X3 - Second Go Round Review

Speaking of X-men…at the last minute I decided to go see X3 again by myself tonight. It was the 10.30 show, and I figured it might be my last chance to go see it before it might get bumped by Superman and Pirates coming over the next 10 days to theatres. I was surprised though, how many people were there. It wasn’t full by any means, but it was more than a handful of people and for a late show on a Tuesday night, I was surprised. On the second viewing of it, I found myself enjoying the movie even more than I did the first time. Maybe ‘cause I didn’t have any internet rumblings fresh in my head, or maybe because I was paying more attention to the dialogue and facial expression instead of the slam bang action pieces. It really is a good movie, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The only down part is that it’s not a great movie, and it should have been considering the story they had to tell. Still, there’s a lot to like about it, and they did hit most of the right spots – emotionally and action wise. Still amazed by Kelsey Grammar as Beast – he owned that role and stole every scene he was in. Also, to paraphrase Doug Nagy from the Movie Blog’s Audio Edtion, the guy who played Cyclops owned that bit of screen time even though it was brief. He really didn’t do much in the first two movies, but for a short stint in this one, he nailed it. It really is a shame what they did (or didn’t do) with that character. Oh, and as a funny side note - for all the internet grumbling about Storm and Beast's hair, it was funny to me that it took until the 3rd movie to get Jean's hair right based on the comics. Wouldn't have thought it'd be that hard ;) All in all though, I really liked the movie and can let go or go with most of the minor gripes I had with it. There’s really only two spots where they blew it. SPOILER WARNING! The end, where Storm and Kitty are at the graves and Wolverine is watching Beast get the promotion on TV. They should have simply switched that around and had Wolverine at the grave markers and Storm being proud of Beast and it would have been perfect. The characters would have been much better served and the ending would have had way more emotional impact. The other spot is that they should have focused more time on Rogue getting the cure. What a huge point to the conundrum of the cure, and it was sadly underplayed. Otherwise, it was a really good, solid movie. The best sequence in the movie has to be the part at Jean’s house where she goes all Phoenix on everybody’s ass. Everyone is down and out except for Logan who keeps fighting to get to the Professor and Jean. He doesn’t make it, but he never quits, and they really show that about him in the whole movie. But in that scene, Magneto is down as well, but he can sense what’s about to happen between Jean and Charles and yells out to Jean, but to no avail. Later though, when Mags has Logan pinned in the forest, Logan throws that moment back in his face with a well placed jibe – “Yeah, and you just sat there and let it happen.” You can see in Mag’s face just how much this ticks him off and maybe just how true it is even though him and Charles were close friends. There’s other subtle moments as well that I picked up on more with a second viewing. (Like the moment Rogue comes in to ask if the cure is true, it briefly focuses on Logan, and you can tell he doesn’t like what she’s thinking.) There are a few more layers to it than just the action fest it seems to be on first look. I’ve now seen all 3 X-Men movies in theatre twice each. Those movies kind of landmarked my last six years too. Going out to see it tonight, enjoying it more than I thought I had, and then driving home in a kind of slight fog still thinking about it brought back memories of going to see the first one a second time shortly after I had moved into my own place. It was rather a similar night and a similar feeling back in 2000. Kinda eerie. When I went to see the second one a second time, it wound up being a little over a month before I had my surgery and was the last movie I saw in a theatre in 2003. Now here’s it 2006 and the end of the trilogy (oh come on, they’ll make a 4th :-) and I look back at all the ways my life changed in the last six years. I identified with a lot in that first movie, and then everything that happened after that to me only made it more so, so maybe that’s why I’m such a big fan of these movies. Sure, they’re summer blockbuster entertainment, but there’s a lot more to them than that and they do have an important moral to tell. Anybody who’s been an outsider can easily see that… Oh, and that scene at the house might be the second best one in the movie. The best would have to be the Logan and "Marie" conversation in the hall at the mansion. It was a really well done, and subtly played moment. The more I think about it, the more I like the movie. I wish I had the DVD already ;-)

Wolverine...Will Return In 2007!

