Review: حسام الرسام - إلجان خادم

Perhaps my foremost talent is the ability to sit around like a dork and criticize, this is an old review I wrote about sixteen months ago, I found it buried in my hard disk, I'll upload it here for archiving purposes ; I definitely need to work on my Arabic. What do you think?

 

ان الذي يذهب لشراء كاسيت جديد للفنان حسام الرسام قد يفاجأ بالاصدارات العديدة المحيرة و المترابطة ما بينها و قد توجد ثلاث تسميات مختلفة للألبوم نفسه, وهذا يضفي نوعا من العشوائية نتمنى ان تختفي في المستقبل. ولك ان ترى الى الالبومات المثبتة اعلى
الصفحة - فقد تم اصدار ثلاثة البومات دفعة واحدة تقريبا وهذا امر غريب في زمن قد يستغرق اعداد الالبوم الواحد فيه فوق العام:فلة, لا ترحين, و الجان خادم. ولكننا سنظن خيرا و سنسير على هدى الموقع الرسمي لحسام الرسام و الذي يبدو انه المرجع الاكثر
دقة في هذا البحر المتلاطم على رف بائعي التسجيلات. و سنقول متفائلين ان "فلة" و "لا ترحين" هي عبارة عن البومات ثانوية او b-sides و ان الألبوم الرئيسي و الذي طرح فعلا في الأسواق مؤخرا هو "الجان خادم", و هو الوحيد بين الثلاثة الذي اعترف به الموقع الرسمي.

و تظهر جلسة سريعة مع الألبوم التركيب العام للألبوم و الذي يبدأ كعادة حسام بالأغنية الأكثر صخبا كما فعل مع "من زعلك" و "العكربة" و مثل الاغنيتين السابقتين يتمكن حسام من بسط سيطرته عليك بحضوره القوي و الجريء و التوزيع الصاخب وكلمات ضياءالميالي الطريفة. الا ان وجه التشابه مع البومات الرسام السابقة ينتهي هنا فجأة, لكي تتعرض في الأغنيتين التاليتين الى اول تلميح عن القالب العام لهذا الألبوم الا وهو الاغاني الهادئة التي تسير بايقاع منتظم ولا تختلف كثيرا ما بينها, حيث انك ستجد سبعة اغاني من هذا النوع بين دفتي القرص و هو امر يقوم به الرسام لاول مرة, و قد تتميز واحدة او اثنتين منها عن طريق موضوع الأغاني الذي
يعالج بوري الهجر و الفراق من زوايا غير مألوفة "تهددني
أسافر", او الاغنية الواعظة "ما تدوم". و لكن العدد الهائل لهذه الاغاني المتماثلة يشكل طسة قد يصعب الشحط امامها في انسيابية سير الألبوم, ولا ترتقي احداها برأيي الى التلحين الحجازي الرائع في
"لو رايد تنساني انساني" او الملحمية التصاعدية في "ما دام كلبي يدك" باستثناء اليأس الهادئ كبقايا سيكارة في "عندي وطن" و رأيي هو ان قوة الرسام الحقيقية لا تتمثل بجانبه العاطفي و مشاعر الضياع, فهو لا يكتب يوميات رجل مهزوم ككاظم الساهر ولم يكن هذا من صنعته يوما بل كان اسعد حالا مع ذلك الصوت الجهوري
الجريء الذي يعبر برجولة و حيوية متقدة و باستعمال الكلمات الذكية و الغير مألوفة سواء كان ذلك في مواويله ام في عويله, و يمكن ان نقارنه على بعض الأوجه بما يشكله امنم Eminem من ناحية الشخصية الجريئة في الموسيقى الغربية لما يمثله حسام في هذه الديرة
المكرودة و هو الذي تمكن من تقديم الاغاني التراثية القديمة (والتي يخلو منها الألبوم تماما) للجيل الجديد بنمط لذيذ فعلا. و لكن لحسن الحظ فلا يزال امامنا الاغاني المتبقية في الألبوم و لعله من الصعب ان تنظر الى الاغنيتين الشهيرتين "مو كالوا جديد" و "سمعت بغداد" كجزء من الألبوم كونهما قد اصبحا على كل تلفون في المستعمرات العراقية قبل فترة طويلة من صدور الألبوم في جميع انحاء العالم الا انهما من اهم اغاني الألبوم, فيبدع حسام الرسام في احدى اجمل اغانية الوطنية في الأولى بمقاطع لحنها نصرت البدر
ببراعة على الرغم من ضعف اداء البدر الغنائي الذي يتحطم امام ذلك السيل الهادر الخارج من بلعوم حسام. اما الثانية فهي تجربة ذكية تستحق الإعجاب بحق, و بغض النظر عن امتعاض البعض من سماعهم توزيعا يذكرهم بالانتمائات الطائفية, فان هذه المقطوعة
المستلهمة من روح المصائب الحسينية قد نجحت بشكل جميل من استغلال الجماليات الرائعة في ذلك النوع من "الفن" لو صح التعبير ربما ادى بباسم الكهربائي نفسه للمسارعة بتدارك الأمر بعد مراقبة
انتشارها الواسع و اصدار لطمية تحمل في كلمتاها بعض المشاعر الوطنية (انظر اخر كاسيت له). اما الاغنية التي تحمل إسم الألبوم فهي اغنية تختلف عن جميع ما ذكرناه, هي اغنية لا بطيئة رتيبة و لا هي صاخبة ماجنة, بل هي ذات ايقاع متوسط و لوعة يحملها
حسام بنفس الحيوية الجياشة في قمة جبل في تضاريس لهذا الألبوم.
و قل ما شئت عن هذا الألبوم, ولكن وجود اغنية بذكاء موسيقي كسمعت بغداد يخبرنا الكثير عن الطموحات التي قد تتقد لاحقا بما هو افضل من ثلاثي البدر - الرسام - الميالي, الا ان المفاجئة الأكثر
امتاعا في هذا الألبوم هي, وكما عودنا الرسام دائما في كون اخر اغنية هي الأجمل (يم داركم في البوم اسمه لو اسير الروح او ما دام كلبي يدك, يعتمد على ابو التسجيلات بكيفه شيكتب), هي
الخاتمة "روحي ولي", وهذه الاغنية صعبة المراس, فغالب الظن انك ستكرهها في اول استماع, ولكن التكرار سيبرز لك مفاتنها المختبئة في خاتمة ممتعة تلتف حول جملة موسيقية يمكن وصفها بالمد
و الجزر او "تكميز ارانب".

