300 (2006)

Genre

Action | Fantasy | War

Director

Zack Snyder

Country

USA

Cast

Gerard Butler, Lena Headey, Giovani Cimmino, Dominic West, David Wenham, Vincent Regan, Tom Wisdom, Andrew Pleavin, Andrew Tiernan, Rodrigo Santoro, Stephen McHattie, Michael Fassbender, Peter Mensah, Kelly Craig, Tyler Neitzel, Robert Maillet, Patrick Sabongui, Leon Laderach, Tyrone Benskin

Plot

When the ambitious King Xerxes of Persia (Rodrigo Santoro) invades Greece with his army to extend his vast slave empire, the brave King Leonidas of Sparta (Gerard Butler) brings a force of 300 warriors to defend the passage of Thermopylae, the only way by land to reach Greece.

Opinion

300 is a boring and stupid action film, that more than anything looks like a big screen adaptation of Men's Health Magazine. 

The number of historical inaccuracies is so high, labeling the film as fantasy it's the least they could do. The dialogue is a pure joke, and the jokes are awful. Every single scene is filled with over-colour-correction and it feels like sitting in front of a video game demo for two hours.

Now it comes my favorite part: the characters. The warriors look like a group of bodybuilders armed with shields and spears, trying to contend the title of Physique of the Year. The only use for the female character - god-awful played by Lena Headey - in the film is a pointless and ridiculous sex scene. And last, but not least, the emotionally wounded hunchback that sells out the Spartans and makes them all die - as if they had any chances.

Actors are the most useless thing in the film. They could have casted some guys at the gym and still have the same result since pectoral muscles have a way bigger screen time than facial expression, and all the actors do is yelling.

Quotes

King Leonidas: Give them nothing! But take from them everything!

LEGEND OF THE GUARDIANS Character Posters

I have some character posters from Zack Snyder's upcoming family animation LEGEND OF THE GUARDIANS: THE OWLS OF GA'HOOLE thanks to the IMPAwards (via FirstShowing).

GUARDIANS is a computer-animated film based on the series of children's fantasy books Guardians of Ga'Hoole by Kathryn Lasky. Jim Sturgess, Geoffrey Rush, Rachael Taylor, David Wenham, and Emilie de Ravin voice the characters. Production took place in Australia at Animal Logic, and the film is scheduled to be released on September 24, 2010. It will be released in part in RealD 3D and IMAX 3D.

Is there any doubt that this movie will rake in the ca$h? Kids will love these adorable owls and mixed with a bit of Snyder's storytelling and admitted need to please his own kids - it is sure to succeed. Kudos to Warner Bros. for believing in the project!

Zack Snyder Talks SUCKER PUNCH, GUARDIANS And 3D!

Jim here. Steve over at Collider had an awesome round table with Zack Snyder (300, WATCHMEN) and producer Debbie Snyder (Zack's wife) recently and Zack spoke out about his upcoming 3D projects SUCKER PUNCH (3D conversion) and LEGENDS OF THE GUARDIANS (native 3D) as well as 3D in general.

Zack always has interesting things to say and I had the opportunity to see parts of GUARDIANS at ShoWest this year - let me tell you, it was gorgeous! You will have to see it for yourself, but it is extremely well done visually and stereoscopically. Keep in mind that it is definitely a family movie, but stunning nevertheless.

If you are not up to speed on his upcoming movies - here are the rundowns:

SUCKER PUNCH is an epic action fantasy that takes us into the vivid imagination of a young girl, whose dream world provides the ultimate escape from her darker reality. Unrestrained by the boundaries of time and place, she is free to go where her mind takes her but her incredible adventures blur the lines between what’s real and what is imaginary…with potentially tragic consequences.

LEGENDS OF THE GUARDIANS (trailer below) follows Soren, a young owl enthralled by his father’s epic stories of the Guardians of Ga’Hoole, a mythic band of winged warriors who had fought a great battle to save all of owlkind from the evil Pure Ones. While Soren dreams of someday joining his heroes, his older brother, Kludd, scoffs at the notion, and yearns to hunt, fly and steal his father’s favor from his younger sibling. But Kludd’s jealousy has terrible consequences-causing both owlets to fall from their treetop home and right into the talons of the Pure Ones. Now it is up to Soren to make a daring escape with the help of other brave young owls. Together they soar across the sea and through the mist to find the Great Tree, home of the legendary Guardians of Ga’Hoole-Soren’s only hope of defeating the Pure Ones and saving the owl kingdoms.

Here is what Zack and Debbie had to say on their 3D process and upcoming movies...

Zack: "We did 3D from the very beginning on this. The very first images were all…we put into 3D."

Debbie: "Were made on 3D, not converted."