Here’s some good news. Fox is promising the X-Men spinoff movie, Wolverine, starring Hugh Jackman, will be released in 2007. How they’re going to do this when they don’t have a script, or a director, or cast anyone other than Jackman, I don’t know. Guess they didn’t learn anything from fast tracking X3. Here’s hoping it’s a good movie – either way, I know what movie is at the top of my list for 2007…

Spider-Man 3 Teaser Trailer!

The Spider-Man 3 teaser trailer has hit the net – ahead of its theatre showing in front of Superman Returns tomorrow night. I, of course, downloaded the HD file from the quicktime site right away :) From what I had heard of the movie before hand, I was really looking forward to this one. Having seen this teaser now, I can’t wait. This one should kick ass – and the bonus is that the same director is at the helm. Personally, while I enjoyed the first Spider-Man movie as a good popcorn flick, I enjoyed the second one a lot more as it took a bit of a darker turn. This third one – with several villains, and the black symbiote Spidey suit – looks like it really takes a dark turn as Peter Parker has to fight the war from without and from within. Plus, they’re introducing the Gwen Stacy character. Now I’m no guru when it comes to Spidey lore, but even I know about Gwen, MJ, and Peter’s history, and after what they did in the first movie I have no idea how they’re going to incorporate her into the storyline. Looks like there’s angst, drama, and action all with a darker turn to this third flick. Can’t wait! :) For those without QT7 or access to the trailer, click the pic for a general idea of what its all about…get a load of that last shot of him starting into the high rise glass window - at himself!

It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's A Sequel...

Well, the summer movie blockbuster season is going to get ramped up in style these next couple weeks. This Wednesday, Superman Returns hits the big screen in the Bryan Singer directed effort that is getting pretty good buzz. However, it’s going to get a run for its money 10 days later when Pirates of the Caribbean 2 comes along. It’s going to be really interesting to see which one captures the bigger box office. In the mean time, we get the original movies on TV as the networks try to grab ratings and punch up the interest for the sequels. It works out well for me, as tonight I got to watch Superman and Superman 2 back to back on the Space station. And since Space doesn’t believe in edited movies, we luckily didn’t get the edited for TV “Zod arrested version” of Superman 2. :) I can’t actually remember sitting down and watching both movies all the way through before. I’d seen parts of them, but this was a first. They’re both really good movies, structure, plot, and acting wise. What’s really impressive though, is watching the ‘special effects’ action sequences that they pulled off in 1978 & 1981when these movies were made. There was no computer driven CGI that everyone gets to use today. There were some admittedly ‘cheap’ looking spots, but that had to be expected. The acting was great, and obviously Christopher Reeve IS Superman, on the level of how Hugh Jackman just IS Wolverine in the X-Men movies. Margot Kidder was excellent as the feisty Lois Lane, and Gene Hackman surprised with his comedic ability. The stories were character driven, with action supporting the story, which is what makes a good movie, not the other way around. All in all, quite a fun couple hours of movie watching. (Even if the reversing time thing defies logic :) This actually gets me quite a bit more interested in seeing the upcoming Superman Returns. I’m not a huge Superman fan, but hearing how Singer is presenting this one in line with the first 2 movies as almost a sequel (and ignoring along with everyone else the reportedly horrid Superman 3 and 4 ;) makes me interested in seeing how and where he goes with the story. Getting an actor in Brandon Routh that so uncannily resembles Reeve in the Superman role should give the movies a fluid transition. However, I’m doubtful Kate Bosworth will be as good as Margot Kidder in the Lois role. Kidder took what could have been a rather irritating character and made her a joy to watch in the movies. I don’t get that feeling from Bosworth in the trailers. Still, the person to watch in the upcoming flick will be Kevin Spacey. Can’t wait to see him let loose in the villainous Lex Luthor role. Obviously, most folks know the drama behind the filming of Superman 2 and how the director Donner was fired and Lester took over. Considering the background studio shenanigans, the second film came out remarkably well. However, I really wish we could have seen the original vision of Donner’s considering he had already filmed 3/4 of the movie before getting canned. The good news is that I remember reading on The Digital Bits website that there will be a Donner’s version coming to DVD as these two original movies get the extra special DVD treatment. Can’t wait for that. Having watched and read up on all this, what kept going through my head was how history keeps repeating itself and how studio execs never learn their lesson. They screwed around with the Superman franchise and killed it, they did the same with the Batman franchise, and now it looks like the same kind of stuff is going on with the X-Men franchise. It took years before the Batman franchise was brought back to respectability by Nolan and Bale, and the same for Superman (assuming Singer hits this one out of the park like everyone expects). The jury is still out on the direction of the X-Men franchise. After that 3rd one, it really could go either way. It seems like the key is to treat the source material with respect. Without that, the whole thing falls apart. That’s why Superman 3, Batman 4, Elektra, and Catwoman (among others) all failed miserably. As soon as the respect is gone, and egos, greed, and stupidity are brought into the equation instead of telling a good story, the death of a franchise can’t be far behind. The similarities between the first 2 Superman movies and the first two X-Men movies are uncanny, as are Batman Forever and X-Men 3. It looks like the only franchise that may escape the “change of director (plus tone and quality)” curse will be the Spider-Man movies. Everyone’s intact through the 1st, 2nd, and now 3rd movie coming next year. Looks like somebody was paying attention to history…

