X-Men 3 - Just can't wait for it!

Looking at the cast for X-Men 3 has got me drooling over another explosive movie! I personally can't wait to see Jean Grey's resurrection and who would've thought Dr Frasier Crane will end up as another doctor albeit a more scientific one. I'm of course talking about Kelsey Grammer as The Beast! Whether he'll be blue and furry is anybody's guess but I'd love to see his acrobatic moves that's for sure! And what about the Archangel? Who would've thought they be bringing him into the movie? And casting Cayden Boyd as Young Warren is just oh so lovely! Definitely can't wait to see the kid sprouts wings and take to the sky!

Nevertheless, I'm still dismayed by some of the casting choices too... specifically Halle Berry, James Marsden and Anna Paquin. These three, I'm sorry to say, had been pretty much the last two movies' weakness.

Naturally, griping about the director's pick will lead to me pondering over alternative casting possibilities. And that'll be what this post be all about. If I had the power vested within me to overhaul the entire cast.... these will be who I want to see as the comic characters... maybe some day, it'll come true? Gosh, how I wish the producers and director and the writer for this movie and future movies will look at this and try them out!!! Till then... it'll always be in my minds eye when I sleep...

Professor X - Ben Kingsley will no doubt be one excellent veteran baldie actor to play him. Not to say that Pat Stewart's not doing a great job, i mean he embodies the look of Prof X but he still doesn't have that powerful presence/aura that comes from a world's most powerful telepath. If you've seen Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast you'll no doubt will agree with me. Plus, his wisdom as Gandhi will be good since Professor X strives for peace among mutants and humans.

Magneto - Nick Nolte... most likely gonna get a bit of flame for this one =b why Nick Nolte? Cause he plays wild and gritty characters with issues well. One think i have doubts about Ian McKellen's performance (not to say he's not good, he looks good being evil) is that Magneto's comes off looking a bit posh. Could be just me of course. Besides, if you true blue fans remember how Magneto first appeared in the first ever X-Men comic, you'll know he's this embittered person driven by a sense of revenge against humanity for crimes against mutants, which Magneto sees as a repeat of the extermination of the Jews in WW2. If Nick Nolte can't be Magneto, there others in the wings waiting to take over. My other choices for this role would be Christopher Plummer, Powers Boothe and Jeremy Irons, although I'm saving Irons for future villain, Mr Sinister. Plummer has the qualities needed for the part and Powers Boothe scares me sometimes with his many slimy evil characters that he has portrayed.

Cyclops - Tough call for this one. I had to ponder over whether I want a 'pretty boy' or one who can act, unlike stiff wood Marsden. Heh... but I do thank the heaven they didnt pick that Affleck guy for this part! I have two choices for this role... Matt Damon is one and Brendan Fraser is another. Someone mentioned him to and I do like Fraser in the two Mummy movies. And I do think Fraser's just as good looking and he too has the bod for pulling off Cyclops well. Why Matt Damon, he's looks I guess. Sometimes when I look at the comic version and compare it with Matt Damon in Bourne Supremacy, and I'd go, cool, Damon should've been Cyclops.

Jean Grey - Another tough call as I don't remember enough fiery headed actresses that can embody this lovely girl. Famke is sooooooooo not Jean Grey. Kirsten Dunst already looked soooooo good in Spiderman as the equally red-headed Mary Jane and I wish Dunst was several years older for her to be perfect as Jean Grey. I definitely want Dunst to be Jean Grey. But that will not happen cause I doubt she'll be in another comic movie other than Spiderman. People already see her sooooooo much as Mary Jane. So, I'll put aside my favourite and go with the next best two actress... Julianne Moore and Bridget Moynahan. Either one would be perfect!

Wolverine - I initially didnt want to recast this role because I like Jackman soooo much as Wolverine. But if I must... then I'll look around and scour for the next best actor to be the tough talking Logan/Wolverine. My actor has to be... ok, I admit it.. it was hard to find a replacement... I don't think Dougray Scott would fit the bill either even though he was the first choice. This character is in a class of his own and for someone in real-life to be able to have the same wild nature as Wolverine has to be a damn good actor... or he was a hermit living in the wild for ages... Then again...Matthew Fox of TV's "Lost" might be able to portray Wolvie too. If he can top Jackman's performance, that is.

Rogue - Anna Paquin is no Southern belle thats for sure! But since I'm not from the States, I don't any Southern actresses. So, I might actually take the risk and cast a newbie in this role. If I must choose an already established star, then my pick would be Scarlett Johansson. Paquin may have an Oscar as a kid, but she don't really seem to be able to act much in her later years. I'll pick Scarlett in the hope she can bring to life Rogue's tough but vulnerable on the inside and no-nonsense gal. If Scarlett can't be it... heck I'll go for Julia Stiles or even Ann Hathaway!

