Frank Miller's 300 and Sign Ramble

Originally, I wasn't much interested in Frank Miller's 300 being made into a feature film. I'm not much for the genre of 'ancient war' stuff, I guess. But now, with the style the film is being shot, lit, and processed; it's a whole different animal.

One of my fave film news sites, Cinematical, has a few posts about 300, here and a link to a comparison of panels-to-scenes on Solace in Cinema. This clearly is gonna be a hit at the box office. How much I dunno. I remember when Van Helsing was released how much hype it had around it. I also remember being very nonplussed by everything about it before I'd even seen it. And that had a production budget of $170 million.

I'd guess that when 300 comes out to theaters, it will prolly get into the top 25 releases of all time pretty easily; grossing nothing less than $70-75 mil opening weekend.

Okay, onto a pretty funny realistic (but fake!) sign that appeared in Los Angeles, this is from BoingBoing!. Now that got me to thinking, and I thunk... Now, I may not be a mental giant... but some signs seem about as dumb as a bag o' hammers.

At my gym (24 Hour Fitness), there is a plentitude of comedic material. I know athletes may not be known for their intellectual acuity (hey! it's not easy memorizing a football playbook- even if it's been reduced to the lowest denominators of Tic-Tac-Toe: "x's" and "o's"), but this is ridiculous.

At the jacuzzi there are multiple signs stating: "Shaving is not permitted in the jacuzzi." okay...... EWWWwwwWWWww!

Also, in the locker room is something like: "Be suspicious of people loitering around lockers." Yeah, and there are only, like, 4 tv's in there to help to prevent people from sitting on the benches and "loitering."

Another is something like: "Do not leave possessions unattended." Oh, it helps that these are on the inside of the locker stall doors... Ummm, isn't that why you're locking your things up?

In the locker room, there are signs stating: "Do not leave valuables in lockers." Ummm, isn't that what they're for?

Well, there you have it. Cheers.

image credits: Frank Miller's 300 from trailer at apple.com, total crisis sign from senselessvenndiagrams.com.