و في الختام, فان البوم "الجان خادم" هو البوم غير مألوف بعض الشيء عن الوقع الجميل المعتاد لالبومات حسام الرسام, و مأخذنا الوحيد الحقيقي هو كثرة الاغاني المتشابهة على الرغم من وجود
بعض التسجيلات الممتازة التي كان من الممكن ان تحل محلها و التي ظهرت في الالبومين الثانويين الآخرين, و اهمها "رديته بيدي من برد" و "حركت كلبي" و حتى الدعاء المتميز لرمضان. كلها اغاني جميلة و ذات نكهة كان بامكانها ان تجعل من هذا الالبوم رائعا و متنوعا بحق بدل كونه كتلة متجانسة يمكن وصفها ببركة هائدة
راكدة تتخللها قمم من الجبال الموسيقية هنا و هناك.

التغليف و فكرة الالبوم: لا توجد فكرة معينة في غلاف الألبوم الذي هو صورة للفنان كسائر الالبومات العراقية خصوصا والعربية عموما. الا ان التلوين باللون الرمادي و الوضع الذي اتخذه حسام قد اعطى شعورا يتناغم مع الثيمة الموحدة للالبوم كله, فهذا الالبوم حزين حتى في اصخب اغانيه, و ليس هناك اي خلاص للبطل في جميع الاغاني باستثناء الاخيرة و التي تشكل نهاية سعيدة غير متوقعة و يعبر غلاف الالبوم على محدودية ما يمكن ان يعبر عنه عن ذلك بشكل جميل.

التقييم النهائي: 2 من 5

كلمات: ضياء الميالي, الحان: نصرت البدر

Review: Anana In Damascus

NOTE: This post was written a few days ago.

