Movie Review: 300

I finally saw 300, via Netflix.  I am soooo glad I didn’t see this one in the theaters.

One word sums up this movie: “juvenile”.

Disclosure: 300 is based on the comic book of the same name.  When the comic came out, I bought the first issue, read it, thought “What a piece of crap”, and didn’t buy the second issue.  My opinion of the comic has not changed since then, and the movie supports that feeling.

You know what would be cool?  Lots of blood squirting everywhere.  Like in that King Arthur movie, when the guy’s arms and legs come off.

You know what would be cool?  Lots of symbolic, dramatic lighting, like everything is occurring at sunset or under a full moon.

You know what would be cool?  A bottomless pit in the middle of the court of Sparta, with no railings or grating or cover, because, like, Spartans are so bad ass that they never slip, stumble, or fall.

You know what would be cool?  If the dramatic scenes all had shit floating in the air to give it a dreamy quality.  Snow, dust, pollen, whatever.

You know what would be cool?  If all the Spartans went shirtless all the time and were like totally ripped.  Dude, that would be gay, not cool!  Oh, well don’t worry, they won’t ever touch each other, so it won’t really be gay.  Just sorta.

You know what would be cool?  If we added reverb and other modulation to the voices at their most dramatic moments.  That would, like, totally help carry the symbolism through.

You know what would be cool?  If we had a voiceover going through the whole movie, sometimes reiterating the action but usually just giving color commentary and saying poetic shit.  And it would be way cool to — surprise! — make the voiceover be the story of the Spartans being told to others, to inspire them to fight crazy.

You know what would be cool?  If the Spartans were so bad ass that even their allies thought they were crazy and would run away.

You know what would be cool?  If there were all there dramatic, tension-filled conversations between the Spartans, full of pauses and deep brooding stares.  Um, dude, you’ve gone into the gay zone again!  Okay, we’ll have them break off the looks early, so no one could possibly think that there’s something gay going on.

You know what would be cool?  If we did all the action scenes cutting in and out of slow-mo, so you could totally see all the sword cuts and tumbling bodies and splashing blood.

You know what would be cool?  If the entire cast was men, just beating the snot out of each other.  Dude, gay thing again!  You need something with a woman, so we can get the chicks to let us see it.  No problem, man: we’ll add a subplot with the queen, and she can have sex in it, too.  She’ll be totally hot, and it will be rough, beating the snot out of each other sex.  And if we have to trim the film to make it shorter, we can cut the subplot some, removing girl stuff and keeping all the bad ass fight scenes!




You know what would be cool?  If this movie didn’t make me fear that the director’s upcoming Watchmen film will be more of the same.

Movie Review: Iron Man

I finally saw Iron Man last weekend, when the Columbia City Cinema got it in as a second run film.  It was pretty good, I thought.

Mind you, I’ve never been a fan of Iron Man.  Not that I dislike Iron Man, but I just haven’t ever followed the character other than in the pages of The Avengers.  (This is probably because he’s a tech-based character.  I’m a big fan of the Legion of Super-Heroes, where every member has to have a unique non-tech power; Iron Man is a no-go in that scenario.)

As a result, I know the basics of the the character arc for Iron Man without being able to get hung up on the details.  That makes me an ideal audience for a superhero movie: I know of Tony Stark and Pepper Potts, and I can identify the character prepped to be the Mandarin in a future film, but I’m in no place to complain if Happy Hogan was relegated to just a chauffeur but was so much more than that in the comics.

What I particularly liked about the film, though, is that it was a superhero film without being full of the arch-villain.  Obadiah Stane was more organically grown from Tony Stark’s back story, as opposed to Lex Luthor’s maniacal jealous businessman or Norman Osborne going off the deep end to become the Green Goblin.

Also nice was the fact that despite this being a movie based around a tech character, there wasn’t either the “bounce the character off he walls so frenetically that the audience loses all sense of direction” from Spider-Man 3, nor the “blow up every vehicle in the city” from The Dark Knight.  I want to be able to tell who is hitting whom and why; keep the property damage only to that which needs to be done, not gratuitous explosions because you’ve got the budget.

The only down side to this film was entirely on the theater’s part.  They were alternating showings of it with Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2 (two films that go back-to-back so logically!) in the same theater, and people for the next film were filing in during the Iron Man credits.  And thus to hasten things along… no, they didn’t stop things before the legendary post-credits scene, but they turned off the camera, so we got to hear it but not see it.  Grrr.

