 2: But just watch Game of Thrones for better Lenahiti. She
Speaker 2: gets to play the villain in that, and she's really
Speaker 2: good as a villain.
Speaker 1: How about one to ten? Putrid corpse walls my favorite
Speaker 1: kind of corpse walls. Yeah, if it's not putrid, it's
Speaker 1: not a corpse wall. Let's put it that way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if I can't smell it, it's not a corpse wall.
Speaker 2: That's like those old ads for corpse walls that you
Speaker 2: can see on TV. They're like, if it's not covered
Speaker 2: in flies, it's not a putrid corpse wall. Putrid makers
Speaker 2: of corpse walls since the dawn of time. How about
Speaker 2: one to ten The Hot.
Speaker 1: Gates Hot Gates.
Speaker 2: Hot Gates, New York's hottest nightclub is Hot Gates. It's
Speaker 2: got everything. It's got hunchbackwargies, it's got war rhinos, it's
Speaker 2: got racism.
Speaker 3: Woo.
Speaker 1: It really does have everything.
Speaker 2: It's got men and adult diapers.
Speaker 1: The thing that every club actually needs. There's men in
Speaker 1: adult diapers. One to ten things that Xerxes looks like
Speaker 1: in this movie sample. For example, Xerxes looks like he looks.
Speaker 1: He looks like he looks like Alexander the Great's favorite
Speaker 1: spank bank material.
Speaker 2: He looks like an underwear model in the mad Max universe.
Speaker 1: He looks like Emperor Hadrian's wet Dream.
Speaker 2: He looks like the most popular myth dealer at Studio
Speaker 2: fifty four.
Speaker 1: He looks he looks like someone brought in to meet
Speaker 1: Mel Gibson for Apocalypto, and mel Gibson was like, no, homo,
Speaker 1: this is too much.
Speaker 2: He looks like the top Yogi on Lesbos. I never
Speaker 2: know what's gonna land. That's amazing.
Speaker 1: Let's do this one. Okay, I'm just picturing a Yogi
Speaker 1: in that outfit.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: Do you want to go first? Or shall I go first?
Speaker 2: I mean we both I think we're both going to
Speaker 2: align on this one. So what probably you go first
Speaker 2: and I'll pick up. I'll pick up where you leave off.
Speaker 1: Sure it doesn't age? Well?
Speaker 2: Oh disagree? Kidding?
Speaker 1: We didn't really harp on this in the body of
Speaker 1: the episode, but again, like the Persians are othered through
Speaker 1: the use of people of color, where the Greeks are
Speaker 1: all white and the bad evil mystic other people are
Speaker 1: all black people and Asian people, and I guess South
Speaker 1: American people because Rodrigo Santaurro's Brazilian.
Speaker 2: One super hot Brazilian, and.
Speaker 1: The Greeks are all Caucasians. So that's not good. Like
Speaker 1: we said, the filmmakers have address this and are basically like,
Speaker 1: nothing's meant to be taken seriously, and the point is
Speaker 1: that even if you don't want it to be taken seriously,
Speaker 1: and even if you are able to separate that, sometimes
Speaker 1: the audience is not, and sometimes it's just subconscious shit
Speaker 1: that gets into people's heads. And like this movie definitely participates.
Speaker 2: In that thousand.
Speaker 1: There is something with the film's take on homosexuality, with
Speaker 1: the with the Xerxes character. Look, I don't even think
Speaker 1: he looks quote unquote gay, Like I don't know an
Speaker 1: a gay man that looked like that, but like he
Speaker 1: looks he looks like a gay Oscar basically like he's.
Speaker 2: He looks like the kind of Oscar we would give
Speaker 2: Liza Minellie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he he there's there's a thing in his the
Speaker 1: big scene with him and Leonidas where he's kind of
Speaker 1: like he wants him to kneel. There's something there. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's a big deal.
Speaker 2: No, I didn't think of that, because there's like a
Speaker 2: level of like sexiness to the submission of it all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and well he is sex though.
Speaker 2: Like when we see him not on the battlefield, he's
Speaker 2: in a literal orgy, and like Rodrigo Santoro is playing
Speaker 2: him very sexy.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and and I and I again, I could even
Speaker 1: I could believe the filmmakers saying that's not what we intended.
