St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page E001

1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 I A Everyday FRIDAY MARCH 9, 2007 SECTION PAGE: E01PD1EV0309 MOVIE REVIEWS INSIDE E3 Blog lesson Have something to say. A search engine called Technorati tells us that there are more than 55 million Web logs blogs begging for our attention in cyberspace. But a recent study by Gartner Research estimates that more than 200 million blogs have been abandoned by their disinterested owners. Why? Because after the novelty of an online diary wears off, people who spend all their time on computers don't have much to say. Yet at the risk of becoming another casualty on the information superhighway, I hereby inaugurate a blog I'll be calling Joe's Movie Lounge.

The do-it-yourself spirit came over me last weekend at the annual Film Festival in Columbia, Mo. In just four years, has become one of the best documentary lm fests around. What makes it so hip isn't just that it attracts world-class directors to the University of Missouri but that it invites the lmmak- ers to mingle with the locals. It's a great trade-off. The lmmakers get to drink, dance and debate with idealistic young people, and students learn how new technologies can enable anyone to be a director.

Case in point: Director Eric Zala and producer Chris Strompolos spent the entirety of their teen years lming a shot-for-shot remake of of the Lost in Biloxi, Miss. More than a dozen years later, the lm was screened at a festival in Austin, Texas. Now it has played across the country, including last Sunday at the Blue Note in Columbia, where a packed house applauded the now-grown lmmakers for their low-budget resourcefulness and big-hearted dedication. Of course, few of us have the wherewithal to make a feature-length lm but, at even micromov- ies get a turn in the spotlight. One of the highlights of the festival is the faux game show in which two-minute movies are screened for a panel of professional directors, who must decide whether the lms are true documentaries or fabrications.

tting a college town, the diverse subject matter ranged from a bearded transsexual to hallucinogenic owers to a mysterious vandalizing of a Barry Manilow album cover. The bemused panelists were Marco Williams, whose lm documents the violent expulsion of blacks from several middle-American towns a century ago; Anne Sunderg, whose Darfur lm Devil Came on is the sort of thing Jerry Seinfeld must have had in mind at the Oscar telecast when he dismissed documentaries as and Gary Burns, whose satirical searches in vain for the soul of the suburbs. In a sociologist notes that new suburban houses tend to have their two-car garages thrusting out toward the sidewalk and their picture windows pointed toward the TALKING PICTURES JOE WILLIAMS At the Film Festival, technology sets the spirit free The return of Last year, the Moolah Theatre hosted the rst St. Louis Lebowskifest, celebrating Big a cult comedy about an easygoing bowler dude (Jeff Bridges) who runs afoul of some misinformed kidnappers. This year, the party has been renamed the St.

Louis Urban Achievers Festival and is moving to the temple of tenpins the International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame at 111 Stadium Plaza in downtown St. Louis tonight at 7:30. The festivities include a continuous screening of Big live music, bowling, beer and white Russians (the drink, if not the ethnic group). Attendees dressed as characters from the lm will be eligible for prizes. Tickets are $25 at the door and will radio station KDHX (88.1 FM), the Make-a-Wish Foundation, Veterans for Peace, the Young Breast Cancer Program at Washington University and St.

Louis Artworks. For more information, go to www.thelebowskifoundation. com. McQueen Iconic actor Steve McQueen was known around the world, but his roots were in central Missouri. On March 24 and 25, his hometown of Slater will celebrate what would have been his 77th birthday.

Events will include a lm retrospective, a motorcycle and vintage car show, and recollections from friends and family, including his widow, Barbara McQueen. The quintessentially cool star of and Great Steve McQueen died in 1980. For more information, go to www. cityofslater.com. BY JOE WILLIAMS MOVIE DIGEST Days of Glory Glastonbury Miss Potter A- The Ultimate Gift PLEASE SEE WILLIAMS E5 By Joe Williams POST-DISPATCH FILM CRITIC rank Miller is the biggest name in American comic books or graphic novels, as his fans call them.

But for the author of such pulpy, contemporary tales as and Dark the historical epic must have been a risky venture. It recounts the battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C., when 300 warriors from the city-state of Sparta faced a force of several hundred thousand Persians. To make it accessible to the video-game generation, Miller's book and now the movie based upon it turns history into a heavy-metal album cover, with muscular freedom ghters lopping the heads off of swarthy villains at a mountainous stronghold. Given the proclivities of its target audience, it's not surprising that the movie is morally confused. But this handsomely wrought artifact is also cient as an action movie, with sluggish pacing and overly familiar effects.

While individual frames are as carefully honed as a classical sculpture, the wheezy ideas and rusty ght sequences never come to life. Spartan warriors, we're told, are not only superior to the and boy of nearby Athens but also to Sparta's own clerics and politicians. So when an emissary arrives from Persia, King Leonidis (Gerard Butler, preposterously ripped) dispenses with diplomatic niceties and tosses the gentleman down a well. Not a good idea. Soon the army of the Persian king Xerxes is massed on Sparta's doorstep.

But Leonidis has a plan: He will lead his 300 ercest warriors to a chokepoint in the mountains Armed only with shields and hoary slogans about freedom, the Spartans repel wave after wave of Persians. Persia became modern-day Iran, and it is surely no accident that the are depicted as dark-skinned degenerates. Some of the Persian warriors resemble Japanese samurai, some seem to be wearing Afghan burqas and the ruthless King Xerxes is bejeweled and effeminate. So we're supposed to be thrilled when the foreigners are slain, in balletic slo-mo effects that have been handed down from Some of the imagery is undeniably beautiful, with the crimson robes and chiseled esh of the Spartans contrasted against the inky wash of the mountains, sea and sky. But if the modern Spartans in the audience have developed some brains and heart to complement their video- game muscles, they might be able to count the ways in which is ugly.

314-340-8344 REVIEW MOVIE Gory battle epic Grade: Rating: (for graphic battle sequences, sexuality and some nudity) Running time: 1:57 Bottom line: Computer-enhanced Grecian epic has good looks and gratuitous gore but not enough gusto. is closer to zero Persian troops fall as the Spartans advance. Warner Bros. Pictures King Leonidis ghts through the rst wave of Persians. 1 1 12:07:25 12:07:25.