It seems one of our fellow Iraqi bloggers is generating something of a buzz, but in the Arab media for a change. Artist and blogger Sundus Abdilhadi made headlines in Elaph, and later tonight in al-Arabiya.net's website for her controversial painting "Inana in Damascus", which depicts a naked Iraqi woman standing in a crowd outside a nightclub called 'Al-Hirmann' (loose translation, Deprivation), the crowd includes a man in a Gulf attire who appears to be petting her, and also an American soldier who watches nonchalantly.

Now that I've finished reporting, let me have my own analysis of the painting, I'm a total layman in regards to paintings (especially ones in the style of Miss Abdulhadi) and I can never get why so-and-so is supposed to be great, but I'm the sort of the guy who likes to think of every work of art as having more than mere face value, details that reveal themselves with each repeated look or listen.

The painting is based on an Orientalist painting called the "Slave Market" by Jean-Pierre Gerome:

I recounted somewhere in this blog that I used to try to incorporate some Pan-Arab resistance motifs in my imaginary heavy metal shows, I didn't really believe in any of it, and the only reason I did so is because I wanted to be heard and get famous, in another word, I was being exploitative. This painting can be held with a similar accusation, all it did was cast the crowd with the appropriate roles, an American soldier being forced in for good measure, and there you go.

However, a more in-depth view reveals several details that in my opinion clears Abdulhadi of that crime, while Gerome's painting seems to be concerned more with painting just for the sake of painting, in regards to the subject matter, it is completely neutral, the painting does not say anything other than brillianly recreating the incident it is portraying, life is frozen appropreitely in majesty and as always the painting celebrates the female body and lighting is made to reflect that.

Abdulhadi's version is quite different, its main objective is not painting per se, but commentary, heavy depression prevades the entire picture and girl's body is unimportant, what's important is the hypocrisy implied in the addition of the far-away minarets, or the supposed dignity and valor in the attire of the Gulf man, or the leering guy in the background, however the US soldier does sound forced, and America's invovlement should have been incorporated some other way, the impact is made more significant when one looks at the Gerome and realizes the concept of men gathering around a naked woman illustrates the fact that women are still treated more or less as sex-objects 150 years later. Moreover, Abdulhadi's style renders the entire populace in a primitive, inhuman allure that strips humanity away and shows them as the vassals for ideas they're supposed to be.
Having said that, this explicit commentary still hurt the painting as a work of art, I would gladly hang the first in my living room and look at it every other Friday, but this one is just too political and too obvious to be touching in any meaningful way. It is indeed hard to be creative and find a genuinely original portrayal of the devastation of war and the hypocrisy of men, and because there is no high-resolution version of the painting anywhere online, I couldn't really examine it as closely as I wanted. But the added ideas and detail does suggest that Miss Abdulhadi has the potential to surprise us with something in her future attempts. (and for the record, this is my least favorite of her paintings, you should check out her blog for that, the title of her blog looks great)

Joining The Joker Jubliancy and The Baathist Superman

I hate anything that stirs a public sensation, based on my faith in humanity, the humanity that keeps asking me to add pointless Facebook applications and internet memes, the object of the ever-shifting public adoration tend to be some cutesy sold-out simplistic dumb-down, my childhood role has always been to root for the number two, PC vs Playstation, adventure games vs First Person Shooters, and of course Batman against Superman.
Batman was my favorite superhero when I was a kid, while comics were nowhere prominent in Iraq (although everybody knew who Batman is) I discovered the Caped Jihadist [Crusader is frowned upon here] at about 8, he was black-and-white in the Iraqi rip-off version of the Lebanese licensed DC Comics magazine, it was called Al-Rajul al-Khariq (lit. The Amazing Man) and they pretended Superman's name was Khariq, thankfully, Batman was spared from Saddam's Lookalike Campaign, the lesser-known campaign that was overshadowed by the Saddam-Mural-For-Every-Iraqi Campaign, this obscure fiasco consisted of making every Iraqi look like Saddam Hussein, while the Greatest Detective hid in the shadows from the Baath, the brazen Man of Steel didn't, thus Khariq sported a Thmanniya Shbaat bush (February, 8^th, Iraqi slang for Baathist – from the revolution of 8 February 1963) that curiously disappeared in his Clark Kent alter-ego. I couldn't find any mention of it on the web so I approximated the effect:

(note: only the cover was colored)
Wonder Woman: Superman!?!?
Superman: Something's controlling me! I can only say: Bil Rooh! Bil Dam! Nifdik Ya Saddam!!!