Zack: "We made this movie with the intent of 3D though I’m doing them exactly at the same time, so it’s different. Like for instance, the difference is when we were working on “Guardians” I said okay, I want because it’s an owl world the movie takes place at night, right? 90%. And so if we were shooting the movie in an owl world with owl cameras, the film would have a very shallow depth of field because we’d be shooting at night. We wouldn’t have a lot of light. So everything would be like a 1-3 or like a 1-9 like super skinny focus. And so that was a thing that I was like okay, that’s the mandate. Do that, always. And we built a big camera bible. It has all these like rules like things you could do and couldn’t do. Like I didn’t want…all the flying shots had to look like they were basically being photographed from some kind of a rig. Like another flying…like an owl with a camera on his back or I don’t know how…I was very militant about that stuff. When you go to 3D, the shallow focus is a bit of a thing, right? So there’s a little bit of a trade-off because most 3D movies everything’s in focus. That’s how you get the depth, right because the foreground is jumping out from the background. But if you, for example, at that shot where the feather comes at you at the very end of the trailer, the feather comes at you and the focus goes to it and the background goes out of focus but the feather really feels like it’s out. Those are the kinds of things that we…that’s not intuitive to 3D to do big out of focus playing with the feather or with an object popping out of the out of focus. So there was a lot of R&D that we worked on to try and get that to work throughout the entire film. And in some cases in the 3D version, the focus actually had to be extended as opposed to the 2D version of the movie we kept it skinny but because it’s all done on the computer the focus is applied. So everything is in focus, we apply the focus later. And so in 3D it’s actually easier to stretch that because the elements are all there and they’re all in focus. So there was a bit of a process that went on to find the right…without me saying like…because I won’t give it up entirely. I’m like no, I don’t want the whole thing in focus. But I do appreciate that for the 3D to work better, more focus is required. But those are the kind of conversations we had and have been having in the process to sort of understand the best way to render the 3D. Now, that said, and I think that when you actually watch the trailer you can see how clean the 3D is, it’s like super clean. Now the interesting thing is, we’re going to be converting “Sucker Punch” to 3D, so it’s like a different process. Although I feel like actually having done “Guardians”, I have a really good sensibility at this point to be able to manage that conversion process without it just being a gimmick that we slap on top of the movie."

Debbie: "And because of the way shooting a lot of the things against green-screen and when we have separate elements to play with, it gives us…it’s kind of different than if it’s just a norm…like kind of I say normal but like a film that’s just not shot that way. Because we can play with these elements more. We have them already isolated. It gives us more latitude."

Zack wraps up by revealing both movies WILL be at Comicon! Awesome. I am really looking forward to Xerxes too (Events that take place about 10 years prior to the movie 300). Thanks to Collider for the interview and be sure to catch the rest of it right here.

Xerxes To Rain Arrows On Leonidas In 3D?

Jim here. Juicy rumor here directly from 300's lion's mouth, Zack Snyder. Apparently he has seen about 10 minutes of his movie 300 converted to 3D and it was enough to convince him to do the same for LEGENDS OF THE GUARDIANS.

But for this post anyway, what Snyder said next strikes a chord: "I haven't seen the whole movie (300) but they're talking about doing the whole movie. I saw maybe like a ten-minute section that they'd just done. By the way, they did an amazing job. The way we shot it actually, it's almost like a 3D movie anyway, so it really lends itself to that. There is a difference. If you look at the trailer for GUARDIANS, it's clearly a true 3D movie, it's just whistle clean, all of the layers, all of the elements are tack sharp, it's crazy. So there is a difference, but I feel like the cool thing about "Sucker Punch" - it's exactly like Alan (Horn) said, "If you want a 3D experience with that movie, it will be there and it will be awesome. If you want to see it in 2D, it will be there as well."

Well I have always wanted to see 300 in 3D - along with THE MATRIX and STAR WARS. Looks like stage one of my master plan may be closer than I thought! What do you think? Want to see some Spartans kicking butt in 3D? :-)

Source: Comingsoon

First Look: LEGEND OF THE GUARDIANS

Jim here. Got a first look at LEGENDS OF THE GUARDIANS for you from Warner Bros courtesy of USA Today and the trailer from Yahoo.

I haven't gotten a good read on this movie yet. We know director Zack Snyder can make very decent movies (300, WATCHMEN, DAWN OF THE DEAD) but what can he do with a children's property? I think visually, the movie will be stunning (and the photos and trailer underscore this for me).

From USA TODAY: The film, based on the first three books of Kathryn Lasky's series, follows Soren (voiced by Jim Sturgess), a young barn owl who is kidnapped by the owls of the St. Aegolius Academy for Orphaned Owls, or St. Aggie's. The academy is supposed to be an orphanage, but instead it brainwashes its pupils into becoming soldiers who will ultimately clash with the wise, peaceful owls of Ga'Hoole.

Though the series was aimed at young adults, adult and historical themes run throughout the books. In one book, a speech is based on a World War II speech by Winston Churchill. In two others, battles are based on the Normandy Invasion and the ancient Battle of Thermopylae (which happens to be the subject of GUARDIANS' director Snyder's 2007 smash 300.)

I like what I see so far but I am wondering how the 3D will look. I hope it is subtle. Could be magical to watch - especially for kids.