Damn, I love Buster Poindexter. :-) And this is the only reference I'm making to the weather today, so y'all can relax.
Yesterday ended up being a pretty busy day. I got my haircut. Not that it will look good at conference because every day is a bad hair day especially when you're using hard hotel water and dealing with humidity, but I'll know I tried to look presentable. I also found a travel size hair spray that isn't in a pump. Yea! Those pumps shoot out too much spray and weigh down the hair.
Then it was a shopping expedition where I picked up a few things for the trip. Nothing particularly fun so I'll skip the details, except to mention that they seriously need to turn up the air conditioning in stores. Gah!
Then it was on to Bed, Bath and Beyond. I had a coupon and there were a few things in the sale flyer I wanted to look at. I bought neither of them, however, I did find a curtain rod for my shower (one more item on my dad's To Do List) and some more dish towels.
It was after four when I got home--very thirsty and cranky from the heat and the crowds out shopping. Vegged out for an hour or so and then I popped X-Men into the DVD player. I'll give a very quick review because I'm beginning to wonder if I'm too picky about movies. I haven't loved anything I've seen yet. I'm telling myself it's because this is only my third rental from Netflix, but I'm beginning to wonder.
X-Men
Another movie based on a comic strip, and once again, there was little in the way of characterization. Come on, Hollywood, give me a reason to care! I want to root for the heroes/heroines, not indifferently watch them go through the story. The premise for those like me who live under a rock is that there's been a mutation in humans and now powers are starting to appear among some people. I love this concept, BTW, just not the execution.
So the government of the US is trying to pass legislation to force "mutants" to register. Of course, this isn't a good thing because like you'd expect, the humans without powers are afraid of those who have them. The movie opens with a scene from WWII and Jewish men and women being shuttled off to be killed including a boy watching both his parents whisked away. And I could see why the filmmakers drew this parallel for the "mutants;" I could easily see something like this happening.
This mutant teenage girl is hitchhiking ends up in some remote town in Canada, I believe, and finds Wolverine fighting in a cage match. She saves his butt, she hitches a ride, they're attacked by the bad guy's henchmen (Don't ask me how they found these two in the middle of nowhere) and then the good guys show up and rescue the pair (Don't ask me how they made it to the middle of nowhere in time to save anyone). Wolverine and Rogue end up at a school for the gifted (aka mutants). The rest of the movie is about trying to stop the bad guy from kidnapping the teenage girl, Rogue and rescue the US senator that he kidnaps.
First off, mutants don't need to register. They're the only ones who have bizarre nicknames: Wolverine, Rogue, Cyclops, Sabretooth and Magneto. (Yes, the bad guy is called Magneto. Sigh.) Humans can just pick them out by these really strange names. No need to pass legislation at all.
Second, Hugh Jackman needed a shave desperately. God, muttonchops! I felt like I was watching a movie from the 1970s.
Third, I didn't care about any of the characters and my interest in the situation waned before the climatic conclusion. I did make it to the end of the movie, but it was more because I'd watched so much of it, I wasn't going to cede defeat. :-)
Overall rating: 2.5 stars (I know, Netflix won't let me rate half stars. I didn't not like it, but I didn't like it either. I was like totally indifferent to the movie and maybe that's worse than anything since it elicited nothing from me.)
I have things to do today too. I'm guest blogging next week--starting tomorrow--at Star-Crossed Romance and I need to work on a couple of posts. I also have something to turn in for my local chapter. That's mostly written, though, and just needs a little work.
I slept really late today (hence the late blog post) and feel fab! Eleven hours! Yes! Maybe I'll actually be rested enough to survive conference.