Batman is awesome in many ways, his costume isn't ridiculously bright, he is scary and dark but not evil, and he has satanic horns. His stories have some sort of serious edge to them, which is why he is the only one who could receive this mature treatment. My favorite Batman was the beady-eyed long-horned one in the late 70s/early 80s.

With all that in mind, I've long ago stopped reading comics (except for a nostalgia period earlier this year invoked by political comics), and have never found anything special in any of the movies at this point to rekindle my interest, when I heard about the big fuss, I suspected it was capitalizing over the death of that Ledger guy who plays the Joker, a character I furiously disliked, I've never heard of Heath Ledger before, and when I heard he starred in a film about gay cowboys eating pudding, I wasn't really that eager about him – I'm okay with the gay thing, but keep it out of every other movie/story please, so you can imagine my surprise when I found myself walking out of the The Dark Knight totally blown away.
Simply put, if it wasn't for Ledger, this whole film wouldn't have registered as anything but a regular superhero outfit with some grandiose thinking-man philosophical aspirations for the sake of coloring (which is what Batman Begins was). Heath blows the big con known as Jack Nicholson's acting, which consists of simply standing there and plugging his natural charisma through every other movie (except About Schmidt, okay), Nicholson's Joker consisted of Nicholson in make-up, he was painfully unfunny, and very predictable. From this perspective, the entire Burton film is very predictable. To be fair, the comparison is a bit criminal, the 1989 film had to the horrid comic-book camp of the 60s Batman to compete against in the perception of the audience, so the dull predictability may have registered very differently back then. In fact, the presence of a stereotypical, theatrical performance of The Joker such as Nicholson's is one of the reasons why Heath's ironical Joker, which is a corruption of the norm, is so very effective; when you think of the Joker, you have a very clear idea of this high-energy clown with a persistent smile who jumps around like a lethal Daffy Duck, this is why it's so frightening to watch this sarcastic anarchist, with a red clown smile painted widely on his face, an outline that he never bothers to fill with an actual smile, only a knowing glare emitting from him, his "jokes" are intentionally unfunny, as if mocking you to think of him as a clown, the whole aura is left-of-center disturbing. Everything else is solid in the film, the visuals are admittedly stunning, the action sequences are good, but at the end of the day, everything is brought to life by the presence of that core character, delivering the sort of visceral film that assaults your senses so that when it's over, you end up walking back home lamenting the fact that the world is so drab and colorless.

Many people have hailed this film as the first really 'real' story featuring superheroes, comparing it to crime dramas such as Heat, and they're right. This is not just a 'superhero' film.

Shooting War Revisited

Remember when I reviewed comics about two months ago? I actually only did that because I wanted to review Persepolis, but in the process I started finding out about more interesting comics and reviewing them seemed more fun. After I reviewed both Shooting War and Pride of Baghdad, I wrote to both creators, baiting the first for a discussion, and asking for a signed copy from the other. Sure enough, soon I was engaged in a lengthy debate with Shooting War's writer Anthony Lappe, who thought I was being unfair to his work ; after two days of back-and-forth e-mailing I concluded by saying that I conceded to some of his objections but will revise my review only after reading the full published work so as to give my final say on the matter. He said that he'd contact his London publisher who will mail me a copy, I once had stuff sent to me by James Langley (who sent me his Iraq in Fragments/Sari's Mother free of charge, and who was sitting in both this year and last year Academy Awards ceremony) and Vice Magazine and it took only two days, so I assumed the same. after a week with nothing arriving I gave up and decided to move on to other material, thinking that this'd be the last of it.

