X-MEN 3 - The Last Stand

The last stand indeed....maybe. I had been living for the third installment of my beloved X-men. They were my beloved before the release of any major motion picture. I read the comics (collected more than read). I use to collect X-Men trading cards. And one of my favorite Sega Genesis games (back in the day) was X-men, Wolverine was my X-man of choice. The ability to heal oneself is priceless.

So...Now I have to find the next thing to live for because the release of X-MEN 3 hath cometh and goneth, in this beautiful memorial weekend.

I was a bit apprehensive going in, because this movie was given to Brett Ratner to direct. Brett Ratner got his start, his roots and all that stuff in the music video world. And having started my production days working on hellified music videos, I have a block with most music video directors, especially the wanna be cool and down ones. I like to describe the wanna be down ones as fathead opportunists who talk most shit about the hip-hop artists they use to get on the featured director map. Don't worry about being cool and down, just direct the damn video. I don't wanna knock this guys hustle. I'll go down in the books saying he's good at what he does, but X-MEN 3 could've been in a whole other category of great, had it been someone else. The director of the first two installments of X-MEN for example.

I liked the movie. I didn't love it like I loved the Matrix when I first saw it and had to watch it again immediately. What would have made me love it....more attention being paid to the emotional battles here over the explosions and car crashes. Now I'm not pointing any fingers but I'm led to believe we have Mr. Music Video Director to thank for the very explosive X-Men 3. We could play the whole movie replace the sound and play a prodigy song over it. Brett Ratner also directed Rush Hour, which is fine for action sans the emotion, I mean the stars were Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan. A match up made for action and comedy, not depth.

My review is going to be a bit biased because I just kept wondering how much better (in my opinion of better) X-men would have been had Bryan Singer, the original director been available to handle the (supposed) last installment of X-men.
There was little space for major disappointment for me because just seeing my super-duper X-Women Jean Grey and super-duper mutant villain Magneto gets a girl all excited. My two favorite characters hands down..as far as the movie release favorites. Historically for me it's Storm. Of course. Little black girl reading about great black woman who controls the weather. And though I love Halle Berry and am not knocking her hustle at all.....This Fox motion picture Storm is just too watered down for me to get excited over. Iman....now that's a Storm for your ass....but not for Hollywood. I get it. So by default and her own wonderfulness Famke Janssen as Jean Grey worked her way right to the top of my fanfare pot. I feel like she didn't get enough screen time (but that's my issue). Jean Grey as Phoenix, the most powerful mutant of all, is just too much excitement for me. So I'm glad (in a way) she didn't do too much, get me too excited otherwise I might have been asked to leave the theatre.


I'd like to get a hold of the screenplay because it seems like it was a great one. I enjoyed the movie. It was entertaining as a movie should be. But, this movie would have been mounds better had it been handled with more emotional care and less focus on the shoot'em up bang, bang. Not to say there was too much action. It's a comic book turned movie, action, I suppose is to be the focus. But action doesn't draw people in and keep them. It's just a temporary fix. Story keeps us. It was the non-action scenes. They lacked emotion and failed to show the intense struggle these characters (especially Dr. Jean Grey) were going through. I mean the dude (director) had some wonderful talent to work with. Who's better than Ian McKellan? Seriously. That guy is a master. Hugh Jackman is a joy, even as a difficult and rebellious self-healing mutant. Seriously, I love that guy. Rebecca Romjin is officially Mystique to me. She can be Pepper Dennis and a slew of other characters from here on in, but she put her foot in the role of Mystique and that's who she is. And Kelsey Grammer as beast sounds exciting. But wasn't really as exciting as I had hoped. (Love Frasier though.) And I need to find more of Famke Janssen's work, I've only seen her in one other movie, but I appreciate her existence in the film world, really I do. And love Phoenix/Jean Grey with long wild comic book hair, much better to me than the suburban wife haircut she rocked in the previous X-MEN.



X-MEN 3 - The last stand was good. I will watch it over and over like I do the other two but I will watch it as strictly action, almost like I watch a cartoon. This could've been a classic action movie shocker where it would've been steeped in emotion like Batman Begins. We were supposed to cry for Jean Grey, The Professor, Wolverine, Rogue, Magneto, Mystique and all the trials and tribulations, okay maybe not cry, but at least care. It all sped by too quickly to draw you in and make you care. It was almost like we were being shown flash cards of the intensity of these very emotional characters. But I don't want to show my nerd card and break it down to much, so let me just wrap this up.The little 5 and 6 year olds in the movie theatre enjoyed all the action. Us grown folks who like to check out in to the fantasy realm every once and a while, could've gone for a little more substance. Or maybe I'm just a nerd who's reading way too much into the X-men story, but that makes 50 million of us then.