Hitched To The Stars...

Looks like it actually happened - Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman got hitched down under. A huge event for Sydney, Australia, as a helluva lot of media coverage people converged on the spot to make pests of themselves at the event. So, how long do you think this celebrity marriage will last? Odds are probably good that it'll last longer than the previous 'country singer marrying an actress' attempt by Kenny Chesney and Renee Zelwegger last year. As long as there's no fraud involved, they should be fine. Oh, and anybody think Tom Cruise was jumping up and down on a couch about this event?

Canceltown...Next Exit...

To get to Cancel, turn left at Fox and if you hit Season 2, you've gone too far... Ivan Sergei Joins Fox's Drive - ComingSoon.net Speaking of good shows cancelled too quick by Fox, here's the next one. A new show called Drive, revolving around contestants on an illegal cross country race, with Tim Minear as an executive producer (he of Angel and Firefly writing and producing fame), and now adding actor Ivan Sergei (thought he was great in the show Once A Thief - also cancelled by Fox, but carried on for a season or so in Canada), sounds like just the kind of show with a good pedigree that Fox would quickly cancel. I hope its good and that it sticks around. With Minear behind it and Sergei on board, there's a good chance of cool show that has both drama and humor. Hopefully Fox doesn't get trigger happy...

Fry, the Pizza Guy, Unfrozen Again...

Comedy Central Resurrects Futurama - ComingSoon.net Here's some good news, and something for The Original LRU. Comedy Central has ordered 13 brand new episodes of Futurama to debut in 2008. What's more, is that the original voice cast is on board as well. Take THAT, stupid stupid Fox Network. First Family Guy gets brought back because of the fans, and now Futurama. Too bad Firefly didn't, or any number of the great shows cancelled by Fox over that couple year span of moronic reality TV fare. Seems like the only show Fox didn't cancel was The Simpsons.

A Mega Hockey Trade

Panthers trade Luongo to Canucks for Bertuzzi - NHL - Yahoo! Sports Now this is a big trade. I think everyone knew Bertuzzi would be dealt (he needed a change of scenery), but getting goalie Luongo is huge for the Canucks. It's been years since they've gone into a season without doubts in net. Dan Cloutier just couldn't get them over the hump, but now they have an all-star, legitimate number 1 goalie. This reminds me of the Detroit Red Wings before they won all those Cups in the 90's. They had a good team, but didn't have a goalie to put them over the top. The GM finally pulled the trigger on a trade, and got Mike Vernon from Calgary. It cost him a pretty good defenceman to do it. However, the got Vernon, and they won the Cup. Who knows if that'll work for Vancouver, but the chances are better now...