Apparently not, about a week ago, polite Anthony commented a bit less politely on the review, I reminded him of my conditions, but I think he was still a bit glum about it, at first, I didn't understand his sudden interest after a month of absence, but I think it has to do with the fact that typing "Shooting War Review" in Google gives my page as the 1st Result.
Anyway, even though he is perhaps correct about minor details, such as his depiction of Green Zone employees as South Asian and Indians (with turbans, which I assumed it sits with the other barrage of inaccuracies about Iraqis he had filled the book with) which he claims are the norm regarding employees serving there (I asked Neurotic Wife about this but she didn't reply), my review is still an accurate representation of my opinion regarding the book: that the only thing powerful about it is that it misguides its readers into believing that this is a narrative that reflects reality, as is the case in most US media, this book gets America's side right and Iraq's side (which is supposed to matter most) horribly wrong, it's anything but reality, I suspect Anthony himself knows that it's only appeal is its grainy toughness, but after I flooded him with criticisms about his flimsy plot, he retorted by saying it's a fictional work not inspired not really inspired by facts ; if that's so, then it's a very boring, lackluster one without anything you haven't seen before.
What Lappe should've done is stay out of stuff he doesn't care to understand and focus on universal facts, like Brian K Vaughan did with Pride of Baghdad, I believe this book is timeless ; he promised he'd send me it but nothing arrived as well, so I went and bought it from Amazon.com, yes, it's so cool that it prompted a 23-year-old Middle Easterner whose software, books, movies and games are entirely pirated to go out and buy it legally.
Here it is proudly sitting on my desk. I also replaced the picture in my previous post with a better quality one.

Iraqi Review: Valley of the Wolves - Irak (Kurtlar Vadisi)

ex-Gilgamish once asked me to review this movie at the time of the Turkish incursions, I was willing to do so but the Turks didn't oblige by giving me the appropriate circumstances again, until today: They have launched a full-scale operation with a codename and all, so now is a good time to review the movie touted as the most expensive in Turkish cinema (10.2$ mil to make, made 26.7$, by comparison the most expensive Egyptian (and Arab) film took 4$ mil to make).

The movie shows its horrid premise as a nationalist propaganda piece right from the first frame, a Turkish officer writes to an old ex-Turkish intelligence friend about the shame and disgrace he felt when he was forced to walk out of their station somewhere in northern Iraq with a hood on their heads, which is based on an actual event apologized by Rumsfeld at the time called the Hood Event. Of course, the brave Turk takes annoying lengths in parading his pride and dignity before this takes place, after sealing the letter, he commits suicide, boo hoo.

the recipient of the letter is our brave hero, I forgot his name and I won't bother to look it up so I'll just call him Mr. Big Khasawi (Big Cojones), Abu Khasawi reads the letter, and instead of laughing his ass off at his pathetic pal who took his life for wearing hijab for five minutes ; he immediately hitchhikes to Iraq with 3 Turkish mofos to meet their destination, the super-villian Mr. Arrogant White Jesus Freak (played by Billy Zane, who's probably a registered democrat) who committed this horrible ass-rape of the great Turkish pride, which is only heard of in Turkey, of course.

I must admit that the only fun I had in this movie was watching the Americans get a share of their own poison, as an Arab who's frequently reduced to a stereotype in powerfully influential American films, I had the immense pleasure of watching the Americans here portrayed as nothing but cold, ruthless beasts with little regard for human life, the soldiers look dirty and sport funny degraded haircuts, there's also a Jewish doctor who specializes in stealing human organs (Yes, delicious guilty-pleasure anti-semitism! boo-hoo!) from corpses to sell them someplace else (too bored to concentrate where) and they're led by a glinting-eyes lunatic who believes in spreading the word of Jesus. Of course that stereotype is easier to refute than the Arabs in western media, but that's only because American culture is so recognizable ; it was really fun to watch Billy Zane holding children hostage like a lowly creature.

The problem is that the Turks don't stop there ; this film is an insult to everyone else as well, the Kurds are nothing but American stooges, while the others are helpless, idiotic sheep, only Mr. Khasawi seems to be holding his pants up as a human being. Just look at the picture, the amount of presence (and balls) this Turk has is just Subhan-Allah-unbelievable. The only other positive character is a religious sheik called Abdul-Rahman Kirkukli, an uber-respected sane-sage-in-crazy-world dude who persuades some pathetic Arab Jihadists about to behead a Western Journalism to drop their weapons and then teaches them the true meaning of Islam, it took me about 0.34 seconds to realize that this sheikh is Turkmen, and with a Turkmen named Kirkukli, the nasty Turkish intent is fully blazing here. I bet Barazani was pissed.

