The Trip Home Post

This past weekend I went back home to VA as a belated ‘birthday present’ for Mum. It was great to head back and spend quality family time with everyone. Stefan was in and out at training unfortunately, but made an effort to come back each night and spend time with everyone which I really appreciated. Went bowling with the family and Sarah; watched 300 on the projector poolside with Dad’s very impressive homebrew outdoor theater system; visited Eric’s badass new apartment in Arlington as well as visited the construction site that is/was his parents’ house (it’s looking awesome); chilled poolside with special guests Patricio, Alex and Jevan; tried out Sam’s amazingly comfortable new bed; saw Sarah’s swanky new office and even snuck in a lunch at Potbellies after stopping by for a quick hello at the Hunt’s. Sarah stuck with me from baggage claim in the arrival lounge all the way to dropping me off outside of the check-in. It was great to have her with me the whole time. I miss her already. Her new camera was in full force so I’ll maybe have some pictures to share later on. Though I looked through a couple and it looks like I’ll have to censor out a fair few (she has a knack for catching me looking like a complete prat).

One of the best parts about being home, besides the company of course, is always the food. I always look forward to eating well, and Mum and Dad never disappoint. Crepes in the morning, tenderloin for dinner, whatever the meal it’s always appetizing. We had a terrific BBQ with Ali and Bob last night right before I had to hit the airport, which was delicious enough to tide me over on my long and delayed flight. It was great to see Ali and Bob again, especially this time due to the finalized copy of Bob’s new book making an appearance. The book, which I illustrated, will be getting published in the next few weeks. More on that to come I assure you.

Though I feel bad about abandoning my hopelessly lonely cat, and don’t have any vacation days coming my way for a fair while, I really do love to take these little trips back home. I wish they could be longer, though I fear that if they went on too much more than a weekend then I’d be hard pressed to be able to ever leave.

The 300 Post

I feel obligated to start this little review by saying that I didn’t like 300 as much as I expected to. The rave reviews from family and friends who had seen it before me, as well as the positive feedback in the critic world had led me to believe that this film was a guaranteed new favorite for me. Alas I found myself forcing myself to enjoy the movie more that I was.

First off I want to hail what the film does well. It has many positive aspects to it and what works, works wonders. However the end result was lost on me despite my attempt to love it. The cinematography was stunning; Frank Miller’s comic was realized in the flesh virtually page for page. I felt like I was watching a painting in motion. The acting (despite sorely mismatched accents) was more than expectable, and served the movie well.

I honestly think that that the bad outweighed the good. The bad being; the story telling, character establishment, and the overkilled (pun) gore. Character’s would die and I’d not care. People would be referred to and I’d have no idea who they were talking about unless it was Xereces or the Leonidus. In all honesty the original graphic novel was less than 100 pages, so it’s not surprising that the movie felt drawn out and suffered from plot issues throughout, but there was little to no connection made with the audience that made us value any of the killings and noble actions taking place on the screen. The Spartans are presented as nerveless killing machines from the get go, so there is little more to do than watch said machines do their job for the next 2 hours.

I like the idea of this movie much more than the movie itself, and with the exception of a few fight scenes and their accompanying special effects, I have to say that I enjoyed the commercial more than the full feature.