Joss Whedon Interview

Bendis Interviews Whedon Fantastic interview here by Brian Bendis of Joss Whedon. They talk a lot about writing and creating and comics / TV / Movies, etc. Really lets you in on Joss' creative processes. Interesting that a guy who has done all this writing and and just genius creating never even studied writing. Gives me hope...

Bryan Singer Interview

Superherohype.com - Bryan Singer on Superman Returns Really good interview here with Bryan Singer - director of the upcoming Superman Returns. Has some interesting notes about making the movie and the process of it. Also interesting is that he says he went to see X3 on opening night and ran into Brett Ratner. I wish he would have said more about his opinion of X3... Also, here's a good quote from Singer about director's cuts on DVD: Q: Are you going to do an extended cut? Singer: No, I don't think I'll do an extended cut. Not at least in the DVD. I've never done that. Those are kind of weird you know. The director's cut. No this is the director's cut. You just saw it. They don't tell me what to cut. I'm not in a place in my career that anyone tells me that I have to cut anything or put anything in. ...We'll have to see if this actually holds true, because this sounds like an epic length movie with the theatrical cut, and there was a 2 hour 45 minute version before he cut it down. We also know how much studios like to triple dip on the DVD's and screw their customers over. Ironically, Singer stated how he doesn't like special edition DVD's on the opening of the special edition X-Men 1.5 DVD where he says he hopes you only got one copy and have all your friends gathered around to watch it. I'm betting that DVD release was Fox's doing - especially considering that lame, much derided DVD title... I'm still going back and forth on my interest in this movie. The action sequences in the trailer look awesome, and I want to see Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor. However, I'm not as interested in seeing the 'Superman as a Jesus-figure' angle they seem to be going at. The other night on Jay Leno, Ebert's review partner Roeper was on and mentioned he had seen the film, and it was good, and that the comic fans would love it. However, he also mentioned the major religious and Jesus-like overtones to the movie. I was surprised he made a point of pointing that out - that means I'm not the only one seeing that in the trailers...

Play It Again, Sam...

This is what was on my radio on the way home: Bluest Eyes in Texas by Restless Heart Shameless by Garth Brooks Luckenbach Texas by Waylon and Willie The Gambler by Kenny Rogers That, folks, is a good drive home from work.

Stayin' Alive...

Go Oilers! They won tonight, 4-3, in Carolina in OT. So yes, there will be a game 6 in Edmonton. Can they do it again? I hope so...

Trailer Hitches...

Read somewhere today that MI:3 won an award for best trailer. What?! Sure, it was a good trailer, but it wasn't award worthy. What trailers were these people watching? It certainly wasn't the trailers for Brick or Miami Vice or even Ultraviolet (sure, the movie had its faults, but that trailer was great). If they're giving out awards for trailers, they should be focusing on trailers that make you want to see the movie, cause that's their job. Especially for bad movies. They should also give out awards for trailers that are good that actually use clips from the movie. I hate it when I see clips in the trailer that aren't in the movie. Yes, I'm looking at you, A Man Apart (yes, I'm not letting that go - that still burns my toast :), Mr. and Mrs. Smith (I wanted to see Brad Pitt firing a machine gun while riding a tricycle :), and even X-Men 3 (they take out a truer Wolverine dialogue moment of "she might not come back, are you ready for that?" for a Cyclops-esque ra-ra "We are the X-Men" speech...Why?). Obviously, what this comes down to, is that they should run all trailer and movie making decisions past me first... ;-)

