| About 300 |
[20 Mar 2007|08:04pm] |
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mood |
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THE STORY:
You may already have known the story through the trailer. It's basically about a warrior class of buffed up Greeks -- the Spartans -- protecting their turf from the invading hordes of Persians (and you will see that they are truly hordes). The title is about the number of warriors who comprised the first wave. The 300 are the valiant souls who attempted to ward off the invaders. This first wave is headed by King Leonidas who has a fondness for grandstanding.
It's basically what you expect in a movie like this. There are some twists and turns, but somehow, they just add filler to the main story and subtly propels it to the ending (or just to make Lena Headey do something besides be the token MILF hottie in the movie). But you're not here to see the twists and turns, now do we? Rest assured, this movie is hardly soap opera. It's as straightforward as I hope it would be.
THE GOOD:
Amazing dramatic visuals! As the movie is based on a highly regarded comic book by Frank Miller, the producers took great lengths to copy the gritty texture of the comics. The main draw here is the awesome level of proficiency in the CGI to create an environment that is just raw and unyielding as the characters in the movie. It reminds me of Ridley Scott's
Gladiator. But in here, there is more emphasis on creating a mood that is highly stylized. The eye candy here is just amazing. The cloud of arrows that rain down on them, the fight scene with the rhinocerus, and even the ending which oddly reminds me of Christ's Crucifixion)
Another part that people will appreciate are the fight scenes. The Spartans is a warrior clan that has perfected the art of war. They have prepared their entire lives to have something like this (as shown in the exposition at the beginning when Leonidas was still a boy), and that fact is shown extremely well in the movie. There is skill and grace in the Spartans' movements.
The fight scenes may be quite brutal and gory, but they are done without being pandering on it too much. The splatter is even conservative -- just small gouts of blood squirting every time a blade or an arrow pierces skin. I also like the way the director paced the action sequences slowly so that things slowly escalates further until it reaches into desperation. Even though I'm usually annoyed with slow-motion in action movies because it's been done to death. Slo-mo is used here to show strength and grace as the Spartans slaughter their opponents.
Some people might also be off-putting to the Spartan warrior costumes or lack of it. Thankfully for the prudish, there's no homoeroticism in sight here. Even though the Spartans wear nothing more than a leather version of Jockey shorts, thong sandals and a cape, they are hardly sexualized. You tend to see beyond the skin as the story carries you. Though I am distracted by the bulging washboard abs in all of the actors. I wonder how long they needed to get those. They look very intimidating, which is probably the point why they are like that.
For the men, I am happy to note that Lena Heady gets to show off her perky tits in the sex scene. Woohoo! And for the women, let's just say they will have their fill of Gerard Butler and his bunch.
Special mentionables are the creatures that the Persians use. They remind me of the ones in the last two installments of LOTR. The rhino fight sequence is already worth the price of admission. There's also these ogres who also reminded me too much of the ogre in The Fellowship of the Ring. And some odd characters, like the executioner who's arms are razor sharp and ready to decapitate. Lots of decapitations happening in this movie. Oh, the Persian King Xerxes is super creepy!!!
THE BAD:
There are some drawn out scenes where Butler and some other characters blabber on and on in certain parts of the movie. It tends to cut off the momentuum of the movie. The last few minutes was also a bummer as one of the surviving Spartans talk about the legacy of "300". By that time, I was no longer listening.
The final act is a bit of a letdown. When I thought the Spartans had something up their sleeve and do an A-Team, they didn't and fell flat on their faces.
And why do Spartans speak like they are in a Shakespearean play? The English accent just sounds odd to me.
The more I watch the movie, the more I read into it as slight propaganda. Is this movie an unintentional parable of West resisting the East? You get lost in context why the Persians are doing what they're doing. I am sure though that the producers didn't make a National Geographic documentary, but the motivation here is just black and white. People from the East are portrayed as deplorable, debauched, hideous and ugly. What's more the movie seems to villify the ways of the East. There is almost a sense of disgust of Eastern culture here. The harems filled with disfigured women but with curvaceous bodies. The use of bombs by the Persians are seen by the Spartans as sissy tactics. And that all in all, people from the East cannot be trusted and should just be killed. And you compare them to the Spartans, who are portrayed nothing less than virtuous Puritans. Even though you know, there is also something wrong in their culture too.
