Santa Sangre might be my Irreversible. Even though from what I've heard of Irreversible, the subject matter is in no way similar.

Not even remotely similar. I pretty much regret seeing it, but I stuck it out as an endurance test (plus, I was at Harvard Film Archive; if I'd been at home, I might have turned it off). And what your friend said was correct in my experience of such things at the movies, and the fact that it's an actress who I've seen in other things - Monica Bellucci - somehow made it worth. The bludgeoning at the beginning is pretty close to unwatchable too. The film was interesting structurally, but definitely not worse the grind of watching it.

It was mostly the end of Santa Sangre that made a disturbing movie into something I really didn't want to think about anymore yet couldn't stop.

Though a much more watchable movie, The Prestige had a similar effect, and I find the ads for the DVDs chilling as a result. But I'll totally watch that again.

It was mostly the end of Santa Sangre that made a disturbing movie into something I really didn't want to think about anymore yet couldn't stop.

My memories are very dim, but when I try to recall the ending of SANTA SANGRE I can't remember specifics, just a feeling of both incredible sadness and something unaccountably touching.

At the end of the movie it's revealed that his mother has been dead the whole time (well, since the events that put him in the asylum). So he's been faking her aliveness up to and including her orders to kill and her emotional abuse of him.

It was no walk in the park up to that point, but the fuckedupness in the head quotient was raised dramatically for me with that reveal and as you note it was also sad and touching. Those things don't play well together in my brain.

At the end of the movie it's revealed that

There was also something about a girl, wasn't there? I think that's where the "touching" part came in, but as I said, my memories are fuzzy. The "sad" was from how damaged the guy was.

Saw 300 on Friday. Bought the t-shirt (I mean, it's got "Come and get them" in Greek on it, I had to). Decided that if you need somebody thrown, pushed, or backed off a cliff, you want the Spartans. Infants to elephants, they'll de-cliffistrate them all.

I thought the pacing was wonky, but I think that may be the only movie ever that namechecks the Battle of Plateia. And Butler was quite different as Leonidas (which they pronounced wrong in the movie) than as Beowulf, so that was nice.

One question: many people had told me the sex scene between Leonidas and his wife was really long and pornographic and over the top. Maybe I'm just jaded, but it was maybe 2 minutes long, a sequence of 4 fades, and showed a great deal less than your average rock video. Was it just that they showed nipple? Or did they cut the original sex scene?

Infants to elephants, they'll de-cliffistrate them all.

Oooh, "de-cliffistrate" - it even almost rhymes with defenestrate. Well coined, oh Scrappy.

Lotsa nipple in that movie, all told.

Well coined, oh Scrappy.

That's no Scrappy.

Was it just that they showed nipple? Or did they cut the original sex scene?

I suspect part of it was due to Butler being obviously if tastefully nude in the lead-up scene, with nary an L-shaped sheet in sight. Also, the high contrast close-up camerawork really underscored that yes, women actually do have pores and fine body hair, regardless of most movies' attempts to portray their skin as glassy-smooth.