Speaker 1: But the way you have him dressed, the way you
Speaker 1: have like the picture of a man sexy in that
Speaker 1: way that almost somewhat androgynous. Other ring maybe it's not gay,
Speaker 1: but it feels queer. Maybe that's a better word for
Speaker 1: it if we think about like the target audience of
Speaker 1: teenage boys in like two thousand and seven, like it,
Speaker 1: I don't want to come down hard. There's something there.
Speaker 1: I can't quite put it into words accurately, maybe, but
Speaker 1: like there's something there that makes it go a little
Speaker 1: like Eh, we could have thought about this a little
Speaker 1: bit more.
Speaker 2: No, I would argue that there is an eroticism through
Speaker 2: the entire film that like justifies the eroticism of Xerxes.
Speaker 2: This is not how Spartan soldiers actually dressed. This is
Speaker 2: not how Spartan soldiers actually looked. They would not have
Speaker 2: looked this way at all. So they're doing this to
Speaker 2: like create a sense of eroticism around literally everyone. Lenahiti
Speaker 2: is dressed in very skimpy clothing. The if you are
Speaker 2: not an active monster in the film, if you are
Speaker 2: not someone under like a thousand pounds of prosthetics, then
Speaker 2: you are being sexualized. Every adult actor is being fetishized
Speaker 2: in this film, and so like, I don't know that
Speaker 2: that's necessarily queer as opposed to just like a general
Speaker 2: blanket sexy. I guess everyone's just sexy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I guess I would just say, like, the
Speaker 1: sexiness chosen for the Xerxes character feels queer to me.
Speaker 2: Really, and not the sexiness chosen for like the Michael
Speaker 2: Fossbrender character.
Speaker 1: No, that doesn't. That feels that feels universal.
Speaker 2: That's for everyone.
Speaker 1: For me, I mean, not even that it's for me.
Speaker 1: That the character is in some way queer like, like
Speaker 1: like a Disney villain kind of situation. Is what's is?
Speaker 1: I think what's thinking?
Speaker 2: To me?
Speaker 1: Again, I don't want to make that big a deal
Speaker 1: of it because I don't think it's that big of
Speaker 1: a deal. It's just something I kind of tripped on
Speaker 1: a little bit.
Speaker 2: I wonder if it's because the like the Spartans, and
Speaker 2: even even the female Spartans are so masculine. Like Lena
Speaker 2: Heity was cast because she's got a square draw and like, yeah,
Speaker 2: broad shoulder. She's stunningly beautiful woman. I'm not saying she's
Speaker 2: not attractive, but like she's got masculine features, and so
Speaker 2: she kind of lets you fits in well with this milieu, right, So, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: there's a masculine to all the Spartans, even the women,
Speaker 2: whereas you think there might be a femininity too specifically
Speaker 2: exercs you because honestly, I don't see femininity in the
Speaker 2: rest of his army.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, he's the only character, real character that we.
Speaker 2: Meet that's interesting. I didn't really think about it, but
Speaker 2: I see your point. I do. I see your point.
Speaker 2: I just find it so sexy and erotic. I don't care.
Speaker 1: Sure, sure enough. And then as far as the women,
Speaker 1: the female representation in the movie, like, there's obviously very
Speaker 1: little to a certain extent. This is a man's this
Speaker 1: is a story about men. So like, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: be mad they didn't put female soldiers in the three hundred, Like,
Speaker 1: obviously that is historic. Not that the rest of the
Speaker 1: movie is historically accurate. But you know, I think that
Speaker 1: Gorgo for being a kind of character that's added in post,
Speaker 1: does pretty well for herself. I think it's a pretty
Speaker 1: good character. It's just not past the Bechdel test. She's
Speaker 1: the only woman that's named in the movie by far.
Speaker 2: Al well, I don't mean, does she even speak to
Speaker 2: anyone else? Like that's not like the three men that
Speaker 2: she speaks to.
Speaker 1: No, I don't think so.
Speaker 2: I think that's the two thousand and seven of it all.
Speaker 2: I think that's because we forget, like this is well
Speaker 2: out of our usual. This isn't the nineteen eighties anymore.
Speaker 2: This is like the two thousands and so like studio
Speaker 2: notes would have been like, we need to put a
Speaker 2: woman in there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so yeah, it does doesn't overall age. Well, I
Speaker 1: don't think it's without value, and I don't think it's
Speaker 1: without entertainment value or actual value. Like, like we talked
Speaker 1: about like Zack Snyder's idea behind this, that he wanted
Speaker 1: to recreate the comic book panel for panel, and like
Speaker 1: apparently if you watch the movie and you read the
Speaker 1: comic book, you can see him like making those panels.