WATCH IT OR WAIT FOR IT ON DVD:
Watch it and then buy the DVD! :-)
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| Been a long time |
[12 Mar 2004|02:45am] |
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mood |
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Ok so I know it has been a long time since I updated but to be honest there are a lot of reasons why I haven't. I can make the excuse and say that law school has been keeping me busy and to be honest it has but really it has to do witht the fact that I thought no one cares. I just finished hanging out with my friend tonight and she said she missed me updating my journal so you know what, I am going to do it more often now. Not so much for other people but for myself. However if anyone does like what I say please email or IM or just contact me. I love human contact.
So what has been going on in my life you ask. Well nothing really. My god at has been the most boring 6 months ever. I am still single (no dates what so ever) and I am still in law school. However, I graduate in May and now I have like 3 papers I have to write before I graduate. All three have to be over 40 pages so I am freakin out a little. Plus I have to start planning on my move back home to LA. That is really the only thing that is keeping me going. I just came home from a spring break trip to Las Vegas where I won $600 dollars. I will explain how I did it in the next journal. Other than that I have been snowboarding at least twice a week. I am so sad that the season is comingn to an end here in the east coast. I am not nearly done yet snowboarding but I will have to stop for a while. I hope that there is at least one mountain open when I move back home. Other than that everything is pretty normal. I am just sick of being single. But good things come to those who wait.
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| Every one should do this |
[25 Jul 2003|07:42pm] |
CD BOYCOTT
In response to the RIAA targetting individual users of programs such as Kazaa and LimeWire, a boycott of CD purchases seems appropriate.
For the next month, or more, don't buy any new CDs.
If you agree with this initiative, please copy it to your own journal.
The RIAA has trounced consumer rights for decades. Why should we continue to support such a corrupt institution?
CD BOYCOTT
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| Classes are getting tough |
[16 Jul 2003|06:17pm] |
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As the summer comes closer to being done (thank god) i have to start studying for my Wills, Trust, and Estates final. I feel pretty good about this class so far. I am not sure how it will go just yet. My Islamic law classes is the bain in my existence. I have to write a 40 page paper in this class. It wouldn't be so bad except that I just do not understand some of the Arabic words at times. That will make it tough for me to write the paper.
So I was feeling pretty happy today that I decided to take some pics. You can chek it on my web page but I am posting a preview right now so to anyone who actually reads my journal please tell me what you think.
Sorry for the crosspost.
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| Classes are getting tough |
[16 Jul 2003|06:10pm] |
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As the summer comes closer to being done (thank god) i have to start studying for my Wills, Trust, and Estates final. I feel pretty good about this class so far. I am not sure how it will go just yet. My Islamic law classes is the bain in my existence. I have to write a 40 page paper in this class. It wouldn't be so bad except that I just do not understand some of the Arabic words at times. That will make it tough for me to write the paper.
So I was feeling pretty happy today that I decided to take some pics. You can chek it on my web page but I am posting a preview right now so to anyone who actually reads my journal please tell me what you think.
<img src="http://www.angelfire.com/alt/ashleygurl/images/Pictures/July8.jpg
In a skirt" /
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| Finally a update |
[01 Jul 2003|12:41am] |
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mood |
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 mellow |
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Well it has been a while since I have updated. I haven't droped off the face of the earth just yet. The reason why I haven't posted in a while is because I have been in summer classes and work. When I get home, I am so tired that all I feel like doing is going to sleep. Too bad I do not get paid from my job. It is a free internship with a judge here in DC. All I do is write orders of the court. It is good legal work. It really has been helping with my legal research and writing. I do not think I need that much work on it but it has been helping a lot.
I also have been broke for a while. That has sucked so much. I couldn't even afford food. I had to eat romin-noodles for like a month. But it has finally worked out for me. I have money again!!!! The first thing I bought was the new Harry Potter book. IT WAS AWESOME!!!! I highly recommend it to all those who haven't bought it just yet. Other than that my life has been quiet boring. I will be adding some new pics of myself soon though. Well see what people think about those.
