More Orientalism
Asking why you tell the story from the perspective of the men who achieved one of the most unbelievable moments in human history is kind of a crazy thing to do. If anything, it undercuts the many legitimate points about 300's orientalism (and after having actually seen it, I am on board that train).

The problem with
The problem with tagging it with labels like orientalism and fascism is the battle really happened, right? 300 men who devoted their lives and society to the perfection of combat really did sacrifice themselves against tens of thousands of foreign invaders to give the Athenians time to get their act…

Yeesh
I thought it was funny and interesting rather than inane or pretentious, but then I wasn't reading his anecdotes and associations in the voice of the missing Gospel where Jesus tells the disciples which rock bands are okay to like. Is that how it was supposed to sound? Not like some guy who knows a lot about…

Thulsa Doom
I actually thought it was pretty neat to cast James Earl Jones as the villain instead of, say, Rutger Hauer or whoever. When it comes to the barbarian movies, they're about as white as a Scandinavian January. (With the exception of the occasional Venerable and Inscrutable Asian Master.) It was…

My point
My point wasn't semantical, Flavawheel. I thought Fanta was from-Italy Italian. (Hazy memories told me that, other than the water, it was the only carbonated thing you could buy there.) The internet has kindly informed me it was originally a WWII-era German creation popular today in both Europe and South…

Fantanas
They're "Latin" in the sense a few of them are probably from Rome, yeah.

I must side with AJR
I think I've only had a Fanta once or twice, but I definitely want one every time I see their commercials. They're too silly for me to get mad at, and after all those copy-of-a-copy-of-a-copy Taco Bell commercials, they're almost as refreshing as a long, cool drink of Fanta itself.

Point conceded
Along with establishing His dominance over the three spheres of Earth, the moving heavenly bodies, and the fixed stars, you have to assume that influence includes the power to watch bigscreen video of himself shredding Mount Sinai without falling down once.

NYU
She dropped out after a semester, I think, and then did some more rehab. (Disclaimer: may have been her sister.)

Good lord
A fifth season of the Wire AND a new project? Well, I can write off suicide for at least another year.

Way late, but…
The 1/10 figure is just a generous example to make it easy to see how rare a family with all these specific names would be. In reality, I really doubt 1/10 of the local populace was named Jesus or Joseph or Mary.

Re: Names
Okay, this math is going to be crazy fuzzy, but let's say 1 in 10 men of the time were named Jesus, 1/10 were named Mary, etc. I'm sure the actual numbers are much lower than that.

Names
A lot of this sounds sketchy, but the names on the ossuaries, if they're being translated right and all that, are way too specific to be coincidental. The chances of some other local family having the exact same constellation of names as Jesus' aren't worth considering. Who knows what that would prove, but I…

Not even close
I fail at novels, not film.

Whoa
Is that shot of the rat meant to be a deep metaphor for the film—"It's about dirty, scared vermin! You know, the 'rats' they've been talking about all along!"—or is it a final dose of the same infectious wit that's swaggered through the rest of the movie? I can't be certain, but given how good the rest of it…

Agreed, Murderously
The Departed is entertaining on just about every level there is. It earned every award it received.

Plus
They could have spent a lot less just getting Frank Welker to do all that.

Cartoons
But at least the cartoons' faces aren't as adept at rubbery mugging.

No, you are
Would you mind going into more detail about what you didn't like, and how you thought the second half went south? Obviously I'm a little myopic to dissent (which is what you're doing, not me, since the movie is in fact great). I liked a few of the other movies you listed, but to me The Departed was head…

666 in History
666 was the number associated with the sun god (I believe named Ba'al) of one of the local enemies of the Hebrews and their mountain god Yahweh (whose number was 1080, or 3*360). I think they were the same enemies as in that weird story where Samson lit the foxes' tails on fire and torched up their…