Deliberate Ambiguity

Breakfast @ Tiffany's

One of my new favorite movies that requires no lengthy analysis.  Just watch it and don't be influenced by Deep Blue Something.  Warning: tears possible.

You know what's wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You're chicken, you've got no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and say, "Okay, life's a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness." You call yourself a free spirit, a "wild thing," and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.   --Paul Varjak

I still don't understand why this movie is Breakfast at Tiffany's.  The actual store is Tiffany & Co. 

300: New Propoganda from Karl Rove?

Storyline of 300 (with comments): Sparta (America) is confronted by Xerxes [insert dictator] and his Persian (Middle Eastern) hordes (weapons of mass destruction) to pay tribute (we don't negotiate with terrorists) to Xerxes (you shall have no other gods before me) and the Persian Empire (OPEC). Though highly unpopular (Bush's approval rating) in Sparta (DC), rejected by both the oracle (the Episcopals) and the council (Democratic Senate), Leonidas (GW) gathers (intimidates) a band of soldiers (US Armed Forces), against (Patriot Act) the laws (constitution) of the country (Texas), and sets out (Air Force 1) on his own (would that we were so lucky). On the way (amassing forces in the Persian Gulf), the 300 run into Greeks (Europeans) from other cities (England, Poland, et al.) who want to join (support) the Spartan forces. Of course, Leonidas notes (State of the Union) brought real (uneducated) men (career soldiers) while the boy-loving (fags) Greeks brought educated (real) part-time soldiers (people with degrees). Let them come along if they like, but this is a battle for real men.

The rest is a familiar set of supporting dichotomies: the band of 300 fights valiantly against the massive armies of Xerxes. Leonidas' troops fight voluntarily as free men; the Persians are slaves. The Spartans have ripped bodies; the Persians are dark and/or disfigured. Leonidas is a calm, benevolent monarch willing to die for his "way of life"; Xerxes is an arrogant, cruel, despot who lavishes himself with obscene luxury. Even worse than 300's patriotic overtones are the cultural undertones: live your life like a vigilant, warlike Spartan, or you will lose your democracy, your life, and your morality. *barf*
A personal positive outcome from this movie is that I will continue to go to poorly rated movies. The quotes from reviews of this movie are outstanding. For example, from the Village Voice:

Delicacies of dismemberment aside, 300 is notable for its outrageous sexual confusion. Here stands the Spartan king Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and his 299 buddies in nothing but leather man-panties and oiled torsos, clutching a variety of phalluses they seek to thrust in the bodies of their foes by trapping them in a small, rectum-like mountain passage called the "gates of hell(o!)" Yonder rises the Persian menace, led by the slinky, mascara'd Xerxes. When he's not flaring his nostrils at Leonidas and demanding he kneel down before his, uh, majesty, this flamboyantly pierced crypto-transsexual lounges on chinchilla throw pillows amidst a rump-shaking orgy of disfigured lesbians.

Please, please, even though the above endorsements are amusing, spend your money elsewhere.