Duh. Are you blind? You should probably be watching 300 right now, even if you’ve already seen it. I’ll warn you that there are a couple of boring parts, like where King Leonidas goes to consult the great (stupid) oracle and randomly sees some naked chick floating around, which I don’t really remember all that well. But the battle scenes that fill the rest of the movie are so sweet. Think of the typical war movie, and then picture a battle scene where you cut to a single slow-motion sequence of a Spartan hacking about a dozen guys in a row to tiny dead bits. It’s like accidentally slicing your hand off with a machete, but doing it on purpose just to see how wicked it looks. The only reason it didn’t get a perfect 5 is because the entire movie isn’t war scenes.

A look into the seedy underground of chop stock trading, Boiler Room is a dark, tense drama about a guy who gets caught up in one of the biggest and most unethical scams in our country today. Some of the terminology can be a bit hard to follow unless you’ve had experience with the stock market, but nonetheless it’s a fantastic thriller that does an unbelievable job of building tension from the start. Giovanni Ribisi plays the part to a tee as usual, and his solid and slightly eccentric demeanor is a great fit for his role as the main character of the film. Vin Diesel is also a much better actor than I would’ve given him credit for before seeing this one. A well-earned four.

If you can get past all the slapstick, there are some pretty good zingers in this Robin Williams flick. If you can possibly wreck yourself more or go to greater lengths than he does to keep your family from thinking you’re a bumbling fool, I’d like to see you try. With that element of physical comedy comes all the far-fetched and outlandish situations that could only happen in a movie to make a road trip as frustrating and dangerous as possible. Jeff Daniels also does a great job as a member of the supporting cast, and overall I’d have to say the film bested the low expectations I had going in. I think it’s a tough thing to do these days to have a movie rated PG be interesting enough for an adult audience but still entertaining for kids, and I think this one does a good job of pulling that off. It’s no blockbuster, but it does get 3-and-a-half flame points on our scale.