May 8, 2003

X2

8 May 2003 / movies / 3 Comments

Saw X2, the X-Men sequel (I should probably say “the first of many X-Men sequels”). I was reasonably entertained by it. Drew liked it better than me.

X2 was much better than the first X-Men movie in terms of story, action, and characters: the story’s landscape of light and dark is interesting: the X-Men are the good-guy mutants, Magneto and his gang are the bad-guy mutants, and then there are the regular humans. But the line between good-guy mutant and bad-guy mutant is blurry: Magneto has a complicated relationship with Professor X, and genuinely doesn’t want to hurt him. Wolverine, a good guy, has no qualms about eviscerating anyone who threatens him. All the mutants were more sympathetic than many of the mundane humans, who either feared the mutants or sought to enslave them. The action and eye-candy were fast-moving and epic in scale–real big-screen material. The first X-Men movie portrayed the characters as embarrassingly incompetent in a fight. Not this one. And while many of the characters were wooden in both movies (notably Cyclops, who makes Al Gore seem as wacky as Al Yankovic), it was nice seeing Mystique’s character get fleshed out a little. Casting Alan Cummings as Nightcrawler was perfect, and what can you say about Ian McKellen? He’s great. Classes up the joint, too.

I felt the ending was extremely contrived and unsatisfying. Drew thinks its a setup for the next sequel.

Wisdom teeth out

20 February 2007 / personal / 139 Comments

In a ten-minute procedure this morning, I was relieved of my three wisdom teeth and about $1300. The procedure was not painful, but it was unpleasant: I was very anxious through the whole thing, and apparently was ashen by the end of it, as the doctor was concerned about me and wouldn’t let me get up until my color returned. I did this under a local anesthetic, which was supposed to last for about four hours. Right now, about three hours have passed and it’s wearing off (I’ve already taken a happy-pill, but it’s not doing much good yet). One of the extraction sites is still bleeding and that whole side of the mouth hurts, even though it’s also peculiarly numb. Also peculiar is how perfectly the numbness bifurcates my mouth. My bite feels very strange–I wonder if my teeth are re-aligning themselves or if this is an artifact of the swelling and the fact that I had gauze in my mouth for hours.