I went to 300 over the weekend with my brother, cousin, and a friend of theirs. It's based on a graphic novel which was loosely based on the battle of Thermopylae and is another of those green-screened deals like Sin City and the like.

And it was pretty good, but I was hoping it would be made of awesome so I was a little bit disappointed. I didn't like it anywhere near as much as I liked Troy, for instance. And I can hear you saying "Yeah, but you liked Troy because of Eric Bana." And that's true, although possibly not for the reason you think it is. The whole thing about his role in that movie was, Hector was an actual person. You could relate to him, and even when his decisions were wrong you could sympathize with his conflicts.

And besides, the big hand-to-hand battle at the end? That was two real guys whaling on each other with swords, and that's why it was thrilling. There are some things you just can't CGI.

It's not, God knows, that I am in any way opposed to war movies. Or bloodshed, come to think of it. It's just that the war movies I like, Master and Commander (Best. Movie. Ever!!!!!) and Memphis Belle and The Battle Of Britain (I'm told I really need to see Tora! Tora! Tora!) all involve people, and even when the movie more or less begins with a battle sequence like M&C does, you get enough of a sense of the characters on the screen as real people that you can relate to them.

Gerard Butler has some amazing abs in this movie, but because of the story they're telling his King Leonidas is pretty much a crazy-arse motherfucker from frame one, and there's not what you'd call a big character arc for him to deal with. This is not a complex guy, nor a head I especially want to get into. I mean, fine from the wind-him-up-and-let-him-go point of view, but I was strictly a spectator. I think the colours of the movie--everything was pretty much grey and washed-out--also held me at a distance. The characters all looked dead already.

Plus, the guy who played Faramir was the narrator (there's a frame story going on) and in Lord Of the Rings I don't think I noticed his voice being prissy and nasal. Although come to think of it, it was in Van Helsing, but I thought that was just... Van Helsing. Anyway, his character is therefore a peculiar choice for a bard.

There are those who have taken a modern political message away from the film. I am not one of them. There is a great deal of yelling about freedom and reason and the Hope Of Civilization, but I found it very difficult to stop being scared of the Spartans' spooky-ass Hitler Youth children. I prefer to look at the movie strictly as a big noisy coolly-animated spectacle, thanks.

Mind you, it occurs to me that the war movies I like also feature ships or aircraft that in some cases rise to the level of characters, so that may be another factor here. No, I don't like cavalry scenes, thanks, and I was grateful that all the animals pretty much looked CGI (the wolf at the beginning especially, and he was deliberate, but there's a sequence involving elephants that I was pretty glad I didn't believe in.)

And then there's the whole issue of the good guys all being white and mostly blue-eyed, while the bad guys are mostly swarthy and darkeyed like... well, Eric Bana, frankly, when they didn't look like Amaar. Honest to God, it's not that I have a problem with blue-eyed people, at least not most of the time, but in the movies I sometimes sort of hate us. (Since it's an epic set in classical times practically everyone speaks with a British accent, thus avoiding the Pointlessly Evil English Guy thing. Butler actually sounds a lot like a pissed-off Sean Connery, which astonishes me because it's my understanding that Connery hasn't actually spoken with a Scottish accent for years.)

So: fun, but not as much fun as I had hoped. I shoulda got the popcorn.

After 300 it was my turn to host movie night. I had a few crime movies in mind but you know, my bloodlust was pretty well sated for the day and I ended up forcing everyone to watch The Silver Brumby (under its North American title The Silver Stallion), an Aussie family movie in which a youngish Russell Crowe is repeatedly outwitted by a wild horse. And sings a wash-day song to a blue heeler, which was worth the price of the DVD right there.

Following The Silver Brumby (which kept getting mixed up in thallid's mind with Lord Of the Rings for reasons I'll let him explain) we also watched The Nugget, another Aussie family-type movie featuring, how coincidental, Eric Bana. And that turned out to be charming (thank you, sagitare!)

Plus we had Cheesy Garlic Mushroom Bread, which seemed to be enough of a hit that nobody minded the Pony Club movie we began with. And as an antidote to multiple decapitations the whole evening worked like a charm.