SIN CITY

I guess I don't really need to gush about how much I love Frank Miller stuff -- and how his stuff just has the right balance of darkness, grit, and captures so deftly how human emotion can twist situations

It wasn't necessarily full of A-list acting talent -- but it was filled with the right casting decisions top to bottom -- Marv was really brought to life by Mickey Rourke, Reverend Roark by Rutger Hauer, Old Man by Bruce Willis ... it was just awesome -- I was really impressed by Benicio Del Toro as Jack the Dirty Cop, he always does so well when he sells out, this is no exception

It was really cool how the cinematography captured the comic concept of framing -- I have never seen it done so well -- I guess it's because other comics based films are more films than presentations of comic style

For example, the jail shot where Old Man was in the fetal position and the bars extended out to the frame -- classic comic framing -- or the depiction of the heavy rain and the highway when Old Man went out to look for Junior -- or the axe in the head stop pause centered shot when Marv was clobbering everyone -- just great

The whole black and white with splashes of color is captured so well that it is seamless in presentation -- I was wondering if it would be traditional B&W -- but instead it looked like B&W color wash much like white paper and ink -- cool

I think one can see how this source material gave some ideas to both RobRod and Q -- notable is the nice use of non-linear, context based story telling where the same characters appear in each scene or situation but contextually differently in terms of their role in the story

The material was dark and uncompromising, the violence made sense in the comic book sense, the situations were well, Milleresque

I think that overall, if you are a comic book fan, this one is about as close to the Grail of comic book movies -- if one is not, the stories are compelling enough to hold your interest, even if some of the style might be a bit overwhelming to initially absorb

That's all -- highly recommended.