Storm - Hallen Berry should steer clear of ALL comic based movies from now on. Thats my verdict. What disastrous showing Catwoman was and how pathetic she was as Storm who can fly in the comics. The only time I've actually seen Storm defying gravity is the scene in the 1st movie where she glides/floats up to lightning blast The Toad sky high. My pick for the motherly and also tough 'weather witch' has to be Angela Bassett. No doubts about it. Oprah Winfrey? Errr.... I don't know... she'll probably talk a lot of the characters to death if she became Storm. Vivica Fox? Hmmmmm.... a possibility and the lesser known actress Erykah Badu too can be Storm but Bassett is still best.

The Beast/Hank McCoy - Heh, heh, I like this character a lot and to see Robbie Coltrane portraying this scientific genius would be a hoot! He's already looking very hairy in Harry Potter so why not add a few more bluer hairs and Robbie's all ready to play the Beast. Only problem here is that Robbie got to take some gymnastic and acrobatic lessons for him to be limber and agile.

Iceman - Initially, I actually thought Ryan Reynolds should've been given the part but he's a little too old to be in a school... Then, I saw Chris Evans and went... he's the one! Talk about a clash of powers! Hot and cold, no one does it as good as Chris Evans! LOL! But seriously, Chris Evans ought to be given a shot at this role instead of Ashmore, who looks too doleful for the wise-cracking, happy-go-lucky Iceman.

The Archangel - Cayden Boyd is perfect as Young Warren. The blond hair, pretty boy looks. Now, we need an older version who looks more or less like Cayden. Despite the fact of how much I hated Colin Farrell in Alexander, he might be able to portray a rich playboy mutant in X-Men 3. Everything about him looks a bit playboysih to me anyways... unless you want David Beckham the football player! LOL! Yep, Colin Farrell... might be able to pull it off.

Mystique - Looks don't matter here. After all, the actress gonna get herself paint blue with scales pasted on her latex suit. Plus, i think this role requires less acting skills... I think any actress who has played villains can pull this off. However, to be honest, I think it'll be kinda need if Angelina Jolie plays Mystique =b Other choices would be Gisele Bundchen from Tim Story's Taxi.

Pyro - I'd prefer someone manic-looking to play Pyro. I think John Robinson from Lords of Dogtown could do it too! He has everything that makes Pyro a fiery fire loving and fire manipulator arsonist. Or, since Cillian Murphy already did excellent villainous characters in Batman Begins and Red Eye, he'll be perfect for Pyro... just that he needs to dye his hair blond! =b

Colossus - So far, from the brief glimpse of Daniel Cudmore in X-2, I think he'll make a nice Colossus, even though he's Canadian and not Russian. They should've tried to be bit more realistic and truthful to the comics, you know what I mean? Sigh! I'll definitely pick someone Russian, or at least of Balkan origins to portray Colossus. Even if you get someone American, the least the producers could do is throw the actor into a Russian class and get him to learn the slang. No actors I know are tall or bulky enough to be Colossus and I've ran out of ideas so I'll leave it open for now... definitely a newbie for this role.

Juggernaut - I seriously think ex British footballer Vinnie Jones is a serious miscast for Juggernaut, but then again I haven't seen him act it out yet. He's a well-known actor of tough and rough guy but he's not daft... which I feel that Juggernaut is in the comic. Juggernaut has always been the jealous, vengeful and evil half-brother to Prof X and I like someone bulkier and mean looking to be Juggernaut. My casting choice for this character will be a former WWE pro wrestler named Brock Lesnar. Other contenders for the title (pun intended ^_^) are Matt Bloom aka The A-Train/Albert and Bill Goldberg.

Shadowcat - Shadowcat is supposed to be a young teen who has yet to mature but which young teen can play this role? I'll have to scour the Disney and Nickelodeon channels to look for the right kind of girl that'll do well for the still young and precocious X-girl who could walk through walls and even human beings. Therefore, I will not look further than Alexa Vega from the Spy Kids movies and Michelle Trachtenberg.

Siryn - The high pitch screaming girl who could also fly is very tough to cast as I can't think of any young actress who has red hair and Irish to boot. So, I'll have to leave this as a newbie actress. If she doesnt have to be Irish, I'd go for Alexis Bledel from Gilmore Girls... her audition will be simply whether she can let out a long high pitch scream without damaging her larynx. =b

Hmmm... well I can think of this much in one day. Of course, there's still Deathstryke, Nightcrawler, Sabretooth and The Toad from the 2nd and 1st movies respectively. It'll be alright to leave 'em out for now... but I may be back next time to add on a few more words.

