300? Yes! Top 100? No.

Frank Miller's latest journey to the silver screen (this time only as writer of source material and producer) was another successful one. 300 featured the kind of visceral action I expect from Miller, Rodriguez, and Tarantino. The film debuted with what may be the largest March box office ever, and the third-best all-time for an R-rated film.

The story was good enough, and I predict the start-and-stop slow-mo fight scenes we will see again. The lighting was weird throughout, with darkened sepia tones even in broad daylight. The only natural lighting that appeared in the film was a night sequence lit by campfire.

If you happen to be a fan of nipples, especially the female variety (I am) or abdominal muscles of the male variety (I am not) then you will have things to watch for in this film. The black blood reminded me of the olden days when Wolvie would stick his claws through somebody, and the blood would be black because of the Comics Code.

I checked out a historical version of the Battle of Thermopylae, and the movie was surprisingly accurate. Famous quotes like "Come get them" and "We will fight in the shade" are correct. There was a traitor who gave up the hidden pass. (His name is synonymous with traitor in Greece, their Benedict Arnold). The Persian army had trouble fighting the second day due to the piles of bodies (not unusual, really). The terrain was accurate.

One more thing, a stickler for me: Beheadings provide an absolute fountain of blood. In an advanced Spanish class in high school, we read foreign magazines, and one showed a photo of an actual beheading. Imagine your shower head turned on full force, it was like that. So the pitiful squirts from the beheadings in this film struck me as anemic.