X-Meh:United We Bland

I went to the Boston Common Lowes this morning to go see X-Men: The Last Stand. I was fairly excited about it; I liked the other two and I expected good things from this one too. On the way to the theater, I stopped in at CVS and picked up a bag of Sour Patch Kids. I need to have Sour Patch Kids with me when I see a movie, it was just a habit but it has morphed into a requisite ritual for movie watching. As I approached the theater, I was surprised to see a sizable crowd gathered in front, awaiting the opening of the doors. This surely should have been a good sign. No one shows up early in the morning for the first showing of a bad movie, right?
So I get a coffee, find my seat, and settle in for the move. After a seemingly hour-long barrage of previews and commercials, the movie finally begins. It starts off cool, with a flashback of a much younger(and walking) professor X and Magneto visiting an adolescent and extremely powerfuly Jean Grey. It's a good look at how powerful Jean may become, as she using telekenisis to lift a dozen cars while in the first movie she could barely move a pencil.
So at the end of the second X-men movie, Jean sacrificed herself to save everyone else. Everyone knew she was coming back, the giant phoenix in the water was not the subtlest of hints. But her actual return was rather uninteresting. Cyclops is all depressed and moody at the mansion, and he starts getting telepathic messages calling him to Alkali Lake. So he shows up, blast the water with his eyes, Jean pops out all veiny evil-willow looking, kisses him, and then apparently blasts him to dust off camera.
So in the Movie, the "Phoenix" is Jean's subconcious, which is angry and chaotic and far more powerful that Jean's controlled, concious personality. This is a departure from the comic, where the Phoenix is an extra terrestrial force, and I am totally cool with that. I am not the type of fanatic that jumps up in arms when a movie deviates from the source material. For example, I actually like the changes made to the story in the Lord of the Rings movie, such as the changing of Faramir's character and the expansion of Arwen's role. It made for a more dramatic movie. And don't get me started about Blade Runner. Blade Runner is an incredible sci-fi noir, and the movie bears only a passing resemblence to the PKD story it's based on, Do Androids Dream of Electic Sheep. It's not a bad story, but the characters in the book are freakishly obsessed with animals and their lead cod pieces to protect thier genitals from radiation. Some elements are there, like the replicants and the main character, but the tone is very different. My issue is with how they chose to incoporate the Phoenix concept is that they had a good idea that could have made for a great movie, it just wasn't developed enough for us to really care or even have a sense of what was going on in Jean's head.
Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of cool stuff in this movie. Beast looks great, and Kelsey Grammer was the perfect casting for him. Angel looks cool, and it seems like he is going to be a significant part of the story but I think he has about 3 lines in total. The mutant cure, plucked basically wholesale from Joss Whedon's Astonishing, is a great focal point for the story. The Iceman/Kitty Pride/Rogue love triangle was vaguely amusing. The danger room looked cool, with a holographic Sentinel. "I'm the Juggernaut, Bitch!" got a huge laugh from all the nerds in the audience. The totally unnecessary but quite cool looking moving of the Golden Gate bridge was reasonably impressive on a let's-see-what-ridiculousness-we-can- pull-off-today-with-CGI level. Magneto has some good moments, including losing his powers. There is a fairly cool sequel setting up scene at the end of the credits. And I even appreciated the somewhat cheesy looking live-action fastball special.
Where the movie fails is in its incorporation of all these elements into a cohesive story with characters and events we can care about. If the movie makers cut the number superfluous sub-plots in half and instead developed two or three of the main character arcs with more depth it could have been a stronger movie. The unceremonious blowing up of Cyclops off camera, the disintigration of Professor X, and the stabbing death of Jean Grey were a little excessive and a bit ineffective dramatically. That said, I did like this movie and can recommend it to anyone who liked the first two. It is not perfect, but it does pack in a whole bunch of cool stuff into two hours and there are far worse ways to spend your time.
Well, that is enough ranting for now.

Whoa...

Whoa...I'm kind of impressed with myself. Not too shabby for my first semester of classes that didn't involve scribbling in over 10 years.

I Have Returned

Greetings fellow travellers,

I have returned from the back of beyond. I am having some difficulties re-adjusting to suburban living. There is something about the air; it tastes different here. Like it is full of chemicals or something. Nah, that must just be my imagination.

My first priority is to find myself a reasonable job for the summer. If anyone has any leads, please drop me a line. I would like something easy and fun and ridiculously high paying, and I think that should be simple to find.

My faithful, hard-working car has been crippled and is in dire need of repair - a new alternator, and possibly some serious electrical work. Good times.

