What Was I Thinking?

It was a very long day at the office today, and I was an hour late getting home. After taking time to make enough chicken salad to last several days, I headed to the sofa to veg out on television for a couple of hours. Tonight became movie night, and did I ever pick a couple of winners!

The first was a sick update of Psycho entitled Vacancy. One word title, motel out in the middle of nowhere, desk clerk with issues, late night arrival, no other occupants - you get the idea. This new movie differed from the original in that it didn't feature a Tony Perkins character with a domineering, dead mother. The desk clerk in this one booked people into the "honeymoon suite" and then he and his mechanic buddy would paint their faces and murder the guests. Of course, there was a kinky twist to the killings. The killers had cameras hidden throughout the room in order to make and sell snuff films. Although the movie was bloody awful in its inception, it did offer quite a bit of true Hitchcockian suspense. It was hard to watch, and even harder not to watch! (Watch out! He's in the room with you! Oh, no!)

The next movie on the agenda was the relatively recent 300. This was the story of the Spartan King Leonidas and his valiant stand against the Persian army of King Xerxes at Thermopolae. While the battle itself did occur, it was presented as more of a sweeping Homeric epic than as a military action. The vistas of golden wheat fields, rugged mountains, stormy summer nights, and clashing armies were stunning, but it was the almost constant arterial sprays that really gave the film its color. I will watch this movie again, and when I do my goal will be to tally the battlefield beheadings! Arms and legs were also whacked off with wild abandon, but it was the heads that really rolled! It was two hours of bloody good fun - Sweeney Todd on steroids!

Sleep well, America. I know that I will!