; the little -details- xXx

exams! over! let's just cut straight to the post exam activities, shall we?

1. dinner
delifrance. movin finished an entire flask of parmessan cheese.

2. still dinner
what's a destressing dinner without the small talks? conversations were centered on miley cyrus (or dislike of her), hannah montana (and dislike of her), that's so raven, suite life of zack and cody (universal favorites!) and school stuff (of course).

3. arcade
found out that me and movin really suck at time crisis (oh god it's so embarassing. we didn't even get past the prologue stage -.- i just have no luck with first person shooting games from counter strike to half life to dirge of cerberus to time crisis 2,3 and 4.) aaron of course was owning his red-blue-green game thingy.

4. movie
ironman. duh. ohmygod ohmygodohmygod. my brain's still blown away from it. anyway, without being too much of a fangirl (zomgilovelovelovetonythatlittleassholeandrobertdowneyjristhenewsexgargh) here's a really quick review:

<spoiler!>

what a superhero movie should have:

cool costume design: checked
let's face it: ironman aint have the spiffiest design around, but the movie actually didn't make the costume as ugly as some (not mentioning names here) comic book artists make it look like. really like the fact that they've included jack kirby's original grey "tinman" design as mark I as well as including a mark II before tony finalises his design. it makes it more ... realistic. after all, rome isn't built in a day (but apparently spiderman's costume is?)

love interest: double checked
hey, guess what? tony and pepper didn't do anything dirty on screen. not even a peck on the lips. but that doesn't mean the romance part of the story's as dead as the ironman costume; in fact it's as sizzling as its turbo engine (god, i have to stop with this lame similes). the "there but not there" nature of the relationship and the chemistry between the two actors only add to the appeal to the movie

revised backstory: checked
as mentioned before: instead of tony being captured by vietnamese and made to create a weapon by communists, he was captured by militants in afganishtan with a very appropriate name: ten rings (more on that later). but other than this update, tony's origin as a genius millionaire playboy is beautifully played by robert downey and the fact that the story focuses on his character more than anything else is a nice change to the normal beat-em-up-for-the-screen direction action movies take. which brings me to my next point:

cgi and action scenes: checked and a half check
no superhero movie is complete without the mind blowing cgi scenes and adrenaline pumping action scenes. cgi is flawless. plain wow. action scenes? well, after watching countless of trailers, the most exciting scenes are already given away there. there are some cool moments there (personal favorite is the airchase) when tony either does the ass kicking or at the receiving end of the ass kicking and with a suit like that, of course there are some classic moments (for example, when a militant shoots at the mark 1 costume at short range; it bounces off and kills him instead XDDDDDD). but i guess compared to the rest of the superhero movies, yeah, there's something a little bit lacking. having just read a scan of an ironman comic in scans_daily yesterday, i got to see how brutal tony--heck, superheroes can be (it was a fight against the mandarin; owch: i pity the mandarin after the end of the fight). if there's anything to iron out in this movie, then a more elaborate longer fighting scenes can be shown. like darren's put it: it doesn't feel like it's reached the climax yet.

possibility for a sequel: super checked
next time, baby.
in the words of james rhodes himself. future (BIG SPOILER) war machine, a sidekick of sort to ironman. the ten ring thing? please. here's the laydown: ironman's got a communist archrival known as the mandarin... because he's chinese. he's got ten rings that give him superhuman powers. in the movie: the leader of the ten ring militant group is a man with a grudge against tony. duh. he's the movie-verse's version of the mandarin. only because he's not chinese, i don't know what they'd call him. the afghanistan?
the S.H.I.E.L.D introduction is just too funny; have you ever thought of changing your name? heh. and its inclusion means that there's something deeper going on--S.H.I.E.L.D involvement would most likely or not involve avengers involvement. and avengers... well. rumors about a thor movie. rumors about an ironman movie. rumors about an avengers movie. fill in the blanks.
this isn't relevant, but the stan lee cameo was hilarious. old man surrounded by pretty girls. guys, if you want your golden years to be surrounded by hot babes a third of your age, be a comic legend.
anyway, the ending itself is enough to ensure you that: yes, this movie is just a prequel. a trailer. an appetizer for the real thing.
(and with ironman grossing $101 at first weekend in america only supports the fact that yes: ironman II is coming to a theater near you soon)

