Frank Miller's 300

          This is one of the goriest and most graphic movies I’ve ever seen. It’s still fabulous and well worth watching but it is an important fact that this movie will desensetize anyone instantly. This is also one of the biggest “fake movies” ever. It’s intentional, but still, in some ways this movie rivals Running Scared in its abuse of style superseding all of substance.

            The scene takes place in Sparta, where the warlords are itchy to defend themselves from the Persians, who must pass through a narrow and impassible straight, guarded by 300 Spartans. The million men of Persia soon begin to die, all the while the politicians of Sparta and Athens erode the support for the men, until it is all they can do to fight on. 300 against the world.

            The scenes are stylized after Frank miller (Writer, Sin City) who wrote a graphic novel about the battle of thermopoly, which is here depicted. The portrayal of the Arabs is a little unfair, they are all either cowardly and snidely, demoniac immortals, or Xerxes who is depicted as a 7 foot tall metrosexual. The immortal battles are stunning, the graphics render it as a separate universe of phantasm, but draw in the audience with the use of slow motion, camera angles, and all the other neat little style tricks.

            The plot is a little thin, but very lurid, just like most of Miller’s stuff. It’s pretty graphic intensive, but wlel worth the watch. Easy 2, but not on the same level as Sin City.

3000 Miles to Graceland

             A fun action movie and crazy twisting plot, this is a great flick for action lovers. Kurt Russell plays a criminal, convict and bad person who runs afoul of Cybil (Courtney Cox) and her son Jesse on the way to rob a casino. His partners include Thomas J Murphy (Kevin Costner), a psychotic douchebag, and general killer, who happens to think he is the son of Elvis. As well as three other no goods (Christian Slater and David Arquette join the team) and their Helicopter pilot, Jack (Howie Long).

            After they do the job, during the International Elvis festival, they escape and then things get complicated, as Murphy betrays everyone and kills them, aside from Russell who escapes and goes back for the money. Meanwhile Jesse has discovered the plot and Cybil begins to crave the much neeed money.

            Things get even more complicated as they all make their way toward a money launderer in Idaho, a short stop for Russell who is headed for his boat in Seattle. A twisting turning plot, this proves to be a visual tornado of crazy ideas woven together by the director and the beginning sequence of the Elvis festival is fantastic.

            Overall I’d give it a 2, because it is definitely worth seeing at least once, and there are a lot of good sequences that are entertaining.

I Spy

             This is a rather typical buddy comedy, but the comedians involved are both extremely funny. Owen Wilson and Eddie Murphy have an extremely good chemistry, and work off each other in a hilarious way. They have just the right amount of action and joking, and the plot, though quite thin, is held up long enough to be entertaining.

            Wilson is a secret agent who feels he is always getting shortchanged in the shadow of super secret agent Carlos, when he gets his first big assignment, he must partner with a high profile person in order to infilstrate his enemies circle. Eddie Murphy is as high profile as they come, as he is the best boxer in the world. And quite proud of it too.

            They reluctantly partner and work together and their mixed motivations and difference quickly become apparent, but in the end they work together for good. The sidelines and gizmos and bits are hilarious, and I laughed extremely hard. The jokes make you forget how stupid the plot is.

            This is a fun flick, and I give it a 2 just for the jokes. Yeah.

Amorres Perros

            This is a disturbing and fascinating look into three lives in Mexico, near Mexico city as far as I can tell. It’s  three different stories with textual intros and they all correspond to one event in time, and they all link the first and last scenes together. It’s drastic and hectic, and sort of ironic. This learned a lot from the Pulp Fiction.

            The first episode, octavio lusts after his sister in law, eventually sleeping with her and despising his foolish thief brother. Meanwhile he becomes involved in the dogfighting sector, and makes a lot of money, helping his sister-in-law financially, only to be left by her after having some of his friends beat up his brother.

            The second chapter follows the life of a model and her dog. She is engaged to a man who just left his wife and daughter, and then is involved in a serious car accident eventually having to have her leg amputated. She eventually gets him back, but she doesn’t know how to cope outside of her life.

            The third subject is a homeless felon who does hits for the local police. He is setup to execute a man’s brother, and then he turns the tables on both of them. He also attempts to help a badly injured dog get better.

            The title says it all (“Love’s a Bitch”) and draws out a great deal of pity and desperation of all the people involved. It’s masterful in it’s layout and the dialogue and acting is spot on, mostly because it’s in another language. 2. Watch this when you break up with someone.