Living near the city, one thing I always took for granted was the fact that there is a Dunkin' Donuts on every corner. I will never take this blessing for granted ever again.

Peace.

Yep, I Should Have Known

Yep, I should have known that I was the Hulk. Thanks!
You are Hulk

Hulk 85% Spider-Man 75% Batman 65% Green Lantern 65% Superman 65% Robin 62% Supergirl 60% Wonder Woman 50% The Flash 50% Iron Man 50% Catwoman 30%

You are a wanderer with amazing strength.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero am I?" quiz...

Want to see something messed up? Check this out. It is an old-school styled RPG based on the Columbine massacre. I stumbled across it while I was doing research for a paper on violence in video games.

Before you snap to a judgement about how terrible it is, check out this interview with one of the Columbine victims.

I played a couple of minutes of it, and while it is a little disturbing, I did laugh out loud a few times.

Whoda Thunk?

Who would have thought that that something so cool could be in Massachusetts? I went for a walk in the Cascades Trail and I must say I was fairly impressed with the waterfall at the end. I also saw some bear tracks in the mud and a couple of redback salamanders, but those pictures didn't come out very clearly. I'm going to see if I can find another interesting trail today.

My Brain Has Melted

So the semester is over, and my brain has melted. I took my last final this afternoon. I think I did pretty well all across the board, but I guess I will find out soon enough. I feel a little bit weird now that I have nothing specific to do. A couple days off should be cool. I'm going to check out some of the woods and trails around here, and just maybe read a book for fun.

I'll be moving back home next week, and I am not sure how I am going to adjust to that. I like being by myself and being around people again may take some getting used to. Eh, we'll see.

The lovely picture is a postcard that my sister Katie sent me. Thanks Katie!

Peace.

John's Rock 'n' Rainbow Adventure!

I took a final today, but I was out by early afternoon. Since it was a lovely day, I decided to go for a ride and check out the area. I went to the Natural Bridge State Park, and it was pretty awesome. There are some really cool looking rocks there. I walked around the park for a while, and then went for a drive through the mountains of Vermont, which was equally as impressive. I caught a glimpse of windmills atop a mountainside, and I can't understand why people would protest such a thing. Sure, it is something artificial in the natural landscape, but it is no more offensive to the eye than the ribbons of asphault threading the mountain passes. And the sound is negligible unless you are right on top of them. In fact, I think they add some charm. Certainly better than dead forests from acid rain!

On the way home, it rained briefly and there was a huge rainbow over North Adams.

I Am Not One of Those People...

I am not one of those people. I used to think I could be. You know the type. "Oh, I don't watch television." I thought maybe I could fit in with this illustrious elite. Intellectuals. Deep thinkers. Philosopers whose minds are freed from the mindless drivel force fed to the masses through the magic box of pretty lights in their living rooms. I thought I could be one of them and I was very, very wrong. I need a television.
For the past four months I have not had a televison. It was a concious choice, I decided I was going to try to concentrate on school and TV would be a distraction. I was not totally free of mass media, I still had a radio. However, the only radio stations I get out here are the college station, a country station, a Christian station, and NPR. National Public Radio has been my sole source of news for the past four months; needless to say I am farther out on the liberal lunatic fringe than I was before.

But I have found I crave televison. I long for the sweet release of effortless entertainment. This must be similar to what a heroin addict feels after quiting cold turkey and succeeding - for a little while. I want my Lost, Smallville, and Battlestar Galactice. I need my Alias, 24, and Stargate. I want to have the news be told to me by blatantly biased broadcasters whose objectivity is as laughable as their phony smiles. I want to be bombarded with 23,496 sexual images per week; I want to witness 16,789 images of violence (real and simulated) per day. I want to laugh at the misfortunes of others; and be emotionally manipulated into staying tuned through just one more commercial break.

On second thought, maybe I can hold out a little longer.

This Just About Says it All

Written in dust on an abandoned store front window. There was no one inside as far as I could see. I wonder what kind of help they needed? Lifting heavy objects? Psychological counselling? Perhaps they are just huge Beatles fans?

I am totally burnt out. I need to find a job for the summer. I am thinking office temping is the way to go, or perhaps I'll look into joining the dockworkers union. I wonder if I can get a summer job as an astronaut? That's something I have always wanted to try and I imagine in pays well.

Advent Children is a pretty good movie. It's a really good looking computer generated anime, and the dubbing was well done. FFVII fans will get the most out of it, those who haven't played the game might be a little lost.