the Dalaverse

...of my CAR. MY CAR has DIED.

It won't start. It's just sitting there in Guam not starting.

I know fucking nothing about cars, people. And this is a level of 'nothing' which depth is truly difficult to reach. I called my mother and she said "go look at the battery" and you know what? I had no fucking idea what the battery of my car looked like.

And then she says, "Well find some guys who know something about cars to help you." Yes, that would work except for the fact that I DON'T HAVE ANY FRIENDS TO ASK TO HELP ME WITH MY CAR.

::bursts into tears::

I IMed Kristen and begged for help, but she's at the barn -- when she gets back to me and if she doesn't know anything, I'll call the campus police and have them help. Somehow. Despite the fact that I don't know what's wrong with it.

Fucknuggets. Just....fucking hell. I'm in such an insanely bad mood right now, about to burst into hysterical tears.

Although I guess I should be thankful that I discovered this problem as I was about to go to the movies in Lex Park, rather than when I was about to go home for the weekend.

Thankful moment taken.

Still. GODDAMN YOU, CHEESE.

Earlier today I was doing a review of The Joshua Tree, but that didn't get finished because I decided to finally watch the extra footage version of my X-Men 1.5 DVD. Awww baby, was it worth it -- I liked some of the little behind-the-scenes snippets so much that I think I'll have to watch them every time now. They've become part of the movie for me, like the commentary on "Almost Famous." There was something wrong with my disc, though -- I kept getting trapped in the deleted scenes! At the appropriate point the disc would jump to the scene, but then when it finished, instead of resuming the regular film, it looped and started over again. Pressing the next scene button did nothing, nor did the previous scene or the rewind/fast forward. Pressing menu only started the scene again. Since the first deleted scene is the one in which Rogue tells Bobby her real name (over my dead body, bitch!), you can imagine my consternation. Finally I figured out that it takes three clicks -- not one, not two, but three -- of the mouse on the menu button to return to the main menu, not even to where the movie originally was. A triple click. That is freaking ridiculous. I checked out a couple of pages of Amazon reviews and nobody else seemed to be having this problem. I swear, I'm never buying a DVD from Sams Club again.

Anyway, the highlights of the behind-the-scenes material (none of the deleted scenes were new to me because they're on the old VHS edition too):

• Ian McKellan seemed to be a bit of a priss, especially about his big flying entrance in the train scene. This only made me love him more.



• Bruce Davison does this weird-ass pirate song while he and Rebecca Romijin-Stamos are hanging around Magneto's lair waiting to start. The really hilarious part is Rebecca: first she asks him if he's making the song up as he goes (he says he's not, but I don't believe him), then she keeps giving the cameraman these "get a load of this freak" looks. It's awesome. Davison really seems like a nice guy.



• While Bryan Singer is explaining a change in direction to a member of the cast (think it was Halle Berry, during the train scene, but I could be wrong), the cameraman says off to the side, "They're changing the direction." He doesn't sound pissed or anything; it's just the way he muttered it under his breath to whoever was there was kinda funny.



• There's a bit where Xavier comes out of Cerebro and keeps repeating (they never make clear why) the line "She's at the train station" so many times that it becomes a running joke and he finally goes, "She's still at the train station. *pause* The train is late." The crew snickers and somebody off camera says "Now where is she?" and everyone sing-songs "At the train station!" Cracked me up.



• Again during the train station sequence (it was the best one, and I'm pretty sure the longest), there's what counts as a deleted scene with James Marsdon calling blindly for Storm after the devastation, and he comes over and is totally copping feels off Halle Berry left and right. Not that I blame the guy, but it's hysterical.



• Train station once again: Halle Berry and Tyler Mane are doing the "I want to hear you scream" scene and Halle, referring to his claws/nesty fingernails, says something like "you've got pretty good control of those things right?" and Tyler just goes, all nonchalant, "No," before wrapping his fingers around her throat. Fantastic.



• The cop car scene: Bryan Singer's suddenly talking to some little kid, nobody explains what he's doing there. He's explaining to the kid that they're filming "X-Men." And the kid's like "oh. What's that?" And Singer says it's a motorcycle for the movie. Kid asks who's in the movie. Singer, after a pause: "Patrick Stewart." Kid just looks at him and he says grandly, "Sir Ian McKellan." Then they go through a round of "what's that?" with the kid pointing at pretty much everything on the entire set. Singer stays pretty patient with him the whole time and it's really, really fun to watch.



• The Wolverine/Mystique fight, two things. First Rebecca comes up off the ground in a really cool move that looks like a professional stunt she did herself, which is awesome in and of itself -- but the notable part is that she gets Hugh Jackman right in the balls, not at the later point where it's intended. I know he got knocked around by Kelly Hu on X:2, but Rebecca certainly warms him up. At one point she knocks him into the corner (I think it's the legitimate nut-kick, actually) and he accidentally bangs his head on some pipes. And finally, I loves my Hugh: they do this goofy little dance that Hugh predictably turns into jaw-droppingly sexy. I watched it seven times, not giving a holy hell what Vanessa thought. Oh Hugh, I do love you so. Just from these outtake-like features, he really seems like a fun prankster around the set.
  
  
• I finish with a bit that beats even the Hugh boogie. It's back to the train station sequence (I told you it was the best), and Bryan Singer and a couple other people are watching the film of Anna Paquin and Hugh talking on the train. The camera focuses in on Singer until he's the only one in the shot; he's sticking his face up closer to the camera he's watching as Hugh says some dialogue that was (most, MOST unfortunately) cut from the film. "When you touched me last night, I felt something of death, and it made me realize that I didn't like it. So I wanted to thank you for that." I'm paraphrasing, but the "When you touched me last night" is a direct quote because the words were branded into my skull immediately upon hearing them. And Singer, whose face is like inches from the screen by now, has this little smile on his face. This one moment makes up for the extra Rogue/Bobby-ness of the official deleted scenes. I can see why they took it out, because even though we're not able to see the actors properly, Hugh's vocal delivery moves the subtext way, way far into text; I honestly don't think people could have not felt a romantic/sexual vibe between them, had that been left in. Maybe even despite the Rogue/Bobby footage, if it had been included as well. Anna also gives a delivery of "You think I should go back" that sounds much more mature than her official delivery, which is just further proof that they purposefully downplayed the natural chemistry between she and Hugh. Which I'm not condemning; it was their movie to make, and I saw the 'ship anyway. But these extra little niblets are just a real treat for me; even two years after I last wrote X-fic, L/R is still my OTP in a way that none of the HP ships, not even my beloved H/D, can ever compare to.
  

I am so off to read some vintage L/R fic.