Bill: There’s a new movie coming out soon…300.

Me: Gates of Fire?

Bill: Uh-huh.

Me: Aren’t you impressed at my guess?

Bill: Oh, I’m all hot and bothered.

We realize comments like those at the dinner table will have to cease soon, but then again, we’ve been thinking that for years now, and I do recall my own parents taking great pleasure in mentioning their plans to lie around the house naked when we’re all moved away…or sooner if that’s what it required to get us to move away.

I’m waffling about whether or not I’ll see this movie, which is actually based on a novel by a different author but of the same battle. I didn’t read Gates of Fire. Bill read it and shared it with me. The one scene that sticks with me is when the head honco talks with one of the women. The Spartans all know that nobody will return from this mission. The chosen 300 will fight to the death against the advancing hoard. All they’re doing is buying time so the rest of Greece can better prepare its defenses. The Spartans take care to not leave any woman or child without a patriarch: if her husband goes, she’ll have an adult son remain and vice versa. Except for one woman who will lose both. Mr. Head Honcho tells her he knows this will be hard for her, but he also knows she’s a really strong woman and can handle it. And then he says that since her grief will be the greatest, he expects her to set the tone for how all the women should handle this tragedy. In other words, Mrs. Smith can’t justify hysteria if the woman with the greatest loss is putting on a good face. Lovely, eh?

And Bill told me this scenario as a sort of pep talk for me, telling me that he sees me as that strong women, yada, yada, yada. I really don’t want to be a strong woman. I want to be a taken care of woman, know what I mean?

Anyway, since the movie is based on a different novel it is likely that scene will not be in the movie, but war movies are not really what I enjoy watching. I thought it was pretty normal for women to not be interested in watching war movies, but I know two women who loved Master and Commander.

Master and Commander, to me, was like Band of Brothers meets Moby Dick. All the horrors of war, but on the sea and with a captain obsessed with capturing his nemesis. At least the nemesis was another ship commander, and not a whale. Bill had already seen it once and said that I might enjoy the story line. I did find the relationship between the doctor and the commander of the ship to be interesting. However, those scenes were few and far between the other scenes which include a 12 year old having his arm amputated, a suicide, and a bad storm wherein a soldier is cut away from the ship to name just a few of the times that inspired me to query: And why did you think I would like this movie?

I have subjected him to a few chick flicks lately, so perhaps he stands a good chance of wrangling me into the theatres to see this one. I just hope he doesn’t consider it foreplay.