Odds ‘N Ends…

Well, Blogger was having fits all week, hence no posts. One of the many error messages indicated a move to new servers, so I guess they ‘upgraded.’ Probably a nice way of saying Windows crashed :) GO OIL!!!! The Oilers pulled out a must win tonight coming out 2-1 over Carolina to take game 3 of the finals. They’re back in the series, down 2-1, but at least they won’t get swept. The home town crowd was really noisy and into it, so the home ice might have given them the edge they needed. Was cool to see Mark Messier in the booth with GM Kevin Lowe. Maybe some of that old Oilers magic can rub off on the young guys. I bet they wish they had Messier in the lineup now :) Best on ice leader ever. Brings to mind great hockey moments from the past. Sure it was for the Rangers, but who can forget Messier’s guarantee that the Rangers would win that playoff game against NJ when they were on the brink of elimination, then he went out and got a hat trick to make sure it happened. The Rangers went on to win the Cup, breaking a 50-plus year drought. One of my other favorite stories was from the last time a Canadian team won the Cup. I’m not sure which game it was, but one of Montreal’s many OT wins on the way to the Cup that year was a marathon. The story goes goalie Patrick Roy told his teammates in the locker room before OT started not to worry about the other team scoring – nothing else was getting past him for the rest of the night so they should just concentrate on getting the winning goal. Then he went out and proved it, and they went on to win the Cup… Picked up a PS2 game in the Walmart sale bin called LA Rush. It looked like a fun street racing game and it was cheap, so why not? Played it for a couple hours tonight and its pretty fun. The car controls are a little twitchy, but different cars control differently too, so it all depends what you’re driving. You can even get on the freeway and drive flat out with Nitro bursts through heavy traffic. And when you wreck, it slows down and shows the car flying apart in detail. Pretty cool game for a sale bin buy – especially after I found some cheat codes on the net to stack up the game money :) While I was at Walmart, I picked up Garth Brooks latest CD – The Lost Sessions. 17 songs for about 9 bucks. Not bad. It’s really good too – reminds of the early Garth music. The other night driving home from work I heard the single That Girl Is A Cowboy. It was really good to hear Garth back on the radio with a real country song. Ironic that when he was the big name of country music, they often said some of his songs weren’t country enough. Now he’s back with something that’s more country than most of what’s on the radio. I guess it’s all cyclical. Anyway, there’s some really good tracks on the album, including a cut of Garth singing the classic Nitty Gritty Dirt Band song Fishin’ in the Dark. He does a pretty good job of it too. He gets some help from Trisha Yearwood, Alison Krauss, and Martina McBride on a couple different tracks too. Then there’s the hilarious track ‘Cowgirl’s Saddle’. I was tired when I was listening to it, so it took me a second to get it, but when it hit me I couldn’t stop laughing. Nothin’ wrong with his sense of humor :) I was watching an interview of Trisha Yearwood and they were talking about her and Garth and her getting mad at him during the recording of the song Shameless came up. The part on the track where you hear her background vocals really belt it out was the point of contention. I guess the story goes that she cut her part and thought it was good and then Garth said something like - is that all? He really wanted her to wail it out at that part and I guess she eventually got mad at him and thought fine, if that’s what you want. So she cut it just really letting loose and wailing it because she was mad at him. When she was finished, he came in going “That’s it!” and the song turned out to be a hit. She said that’s as mad as she’s ever got at him, but it turned out well in the end…

Because I Can...

Well, why not...here's another wallpaper just cause I felt like it. It's basic, but came out half decent...something for the L/R fans that might not have been thrilled with X3 ;-) Feel free to download a copy of the fullsized pic here, if you want to :) Besides, it was either this or video editing, and I didn't feel like waiting for my computer to chug through the mpg data. Btw, Ulead VideoStudio 9 is a slick video editing program that beats Pinnacle Software and Windows Movie Maker hands down...

Pop Quiz...

Another quiz, this time via Jill's Blog. From a few rather innocuous questions, it came surprisingly close... How You Life Your Life You seem to be straight forward, but you keep a lot inside. You tend to avoid confrontation and stay away from sticky situations. You tend to have one best friend you hang with, as opposed to many aquaintences. You tend to dream big, but you worry that your dreams aren't attainable. How Do You Live Your Life?

