just saw "300" in the theater today, hitting the usual time we seem to see movies - the earliest show at Airport Cinemas - today it was 300 at 11:50am. jared and i wanted to be sure to see this film in the theater, knowing how grand of a scale it would be working on, a grand enough scale for there to be an IMAX version of this film available at the IMAX theaters - huge, huge screens that make any film seem so much larger than life that it almost tends to swallow you whole before the film's end. IMAX is fun, but crazy.







back to 300 - there wasn't too many "Frank Miller"-isms in this film, unlike "Sin City", which was mostly Miller-esque shots based on panels and other such ideas from the graphic novels/issues.....at times, "Sin City" can almost feel too contrived in the post-production, whereas the bulk of "300" seems to flow and mix well with the colors of the Spartan warriors dress and armor. though obviously occasionally enhanced by studio contrast trickery, the overall feel of the film is one of historic interest and largely dramatic graphic work - the Miller-isms that do make it into the film make it feel more and more surreal as the film goes on, from the stark black and red washes that seemed right out of a comic book (though a well illustrated and colored comic), to the dark figure with glowing eyes effect that makes one fear the owner of such an illuminated eye-batch.....needless to say, what needs to be creepy here is indeed very creepy, and what needs to be "old hat" (by now, years after "Braveheart") battle scenes make very effective and bloody scenes in their own right - "Braveheart" be damned and a new future of brutal sword and spear slashing and poking to ring in the new league, built from the old league and learned well in the arts of blood splatter and beheadings. the effects are beautiful, the scenery and contrasting colors are more and more interesting as the film goes on, and anyone who tells you this is a simple slash-and-stab war movie is missing the emotional element.







i loved the movie, and really want to see it again before it leaves the theater.....