300

Hey gang, I'm back! So my Thursday did not end the way I was hoping it would, and today was even stranger. I don't even know how I should be doing right now, but I have some very loving and awesome friends and family, and I appreciate them, and so I think I'll be just fine. My sister-in-law and I cooked up some good Thai Chicken Curry last night, check it out:


I finally did see 300 today in IMAX (for a whopping $12, sheesh) and I really enjoyed it. In case you're totally clueless, the movie tells the tale leading up to the Battle of Thermopylae where 300 Spartan men stood up to the Persian army to try to push the rest of Sparta to fight for freedom. The action was really amazing. Every scene was meticulously planned, the special effects were spectacular, and the battle scenes were as gratuitous as you want. So, by all means, a true action movie. The acting was pretty good, too. British actor Gerard Butler really shined as Leonidas, and I really liked what they did with Xerxes. However, what you have to understand is that everything is going to be cartoonish. So obviously, things aren't going to be realistic. Not only that, but scenes are going to be exaggerated to make it more entertaining. Did the Persians really have superhuman monsters? Probably not. This movie isn't going to be historically accurate, and so it's going to have really random stuff in it to impress the eye. What it was really missing though was more of a plot. There wasn't a sense of why the Persians were at this stage other than pure evil, not much of a backstory on the Persians, and the character development was pretty hollow. All we had to go off of were these overarching values of valor and camaraderie and patriotism. I give this movie a solid B. I loved it, and I'd see it again, and I'd recommend it to people who enjoy war movies, but it did feel like it was missing a certain something.

So this is totally going to offend people, but I don't care because I think it's hilarious. 1up just has an editorial comparing consoles to women, and it's pretty freaking brilliant. I probably agree the most with his little blurb about the Sega Saturn, which I had always felt was underestimated.

Once again, the music industry has gone bat crazy. They've actually pushed to increase royalty rates for Internet radio, and it may kill such beloved services as Pandora. I don't think I have comments left on this topic that I haven't voiced in the past week: they need to smarten up and embrace these new ways to spread music, not restrict them.

I'm surprised that I didn't notice before that Grind House still doesn't have a rating. Anyway, apparently, there's significant concern that it won't get an R rating. Yeah, when you combine nudity with Nazism and sadomasochism all in the same scene, it's not going to go well with the MPAA. Given that it's Quentin Tarantino though, I'm curious as to how it'll all play out.

It looks like the starlet to be featured in Indiana Jones 4 is Cate Blanchett. I personally don't think she's really that great looking, but she is a good actress.

Comic book geeks unite: Watchmen is, in fact, Zach Snyder's next project. I think the success of 300 has given him a good enough reputation for a greenlight this time, and so I hope he does well with it.

One of the Russian sites has a trailer for Stardust, and I have no idea what it's about but it just jumped out at me. Neil Gaiman is well known for visual appeal though, so no telling whether this one will have much substance, but I hope it'll be a fun flick.

Not that we need another Spider-man 3 poster, but there is another international one. Not very different, but still a good poster.

Now for Friday's Feast:

Appetizer
Name two things that made you smile this week.
I don't know about specific things, but I know two Hispanic women who did, and I think they both know who they are because they made me smile multiple times =)

Soup
Fill in the blank: Don't you hate it when ________?
you fall behind schedule

Salad
When you can't go to sleep, what is your personal remedy to help yourself drift into Lullabyland?
Thinking about all the work I have to do. That gets me pretty tired because I'm never short on crap to do.

Main Course
What is something about which you've always wondered but have not yet found a good answer?
Why bad things happen to good people. There probably is no explanation, but I just don't like seeing horrible people prosper.

Dessert
What is your favorite pasta dish?
Not sure, maybe Fettuccine Alfredo. My eyes always seem drawn to that on pasta menus.

I'm going to the mall tomorrow with the sis-in-law to get some more business casual stuff (i.e. clubbing and work clothes), and we're going to be grilling! Perfect food for the soul, I'd say, so I hope you all have a very exciting weekend. Mine will be filled with that, getting to Austin, doing a crazy puzzler for Object Oriented Programming, and a very long meeting on Sunday.