X-Men 3: The Last Stand - Review

Well, I finally got to see X-Men 3: The Last Stand on the weekend. And I’ve got to say, I liked it. I might even rate it on par with the second one, or slightly lower. It’s nowhere near as good as the first one though, but I was expecting that. Brett Ratner did a good job, all things being considered, and he certainly brought the comic book action fest; but afterwards I couldn’t help thinking it sure would have been great to somehow meld the action geared directing of Ratner with the story and character geared directing of Singer. Man, that would have made a perfect movie. Oh, and I’m so glad I avoided as many spoilers and commercials and clips of the movie as possible before seeing it. Having now watched through my collection of clips I downloaded to my hard drive, I can’t believe how many of the cool moments and plot points they gave away. Between the 14 commercials and 10 clips, you’ve pretty much seen the movie… Warning – Spoilers the rest of the way… Still there? Ok, so I’ll go with some random thoughts… Wolverine was cool, as always. Until the end anyway. The danger room scenes where he does his loner thing were correct characterization. It wasn’t even a stretch to have him come back from Magneto’s forest lair and say he needed help because he knew where Jean and Mags were going. But it was a stretch to have him re-iterate Storm’s cheesy line “We work as a team” when they’re pinned down in the final battle scene. Wolverine wouldn’t say that, and it was as if the film makers were hammering the audience over the head with “See, Logan is now part of the team and he believes in it too! See!!” Um, we get it, and it could have been accomplished more successfully with a look, a raised eyebrow, and snarly “Let’s do it.” However, this leads to problem two – the ‘death’ of Cyclops. Because of all the behind the scenes drama with Singer and Marsden, they decided to do the unthinkable and write Scott out of the script and then go ahead and do a Dark Phoenix storyline without him. Because of this, they made Logan the defacto ‘leader’ of the X-Men, and that just doesn’t work. We wound up getting Cyclops-esque lines from Logan, which was a mistake. Logan’s a loner and an outsider who’s practical minded and does what needs to be done without giving speeches. Without Cyclops, somebody had to do that in the movie, and they made it Logan. It didn’t work. The other major, major problem was the length of the movie. It should have been longer given what they were trying to do with that many characters. It moved at such a break neck pace that you never got the chance to really feel any of the weightier moments of the movie. Scott’s death was only mentioned by Wolverine. Charles death was a big moment in the movie and they blazed right on, although he at least got a funeral. Rogue was the only specific one in the movie who took the ‘cure’ willingly, and they just rushed right through it. That should have been a major character changing moment of impact and we never get to really witness it and what the character is going through to make that big a decision. And when Logan has to kill Jean at the end, you don’t get any lingering shots of him after the fact. He should have been stricken with grief after doing what he had to do, and we never got to see that. One moment he’s killing Jean, then he’s on his knees holding her yelling “Nooo!”, and the next time we see him he’s sauntering out onto the mansion deck like all is well with the world. A Major character disconnect there all because of the running time. The big emotional moments of the movie should be dealt with and we should see how the characters handle it. Singer was good at showing that in X1 and X2, even when it was just a facial expression, and this is where Ratner dropped the ball. Now, I did say I liked the movie, so I should say why. Up until the end, Logan’s character was pretty much right on track. As a fan of the comics, seeing the fastball special was great, and his lines in the danger room sequence were spot on. The brawl at Jean Grey’s house with Juggernaut was cool to watch too. They also got the character right here as well. Jean and Charles were in an epic battle of the minds causing physical chaos all around. Pretty much everyone was out of the fight as Jean’s powers exploded around them all. Except for Logan. In the comics, his willpower is unmatched – no matter the pain, no matter the fight, he will not quit. They showed this well as he continued to fight against it all and clawed his way across the ceiling and through the storm to try to get to the Professor and Jean and do something. He didn’t make it in time, but he would never quit trying. I loved that moment in the movie, and that