Come back for more and do post your thoughts on this cast list.

Some great truths... something for all of you to laugh about when you're down ^_^

Happy greets to all my wonderful readers out there!

Just wanna share something which I just received through mail from a good web friend. Yeah, look at the time.. Its almost 3am. Why am I doing up so late? Well, its just one of those nights when I just can't get myself to sleep... I'm a night owl sometimes... Anyways, have a read and do share them with your family and friends!

GREAT TRUTHS THAT LITTLE CHILDREN HAVE LEARNED:
1) No matter how hard you try, you can't baptize cats.
2) When your Mom is mad at your Dad, don't let her brush your hair.
3) If your sister hits you, don't hit her back. They always catch the second person.
4) Never ask your 3-year old brother to hold a tomato.
5) You can't trust dogs to watch your food.
6) Don't sneeze when someone is cutting your hair.
7) Never hold a Dust-Buster and a cat at the same time.
8) You can't hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk.
9) Don't wear polka-dot underwear under white shorts.
10) The best place to be when you're sad is Grandpa's lap.

GREAT TRUTHS THAT ADULTS HAVE LEARNED:
1) Raising teenagers is like nailing Jell-O to a tree.
2) Wrinkles don't hurt.3) Families are like fudge...mostly sweet, with a few nuts.
4) Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut that held its ground.
5) Laughing is good exercise. It's like jogging on the inside.
6) Middle age is when you choose your cereal for the fiber, not the toy.

GREAT TRUTHS ABOUT GROWING OLD
1) Growing up is mandatory; growing old is optional. (Personally, I think this is backwards: Growing Old is Mandatory, Growing Up is Optional....)
2) Forget the health food. I need all the preservatives I can get.
3) When you fall down, you wonder what else you can do while you're down there.
4) You're getting old when you get the same sensation from a rocking chair that you once got from a roller coaster.
5) It's frustrating when you know all the answers but nobody bothers to ask you the questions.
6) Time may be a great healer, but it's a lousy beautician.
7) Wisdom comes with age, but sometimes age comes alone.

THE FOUR STAGES OF LIFE:
1) You believe in Santa Claus.
2) You don't believe in Santa Claus.
3) You are Santa Claus.
4) You look like Santa Claus.

SUCCESS:
At age 4 success is . .. not peeing in your pants.
At age 12 success is . ...having friends.
At age 16 or 18 success is ... having a drivers license.
At age 35 success is ... having money.
At age 50 success is . . having money.
At age 70 success is . . . having a drivers license.
At age 75 success is .... having friends.
At age 80 success is .... not peeing in your pants.

Pass this on to someone who could use a laugh.

Always remember to forget the troubles that pass your way; BUT NEVER forget the blessings that come each day.Have a wonderful day with many *smiles* .

Datuk Michelle Yeoh.... Malaysia's 1st Oscar nominated actress??? OMG!!!

Hey, yeah... I'm back again in barely minutes after my last post. This is a totally new topic and I'm here to gush about Malaysia's hottest international actress right now: our very own Ipoh-born Datuk Michelle Yeoh!!!



The Star did a feature on her today about her tour de force performance in Steven Spielberg's Memoirs of a Geisha. For a lot of people to stand up and pay attention to her performance means that this movie has to be THE movie of the year, and Oscar talk is on everybody's lips and not just for Michelle... but literally for EVERY single Chinese actress in the movie about JAPANESE geishas! Talk about irony!!!

I'm not sure about my fellow countrymen, but I am immensely proud of Datuk Michelle. She's really good actress and I've enjoyed her movies immensely. Who could forget Police Story III: Supercop, my first ever Michelle movie? She literally held her own against master action hero Jackie Chan in that movie! She was wonderful in that. After that movie, I sampled her next movie ... a martial arts story called Wing Chun, though not as stylish as martial arts movies today, but it was highly watchable. And let's not forget how he whacked Pierce Brosnan's James Bond butt in Tomorrow Never Dies but liplocking with him by the end of the movie. She was Malaysia's 1st (and probably the last) Bond girl! Then comes what has to be her next best movie after Memoirs... Wo hu chang long or better known to the world out there as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. That Ang Lee movie was artistically made and wonderfully and beautifully made! It definitely propelled a lot of the cast members into the international spotlight, especially Datuk Michelle and Zhang Ziyi, who also put in a fantastic performance in Memoirs. Though her movies after Ang Lee's actually suck... they are still quite entertaining enough to enjoy in one sitting but doesn't merit a DVD release... But with Memoirs, Datuk Michelle is definitely going places where no Malaysians have been before!!