Speaker 1: So that's pretty cool. I again, I don't think it's
Speaker 1: the most artistically inspired idea, but like I get he
Speaker 1: he had a thought and you wanted to do it,
Speaker 1: and he did it, and by all accounts he did
Speaker 1: it well. So I did get a little bored with
Speaker 1: the movie, but I certainly can understand other people having
Speaker 1: more fun. It's not for me. It's it's very much
Speaker 1: not for me.
Speaker 2: There's also something to seeing it in the movie theater.
Speaker 2: It was like seeing it in the theater. It was exciting,
Speaker 2: and it was big and loud and like it's all
Speaker 2: like really in your face. I remember really enjoying it
Speaker 2: when I saw it in the theater. I went on
Speaker 2: duress to be clear. The rest of the people in
Speaker 2: my family wanted to see it, and I was like,
Speaker 2: uh fine, and then I sat there the whole time
Speaker 2: being like I kind of love this. So it's a
Speaker 2: popcorn movie in that sense, right, Like it's meant to
Speaker 2: be seen one time. You're not supposed to watch this
Speaker 2: over and over again. You're supposed to just like shove
Speaker 2: popcorn in your face and be like a go fight kill.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I'm gonna give it a two. A two
Speaker 1: out of ten. Things that Rodrigo Santoro looked like in
Speaker 1: this movie, things like things like an international male catalog
Speaker 1: model preparing to do an artistic diving competition at the
Speaker 1: White Party in Miami like that.
Speaker 2: Yours are so specific.
Speaker 1: I find them more specific, I get the funnier. I
Speaker 1: find them two out of ten for me.
Speaker 2: What do you think, Erica, Uh yeah, I think it's
Speaker 2: a two as well. Okay, here's where I'm even giving
Speaker 2: the movie points. I was super entertained too, even though
Speaker 2: I'm about to ding the movie on this hard. They
Speaker 2: bothered to put in that female character that's that like,
Speaker 2: for lack of a better term, strong female lead right
Speaker 2: m hm, which which anchors the movie in a way
Speaker 2: because she is the She is the diplomatic voice of
Speaker 2: reason in the film as well. But they gave they
Speaker 2: gave us one woman. They had her sexually assaulted. I
Speaker 2: mean she got to like kill the guy who sexually
Speaker 2: assaulted her. So that's fun. You know what, I might
Speaker 2: give it a three just for that. I'm like, I
Speaker 2: might got this movie to a three, because you know what,
Speaker 2: violence is not the answer, but sometimes it's it's it's
Speaker 2: a fun answer.
Speaker 1: I tell you really quickly. This is a sidebar. It's
Speaker 1: it's not off topic, but it's slightly off topic. One
Speaker 1: of my favorite comic books growing up was the story
Speaker 1: of a of a super heroine getting sexually assaulted and
Speaker 1: killing the guy who sexually assaulted her. It was so
Speaker 1: cool and I didn't even I was young enough when
Speaker 1: I read it, because it was it was a comic book,
Speaker 1: so it wasn't clear like in words like what happened
Speaker 1: to her? She had to talk around it. But I
Speaker 1: can tell you, like the exact story of the scene
Speaker 1: where she like fucking killed that guy. It was so cool,
Speaker 1: like my little gay eyes the size of dinner plates
Speaker 1: reading the scene.
Speaker 2: What's the comic book it was?
Speaker 1: It was it was Hawkeye's wife in the comic books
Speaker 1: who went who was a Mockingbird? And she gets she
Speaker 1: got basically gets date rape. She gets drugged and she
Speaker 1: comes out of it and she kills the guy I
Speaker 1: did it, and it was so cool. She knocks him
Speaker 1: off a cliff and he's like, pull me up, and
Speaker 1: she's like drop dead, and he does, and he screams
Speaker 1: her name all the way down.
Speaker 2: It's fun when that happens in movies. It sucks to
Speaker 2: use like violence against women as a plot point. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it happens. A, it happens. It fucking happens.
Speaker 1: What can I like?
Speaker 2: What can I say? More than we think it does
Speaker 2: even and and B it is fun when they get
Speaker 2: their come up and yeah, when they when the when
Speaker 2: they there's a violent and and righteous retribution to react.