willpower was shown again at the end as he went against Jean / Phoenix. His skin was getting burned off his metal laced bones and he would not quit. It’s great to have a healing factor, but that’s still gotta hurt. His fight through the forest to get to Jean was also cool to watch. Those moments the Wolverine fan in me was smiling. Now, if you’ve seen the banner I made at the bottom of the blog, you’ll know what internet fan community camp I’m in ;-) I knew they would never play that angle with the Logan and Rogue characters, and I was surprisingly fine with the Logan / Jean angle they went with, as I am also a fan of the comics and understand that was the only way they could go with it. However, I think someone was paying attention to the internet fandoms and threw something in the movie just for the L/R shippers out there, and it was a cool moment. When Rogue is leaving to take the cure, Logan stops her and they talk. He offers to give her a lift (and calls her kid, like in X1 :-), but when she asks him why he isn’t telling her not to go, he gives his support as a friend and tells her to make sure its her decision and that its something she wants to do for her, and not anybody else. Then they threw in a moment for the fans. He turns to go and calls her Rogue, but she stops him by saying “Marie.” Which he does – he calls her Marie before she leaves. This is a really nice nod to the L/R fans (I’m guessing – as it’s a really big point in a lot of the fan fiction) and a nod back to the first movie as well. In that truck ride at the beginning of X1 when they first meet, she tells him her real name, and I think he’s the only one to call her by that. To see them put that in there specifically was a really nice touch. Kudos for that. Other good moments: Juggernaut actually worked well, and had some funny lines, including one straight from a fan made internet video. (Somebody was paying attention to the ‘net fans out there). Seeing Pyro and Iceman go at it was very cool, and seeing Iceman completely ice up was a real treat for comic fans. Magneto letting loose with his powers was awesome too – watching him stop the rolling prison and flip and squash those cars and trucks with a wave of his hand was badass. When Logan rode out on the bike to go find Jean, they used they ending shot directly from X1 when he rode out on the bike. I don’t know if that was for budget / time reasons or a nod to the first movie, but it was nice to see. The creator of the X-Men, Stan Lee, getting a cameo at the beginning was great too. (he’s the guy with the water hose). Warren (Angel) jumping through the glass, swooping down, and then flying out over the SF bay was just plain cool. And Kelsey Grammar as Beast was the single most genius casting ever. He was absolutely spot on perfect – when he finally said “Oh my stars and garters!” I was smiling like the fanboy I am. ;-) All in all, this was a good movie and a really fun movie to watch. The sad part is that with a bit more time and care, it could have been a great movie. They had the plot points to really say something with the ‘cure’ angle, but washed over it with the action fest instead. I did like it, however, and thought it was more linear than X2. It just really needed to be longer to show the impact of the emotional scenes. They also left it quite open ended, especially with that 30 second clip after the credits. That was brilliant too – referencing an earlier point in the movie and throwing in a good ethical question too. Between that and Magneto moving the metal chess piece, they’ve left it wide open for more movies. (Side note: seeing Mags move that piece slightly means the ‘cure’ was not permanent, which makes sense since powers returned when mutants moved away from the boy, Leech. What this also means, is that Rogue’s taking of the ‘cure’ is not permanent either. That should put any Rogue fans at ease out there :) My guess is that there will be more movies. They keep saying this is the last – maybe of this trilogy with these actors, but there will be more. I mean, it’s a license for Fox and Marvel to print money. Who knows who’ll be in the next one, but you can bet there will be one. Until then, here’s looking forward to the Wolverine spin off movie and probably another trip to the theatre to see X3 again before its gone…

Goodbye Oil...

The final series of the Stanley Cup Playoffs started tonight, and the Oilers even lead at one point 3-1. However, they wound up losing 5-4. But that's not the worst part of it. The goalie that got them here - Dwayne Roloson - went down with a knee injury and he's gone for the series. Ouch. It's gonna really suck to see the Cup in Carolina. Oh well, turn the lights out, it was fun while it lasted, but this one's over...