So what's Datuk Michelle's prospects are?? Well, it's too early to talk about it but everyone is defintely praying and hoping for a Malaysian success! Come December, when it's finally released here in Malaysia, I'll defintely be one of the first in line to catch this fantastic movie. You can never go wrong with a Spielberg movie... he's up there with the likes of Akira Kurosawa and Alfred Hitchcock.

On Writing....and lots more about nothing

Hi to anyone thats interested in reading the rants and ramblings of an aspiring writer.

First up, just to let you know that this is a post that is dedicated to the topic of nothingness... Yup, you heard that right... I'm writing this post about nothing... cos I'm just basically bored and just wanted to flex my writing muscles... if I have any in the first place. Well, you'll be the judge of that. I'm just bored out of my mind now that I've completed my deadlines.

Ok, how do you go about writing something about nothing? A thought balloon has just formed at the corner of my head..."I must be warped out of my mind...perhaps my readers are thinking the same. But short of checking myself in to the nearest looney bin, might as well have some fun while I'm at it...."

No apologies on my part if you're getting confused and just as warped out as I am now.

Like I said, I'm just toying around with you for now as I struggle to write something about anything on nothing. Well, to be honest I just trying to see how much I can write with pausing to think what to write. I guess thats a good start. If I can keep writing without pausing to think about what to write, its good practice of the mind and also my writing strength. Even if it does sound silly and pointless but I'm quite sure many of the greatest writers out there do practice some form of doodling and writing nonsensical stuff just to stimulate their creative thinking process. Consider this my online version of doodling...

I've just borrowed a book from my uni library on the history of modern short stories. Quite an interesting read actually. I'm enjoying the book very much. Are you still with me, cause if you are... I'll start talking a bit about the book on short stories. I love short stories. I love writing them too. In fact, I've written a few of my own and am planning to publish an antholgy of the writings. Well, they aren't exactly profitable commercial writings but they are my writings and I don't really mind if it doesn't pay much just as long as I know that there are people who are interested in what I have to say.

Ok, about the book. The book chronicles how short stories came to be and how it established itself as America's national art form. Edgar Allan Poe and Anton Chekov had been credited as the founding pioneers of the short story form. Poe is quite an interesting writer and I enjoyed some of his works very much. Very morbid and dark and troubling by today's standards. No doubt its entertaining though. As for Chekov...did i get the name right? Well anyways, Chekov is a doctor who found his niche in writing short stories and novellas. He's quite popular I heard though I've not read his works yet. There's also another writer before Chekov... Nicolai Gogol I think. I saw Gogol's works at Borders and I must say... he is quite an interesting writer too. Very simple plots but very human. Both Gogol and Chekov are writers that portray a stark reality of the people in the lowest level of society, often describing the poverty and hardships vividly. And some of it hits quite close to home back in those days in the late 19th century.

Aw crap... my strain of thought broke and had to pause there... for 10secs... oh well nevermind, I'm on a roll here. After deciding to write something...anything... about nothing... I went on to describe a book that I'm currently reading now. Not too bad. Well, this is getting to be a long post so I'll sum up about where I am so far at the book. Besides the 3 abovementioned authors... there were others who developed the short story form and provided the foundation to what it is today. People that were popular writers in the 19th century both in America and in Britain... where literature was a hot thing then. Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling and even a Frenchie... Guy Maupassant (I think!) All of them contributed to the short story form in their own way and all played a part in makiung short stories into what it is today. I hope to emulate them and be a popular writer in Malaysian circles... though I know I can't compete with the best there is that are already established.

In Malaysia.... the only writers that I know of and like are either very sharp in their wit and sarcasm and also very creative. Most of them I know are from the newspaper The Star that I enjoyed reading so much... mainly because of the writers that wrote for the paper. If only I can be like them... but I guess writing about movies for a magazine would suffice for now. The writers that I enjoyed in the paper are Effendi Yusoff, Mary Scheider, Marina Mahathir (I totally salute this iron lady!) and Chong Sheau Ching (old enough to be one of my aunts, but she is one of the best social commentators and critic that I know of). There's also Lydia Teh and Mangai Balasegram... both of whom are thoughtful writers too. I admire Tash aw and John Ling... both of whom have published successful books... the former had even been shortlisted for an award for his first book! Definitely a prime example of the Malaysian spirit....Malaysia Boleh! Instead of dreaming to be like them, I wanna stay awake and make my dreams to be like them a reality!

Thanks for reading, people! Probably too much to take in one sitting but hope you had a great time anyways. Haha! Til the next edition of this blog, stay tuned and come back for more helpings of the insanical (is there such a word??) ramblings of a 23 year old Malaysian upstart wannabe writer. ^_^