So, the original plan was to hit the 8:10pm showing of 300 with the boys, down in Columbia, but lady luck took a giant dump in my cornflakes and that show (and ONLY that show) was sold out. So, the Halls and I instead headed through some, ah, fascinating neighborhoods in Baltimore, to catch the film at the Senator. In some ways, this worked out well, as this was my first time at that venerable theater and it was quite awesome! It's rich with personality, this place, and it's pretty damn beautiful. I'm a fan of deco as it is, so the Senator and I get along quite well together. On top of that, the Senator has an old school giant screen which makes me think it might be full on 70mm and let me tell you, watching 300 at that size is remarkable.
As for 300? Imagine that some laughing, demented German shoved a titanium needle into your eye and sucked out every image of every badass moment you'd ever seen. He then mixed this vitreous secretion with the blood of the heroic fallen and injected the new formula into your spine. It was that sort of over-the-top unapologetic awesome. Someone on rpg.net once said that they could make a movie that was 2 hours of some dude walking out of a fire in slow motion and rpg.net posters would be happy. 300 looks at the guy walking out of the fire and roars, "Are you some kind of PANSY?" 300 is that guy charging naked into the fire, entering a sudden moment of slow-motion, and then frozen so you can writhe decadently in the hot oil of awesomeness, before accelerating like some kind of manmeat bullet train into the consuming flames. I don't know if it's a little weird that the manliest movie of all time is simultaneously filled with lots of nearly (and sometimes actually) naked men, but hey, I'm comfortable enough with it.
Jay, a friend of ours in Edmonton, thoughtfully made two posters to invite people to 300, and sought to cover all bases. These things were too brilliant not to share, and so I give them to you here.
We ended our evening by heading over to the
Paper Moon Diner for a much needed dinner. None of us had really had much to eat and, though the adrenaline from the AWESOMENESS INJECTION we had had before (see above) was tiding us over, we knew we were going to crash. Talk of crashing and chemical help had led one of us to a hazy memory of some magical diner. GPS turned the soft-focus memory into hard reality and we were off. Much to my surprise, we discovered that the Paper Moon was like the demented, cheerful, adorable love child of Tim Burton and Roal Dahl. Toys and dolls and action figures festoon the walls and ceiling in really fascinatingly bizarre ways, while mannequins are arranged in disturbing little set pieces. The food was diner food - nothing extraordinary, no complaints. The service was fun, and they do this hippy commie pinko tipping thing where they only staff the place with 5 servers or so and they all serve all tables, grabbing things for people when it's needed. As a result, they all share all the tips. I really dug that system, actually. Anyway, the diner caters to the Hopkins crowd and is 24/7 and is going to get more than a few return visits from me, let me tell you. Oh! And it looks like the same people who own the Paper Moon own Ixia, too. That'd explain their slavish devotion to theme and aesthetic.