Bummer, but not a total lost. I was left feeling a tad bit empty. I'm sure Brett Ratner did the best he could and again I don't like to knock anyone's hustle. Because I would've taken the gig too. I just would've asked for a lot of help, don't be afraid to ask for help Mr. Ratner. At least I don't want to find the director and beat him up. I have experienced those levels of disappointment. Oh well. Mr. Bryan Singer, I look forward to the release of Superman. (I believe the reason he was not available to continue directing his legacy of X-Men movies was because he was busy with Superman Returns, which Brett Ratner was originally attached to direct. Good Lord.) And if there is to be another X-Men (with all the box-office records broken, I suspect there will be.) Please be available to direct. Thank you!

And a Happy Belated Birthday to Magneto..Sir Ian McKellan - May 25

The Da Vinci Code

Caught a lovely Sunday crowded as hell afternoon showing of The DaVinci code. I say this every single time I go to a movie no matter what the outcome "Blessed are those who expect nothing for they shall not be disappointed".

I had not signed on to the "The DaVinci Code" scandal. I have a block when it comes to mass hysteria novels. The Christmas gift novels...ie....Harry Potter, The Davinci Code, A Million Little Pieces, She's Come Undone, Lovely Bones, Wicked, The Five People You Meet in Heaven and The Celestine Prophecy. To name a few of the, "Everyone's gone mad for this book", club. In order for me to sign on, I either have to discover the book before the mass hysteria (Lucky for me I found "She's come undone", before the mass hysteria because I love it, love it, love it and would still be waiting around to read it had I not.) Five of the above mentioned are all books I want to read, but just can't because of my mass hysteria block. So needless to say I didn't really know the real deal of The Davinci Code, just the gist of it.

My love, respect and admiration for Sir Tom Hanks is what got me in to see the movie, because I had no urge whatsoever. (The free "Davinci Code", movie ticket courtesy of the Spiderman box set didn't hurt either) First of all the billboards scattered about Los Angeles for the movie did not draw me in at all. They look like some advertisement for an old Lifetime Television special.
I paid little attention to the media's coverage on the religious upset and all that jazz because I shut down. And I still can't believe I hadn't heard the specifics of the religious uproar, especially me, with my beliefs of women as the martyrs, the superior yet most abused, mistreated and taken for granted group of humans, sadly, even by ourselves.

After seeing the movie, I intend to read the novel. That's for damn sure. I could tell without reading the novel that this was a hard one to transfer to film. I'm sure if I had read the book first I would've been upset about all that was left out and how things should've been made clearer and yadda, yadda, but lucky for me I didn't and my interest in the book has been fueled by Ron Howard's interpretation of Dan Brown's work of fiction. The movie is getting mixed reviews. And I understand, but Dayna Clark, as general Jill Shmill audience, enjoyed the movie and all it's performers. Tom Hanks, Ian McKellan, Alfred Molina, Jean Reno. Love all these guys, these gifted actors.


Outside the theatre, there was a woman in a wheelchair with an elaborate spread of signs protesting The DaVinci Code...Denouncing the DaVinci Code. Just sparking everyone's curiosity, making everyone want to go see what all the hoopla is about. Her purpose and all the other protestors....fanning the box office sales flames.

In the world of fiction and movie fantasy women can be raped, cut into pieces, thrown from moving vehicles, stabbed, shot, raped again, have babies ripped from their wombs, all kinds of horrific things I could never imagine in my wildest writer's mind has happened to women on screen and in print.....But actually glorifying one and raising questions about a woman's role and worth in biblical times the way "The Davinci Code" did, causes protests and gasps from the religious masses. Sad State of Affairs.

Don't get me wrong, I get why it would cause protests, because it sure raised some questions in my mind. Even though it's supposed to be a work of fiction. But at the end of the day.....it's still supposed to be a work of fiction. A Hollywood adaptation of a novel, said to be a work of fiction. Protestor's just make folks feel there must be something to it.


All this to say....The Davinci Code is worth seeing and a reminder to the all too serious protestor's.....Richie Cunningham(Ron Howard) directed this movie, not documentary, movie. So relax and continue to believe what you believe and leave Hollywood to it's sinful ways. It's Hollywood, we're talking Poltergeist, Blair Witch, The Omen, The Exorcist....can't stop, won't stop!

Feliz Cumpleanos

1978 Jason Biggs (actor)

1969 Kim Fields

1968 Tony Hawk (skateboard star)

1966 Stephen Baldwin (actor)

1962 Emilio Estevez (actor)

1963 Vanessa Williams (actor- The New Jack City one.)

1961 Ving Rhames (actor)

1948 Steve Winwood (singer)

1939 Ron Ziegler (journalist)

1938 Susan Hampshire (actress)

1937 George Carlin

1936 Tom Snyder (broadcast journalist)

1929 Burt Bacharach (composer)

1925 Yogi (Lawrence) Berra (baseball)

1820 Florence Nightingale

and me!

This Entry..

reminds me of something a bill collector said to me in one of my numerous heated and accusatory phone calls with bill collectors and gym membership cults.

Me - "I don't have the money, it's plain and simple as that. You can't get blood from a stone."

