Conservative groups in the US have successfully argued that providing young girls with sexual organs before they become sexually active will encourage promiscuity. All girls under the age of 12 are asked to drop in their organs at their local hospital, to be collected when they're "ready".

OK, sorry...

US approves cervical cancer drug

The US has licensed the first vaccine against cervical cancer, which kills at least 290,000 women worldwide a year.

The new drug Gardasil - manufactured by Merck & Co. - is designed to be given to girls and women between the ages of nine and 26.

[ ... ]

But conservative groups in the US argue that treating young girls before they become sexually active will encourage promiscuity.

Teaser site.

Call that a teaser?!

I hold no hopes on any of the aspects of the Transformers movie except one.

They better give me a "soundtrack" version of the Transformers theme tune or I'll cry.

Actually... Transformers the movie could learn a heck of a lot from X3.

I loved it and I feel no need to justify why. But I will tell you what I liked.

I have seen more X-Men than I have read X-Men. My character knowledge is therefore mostly from X1 (which I remember thinking was fairly average) and X2 (which I liked) and from the occasional rant from comic reading friends which I suppose I must have taken in.

I felt no crushing pain from the way any of the characters were portrayed in this movie.

I liked X3 much more than the first 2.

To me it's the way superhero movies should be and the first time I've felt that.

I had forgotten who Kitty was and thought for a moment her power must be staring into space looking stoned.

Superheros beating up superheros. Superhero tag team. No boring explainations of who they are. It doesn't matter. Show me their power. Get those stinking humans out of the way. I can tell who they are by how they are drawn.

It told a story about mutants with mutants. Not some crappy character story, although there were well told character subplots within the movie. The "don't forget superheros are people too" story sucks. It should dribble out of the main unrelated storyline, not be rammed in our faces. It wasn't.

Did anyone notice humans are barely in this film, and when they are, they're making decisions for mutants, or capturing them, or keeping them captive, or trying to kill them? Nasty humans.

I think X-Men works so well (for me) because it is a movie about mutants, not just one superhero with one bad guy. Everything those unfamiliar with X-Men need to know is explained in the first five minutes of the movie. You don't need to know any more. This isn't a movie about any of the mutants. It's about Mutants with a capital M.

Like the Muppets movies. Capital M.

Which is why a "Wolverine" spin off would suck.

End of review.

Now, I feel the need to explain to others why metaphores don't matter...

Personally, I felt a direct connection being made between the mutant cure and abortion, with the help of protesters, attacks on "cure" centres, the continual use of the word "choice", the "it's not something that needs a cure" tagline and the Rogue and her boyfriend storyline and the fact many of the people being shown in line were young.

But, during the movie I wasn't thinking any of this. I was thinking that they were protesting a mutant cure. I was thinking what it must be like to be Rogue and the choice she must make, wondering how many others out there there must be with crappy mutations we never hear about. I wasn't thinking about unwanted children or whatever hang-up you might have. I was thinking about mutants. You should have been too.

Was it good film making, a good main story (universe), or just luck on my part? Who cares.

Metaphores are easier to see than they are to deliberately make. People go looking for them every day the same way our brain is hard wired to look for faces in Mars rocks. That's why we have art lovers to tell us what Leonardo was trying to tell us, when all he was doing was painting another woman he thought was attractive and stuck some scenery in the background because really, she was kind of boring. That's why we can look at that painting and look for reasons instead of just thinking, "cute chick".

What you choose to see as the main metaphore in X3 says a lot about you. Be careful with that.

But metaphores are fun to talk about, so feel free. But remember, it's your arse your pulling the words from, not the film makers.

Now go read the great line of discussion at Dave's blog [1] and [2].

I presume you've seen the movie already or you wouldn't have read this far.

Yesterday my suburb and everywhere I could see was covered by a layer of fog. It wasn't super thick where I was but you couldn't see more than a block into the distance any way you looked.

It's a lovely sunny 9C day this morning.