what a superhero movie should have but lack all the time:

a plot. a script. a story. a... something that's worth watching for, dammit.
usually, people watch movie for its story. unfortunately, superhero movies tend to get carried away by focusing on the sexy ladies and the fighting scenes and the cgi and whatnot. see: elektra, hulk (the first one, not the one's that coming), spiderman 3, xmen3. fortunately enough, the strong point of ironman is actually its script. like i've said before, the movie's all about tony's growth from immature cassanova to a hero with a heart. there are many witty lines in the movie and camerawork, pacing and everything is damn near perfect. this is the brainchild of an indie director and an indie actor geniuses. with the perfect cast, this movie is one with an indie sparkle and appeal, but also with the bigbudget blockbuster draw.

a character we'd care about
oh come on. you have to admit peter parker is actually kinda boring. so is superman--that ol' boy scout. batman? yeah, okay. a bit emo at times, but at least a unique character on its own. ironman?
tony stark isn't supposed to be a character we care about; morality states that we should despise such a selfish, arrogant, sarcastic playboy asshole. but somewhere between the cheeky grin and the tongue in cheek replies, tony stark suddenly appeals to us. especially after his brush with death and tony's become a "changed" man, a man searching for a heroic heart and a way to fight something that he's created himself--a man trying to be a hero, and a man, who even though hides in the super armor, still has a bleeding heart and a dark dark secret he's fighting to hide (well, that's sequel material).
many comic writers have lost track of this essence of who anthony stark really is (probably in the attempt to make him the dick of marvel universe; it's working), but this movie hasn't. it's tony stark--the best of tony stark with wit, charm and intelligence--brought into life by the brilliant robert downey jr which would engage not only comic fans but also the rest of the audience who's never heard of slade wilson before.

conclusion
this is not a quick review after all, is it? sigh. me and my tendency to digress and blabber on and on and on and on...
anyway, this movie is indeed a masterpiece that has set a new standard in superhero movies. it has some kinks in its armor (for one: it needs more score to accompany the movie, needs more action and come to think of it, the last part of the movie was a bit rushed... from tony the clumsy hero who's trying to use the suit properly to suddenly tony the afghanistan villlage savior and tony, the guy who almost died crushed by ironmonger), but it is still a shiny one at that. if the sequel is done properly (hint: don't focus too much on the alcholism or the movie would just turn out like some sappy crappy drama), it may even do a spiderman2 and beat its prequel and the golden standard it's set.

on a really random sidenote: a pile of 50 cent coins can really hinder the functions of your ezlink card (thanks darren for giving me the chance to try that out). darren calls it ironcoins. haha. ya lah, it's common sense especially to students trained in physics like us, but it's just fun to ... experiment that out.

----
as promised, last post where i gush about ironman.

as of 9:54 PM Singapore Time, the Tomatometer in Rotten Tomatoes dot com is stuck at 94% for Iron Man.

woah-ho. that beat Batman Begins! (supposedly best superhero movie in this century so far, maybe along with X-Men 2 and Superman Returns).

and what's with my fixation with ironman?

okay, i promise that this is gonna be my second last post on him (the last probably being a review on the movie after i catch it. after the exams. four days from now.)

anyway, i'm quite sad right now. you see, i had high hopes in this hong kong drama series qiang jian; it's those kung-fu/sword/evilsectgoodsect/fighting story heavy with the best names in hongkong-llywood. it started out really fine--it was really enjoyable, despite the cliche-ness of the genre. i prayed that it won't end like most hk dramas: really good beginning, and then as the drama gained momentum, the ending would be rushed and the story spoiled at the end.

ah. qiang jian also had that affliction.

they killed my favorite character. our favorite character. as in the entire extended family's favorite character. because the main character is a stupid stubborn guy but i digress. and there isnt really a need to kill him; it seemed like it was the scriptwriter had a feeling that before the series ended, he should take as much casualties as possible to make the main character more emo (as if he needs that) and so he just killed the guy. anticlimatic much.