Even though Iraq and most of the Arab world was part of the Ottoman Empire for a long period of history, I must admit I know very little about Turks except for the Zagur chewing gums with collectible stickers we used to buy in our childhood (at the time they said it was an Israeli conspiracy and the gum caused sterility, well, I'll tell you if that's true when I get married), so I thought that this was a good chance to become familiar with the Pashas of yore and as a secular I wanted to learn more about the former Caliphate which did an 180 to secularism successfully, sadly, all I came out was the impression that Turks are flag-waving maniacs who think very smugly of themselves and believe they got the market cornered on the meaning of Islam. At the end of the film, the female hero, an Iraqi (Turkmen? her costumes are so weird, more like Indian if you ask me) whose husband was killed by the Piggy Americans and who wanted to become a suicide bomber meets with the Alpha-Male Khasawi who resuces her, together our zero-chemistry heroes kill the Nazionist Billy Zane but he kills the tender Iraqi before her Turkish savior gets to go all kissy on her. boo-hoo.

PROS: Americans look stupid. Thank you brothers in Islam. :D
CONS: Totally Turkish fist-pumping action flick, totally unbelievable in arrogance, at least Saving Private Ryan was believable.

Review: Shooting War

This webcomic-turned-graphic novel about the Iraq War follows the misadventures of vlogger Jimmy Burns, after a freak coverage of an explosion in New York places him at the forefront of shock journalism, he is hired by an exploitative news network and sent to Iraq, where he finds himself submerged in a cesspool of "Jesus and Jihad maniacs" left and right.

I have heard of this one casually on TV, and I have so far read the unedited free eleven chapters online on the website, as an Iraqi, I came naturally expecting some gloss oversights in the depiction of my beloved Mesopotamia, after all, the comic would most likely not try to burden its intended audience with unnecessary details about the culture and nature of the conflict, and this being a comic book, exaggeration and tampering in favor of action and excitement is the norm, right?

Wrong. First of all, this is not a comic book ; it's a graphic novel. And graphic novels as such, exemplified by the Pulitzer-winning standards set forth by Art Spiegelman's Maus, stem from the their ability to present somber realism in an abstract perspective, indeed, the Iraq war is not devoid of elements worthy of a frenzy "clusterfuck" narration as the comic calls it, but rather unfortunately, this novel fails on the single most important area where it could count.

Like many tongue-in-cheek works about war (think Joe Haldeman's The Forever War), the only dialog this novel knows is one steeped in deadpan humor, the depiction of "Greenest Place of all of Muhammed's Green Earth" is dystopia as best as it can get, there are a lot of interesting depictions of developments in blogging, media, American presidency (John McCain), and Tom Cruise's personal life, this is all well and dandy so far.

Unlike the guys who wrote this comic, I've reserved an hour and researched them, the Internet says that Anthony Lappe, the main showrunner, claims he drew upon his experiences while he worked in the Iraq war zone, one thing's for sure, this Lappe guy doesn't get out much ; for a novel that's supposed to cut the bullshit to a minimum, this effort is laughable. Okay, so I might be willing to forgive the stereotypical condescending portrayal of every Iraqi with a traditional attire like some Gulf country, hell, even the commonplace Hollywod insult will go by me just fine ("Ice is civillization", declared proudly by the uber-cool Burns to a poor Iraqi receptionist, only he's wearing a Pakistani outfit :) ), add to that the only good Iraqi character is the educated Westernized woman, another ancient "compromise" character right out of the "hey, I didn't say you're all bad"; but this "scary smart" novel started to make me laugh for all the unintended reasons at the horribly ignorant and contrived plot ; apparently, as soon as he sets foot in Iraq, our hero is kidnapped by a terrorist group near Anbar, called the Swords of Muhammed, led by Che Guevara with a Keffiyeh, your run-of-the-mill megalomaniac ultra-villian, this is all okay, except for one huge error ; this group is Shiite! Har Har, okay, let's forgive this minor slip for the sake of the general drive, but by the time you are bombared by lines such as : "The Badr militia is going to target the Green Zone with Qassam rockets." You start to question the intelligence of all those comments that praise this "real as it gets" drama, okay, I'll be even more considerate of your South Carolina Teen ideas about the world and would accept all this if there was any good story in sight, but there's nothing here you haven't seen before, the only appeal of this story lies at its ability to depict reality, when you see that it's nothing but a random exploitation of current events written by somebody who clearly knows nothing about the topic, you only sigh and wonder if Americans will ever learn from their mistakes, this comic clearly commits the same error Dubya and his hungry compatriots it so loathes did, it think it knows everything. If that's all not bad enough, it is clearly Islamophobic, what is there to say about a comic which believes that both Shia and Sunni Muslims are a single monolithic entity that so feverishly wants to spread its religion over the evil West so that every woman and child are part of its holy jihad. Indeed, those stereotypes were as much contributed to by our beloved terrorists than it did by the west, but you'd hope for something much more real from this "all-out" novel than frustrated Sunni Moroccans recruited from France to carry out an operation for the Shiite Badr brigade with Iranian passports?! okay, so they are really part of the Swords of Muhammed group, unfortunately, that one is Shia too, and it operates in Anbar and condemns the massacres of Haditha, Najaf, and Falluja. So much for your clever twist, and novel.

