Apocalyptic story of the, uh, week
So the world didn't end on Tuesday. Big whoop for Hollywood. They're claiming that The Omen made $12,633,666 on opening day. But who knows, somebody somewhere might have pressed a button and averted an apocalypse. Hahaha. I can't remember which movie it was, or maybe it was a Buffy ep, but a group of people saved the world, and it was like... "the world could never know."
Maybe it was that guy Cat saw on the TTC who threw "hell money" at her. Apparently this dude climbed on the bus and started tossing around fake bills with skeletons and "BANK OF HELL" printed on them. Somebody should profile him.
You know, profiling Satan might be fun. Lots of conflict. Lots of scenes to reconstruct, like his fall from heaven. Only problem would be finding sources - I don't think God talks to the media.
Anyway, here are my spoilerific thoughts on X-Men: The Last Stand, or How Brett Ratner Pissed Off An Entire Fandom:
+ It was a decent action movie... better than, say, Rush Hour and Red Dragon (yes, I watched both of those). Ratner is improving, I guess, but watching his movie in the wake of Bryan Singer's X2 was a mistake. Slight disappointment --> giant letdown. I've wanted to see X-Cubed ever since I walked out of the theatre after X-Squared... I was so excited. Sigh.
+ Phoenix = Dark Willow, down to the veiny urge to keeeeeel. Wolverine should've thrown crayons at her. Although they didn't explain the Phoenix's motivations really well, I liked the red hair and the dress. The exploding people = the tripods zapping humans in War of the Worlds. But unlike the tripods, which left entire clothing catalogues in their wake, the Phoenix only left Wolverine his pants. Hee.
+ Beast and Angel were both heavily featured in promos, and Angel hardly got three lines... he basically stood around and epitomized the whole mutant movement = gay rights thing. Does anyone else think Ben Foster looks like a buff Tom Lenk? Shadowcat, another shadow of a character: "This is Ellen Page. She looks 12, and is Canadian." (The Canadians skate. How amusing.)
+ Sir Ian is on a roll. A making-bleh-movies-better roll. Time called him "the movie actor seen by the most paying customers in a single weekend." Teehee. Magneto got to kick a lot of ass before they "put him down," but aren't needles... like... metal?
+ Nobody cared about Cyclops, not his fellow X-Men or the audience. Hahaha. I can't believe Mystique got kicked out of the action so early on, though. There could've been less Storm, more Mystique.
+ Jean Grey's internal struggle, Angel's daddy issues, Rogue's love triangle angst, Xavier's death - hello, these are emotional storylines, where are the emotions? Can it not all be about stuff blowing up, plzktnx.
+ Ice vs fire - that duel, for which I had such high hopes, could've had 10X the visual impact. 100X. 500X. Ugh, the lack of creativity in the staging of that scene just pisses me off. Pyro could've gone out with an apocalyptic bang, you know?
+ The teaser scene at the end of the credits is like 1.2 seconds long and I needed to come online to get it explained to me. Haha, I am a Weather Girl (speaking of which... scandal in New Brunswick!). Okay, so remember how early on in the film, Xavier was teaching an ethics class, and he showed a video of this coma patient, and asked if it would be right to install a higher consciousness in the body? So in the end scene, we have the doctor coming into the room to check on the patient, and he turns his head and greets her, and she's like, "Charles?!" Fin.
Anyway, so yeah, I'm still sort of on an Aaron Stanford kick (because I know Pyro would burn a city to keep me warm). He's going to be on ABC's Traveler this fall, playing the title character... who's basically a cipher. Very interesting, though the other characters seem kind of bland. The show is giving me a 24-esque vibe; watch the preview here.
Never fear, I have not forgotten Cillian (not that any of you empathize). I'm watching Breakfast on Pluto... the quality is shitty, but he is still a cute crossdresser. I found this quote somewhere: "Since his breakout role as a Londoner on the run from raging zombies in 28 Days Later, Murphy has become Ireland's next great export behind Guinness, Colin Farrell and Liam Neeson." Damn straight. I need to watch 28 Days Later again, actually - I first saw it back when I wasn't obsessed with Cillian (yes, there was such a time). It was only after the burlap sack and the straitjacket in Batman Begins that I fell in lurrrve. He had to be evil for me to like him, heh.