Ireland: Killarney to Mallow to Dublin, and in Dublin (part 3)

10:11 pm, Dublin (at the hotel)

Wandered down to the Liffey and hit Forbidden Planet.  Came back with a dozen miscellaneous back issue from their overstock bin at 25 cents each, and a copy of Justice League Legends, reprinting part of “The Lightning Saga” and a couple issues of Justice, including a new cover for my anal-retentive Legion collection.

If you don’t want to know details of my sexual escapades, just skip the next paragraph.

I hooked up with a Dublin guy early in the evening via Manhunt. (He’s actually from “the north”; don’t know if that means Belfast/Northern Ireland or not.) Ended up as and interesting encounter: he asked me to put on some of my leather – I only brought a vest and some boots, to keep the weight down – and that plus a nice fat dick made him want me to fuck him.  No problem. Except that he’d never been fucked before (and hadn’t done much fucking himself, I gather; I guess he was mostly an oral guy). Fat dick + cherry ass = probably quite he memorable time for him.  (Moreso because of the piercing. I only have the 6-gauge curved barbell in, so nothing nearly so dramatic as if the 2-gauge ring were in, but still, multiple new sensations for him!) Did he like it? Not sure; he had some definite pain, and he didn’t know what he should be feeling (and I could barely tell him, it’s been 18 years since I was in that place), but he stuck with it like a trooper and eventually decided he just needed to jam himself on down. (First time I’ve deflowered a guy, to my knowledge. He took it easier than some have, though!)

After that, I headed back into Temple Bar – past the actual Temple Bar, in fact and had dinner at a Chinese fast food place (duck in plum sauce) and then a Nutella and ice cream crepe and coffee for dessert.  On the way back, stopped in the Temple Bar Trading Co. shop, or the side that was open, which was all Guinness stuff.  Mugs, chocolates, refrigerator magnets, sure.  Soccer balls, rugby balls, t-shirt, okay.  Soft-boiled egg cups? Slippers?  Underwear?  Oy! (Or is that “Oi!”?)

My mother observed that she wasn’t picking up the Irish accent as readily as she has with other accents on past trips.  Me either, and that surprised me at first, although I’ve noticed it creeping in more the last couple days.  I suspect it’s because we’ve had three of us to reinforce each other’s American speech modes. Now that I’m on my own, I’ll be picking it up much faster, I’m sure.

I’ll be heading out to the pubs in a bit.

Movie Review: Ratatouille

We went to see Ratatouille last night.  I had hoped to see Hairspray instead, but it was opening day and we were running late, so the first choice was sold out.  No biggie, and I wanted to see this, anyway.

Ratatouille is probably the most adult-themed computer animated film to come out of the Hollywood studios yet.  With its themes of life in the big city, getting and keeping a job, running a restaurant, and getting along with your peers, and especially with its mostly human (ahem) cast, it was a step away from the likes of Shrek and Toy Story.   No musical song-and-dance numbers, and not a screaming amount of bwa-ha-ha! funny moments.

In fact, it was because of the more adult nature of much of the film that the kid-friendly (read: “people who want kids to learn a lesson while being entertained”-friendly) bits sang out as over the top and too intense.  “Family is important” and “you don’t have to steal to be successful” were wedged in throughout the film way too obviously, as though Gusteau’s neon sign were lighting them up.

I was reminded once again (as I was after recently watching the DVD extras on Shrek II) just how good a job they have done with these computer animated cartoons.  We just don’t notice a lot of the subtle stuff they do simply because they do it right.   Think about it with this, a film about cooking: steam rising, ingredients plopping into liquids of various viscosities, reflections off highly polishes pots and utensils — all done so well that they don’t even register as “fake” (computer animated).  That is the mark of incredible skill and technology — magic.

I was also struck by the idea that this is where superhero films should go next.  The Incredibles already led the way, of course, but it was with their own characters, whom none of the audience are especially invested in.   Think about a computer animated version of Spider-Man or Dr. Strange or the Legion of Super-Heroes.  Designs which have a strong rooting in the comics, realistic enough to work but not all the way into the freak “uncanny valley”.  The ability to do whatever effects you need without having to integrate them with the live actors.  No stunt men, no mega-miniatures.  The time is right.