Extra: 300 Page-To-Screen Comparisons

I have been wanting to post this for a while. Solace in Media a while back posted a comprehensive page to screen comparison between Frank Miller's 300 and the WB movie 300 by director Zack Snyder. The similarities are breathtaking. Sometimes, loyalty to the source material is the real way to go.

For more page to screen pics, click here.

Movie Review: "300" (2007)

I was walking around Barnes and Noble chain in Orange County when I found a book, a graphic novel that I had been looking for for a long time. I read the entire comicbook/novel in the store. The pages I wanted to buy it for my collection, but I had other things in mind to get at that time.



The anticipation for Zack Snyder's take on Frank Miller's amazing graphic novel is almost as unexpected as it was great.Once people got a glipse of the film's trailer, it was immediately added to everyone's to-watch list. Sparta was not a very popular civilization and it's legend was buried in time and ignorance and was only brought to live by a rubber sandal company. Zack Snyder is not a very popular director, not yet at least. So what was the attraction? The movie is so stylized and well, it just looked great on film!

Sparta is in the verge of change. the great nation of Persia has conquered most of the worrld and has amassed their armies and has turned into an unstoppable force. Leonidas(Gerard Butler)is the King of Sparta. A warrior by birth and trade. His heart cannot take surrender. With an army of only 300 dedicated and well trained Spartan soldiers, he bravely faces destiny and marches into the glory of his great nation and people.

If awesomeness had an odor, my clothes would have reeked for days.

Blood spatters frozen in mid air, mangled bodies gray with decomposition, ripped hard bodies, skies blackened by millions flying arrows. This movie is so full of the cool stuff that blinking is almost a burden.

You'd think that given the ingredients above that this would be more of a guy film. Not so my friend. There were an equal number of chicks in the sold out theater I was in in Glorietta 4 as there were guys. In the Tonight Show with Jay Leno last week. Gerard Butler was greeted with hysterical shrieks from ladies in the audience. The Spartans and their hard rocking bodies, especially Leonidas, were medeival eye candy for the honeys.

Having read the graphic novel, it was obvious that the goal was to get it as near as possible to the source material. Like in Frank Miller's Sin City. The director played it shot by shot, rendering the page to screen treatment as close as physically possible. And boy did they get it close.



After all is said and done, critics will always resort to whether the story is of any merit. Actually I didn't care at this point if the story or dialogue sucked, because it was so visually satisfying. However, simple as the story was, it was delivered with such verve and passion that it kind of gave me the LOTR fuzzies all over again. With David Wenham (LoTR's Faramir) as Dilios the loyal messenger in the cast, the movie brought out the message in the story any respectable filmmaker would want to convey.



This is the perfect movie to go to with a loved one, with your no good friends or by yourself. Man, treat yourself to this piece of cinema that will surely be a classic!

Now it's time to hit the gym!

Rocketboy's Rating: ***** (5 out of 5)

Movie Review: 'The Fountain" (2006)

I first heard of The Fountain in one of the many movieblogs I frequently visit. That was almost a year ago. A lot of buzz has been genenrated about this movie that got me curious. It is said to be an entirely new approach to the sci-fi genre. It is also been referred to as a groundbreaking work in drama. It has also been referred to as a stinking piece of crap.

I have been aware of Darren Aronofsky and his work in the cult favorite A Requiem For A Dream, I personally ahve not seen Requiem and yes, I know what I am missing. Aronofsky's movies are not for the average weekend viewer, that's for sure. He is often dismissed as a new generation MTV synaptic 300-cuts-per-minute extended music video director, but he isd much more thatn that.

The Fountain is about...(pause, looking at the keyboard). Its really hard to explain without making it look stupid, which is why not a lot of people went to see it.

Hugh Jackman plays three characters. A Conquistador, a scientist and a man in a floating glass ball in space. Rachel Weisz plays Hugh Jackman's wife Isabel in one story and the Queen of Spain in another. In an intertwining narrative. The film talks about life, love, death and the significance of accepting the future rather than fighting it.

The story unfolds non-sequencially, of course, emphasizing parts of the story wherein one correlates with the other in either theme or significance. At the beginning we are presented with Jackman's conquistador persona ascending the steps of what seems to be a Mayan temple encountering a priest or guardian at the summit, then it cuts into space (reminded me a lot of my favorite film 2001: A Space Oddysey) with Jackman, bald, in a lotus position floating in a glass ball with a very old tree inside with him. He talks to the tree like he would a person. He then sees Weisz's Isabel, camera cuts to her in the ball with him, cuts back to him, with hair, this time in an office.



Honestly, the first two acts of the movie are pretty boring. In fact I was ready to dismiss this as a failed piece of art around 45 minutes into it, then the third act came. It's funny, I usually decide whether I like a movie or not at around the middle of it. A movie usually does not redeem itself as abrubptly as The Fountain did on its last 15 minutes. It finally occured to me that it was Aronofsky's intention to give that effect. He could have made the first and second act more, say, appealing. But no, he didn't, he had other plans. He knew what he was doing.



Seriously, The Fountain helped me look into hw we see life from this side of the fence. And if we did find a way to live forever, is dying really that bad?

Then I went out and bought myself ice cream.

Rocketboy's Rating: **** (4 out of 5 stars)