I am also digging:
+ Linwood Barclay's Bad Guys. As you all know, Linwood Barclay is a very funny man. His mystery novels are perfect summer reading, screw this journalism shit. Haha. It's great that he's starting a franchise... I read his first book last summer and liked it a lot. The sequel is equally light and fast-paced, with excellent comic turns and late-book plot twists.
+ Emilie Autumn, the beautiful violin-playing emo goth faerie princess. She calls her music "Victoriandustrial" and I call it... well, the best I can come up with is "tragic-soliloquy music." You can listen to some of her latest songs on her MySpace. "Opheliac" is like... my anthem. "I only hope that in the end you will see / It's the Opheliac in me" --> *loves* (lyrics here)
What else to add... *rummages through browser history*
Jonathan Coulton has an awesomely cute song about Tom Cruise. No, really, it's funny. It's called "Tom Cruise Crazy". "Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise crazy / Just be glad it's him not you..."
CTV is airing Doomstown tmr night. Sudz Sutherland was a guest speaker at one of our Critical Issues classes (IMHO, the best class all freakin' semester), so we got to see a preview. It looked interesting. Genelle Williams is in it - we went to the same high school, so... Can of Soup pride! lol.
I think I have an idea for a short story. I haven't actually written short fiction since, well, the Can, but if this goes well, I might send it off to Neo-Opsis or On Spec. Of course, it might end as disastrously as last summer's attempt to write a novella. So I'm not talking about it.
Toronto Life is getting shit for that Kaarina Pakka story... all of Peter Nygard's friends are in such a snit, the letters to the editor in the June issue are one big flower bouquet of threats. Heh.
GRRM put up a Tyrion preview chapter. (I like the theory that the Sailor's Wife, one of the Braavos courtesans in AFfC, is actually Tysha.) And to end, something fun from messageboard predictions about what's going to happen in A Dance with Dragons: "I think it would be great if all the dudes going to Dany (Marwyn, Quentyn, Victarion and Tyrion) all get to Meereen only to find that Dany is already gone. And then they all get together and say 'fuck the game of thrones' and instead decide to start a boy band."
Maybe it was that guy Cat saw on the TTC who threw "hell money" at her. Apparently this dude climbed on the bus and started tossing around fake bills with skeletons and "BANK OF HELL" printed on them. Somebody should profile him.
You know, profiling Satan might be fun. Lots of conflict. Lots of scenes to reconstruct, like his fall from heaven. Only problem would be finding sources - I don't think God talks to the media.
Anyway, here are my spoilerific thoughts on X-Men: The Last Stand, or How Brett Ratner Pissed Off An Entire Fandom:
+ It was a decent action movie... better than, say, Rush Hour and Red Dragon (yes, I watched both of those). Ratner is improving, I guess, but watching his movie in the wake of Bryan Singer's X2 was a mistake. Slight disappointment --> giant letdown. I've wanted to see X-Cubed ever since I walked out of the theatre after X-Squared... I was so excited. Sigh.
+ Phoenix = Dark Willow, down to the veiny urge to keeeeeel. Wolverine should've thrown crayons at her. Although they didn't explain the Phoenix's motivations really well, I liked the red hair and the dress. The exploding people = the tripods zapping humans in War of the Worlds. But unlike the tripods, which left entire clothing catalogues in their wake, the Phoenix only left Wolverine his pants. Hee.
+ Beast and Angel were both heavily featured in promos, and Angel hardly got three lines... he basically stood around and epitomized the whole mutant movement = gay rights thing. Does anyone else think Ben Foster looks like a buff Tom Lenk? Shadowcat, another shadow of a character: "This is Ellen Page. She looks 12, and is Canadian." (The Canadians skate. How amusing.)
+ Sir Ian is on a roll. A making-bleh-movies-better roll. Time called him "the movie actor seen by the most paying customers in a single weekend." Teehee. Magneto got to kick a lot of ass before they "put him down," but aren't needles... like... metal?
