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When X Men 3 came out, I had super high hopes combined with the tiniest of doubts in the back of my head. On the plus side, they not only were going to do the Dark Phoenix storyline, but also elements of the Joss Whedon run with the whole mutant 'cure', and Brett Ratner was still keeping in tone with Bryan Singer's style. Hell, I got nothing against Brett. I've enjoyed his past movies, ain't nothing wrong with the Brett-ster. But there was a worry: isn't there a bit too much going on? And there was. You've got all these new characters to introduce, a huge epic storyline and two and a bit hours to not only fit it all in, but also try and find some sense of closure. And it all felt rather messy indeed. My favorite X Men movie is still the second one - all the characters had already been introduced, there were a few new guys, true, but the main ones kept the story going and Wolverine got to go completely ape shit. The moment in the mansion when he first kills one of the soldiers all I could think was "Holy shit! They let Wolvie kill someone! They didn't even show that properly in the comic books until the whole Comics Code thing got lifted!" And I rejoiced. But X Men 3 was another kettle of fish. So much shit was going on that nobody got a chance to breath, least of all the audience. I mean, come on! Scott (Cylcops) gets killed and nobody seems to bat a fucking eye lid! What's up with that?! It seriously felt like the studios were nudging their wicked ways, saying "the first one made money, the second one made more! We need to keep it up! Stick everything in these damn books inside!" And what do you get? An unfocused mess. And Vinnie Jones as the Juggernaut. I recently bought the two disc DVD and watched the deleted scenes - there are so many cool battle shots that weren't used, probably because they were running out of time. But who knows? Maybe it would have paced it better? Or maybe they could have just chucked out a bunch of the sub-plots and streamlined the whole damn thing. Spiderman 3 suffers the same problem, but in a way, worse. You can't even say it was the fault of a new director or writer because it's pretty much the same team working on it, but there are so many elements in that movie that feel chucked in purely because the studio wants to please the fans so that more will come to the cinemas - look at this! There's Gwen Stacy! Venom! Sandman! Harry Osborne's story arc! Tons of stuff! And where does it lead to? Incredible coincidences. A meteorite containing the venom symbiote just happens to land nearby Peter. I know that trying to do the whole 'Secret Wars' storyline would be a bit too much, but that's just taking the piss! And Eddie Brock? I had no problems with the casting, I fucking love Topher Grace's work, but doesn't it all seem a bit too much that he wants to kill Peter Parker just because he found out he photoshoped a pic of Spidey? And what the fuck was the point of Gwen Stacy? She was just 'the other girl', but they didn't play anything from her original storyline, making her nothing more than a redundant blonde who just happened to be in Peter's line of sight. They could have used the secretary as the love interest. They played on it before, dammit. And it's been in the comics too, no meandering of the storyline there. And, seriously, what was the point in having Sandman there? Visual FX? That's it?! He pops up, turns into the Sandman, does some cool sandmonster shit, then repents. The bad guy I thought they should have stuck with was Harry. His story's been built up over the past two movies, and in this one, he gets to kick some serious ass in the first fight scene with Peter, a huge improvement on his daddy's fight with Spidey in part one. But, amongst all of this, I still watched it, and will probably watch it again, the same way I watched X Men 3 again - because there is some fun to be had in watching these characters come to life and beat the crap out of each other just like we read about it in comics. The scriptwriting is bad, but in my opinion, the script was pretty bad in the first Spiderman movie too. At least now, the second time I watch it, my hopes won't be so high. And besides, both movies still kick the shit out of the infernal turd that was the Ghost Rider movie. As most of you who've known me for a while (as in socially, not just through the words typed here), I've been gaining weight steadily since 2003. I tend to attribute this to my change in lifestyle during that time - I quit skating, moved into my own appartment where I ate only fast food, and pretty much never got off my fat ass. And now I have a belly so big people assume I'm a genetic experiment to see whether or not men can give birth. To twins. So recently I decided, once and for all, to get into something healthy. Now, this is a bit of a difficulty for me, not just because of my schedule, but because of my stance towards gyms. See, I don't believe in gyms. I don't understand them. Treadmills make me feel like a hamster, and I cannot get my head around the concept of getting fit for the sake of getting fit. It feels like the only goal to be achieved in going to the gym is to look good, full stop. Yes, I know it sounds stupid considering that's what my aim is in the first place, but that's just me. I prefer getting fit through a form of exercise where I'm learning something, like a sport. Therein comes the problem as I've never been good at team sports of any kind. That's why I got into skating, it's a personal thing. I could roll around that board as much as I want and no one would be giving me shit for not passing properly (although occasionally kids would laugh at me for not being able to do half the tricks they can do). But the board is gone, and I decided to get into something else. Boxing. It of course didn't hurt that I was a huge Bruce Lee fan when I was a young teenager. But, now that I'm older, I didn't want to do any Eastern martial arts mainly because I didn't want to have to memorize hundreds of punches, kicks, graples, katas, etc. I wanted to do something similar to a martial art, but not. Hence, boxing. The good thing about boxing is that there are only four punches, a few blocks and a bunch of leg work. The skill comes from combining them corectly. And the good thing for someone like me taking up boxing is the workout. My God, the workout kills me. For a guy that can do, at the most, twenty sit ups and a handful of push ups, going through the routine in boxing has me sweating like a priest in a nunnery within the first five minutes. I had no idea jumping jacks were so goddamn tiring! I now have an incredible new found respect for boxers. The amount of stamina and strength required is unparalled. I'm dying after a minute of punching just a bag, and yet these professionals stay in the ring for 3 minutes a round for twelve rounds?! Wow. Mucho respecto. It's also a great way to work out aggresion. Especially during the time I joined I had a lot of pent up aggression in me and what better way to let it all out then to whack a big ol' punching bag. But, let's face facts here, it's still early days and I'm still a tubby weakling. I tweaked my wrist (the same bad wrist that I tweaked when shooting the chase scene in Ciplak), I wake up the day after a session aching all over and everyone else in the class has much more stamina than me. I'm hoping I don't give up this class. The monthly payments should give me enough incentive to go so as to not waste that money. The more I look at myself and realise my age the more I feel the need to get healthier before this lifestyle of mine catches up to me and escalates into a hundred and one medical bills by the time I'm thirty. Need to get fitter. Of course, considering I'm writing this in coffee bean whilst drinking fattening caffeine-infused latte's and smoking cigarettes, it's gonna take a while. |
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See, back in the day I used to be into martial arts a LOT. Back when I was much younger, I used to do karate, kung fu and try out any other martial art that happened to be around.