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| New shirt |
[03 Jun 2003|04:26am] |
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mood |
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 geeky |
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Well nothing really new I just wanted to post a pic of my new shirt that I love so much. Nothing beats an old school Atari game system :)
[ Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<img [...] 408">') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.] Well nothing really new I just wanted to post a pic of my new shirt that I love so much. Nothing beats an old school Atari game system :) <img src="http://www.angelfire.com/alt/ashleygurl/images/Pictures/At_home_2.jpg" alt="Atari height="408" width="436" /> |
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| Summer classes |
[02 Jun 2003|04:20pm] |
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mood |
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 bitchy |
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Today I start summer classes for school. Who would think that with summer come freedom from school? I guess on the bright side I could be working a full time job and that would make it really hard for me to have any free time. But lets be honest I have a lot of free time and I do not even know what to do with it most of the time. Yeah I guess you could say that most of the time I am bored and I do not even know what to do with my time. I guess I could be working a real job. Using my soon to have legal degree for money but to that just seems to bore that crap out of me. Don't get me wrong I can't wait to be a lawyer I just do not want to start now. I figure by the time I turn 25 I will be working for at least the next 30 or more years. I might as well enjoy myself now before I am doing the same old shit for the next 30 or more years. I do not know how people can do the same thing for the next 30 years. I personally wish I could find something that would make me happy as a career. PROSNOWBOARDING!!! Now that would be rad, the problem is that I am not good enough to go pro and at the same time I really do not want to live in a ski town. Hopefully when I move back to LA I can go every weekend during the winter or more for that fact. I will just have to cross my fingers. But that is just wishful dreaming right now as that it is the summer and winter is way to far away.
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| Why can't it be winter????? |
[28 May 2003|03:35am] |
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mood |
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bitchy |
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So here it is early in the morning or late at night what ever way you want to put it and all I want to do it go to sleep but I can't. To make matters worse I have class tomorrow. Oh yeah that's right I have class. Who ever thinks that school would be done after regular semester is wrong. Due to me not being able to find a paying job I have decided to take classes. Well I really did not have a choice as that in order to graduate next spring I need six more credits than I would normally take during the school year. So hello Wills, Trusts, and Estates and Feminist Juriprudence. The second class sounds really cool though since I consider myself a feminist.
Usually during the school year I pind my time thinking of ways I can skip school and go snowboarding. Once later October/early November hits I usually skip every Thurusday and go boading for the weekend. But now it is the summer. What the hell am I going to do for fun in the summer. There are but so many times you can look at fucking monuments. I really need the winter.
Yeah so I am from LA and it is warm there all the time. So it is not that I am against warm weather, in fact I hate cold weather. I just love snow. Back home I could drive to Big Bear and Snow Summit in less than 2 hours. Great conditions, awesome runs, and a nice snowboard park. Then it was back to LA and the 65 degree weather. Ok I will stop my bitiching but I am just so bumed. I hate the summer. Why can't it be winter?
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| Back from the beach |
[27 May 2003|05:04pm] |
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mood |
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 exhausted |
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So techinically the summer has begun yet it is still cold here in DC. That just does not make sense. Not that I am complaining since I love cold weather. I mean lets face it I am a snowboard chick. my problem is that if it is going to get warm I want it to happen already so it can get back to winter. That is all that I am saying.
My bitching stems from the fact that I went to the beach this weekend hoping to get into the water and shit like that, but instead it was freezing cold ass water. That really pisses me off like no other. Oh well. I did have some fun this weekend though. I spent most of my time dressed which is a first for me. I went out to a few place but all by myself. I went to the mall once and then I went looking at the monuments. I figured that I will only be here for another year so I might as well go visit them now before it is too late. The cool thing about the monuments this weekend is that it was the weekend of rolling thunder. For those who do not know what that is, it was a bunch of Vietnam vets who come to town on their Harleys and protest for veteran rights. So even if I wasn't that passable no one was paying attention to me as they were paying attention to them.
In other news I am trying this posting a pic in my journal thing again. I am going to see if it works. I am pretty sure it will not so if I fuck it up, can someone please tell me what I am doing wrong?
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| Why do I stay up so late |
[20 May 2003|02:05am] |
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mood |
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 gloomy |
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here it is another late night but unlike last night I have no one to talk too. I am so bored. I wish someone would talk to me. I really want some company. It is just how my life is when you really do not have anyone to talk too or real friends who actually give a shit.
well I do have friends but they are not really that understanding of people. If I were to tell them about my and my dressing, I am sure they would pretend to act cool but talk about me behind my back. Then they would stop hanging out with me. That may not be too bad of a thing but they are my only friends here and I really do like them. I just need more friends I think. That would make life easier. Especially if they knew about my dressing and were cool with it. More t-friends around my age and who live close to me would be ideal. I doubt that will happen though. So for now I am back to the crappy part of my life.
