Arts

As you likely know by now, 300 trounced its opposition at the box office this weekend, topping $70 million in ticket sales and satisfying moviegoers yearning for a new cinematic blood fest. In that last regard, the highly stylized rendition of the comic book created by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley and based on the Battle of Thermopylae doesn’t disappoint.

A documentary about the first all-queer, all-woman punk band is going to feature a lot of frank talk about sexual politics. And because that band is San Francisco’s Tribe 8, whose performances regularly feature bare-chested band members, males from the crowd fellating strap-on dildos, and on-stage depictions of castration, the talk is going to get heated.

Inspired by the US military’s dumping of lethal toxinsinto Korea’s Han River, director and writer Bong Joon-Ho takes the scenario an evolutionary stepfurther by introducing an unwelcome byproduct of pollution — a giant mutated monster that eats people.