Speaker 2: So I will give the movie credit that it does.
Speaker 1: It does do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I have blood lust. What can I say?
Speaker 2: I just and it needs to be satisfied.
Speaker 1: You're getting it out in healthy ways, watching movies and
Speaker 1: cheering for them.
Speaker 2: It's just who I am, you guys. There's nothing I
Speaker 2: can do about it. The racism is really bad, and
Speaker 2: it's worse than I remember it. I don't even know
Speaker 2: if I clocked it the first time I saw the movie,
Speaker 2: or if I did clock it, I was like whoo
Speaker 2: and then I very swiftly forgot about everything in the
Speaker 2: movie that was not Gerard Butler's abs, and now watching
Speaker 2: it again, it is it is really bad. And like,
Speaker 2: even if it is unintentional, it's there and it's it's
Speaker 2: I think I said this before, it's worse for being
Speaker 2: unintentional actually because it means it's real racism and not
Speaker 2: h and not like but we're making a point, you see,
Speaker 2: because like, no, it's it's literal unconscious bias. It is
Speaker 2: it's real racism. So yeah, I'm I agree with you.
Speaker 2: Although I don't think you need to beat yourself up
Speaker 2: if you had fun watching this movie when it first,
Speaker 2: I do think you have to, especially if you were
Speaker 2: a child when you saw this movie. Although although not
Speaker 2: child child, but like a fifteen year old boy, for example,
Speaker 2: with maybe not the most fully formed frontal cortex. We'll
Speaker 2: get it again and kind of notice this stuff because
Speaker 2: it's easy to miss that stuff, and it's easy to
Speaker 2: let this sort of subconsciously influence you. Also, you know,
Speaker 2: it introduced the world to Michael Fossbender, and I can't
Speaker 2: be mad at.
Speaker 1: That, sure can't.
Speaker 2: No, So yeah, two out of ten? What is it?
Speaker 2: What Xerxes looks.
Speaker 1: Like things Xerxes look like looks like two.
Speaker 2: Out of ten Chapel Roane Fever dreams.
Speaker 1: That's good. That's good. Do you have it? Do you
Speaker 1: have a palate cleanser Erica Wikipedia?
Speaker 2: Although I can't because also that that's a little bit
Speaker 2: of that's not that's not an exact an exact historical record,
Speaker 2: is it either? I don't have any film palate cleansers because.
Speaker 1: Because you hate Gladiator.
Speaker 2: I don't care for Gladiator. But I think Paul's correct
Speaker 2: in that, like the technical achievement of making this movie
Speaker 2: is really interesting and worth worth watching. I don't think
Speaker 2: I've ever seen another Zack Snyder film. I know he
Speaker 2: does this. A lot of his films have this look
Speaker 2: to it and have like he's continued on with his style.
Speaker 2: So maybe there are better ones, but this is the
Speaker 2: only one I've ever seen, I'm.
Speaker 1: Afraid, so I don't. Yeah, I mean, I'm not a Zach.
Speaker 1: Zack Snyder's not making movies for me, although, but look,
Speaker 1: by by all accounts, Zack Snyder's a very nice person.
Speaker 1: Like the actors who work with him, like GM, he
Speaker 1: seems to be real quick.
Speaker 2: Did he make that first Superman with Henry Cavill. Henry
Speaker 2: Cavill is that Oh okay, I saw that one too,
Speaker 2: and can I tell you I've even in the theater.
Speaker 2: I was so bored watching that movie. Mm hmm. It's
Speaker 2: so there's like a forty minute fight scene in the middle.
Speaker 2: It's not really, but it feels like it goes on
Speaker 2: for forty minutes and it's so boring.
Speaker 1: I did not watch any of his comic book movies
Speaker 1: because they all looked like exactly the things I hate
Speaker 1: about comic books. But I am excited for the new
Speaker 1: Superman because it looks fun. It looks bright and colorful
Speaker 1: and fun, and I want to see it.
Speaker 2: I saw that Zack Snyder Superman in a triple feature
Speaker 2: day because it was a it was one hundred degree
Speaker 2: day in New York City, and my roommate and I
Speaker 2: just decided to go to the movies all day. The
Speaker 2: third movie we saw a Woman in Black with like
Speaker 2: a Daniel Radcliffe movie. Oh, like Horror, which was really
Speaker 2: fucking good. That one was great, and then this movie
Speaker 2: and we were like boom, and so we had to
Speaker 2: go to a third movie to palatee cleanse.