+ Nobody cared about Cyclops, not his fellow X-Men or the audience. Hahaha. I can't believe Mystique got kicked out of the action so early on, though. There could've been less Storm, more Mystique.
+ Jean Grey's internal struggle, Angel's daddy issues, Rogue's love triangle angst, Xavier's death - hello, these are emotional storylines, where are the emotions? Can it not all be about stuff blowing up, plzktnx.
+ Ice vs fire - that duel, for which I had such high hopes, could've had 10X the visual impact. 100X. 500X. Ugh, the lack of creativity in the staging of that scene just pisses me off. Pyro could've gone out with an apocalyptic bang, you know?
+ The teaser scene at the end of the credits is like 1.2 seconds long and I needed to come online to get it explained to me. Haha, I am a Weather Girl (speaking of which... scandal in New Brunswick!). Okay, so remember how early on in the film, Xavier was teaching an ethics class, and he showed a video of this coma patient, and asked if it would be right to install a higher consciousness in the body? So in the end scene, we have the doctor coming into the room to check on the patient, and he turns his head and greets her, and she's like, "Charles?!" Fin.
Anyway, so yeah, I'm still sort of on an Aaron Stanford kick (because I know Pyro would burn a city to keep me warm). He's going to be on ABC's Traveler this fall, playing the title character... who's basically a cipher. Very interesting, though the other characters seem kind of bland. The show is giving me a 24-esque vibe; watch the preview here.
Never fear, I have not forgotten Cillian (not that any of you empathize). I'm watching Breakfast on Pluto... the quality is shitty, but he is still a cute crossdresser. I found this quote somewhere: "Since his breakout role as a Londoner on the run from raging zombies in 28 Days Later, Murphy has become Ireland's next great export behind Guinness, Colin Farrell and Liam Neeson." Damn straight. I need to watch 28 Days Later again, actually - I first saw it back when I wasn't obsessed with Cillian (yes, there was such a time). It was only after the burlap sack and the straitjacket in Batman Begins that I fell in lurrrve. He had to be evil for me to like him, heh.
I am also digging:
+ Linwood Barclay's Bad Guys. As you all know, Linwood Barclay is a very funny man. His mystery novels are perfect summer reading, screw this journalism shit. Haha. It's great that he's starting a franchise... I read his first book last summer and liked it a lot. The sequel is equally light and fast-paced, with excellent comic turns and late-book plot twists.
+ Emilie Autumn, the beautiful violin-playing emo goth faerie princess. She calls her music "Victoriandustrial" and I call it... well, the best I can come up with is "tragic-soliloquy music." You can listen to some of her latest songs on her MySpace. "Opheliac" is like... my anthem. "I only hope that in the end you will see / It's the Opheliac in me" --> *loves* (lyrics here)
What else to add... *rummages through browser history*
Jonathan Coulton has an awesomely cute song about Tom Cruise. No, really, it's funny. It's called "Tom Cruise Crazy". "Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise crazy / Just be glad it's him not you..."
CTV is airing Doomstown tmr night. Sudz Sutherland was a guest speaker at one of our Critical Issues classes (IMHO, the best class all freakin' semester), so we got to see a preview. It looked interesting. Genelle Williams is in it - we went to the same high school, so... Can of Soup pride! lol.
I think I have an idea for a short story. I haven't actually written short fiction since, well, the Can, but if this goes well, I might send it off to Neo-Opsis or On Spec. Of course, it might end as disastrously as last summer's attempt to write a novella. So I'm not talking about it.
Toronto Life is getting shit for that Kaarina Pakka story... all of Peter Nygard's friends are in such a snit, the letters to the editor in the June issue are one big flower bouquet of threats. Heh.
GRRM put up a Tyrion preview chapter. (I like the theory that the Sailor's Wife, one of the Braavos courtesans in AFfC, is actually Tysha.) And to end, something fun from messageboard predictions about what's going to happen in A Dance with Dragons: "I think it would be great if all the dudes going to Dany (Marwyn, Quentyn, Victarion and Tyrion) all get to Meereen only to find that Dany is already gone. And then they all get together and say 'fuck the game of thrones' and instead decide to start a boy band."