“Quick recap of theater movies first. I saw Your Highness yesterday and Paul today. I knew lil about Your Highness, but James Franco was all I needed to put it on my list. Conceptually (medieval fantasy stoner comedy) it worked surprisingly well. It was really creative, but I didnt find it particularly funny. Paul was geeky goodness. I loved some of the more subtle references, and the cast was fantastic.
That’s done. Now, Sin City. Few movies have awed me as much as this one did on first viewing. When this was released, I was at the point in my movie afficionado-ness where I knew I loved my films gory and messed up, and since I hadn’t seen too many, I ate up anything I could get my hands on. All I knew about this film going in was that there was some promise of action, and Elijah Wood was in it. Jesus \m/ I was totally blown away.
There’s no arguing that the visual for this movie is just amazing. I wasnt familiar with Robert Rodriguez when I first saw this, but goddam I recognized his genius. This has to be the best graphic novel adaptation to come outta Hollywood. Rodriguez actually used frames from the books as his story boards. I loved seeing images like this or this or this that compare shots in the movie to frames in the book. Beautiful.
Also, phenominal cast. Elijah Wood is what drew me. I cant recall if I knew Nick Stahl was in this beforehand, but I do adore that boy as well. Same for Josh Hartnett. And I got nothing but respect for Bruce Willis. Brittany Murphy (*tear*) had been a fave of my for a while as well. This film is also what got me okay with Jessica Alba and Rosario Dawson, who’d previously just rubbed me wrong for some reason. That’s also true for Benicio Del Toro. Then there’s the actors for whom this was my first introduction: Clive Owen and Mickey Rourke. Even now, Im IMDB-ing the cast just kinda in awe of all the big names it contains.
Im getting really hungry which is distracting me.
Sin City is also responsible for me reading graphic novels. While I read the occasional comic book growing up, I dont think Id ever attacked a graphic novel before. Now, on average, I read one about every six months or so. Maybe less. Its tough to tell cause sometimes I’ll read a couple soon after each other, then wont read another for a looong time.”