(and because i--we want to see the guy end up with this really cute girl who's in love with the main character who's in love with the second main character, but again i digress).

anyway, yes i know all of you would be shouting at me you said tomorrow you're gonna have two of your weakest subjects examined. why the hell aren't you studying? oh yeah i've no excuse. i could say cmon i'm just taking a 45 minute break or my head hurts. cant study for that period. while both are a tad true, i guess the real excuse is that i'm just a lazy bum who's so sick of staring at numbers and formulas for the past few weeks or so.

yeah, me, and you, and everyone else, right?

fine. i've no excuse.

----------------------

"I, Lucifer, Fallen Angel, Prince of Darkness, Bringer of Light, Ruler of Hell, Lord of the Flies, Father of Lies, Apostate Supreme, Tempter of Mankind, Old Serpent, Prince of This World, Seducer, Accuser, Tormentor, Blasphemer, and without a doubt Best Fuck in the Seen and Unseen Universe (ask Eve, that minx) have decided - oo-la-la! - to tell all."
...

currently i'm reading this book by glen dunclan called I, Lucifer. catchy title, huh? it's got even catchier plot.

and it's not blasphemous despite what it seems. i mean, coming from the girl who swears off da vinci code because of her faith. okay, truthfully, i bought the book because i know (because i stalk ewan mcregor and daniel craig online XD) that daniel craig and ewan mcregor are signed on to play in a movie called I, Lucifer and i happened to see the book in a bookstore and out of curiousity (and because i stalk ewan mcregor and daniel craig) 'course i gotta see it.

it's a thin book, it is, but it sure packs a whole punch. woah. i see that it has the potential of being a how to kill a mockingbird in the near future or so (i can see future camilles and future stefs working on the book for literature). it's really really deep. i'm still mulling over some of the stuff there. and i haven't even read the book finish (but being me of course, i just gotta peek the end of the book).

in a nutshell: God offers luce a second chance at redemption by giving him a flesh and blood existence. lucifer wants a trial first, so he ends up in the body of a pathetic suicidal failure of a writer named declan gunn (anagram of the writer: glen dunclan) who was trying to slit his wrist before his spirit was exchanged for lucifer's--for a month. lucifer delights in actually existing in the material world and instead of trying to live sinlessly like the contract with the 'Old Man' says, he puts his human host in the worst vices of the human world like sex, drugs and more while producing a screenplay for a movie to showcase his downfall from heaven and his attempts throughout history to screw with the humans and give God as much migraine as possible.

lucifer is just ... the weirdest and most interesting and fascinating character i've ever read or known. glen dunclan's injected a lot of wit and a... ... devilish humanity? in the Devil as well as 'extending' versions of bible excerpts that we all know. take this for example: lucifer said that the temptation in the desert scene in the bible was a bit... edited. he said that of course he would know jesus would not be tempted by bread, testing god or kingdoms/mountains (take your matthew/luke pick). and guess how he tempted jesus? "is it worth it? do you think your sacrifice would change them?" flashforward. 2000 years later. sex. rape. drug. smoking. genocides. elton john.

while lucifer always tries to badmouth God, it's obvious that he has a lot of respect for Him. he's fighting a losing battle; God knows everything he wants to do and he's trying to do (and that annoys lucifer like hell; he calls it an 'unfair fight') and God's will is always upon everyone. even on the devil himself.