Speaker 1: This movie fair enough fair enough. Yeah, I was gonna
Speaker 1: say the the the HBO series Rome was really fun. Well,
Speaker 1: that was fun really like I had a good sense
Speaker 1: of humor. And it is also like obviously playing very
Speaker 1: fast and loose with history, but like it's a good time.
Speaker 1: The second season is fun, but they realized they were
Speaker 1: getting canceled, so they try to cram like four seasons
Speaker 1: worth of stuff into like the last five episodes, and
Speaker 1: it gets very overcrowded.
Speaker 2: It's so funny because the first season is like it's
Speaker 2: like one summer in the history. It's like, okay, we
Speaker 2: got to cover Cleopatra.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we got twenty years to get through here, people,
Speaker 1: let's pick it up.
Speaker 2: You know what's great about Rome too is that like,
Speaker 2: even though they are playing fast and loose with some
Speaker 2: history like the when they just do decide to go deep, deep,
Speaker 2: deep into historical accuracy, it's fast, like the recreation of
Speaker 2: the Roman Forum and stuff like that, it's actually a
Speaker 2: great watch.
Speaker 1: All right, Erica. That is the end of our show.
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Speaker 2: That aged Well is produced and edited by Paul Kiola in.
Speaker 1: Hell in Helle.
Speaker 4: This is Spota, this is podcast.
Speaker 2: Like to thank all of you, our listeners.
Speaker 1: All of you.
Speaker 2: You have supported us. You've helped us get to three
Speaker 2: hundred episodes. Whenever I thought of quitting because Paul I
Speaker 2: couldn't handle Paul's bullshit for a second longer, someone would
Speaker 2: email us something sweet and nice and I'd be like, fine,
Speaker 2: I'll keep putting up with him.
Speaker 1: DYZ. Thank you everyone listening. If this is the first
Speaker 1: episode you ever listened to, welcome. If it is the
Speaker 1: three hundredth episode you've listened to, We're so happy to
Speaker 1: have you. You are truly the best way for us
Speaker 1: to get the word out about our show, recommending it
Speaker 1: to your friends, telling people about it, and so many
Speaker 1: of you have done that, and so many of you
Speaker 1: have emailed us wonderful, heartfelt messages about how our show
Speaker 1: made you laugh during I'm going to get really sincere.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna look at Erica when I say this. Watch this,
Speaker 1: She's going to be quiet for thirty seconds. Watch does
Speaker 1: I get Sincere?
Speaker 2: So uncomfortable right now?
Speaker 1: You have emailed us very heartfelt messages about maybe us
Speaker 1: helping you get through tough times, be they personal or
Speaker 1: more grand than that, and that we made you laugh
Speaker 1: at a dark time and that really warms our hearts
Speaker 1: and warms the cockles of our souls. I said cockles,
Speaker 1: and she laughed. I did it. But really, truly, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for listening. Thank you for all the
Speaker 1: emailing that you do. Thank you for all of the
Speaker 1: commenting that you do. Thank you for telling people about
Speaker 1: the show. We work really hard on it, and we're
Speaker 1: very happy to have you here with us so that.
Speaker 2: One therapist who tells their patience to listen to us.
Speaker 1: I mean, God, bless you, God bless you Nick from Australia,
Speaker 1: because I'll.
Speaker 2: Tell you my therapist is not listening to this.
Speaker 1: All right, Erica, do you have any final thoughts on
Speaker 1: three hundred Paul?
Speaker 2: This will not end quickly. It's not gonna go well.
Speaker 1: And I am not your queen.
Speaker 2: And bitch, I'm not your queen.
Speaker 1: I can do the one I text you. I have
Speaker 1: another one too.
Speaker 2: Oh good, Actually forgot the one who texted me this
Speaker 2: is great that I didn't read it.
Speaker 1: No, you did well, you responded. Maybe it was an
Speaker 1: instant response. Just set your text to automatically respond to
Speaker 1: me with like a laughter. I'm not sure he's making
Speaker 1: some fart joke about this.
Speaker 2: What didn't you say? Fuck no, I'm looking at it.
Speaker 1: You text the same way when you record with me.
Speaker 1: You just don't listen.
Speaker 2: Ancient Greece and me, I'm kidding. Okay, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha? Okay,