70 Million Critics Have Not Seen This Movie

Wow. Common ground between the American Religious Right and the (wo)man on the street in Iran. Both groups are apparently lazy and stupid enough to denounce things they've never seen.

Agreeing that 300 is egregious drivel is fairly easy. I'm relatively mellow as Iranian nationalists go, and even I found myself applauding when the government spokesman described the film as fabrication and insult. Iranians view the Achaemenid empire as a particularly noble page in their history and cannot understand why it has been singled out for such shoddy cinematic treatment, as the populace here perceives it, with the Persians in rags and its Great King practically naked.

Much easier to find oneself "applauding when the government spokesman" tells you what to think than, you know, watching the movie first and then realizing it is a highly stylized adaptation of a graphic novel by a bold and risky director and not "secretly funded by the U.S. government". Yah, bold. When a commercial and music video director decides he loves a piece of fiction so much that he's going to pay his own money to option it and film it - with no prior feature experience at the time - that's bold. As for the timing of its release coinciding with the Persian New Year...raise your hand if you think any non-Iranian Americans know when that is. If you have your hand up, slap yourself about the face for being a fool.

Someday, I swear, I'm going to live in a world where the terminally stupid keep their opinions about art and entertainment to themselves, or at least bother to read/watch/listen to the offending pieces before working themselves into a lather.