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| Early and I can't sleep |
[19 May 2003|05:26am] |
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 awake |
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Insomniac's of the world unite. It is 5:30am and while most people are getting up to go to work or something like that I am still awake. I really need to figure out a way to sleep at normal hours but I just can not do it. Oh well. Bright note is that I added pics to my web page finally. I am such a lazy person when it comes to updating it.
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| Another semester gone |
[19 May 2003|02:10am] |
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mood |
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 drained |
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I am finally done with finals. I am offically a third year law student. It feels so good to be writing again. I had to take some time off in order to study and get my shit done for it. So what has happened to me between now and then, well let see. For starters I am done with finals :). I have also seen a few movies. I highly recommend the Matrix Reloaded for all those who haven't seen it yet. I also went snowboarding up in Vermont. I think I wrote about that but I am not sure. It was so much fun. I have never been to Vermont before so it was really fun to go. It was so beautiful there. The snow was ok, kinda slushy but it was spring conditions so you just have to expect that. I mean how many people actually go snowboarding in late April anyway?
Bad news has just been creeping up on me this entire month. For starters I have only like 20 bucks to my name right now. My loan for the summer has not come in yet. I am not sure how I am going to pay bills once they come in. I hate being broke. I applied for a job at J Crew, but with taking classes this summer and working for a judge for free, I really do not want a third job but I need the money. Plus I can get some clothes discounts. I am crossing my fingers that I get that job. I also had to sale my Jeep this past week. I needed the money in order to pay rent. So now I am car-less for a while. I hate being poor. Thigs just can't seem to get better for me.
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| Oh so freaked out |
[30 Apr 2003|12:40am] |
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mood |
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I haven't posted in a while due to an approaching final. Corporations. The bain in my law school existence. I have never been more worried for an exam than this one. I am usually pretty good with exams as the knowledge some how filters into my brain as I sit in class but it has not helped me for this one.
On a brighter side, I went snowboarding last weekend up in Vermont. Gosh I love snowboarding. It is soo freeing. I feel as if there is no one there just me and the mountain. I wish winter was forever so I could snowboard more often. Now I have to wait 7 months until the next time I can go. That really sucks. I wish I could take a trip to South America this summer or New Zeland.
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| screw it |
[20 Apr 2003|02:13am] |
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mood |
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ok so never mind, it did not work. If anyone knows exactly how to add a pic to my journal entry I would be very happy if someone could tell me.
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| Ok, I figured it out |
[20 Apr 2003|02:02am] |
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mood |
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 accomplished |
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Ok so I am a dork. I figured out how to add a pic to my journal. So I am lame and every one can tell how lame I am later. But anyway, here is the pic.
<img src="http://http://www.strike9.com/file.aspx?path=/Ashleygurl/thumbnails/Ash04-10i.jpg/>
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| Added a new pic |
[20 Apr 2003|01:55am] |
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Ok so I add a new pic to my journal. I finally found a free web hosting site, thank god. The only problem is that I do not know how to make the picture appear in my journal. If anyone knows how to do that let me know? Well my day was actually really boring. I hated it. I hope sunday will be better.
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| So so bored |
[18 Apr 2003|08:27pm] |
It has been a crappy day here in the nations capitl. Raining all day and for some strange reason it was cold even though it was supposed to be in the winter. I really wish that it wasn't though. Ah well.
I am so bored right now. I guess I should be studying for my finals which are coming up in a week but I just really do not feel like studing right now. What really sucks is that I have two 4 credit classes which are really hard. I am not look forward to those test. If only there was some way for the information to just flow to my brain without me really having to do any work.
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| Web site is basically up |
[16 Apr 2003|06:06pm] |
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mood |
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 busy |
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I am almost done with my web site. I just need to add the pics page and then it should be done. However finals are coming up very soon. I have only one week left for reading and then it is finals. I really do not feel ready to take exams. I am so nervous especially for my evidence final. I am not sure how I will do on that exam.
Why do I not spend time studying before the exam? Oh well. So as soon as I get the pics up I will update the page.
In other news I am bored. I think I always get bored in the summer. I just hate the summer. I am a winter person. The ability to go snowboarding just about everyday puts such a great smile on my face. But in the summer what can you do? I think I will have to pick up surfing or something like that I am not sure.
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| Oh happiness |
[14 Apr 2003|07:27pm] |
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mood |
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 anxious |
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So it finally came today. I got a digital camera. I am so happy. Finally I can take some pics. I think will go ahead and do that today. I am not sure how they will come out since I do not have make up, but I will see how it works out. I think they should be fine but we shall see. I will post one once they come out tonight.
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