300 of us? 1.5 million of you? I make that pimm's o'clock.

If you haven't seen it yet, go and see 300. Now. What do you mean it's quarter-past twelve at night?

So I saw it with innerbrat and steely_glint and Duncan. Much fun was had (especially with the lashings of homoeroticism.)

This film is probably the most violent 15 I've ever seen. Limbs everywhere, blood all over the floor. walls made of corpses and that's before you get to the War Rhino. Some people don't like the film on the grounds that its historically inaccurate- they're using the wrong kind of spear, no-one has ever used rhino's in combat (or at least bothered to write down the results), and that Xerxes wasn't a seven foot bling fetishist with a crush on buff beardy men. To them I say the following:-

( Come and take them... )

If the film inspires someone to read Herodotus or the Illiad, and study ancient history then I think that's far more important than arguments about (in the words of the director) a "graphic novel movie about a bunch of guys...stomping the snot out of each other". Given the target audience I suspect it won't, which is a pity.

If anyone is interested in the history of Thermopylae then they could do much worse than start with In Our Time's erudite discussion of the events before and after.