300

This is about the movie 300, which I saw at a local cinema today. I have to say, my review would be somewhat different if this had been an all-out fantasy, and not a disturbing depiction of a telling of a tale about a battle between Xerxes’ Persian army and a small group of Spartans. Here’s why. These days, I often find myself wondering, “Why are you telling me this story at this moment?” I think it of the topics students choose to talk about in class — some of them brought up simply because they’re big in the news, …

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In News Today (Actually, Yesterday)

The front page of the newspaper I bought today included the following news items: Pyongyang’s still run by bastards, but they were promised money. To not give it to them is understandable since they’re also dishonest bastards, but it seems to me there must be a way to keep them at the table. Some of the money could be unfrozen. Or poisoned Hennessy. I really, really like the idea of poisoned Hennessy. The GNP is discussing recognizing North Korea as a sovereign state to reflect the softer-on-North-Korea attitudes of the general public. Who wants to talk about gulags and people …

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The Temple of Dumb

One of my co-workers kindly gave me a TV that had been cluttering up her office, which works out nicely for me. During my night classes, I’ve been meeting with a very small group of students for a Media English class. I would have preferred to hold class in my office, but for the need for a screen on which to play some videos we’ll be watching. So now that I have a TV, all I need to do is get a cable that’ll convert S-video out to RCA in. (I hope such a thing exists, as I’m a total n00b in …

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Classroom Curiosities

The last few days (from around the end of last week) have been ceaselessly amusing. In my Media English class, we’re looking at Superman in some of his different incarnations, which means I have to do a Powerpoint up for next week, when I’ll do a talk on the stuff students aren’t likely to have been exposed to. We’ve been watching the pilot episode of the series Smallville and it’s been interesting, but their background seems limited. In my lecture, I’m going to broach the subject of “alternate history”, of adaptations, of continuity, and of course some of the basic …

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