in the end, i'm thinking that lucifer's existence, and everything else that's been done and will be done: all that is God's will and part of God's plan. even lucifer has to recgonise that even as he tries to rebel and tinker with the little details. (i really love the part where he tells of the story of his fall: God sends michael. luce tells michael: it's too late to change my mind. michael tells luce: it's too late to change your mind. your pride is the cause of your fall, lucifer. then lucifer sees the host of angel behind michael (outnumbered, he thinks, two to one--not a chance); and God's wrath bubbling up behind it all. well, lucifer says. and then the war starts.)

woops. look at me. gosh, i dont know how i manage to do this, blabbering on and on and on when i gotta sleep and wake up early tomorrow to revise my revision (oh yeah, i actually completed my revision and exam practice. wow. that's a first!).

one day, i shall learn how to be coherent.

i cant believe i just went through 8 exams in the past few days. shan't discuss it (psst... everything went hell...) because i believe in letting bygones be bygones... after all, what you don't know can't hurt you. yes, i'm a coward, but as ron in harry potter said: "it's bad enough going through it once, why go through it again?"

i think we all have the right to be tired. after the english paper on tuesday, i thought i got a brainfreeze despite not drinking any caffeine. could. not. think. when i went home, i hardly touched physics and geog, deciding to continue studying at 2 am like how i always do nowadays. set up 3 alarm clocks. woke up at five. i slept like a log, consumed by fatigue. then i woke up, panicked and everything went downhill from there.

anyway, i'm keeping my outlook positive and am counting down to the post exam period happily. still would be busy after that with IRs and apparently SIMC (like everyone out there) and oh shit i haven't finished the bully free script thing-- but at least it's a good kind of busy, as in, one that doesn't involve killing too much braincells and burning the midnight oil to drown in revisions. and there are preparations for the World Youth Day Sydney--haven't come to  a single bonding session or prayer meeting because of pastoral attachment. kinda weird, cause i'd be on my own for ten days in Australia with 20 people all older than me--except for jeanette. yay she hasn't come for the meetings either so she's in the same boat as me. (: but since psalm 91 attachment would end by this week ( :(! ) it would mean that i've no other excuse to not come for wyd meetings.



kinda exciting, travelling to australia again all on my own--only country out of asia i've travelled so far, twice no less, without parents. last time i went in summer with the spider girls and dr seah, and now it's gonna be winter when i go there--and this time no nice living arrangement. we all gonna live in a school hall or something sleeping in subzero sleeping bags with commonal toilets. no tv. so much for catching reruns of season 4 house md there, unless i hang around in some restaurant with channel 7 playing for hours.

and i'll get to see the pope.

and like hundreds of thousands or even millions of catholic youth from all around the world. that means there's gonna be germans too. (!!!) gonna ask yang xuan to brush up my germans so that my vocab would contain more than just guten tag and ich liebe dich and fick dich (that's a vulgarity by the way XD). and for those who still don't know my life principles, here goes:

1. don't discuss papers
2. don't follow the crowd
3. germans are cute

wow, what a superb way of summarising my life.

iron man opens today!


(i didn't leech off bandwiths for this one, heh!)

reviews have so far been awesome (except for the straits times life! which will be discussed shortly) calling it the "golden, correct way of making a superhero movie". rottentomatoes score the movie an 83% (a really high figure, believe me, if you follow the site) although since it's just the opening, it may change, but probably not much. the movie is hailed for making tony stark a very very sexily flawed superhero and very human, despite being super--with a script that doesn't focus greatly on the actions but instead more on the making of iron man and the transformation of tony stark: cassanova to tony stark: really-trying-his-best-to-be-a-superhero (or in the comics: really-trying-his-best-to-not-be-a-dick-and-fail-and-we-love-him-for-that). tony stark's much like bruce wayne in that they're both millionaries and ordinary humans (and really superdicks, but that side isn't really shown in the movies) but tony ain't like the broody dark knight. batman grieves over parents, lost partners, lost friends and pretty much everything in his life, making him an emo dude. tony's more... optimistic and really has principles he sticks to. and of course, tony isn't a goody two shoes like peter parker being an alcoholist and no boy scout like superman and captain america or a weirdo like thor (i can't believe he's my dad's favorite superhero. "i shalt vanquish thou with my awesome hammer...!"). and i shan't bore people with my nerdy superhero geek-ism. it can be scary. i know.

