Wannabe Spartan Somethin'!

300
(2007)

The first time that I saw the trailer for 300 I was shocked by the astounding visuals. In fact, I was a bit concerned whether or not I was ready for a movie in which every single frame was a work of art that could stand on its own. That's how good it looked. I didn't know if I'd be able to enjoy such an onslaught of unrelenting visual perfection or whther it would be a case of sensory overload. I now know what I should have known from the beginning. A trailer is seldom an accurate representation of a movie as a whole and 300 is no exception. While the film has some awe inspiring moments, it has significantly more flaws than the major live-actors/cgi-setting films that came before it (Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and Sin City actually trump this film in the looks department).

300 tells the story of a group of 300 Spartans that fought the Persian army at the battle of Thermopylae. Up against impossible odds, the Spartans stay true to their warrior's code and engage in a b itter battle to the death. King Leonidas is a wartime leader in the tradition of Henry V. Without practically no support from his community (or the derelict Ephors), he slings the Persian demands right back at them in the form of deadly steel blades and spears. It's a classic story that is certainly worthy of the epic treatment, but while this film goes out of its way to show amazing, jaw-dropping landscapes, it seems to cut corners in spots that many less ambitious films would never dream of.

There is a scene in the film where the Spartans are assembling for battle against a backdrop of the most beautifully ominous sky ever rendered by effects studio. As the soldiers raise their spears in solidarity, however, the seams of 300 become painfully evident. In this day and age, I figured that the kind of blue screen issues that inspire guffaws while watching The Neverending Story were long behind us, but I'll be darned if those Spartan weapons didn't look as if they'd been cut out by a first grade class at 2:45, the day before Spring Break! It was certainly not the worst I'd ever seen, but in the context of such a beautifully realized film, it stuck out like a sore thumb. Kinda like hanging a Picasso in a frame you bought at Big Lots.

As I was watching the film, another particularly distracting bit of CGI jumped out at me. The deformed Spartan character, Ephialtes seemed far too clean and mechanical in his construction; more akin to Jar-Jar than Gollum. Then, later I read that he wasn't CGI at all, but was instead an actual actor in actual prosthetic make-up. I was shocked and still would like to go back and look at the scenes with this character. If it is indeed true that he was the creation of make-up artists, I still have to think that the performance was inhanced via a little CGI tinkering.

Regardless of their origins, be it CGI or the old school latex and spirit gum treatment, the film seemed over run with ghouls and monsters. Honestly, I would have preferred it if the film had been a little more grounded in reality. The Persians were fearsome in their sheer numbers. There was no need to have giant, psychotic ogres for the Spartans to battle or crazy, obese executioners with battle-axe wings waiting to behead traitors. The Persian army was fearsome without all that crap. Instead, it is the Spartans that should have gotten the "bigger than life" treatment. Their wrath is legendary, and I'm not sure that ever really came across outside of the numerous troop rallying speeches. It wasn't so much a large a volume of arse whoopin' I wanted to see, but a display of incredible skill... and that never seemed to materialize.

Don't get me wrong. I wholeheartedly reccomend this film, as it is a fun romp and a great chance to see the future of the epic movie. Gerard Butler gives a pitch-perfect performance as King Leonidas and you truly understand why his men are willing to die for him. I only wish that the film would have paid as much attention to the story and the mythology surrounding the story, rather than squeezing in as much CGI as possible.

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A Fist Full of Yen!

The other day on the Mondo Movie podcast a listener wrote in and described the films of Takashi Miike as the cinematic equivalent of a child shewing their food and then opening their mouth to gross you out with the contents. I'd say that's a pretty accurate description, but Miike's new movie looks to be a departure from the usual shock for the sake of shock fare we are used to from the man behind Ichi the Killer and Visitor Q. Check out this wee, little trailer for his new "Eastern Western," Sukiyaki Western Django. Weird stuff.

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Mars Ain't the Kind of Place to Raise a Kid!

Yup, it really has been a long, long time. I've been pretty busy lately with work. I spent the preceding week teaching a "Mission to Mars" unit to the fifth graders at school. With only a week and a half to build the unit from scratch, I had little time for anything else. All in all, I think it went off pretty well. As a literacy specialist, I have little call to create lessons that focus on science and math, but I got to try my hand at it for this little unit... with mixed results.

Needless to say, I haven't had much opportunity to get out and watch many movies or DVDs. In fact, I've got the video store hounding me to return Tideland and 11:14 which are spectacularly overdue and... as of this moment... still unwatched. Not to mention that there's a couple of movies still on at the theaters that I'd like to see (namely, 300 and Black Snake Moan). But hopefully now that I'm officially on Spring Break I'll get a chance to catch up on my movie watching.

One thing that I got waiting in the wings is a review of the 1990 horror/sci-fi film, Mindwarp starring Bruce Campbell and Angus Scrimm. I fired off an email to the folks at the Reel Horror Podcast mentioning that movie, they read it on the show (check out episode #74, you can listen right on the site) and out of the sheer goodness of their heart they sent a copy of the movie to me. For free. So, I figured that at the very least I should send them a review of the film for their show and after they have included it in an episode I will be posting it here.

As for what exactly the rest of my ten days of freedom will produce... you'll just have to wait and see.

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