Speaking of Neil, anyone want to read the script treatment for "Sandman" written nine years ago?

[link]

Roger Avary, who co-wrote the new Beowulf with Neil after this, was set to direct. The script's an amusing read for a while but starts to get bad fast. It's a collage of bits from the first four Sandman collections, with much of the dialogue quoted verbatim. The overall story is interestingly-adapted (I'd have said well-adapted but for the dropoff in quality in the third act) but the actual working parts need more than a polish to function properly. Mostly it feels like the writers just really wanted to incorporate as much of the Sandman 'verse as possible, without concern for whether it was useful for the story to do so. Very glad this script didn't get filmed.

I finally watched Infernal Affairs.

Damn, that was lovely stuff.

I think it's funny that the "Why are the Brits always villains?" conversation is happening on the 4th of July.

Ummm, should I be ashamed to admit I saw Bats again? Also, interestingly the theatre was pretty full and on a Sunday afternoon.

I'm very very happy that Plei FINALLY got to see it.

Cable, which is not free, has no commercials.

Unless it's Australian pay-tv. To get a decent package you'd pay close to $100 a month, then you have to put up with commercials. Not sure if it is on every channel but I know there are some that show regular commercials the same as free-to-air.

Cable here isn't free and has ads too. It's the premium channels that are theoretically ad free, but I'm betting HBO gets something from their sneak peeks at upcoming movies.

From IMDB:

Brett Ratner is spicing up the new X-Men 3 movie with the addition of his very own fantasy - a sex siren mutant who seduces her opponents rather than battles them. Ratner takes over from departing director Bryan Singer, who made the first two movies, and the Rush Hour film maker is determined to leave his mark on the comic book series. The new mutant has not yet been cast but unknowns Kate Nauta and Aya Sumika will reportedly audition. A source tells Pagesix.com the mutant will be, "An unbelievably hot and sexy hooker. Her super power is that she secretes a pheromone that helps her to seduce men. She can seduce anyone." The source adds of the auditions, "They are open to all ethnicities who are in their early-to-mid 20s."

Uh.

The description of the new mutant reminds me sadly of Dark Angel.

I thought Max was part cat or something. Did she exude hot and sexy feline pheromones?

Jessica Alba didn't need pheromones to seduce men. IJS.

There was that one episode where her cat genes or whatever-the-hell kicked in and she was in heat. That episode was evil to male viewers worldwide because we had to watch her seduce some not-too-attractive guy who was just incredibly lucky to be in the right place at exactly the right time. It was also probably the second-to-last episode I watched because that show was really bad.

The mutant sounds like a giant pile of horrible, and I hope it's just a dumb rumor.