well, ong sor fern in life calls the movie all action but no story, but that isn't what other reviews suggest. called one of the highest quality big budget movie in a long time, the cgi's there, believable but toned down to bring out the story and the characters. i won't know for sure until i see the movie (5 more days 5 more days dammit) but hey currently it's their word against hers. the strong points of the movie is the "indie" twist to it, the cast (i've said it and i'll say it again: robert downey jr, you are tony stark without the armor!) and the writers.

and for those who want to see nick fury played by samuel lee jackson (as in famous actor who looks like nick fury in the comics), just go get the dvd next time. lol. this movie really knows how to bring the geeks in fanboys and girls.

but i'm not sure how they're going to make an avengers movie to follow up captain america and hulk and ironman. it works in animated movies and cartoons, but real life movie? come on. what can the script be like that won't repulse the mainstream audience (unless we're talking about the target audience being comic geeks; we'll watch any superhero movie they throw at us)? hulk goes wild, going hulk smash hulk smash through out new york city and fantastic four makes a cameo with the thing engaging hulk in a beauty contest a fistfight and then avengers form to stop the rampaging monster? OHOH i got it! don't tell me, don't tell me!

skrulls.



but as we all have been taught by our parents: don't judge a book by its cover, or a movie by its prospects. robert downey jr would be there; he won't allow a lousy script to surface for the movie--if there is, he'd just throw it down and stomp off and set up office next to the director's to make sure that no lousy grade stuff like that would ever go through that door anymore. man, i love that guy.

so if an avengers movie is being made, why not a justice league one? we'll have brandon routh and cristian bale as two out of the Big Three--wonder woman can be played by uhm pamela anderson with black wig. really: DC needs to follow in marvel footsteps and produce superhero movies too. starting with green lantern and flash.

(random fact: you know, in marvel vs dc, iron man goes against kyle rayner, then green lantern, and well... you know it's like a fangirl feast for me).

talk about being carried away. now i've possibly bored what few readers this LJ have by ranting on about comics and hollywood.

(no yangxuan, i'm not crazy anymore. this morning was just an... exception to my regularly sane life).

woah this is turning out to be a damn long post. (and why do i always end long posts with this kind of sentences? how cliche...) gonna have to study chemistry and vectors now. two other weak subjects (and you wonder: how many weak subjects do you have, intan?). already wasted time napping, watching drama series and eating hot corn so it's time for me to turn back to my busy student alter ego and jump back into the world of exams, stress and depression.

i'm not a big marvel fan, but iron man has to be my most favorite marvel super hero ever! 

why?

because he's a dick, silly. he's like bruce wayne of batman, but more of an asshole no matter in or out of the costume. he's a millionaire playboy jerk in a suit he constructed himself to give him superpowers--and he's no superman, because he's got his own demons, like his alcohol addiction and his own ego (and don't get me started on his super jerkself in civil wars). 

i've been waiting for the movie since last year and boy, i'm so glad it's finally coming out. all the trailers are just drop dead gorgeous (robert downey jr is tony stark straight from the comics!) anddddddd there's gonna be a sequel.  it's gonna be a trilogy and i think it has the potential to be the next spiderman, despite being relatively unknown compared to other icons like captain america, superman and spiderman. 

if the movie turns out to be good; no one wants another hulk (thank god they're remaking that movie). but judging from the trailer, i think it'll be pretty amazing. it looks exciting and heroic and serious, balanced with robert downey's sense of humor that only convinces me he's the perfect actor to portray tony stark (maybe being a hardcore fan of the character helps).

and next year: look out for yet another incredible hulk movie (this one is hyped to be good) and hugh jackman's wolverine.