Bill collector - "The walls of our banks are covered with blood we've gotten from stones"

Yes...I was on the phone arguing a friend's case....not even my own when I provoked one of the craziest comments ever, out of one of those pesky, persistent collectors.

In other words...I am my own bill collector, squeezing an entry out of me, so that I might shake myself out of this rut of sorts and start blogging again, because my lack of entries does not reflect a lack of "things happening" in my life.

Four major 'tings:

1. Survived (but still suffering from) an "Amazing Dumbass Race" aka " Dayna's suicide survival mission impossible" aka "In the name of commercial production" to Ciudad Valles in piss poor Mexico (by raggedy ass truck - not plane.)


2.Survived Coachella, a mega outdoor concert near hotter-than-hell, Palm Springs, with a Mexican parasite actively setting up shop in my spine and lower intestine and only a few rows of * Port-o-sans, for use by the 60,000 drugged and drunk college aged attendees, to comfort me. I did rock out to some cool artists and bands..had to excuse myself from the crowd when the drugged college kids around me started raising their fist for the struggle in unison to rapper, Kanye West. I couldn't take it. 'twas not the crowd for me to see Mr. A.D.D. hyperactive Kanye West live with, fer sure. I braved most performances alone as there were a hella' lot of bands and the variety of friends who were scattered across the fields of Coachella wanted to see bands whose serious bass playing and loud verbage, angered my spine- attached, hard-working mexican parasite.

Madonna, Kanye West, Common, Depeche Mode, Massive Attack, Digable Planets and my absolute fav...worth it all..Damian Marley (Jr. Gong). Those are the artists I caught on stage....no complaints. Except....Madonna's stage.....holy spumoni, I mean outrageously crowded and crazy but my love for Madonna gave me the strength to get right up in the madness, me and a friend (my birthday sister) braved the crazy ass crowds for a glimpse of that "in the shape of her life" Lucky Star.


3. I experienced my first racial slur(?) from a Mexican man, driving a pretty decent car, which I suppose he thought made him instantly superior to this "Black Bitch" who he damn near backed in to, as she strolled up the block she resides on, sipping her coffee (her being me.) Now I'll admit I played my part. I gave the "jerk off" sign to him because of his rude and dangerous actions and he played his part right back. His exact words - "Go back to the ghetto, you black bitch"..and for the first time in my history of dealing with racism....I laughed at a racial slur instead of getting angry. It was such a ridiculous assumption and comment, coming from a dude whose "peoples" are still pretty low on the work and finance food chain in America and then of course, after the nervous laughter..the disappointment in humanity, kicks in. Like, for real? Is this how it's going to go down? Obviously he and his peeps don't know what I know about noisemaking minorities in America...... I yelled back some ignorant stuff that I won't share. Though, I don't think it was too bad, considering his offense. Anyways, After driving 14 hours through the four levels of Mexico...Poor Poor, Dog Poor, Piss Poor and S%^$ poor, and picking up a friendly parasite who loves me as host, I have to say, I would take flight with my own wingless appendages trying to get the hell out of Mexico, were I a resident. I'm not even trying to go there for vacation after my life changing experience.
I said I was ending this didn't I.....okay....ending....right....now.

4. Due to the "Amazing Dumbass Race" I went on in the name of production, I have had to re-evaluate my life decisions and job decisions. I prefer to care and be cared about....if caring is a business flaw....then I stand before the work world.....FLAWED. So to find something more suitable to a chick that gives a damn about humans, I have taken on the responsibility of "Talent Manager extraodinaire", (the outrageous earning potential doesn't hurt either)....still working on the extraordinaire part and still working in commercial production to pay bills......oh these dream careers of mine.

It is said that we all have three careers inside of us.....

My first one was...Perennial college student. Bopping around here and there, doing what I wanted first and then handling business....ie.....late for my job because I was still on line for the MTV wannabe a VJ contest (nothing ventured......). That was me right up until......today.

In the great words of Madonna (human nature) - ABSOLUTELY NO REGRETS! (except failing to buy aol stock in the early 90's.)

Second one is writing (that's right...paid or not.)

And the third one......Artist (talent) management. It's my calling and I've run from it for years and I mean years (I've also run from the Artists). But with the recent shift of my life....childhood - over as of 3/20/2006 adulthood - beginning 5/8/2006, I'm ready, I suppose, to take on the R word....it's been banned from my vocabulary...just shown in some of my actions, but now I'll use it...RESPONSIBILITY....whew!!! that didn't hurt too much.

I'd like to push my official adulthood date back as well.....let's say 5/12/2006...a day of great importance in my life, every year since 1972. Yeah...4 more days to act like an irresponsible cooky bean and then....shuffllepapertime, begins...yawn, in a very on the edge of something new but, sh%& is really all the same, kind of way.

(Also went to see Mission Impossible on it's release date to see what all the hoopla was about.)

Damn I got a lot of blood from that stone.

footnote - I do not use port-o-sans...i'd rather go out in the wilds of nature and I did....scoopoftruth's the name...giving a scoop or so of the truth is the game.