300

"It's basically a propaganda where Batman kicks al-Qaeda's ass" - creator of 300 comic Frank Miller, about his next Batman comic
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300 is a good movie technically speaking, I just wanted to clear that beforehand.

Now, Yuck.
That was my initial gut reaction as me and ExZombie, who seemed to like it, walked out of the Century Cinema, of course, it is partly due to the horrible abominations sold nearby as innocent hamburgers, but it was mostly because of Zack Snyder's big-screen abomination.
300 is the sort of film where you should walk in with your brain shut off and your eyes turned all the way up - revelling at the unforgiving bloody carnage like an al-Qaeda extremist as the first scene, which depicts how Spartans discovered natural selection by killing any weak babies around, gives you a hint at the comic-book mentality of what's coming up next, and it's a real guilty pleasure to caress your violence id as the visuals are a sight to behold, unfortunately you can't enjoy this wholeheartedly when every once in a while a phrase like 'ushering a new generation as we, protectors of freedom and democracy' against the 'darkness of mysticism and barabarism from the east' or 'let every brave warrior who came hither here, or in the NEXT CENTURIES, remember us, remember us, for what we stood for, and never underestimate the enemy...', and then there's the whole senate subplot....I did actually take the trouble to download the comic to see the differences, and the Senate bit exists nowhere - as King Leonidas prepares to go to war against the will of the gods, there is an intense political battle back home spearheaded by his loving wife against some sneaky dude called Theoden, so we get a fleeting passage of drama in which Nancy Pelosi....i'm sorry, Theoden, if you wanna look at it this way, accuses the Queen of being a traitor and not to reinforce the King Leoniads, in the end, the Queen can't stand it and simply whacks her trusty dagger in Pelosi's gut like somebody's wet dream, I kinda liked Clinton better, at least he jerked off to regular dames like the rest of us.

Another persistent theme is the mocking of religion, often the bread-and-butter of Hollywood, like Troy, where the Gods are mercilessly mocked, going as far as depicting that King Priam of Troy's only mistake was reliance on Apollo, highly contrary to Homer's intentions - 300 is very unkind to the Greek's Allahs and Jesuses, portraying their priests as decadent, half-men half-peanut butter creatures who live off touching the butts of poor oracles, and playing little gods over the population, this however, exists in the original comic-book.

Unfortunately, the filmmakers tried too much to hammer their pro-Bush foreign policy lest that walking-braindeath fanbase would get it that it ruined the setpieces for me, so much so that i wound up not remembering any, and don't get me wrong, i like that sort of film, I held about a gallon of pee all the way throughout Apocalypto for fear of missing a single bit of Aztec action and I didn't really feel it was racist in any sort, the difference, of course, is that the Aztecs are long gone - the Persians and their 'mysticism' (Islam?) are still around. However, it did make a fan of Frank Miller out of me, while I couldn't stand to read his 300 comic book, I went and downloaded his version of Batman, and so far, it's good stuff.

In the end, great visuals, great two-dimensional comic-book sensibilities, but shameless, god-awful propaganda, if you can stomach that, then go ahead by all means.