banish plump Jack, and banish all the world

To the Shakespeare fans, Rude Mechanicals, and all others interested, here's a heads-up:

This Wednesday, the AFI SIlver in Silver Spring Maryland will be showing Orson Welles' Falstaff movie, CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT, featuring a Q&A with actor Keith Baxter. You might have seen him play Henry IV recently at the Shakespeare Theatre; in the film, he played Prince Hal alongside Welles' Falstaff.

This is a damn rare film, sorely needing to be out on DVD. The only time I'd seen it was on a really crappy VHS tape, and I hope to see the film at AFI sometime later this week. If I didn't have class Wednesday, I'd be at the Q&A. The film is basically HENRY IV 1 and 2 edited as one film, with--I think--bits of MERRY WIVES thrown in, all focusing on Falstaff.

And hey, while you're there, you can see AGUIRRE, WRATH OF GOD. Make a double-feature of it! One film that has to be seen on the big screen, the other one that you're probably not going to be able to see ever (unless Criterion Collection puts it out DVD or something).




Meantime, if I can get out of work early tonight, I'm going to have to decide between two free sneak preview screenings happening tonight: one's THE HOST, which is apparently an absolutely brilliant monster movie, and the other is 300. So you see the predicament I'm in.

TONIGHT! WE DINE! AT DENNY'S!!!!

300 turned out to be everything I'd expected it to be, everything it could possibly have been. Which is to say, the living embodiment of Frank Miller'd Id, a completely over-the-top spectacle of awesomeness utterly devoid of subtlety, and one of the manliest fucking manly things to ever man a man. All that was missing was whoreswhoreswhoreswhoreswhores, but that was all replaced by shouting.

Oh lord, the shouting. I mean, in the comic, when Leonidas kicks the messenger (who was shouting, "This is blasphemy! This is madness!") into the pit, he does it with a cool, badass "This is Sparta." But as I'd seen in even the earliest trailers, he delivered it instead with the now-almost-infamous, "THIS! IS! SPARTARARARARAHHH!!!"

It's been three hours since I've seen the film, and I still feel like shouting everything. "I! WANT! NACHOOOOOS!" "A thousand tortilla chips of the Persian Empire descends upon my tummy! This queso shall blot out the sun!!!" "Then *I* shall munch in the shade." "I! NEED! A! NAPKINNNN!!!"

That said, there's plenty for women to enjoy. Namely, lots and lots of ripped man-flesh on display. Wow. I mean... wow, there was nothing less than a six pack on pretty much every guy in that film.

I'm not saying 300 is a brilliant film, and it didn't hit me on a pure visceral personal comic geek level like SIN CITY did, but it's great that a comic-based movie (especially one that is very much flaunting its graphic novel roots) is getting this much attention. Things like this are, I think, better for the industry than even the best superhero movies, and I certainly do hope it brings in more customers.

My only complaint is that no one got any arrows in either the head or their crotch. I suppose some might think that would detract from the moment to see arrows through the eyes and/or balls, but it kinda annoyed me to see people as human pincushions save for miraculously those two areas. But that's my only real complaint. The rest of the movie is... well, it's what it is, and gloriously so, in its way.

With apologies to Dethklok and Denis Leary, if I see this film again, it will have to be with a hundred beers and a big, fat steak. Raw steak, dripping with blood. In fact, forget the steak, give me a live cow. I'll cut off what I want and ride the rest home!

Home! TO SPARTARAHARARAHHH!!!!