spoilers ahead.

Toronto - Needing something to do on nice spring Wednesday night, me and some friends decided to venture indoors and watch this movie called ‘300′ thats all the rage right now. In case you have been in North Korea or a cave, you will know this is the latest adaption of Frank Miller’s story and is loosely based on Battle of Thermopylae , where 300 Spartans fought off about thousands of Persians (or as they are now known..Terrorists) in an effort to slow down their advances. I will leave the rest of the battle details for you to wiki up, just like i did.

obviously the movie was very stylized. lots of slow mo scenes, saturated colors, cgi stuff. it was a more colorful version of sin city in that regard, i thought it was all a pretty nice touch. there were a lot of titties in this movie, and my friend pointed out the people who made the movies put in a bunch of female titties to counter the fact that we will be spending a better part of 90 minutes watching a bunch of men fighting while wearing speedos. anyways, yeah story starts out with an introduction to our hero, king leonsis or something. we learn that spartans are bred to fight and it shows a bit of his training, which involves killing a wolf and wearing it as a fur coat. that actually made him the king. i feel pity for the crappy spartans who could only kill a squirrel or a fish, they’d probably be made fun of a lot.

we fast forward a bit to see that the persians were offering some kind of plea bargain to the spartans, only for the king to utter what is probably the best movie line of the year “THIS IS SPARTA!!!” , and then he kicked the Persians into the well, which as a friend pointed out..would only contaminate their water system, so they were doomed from the beginning. the king then climbs a mountain to go see the oracles, who ask some drugged up naked chick (NOT played by lindsay lohan, surprisingly) for advice. some stuff happens, and the they go to fight. about an hour later, they all die, the movie ends.

this was a pretty enjoyable movie, its probably not one you can watch more then once. most of the movie was quite predictable, but chances are you only went to see it to see fighting in slow mo, and special effects. if u went to see it for that, you are probably satisfied. the dialog isn’t that strong, and all the best lines were already shown in the trailers. the persian king wasn’t really that intimidating an enemy either, as he looked like a cross between kareem abdul jabbar, goro from mortal kombat, and mr. t with piercings.

3.5 / 5

courtesy of Deadspin.com

obviously the questionaire was for guys, ..i think

haha
clicky here

Finally watched Rocky Balboa on Friday. This was the first Stallone movie I have seen since Demolition Man, so it has been awhile since I have seen Stallone in action. Man this dude old. but he built. I always thought boxing was a big money making business, but obviously I was wrong, as Rocky seems to be just doing okay, living in what appears to be a ghetto and running some not so nice restaurant. He must of spent all his earnings on coke. I am guessing he really misses Adrian, and thus he picks up some chick working at bar who has tupac for a kid. Don’t really understand that subplot. He also has a not so good relationship with his son, who doesn’t want to live in his dad’s shadow. Obviously this son doesn’t know he can absorb other peoples super powers and will blow up new york in a matter of months.

so rockys watching some simulated fight on ESPN and decides he wants to box again. first of all, i don’t think boxing is relevant enough so that a simulated fight would actually appear on the news, second of all, if i was to poll 1000 senior citizens, i think fighting a bad ass black man would be the last thing on their mind. bingo ..yes. boxing..no. unbelievability aside, rocky starts training, and we hit a classic montage. montages are awesome, so points for this section. somehow, because he is about to box, his son decides to quit his job as a corporate lackey and become a cheerleader for his dad. no real reasoning behind this action.

after what appeared to be about four hours of buildup, we get to the fight, which was a fairly well done. and then after the fight ends, that was pretty much the ending. i guess this movie was okay. i almost fell asleep a few times during the buildup about how miserable rocky’s life has become. but really, what kind of message is this? rocky is sending a message that fighting will solve all your problems, and that isn’t a message we want to send to the youth of america.

so..

+1 for montage and constantly playing the rocky theme
-1 for long buildup
+1 for well shot fight scene
-1 for unbelievable fight (seriously..ten rounds?)
-1 for weird subplots that go nowhere
+1 for unintentional comedy
so

2.5/5 i guess

this was a good post:

yellowstereo - Films on the Mind

the almost famous scene was ace.

but the others listed on the site was also very good

makes me want to make a movie so i can just put good tunes in it.

i also go to that site for random music news