I saw The Nativity Story last weekend. Good movie-- believable sets, clothing, fantastic music that interwove traditional Christmas carols into the film's score. But too much comic relief-- as Hollywood is wont to do --in the form of three wise men from the east. My only gripe, and it's relatively small, is the wise men showing up the night of Jesus' birth, as opposed to days or weeks later.

Today I am going to see Mel Gibson's Apocalypto. I will go from last week's bible-based film to this week's glimpse into the evils of paganism and human sacrifice.

One film I am looking forward to is an adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel, 300, due out this coming March, which tells the story of 300 Spartans fending off 1 million persians at the Battle of Thermopylae. I watched a trailer online yesterday, and was magnificently impressed. It had the look and feel of a cross-pollination between a Maxwell Parrish painting, the written works of JRR Tolkien, and a dash of Robert E. Howard. The film had a creaminess to its texture, as though even dry stone and bleached skulls had the look of oiled silk.