Justice is blind.

I am watching Daredevil for the first time. This might be the most hilarious movie of all time. Thus, what follows is a stream of consciousness type review of the movie as I watch it. Probably something better suited to Twitter, but since I'm taking a break from social networking, this will have to do instead.

I love the internet.

Ben Affleck is his usual wooden self, as a blind lawyer who's an ass-kicking vigilante superhero at night. So far, I've gotten to the bit where he meets Jennifer Garner (Elektra Nachos, or something like that), and ends up having a martial arts-off with her in a kids playground, in full daylight and in front of the kids. They can't decide if this is meant to be hilarious, or a deadly serious action sequence. Action has its role in comedy, but you've gotta commit to it, y'know?

Cheesy doesn't even come close. Now, don't get me wrong - I love me some cheese. Big fan of the smelly stuff, big fan. But it's a little bit hard to tell whether or not this movie actually knows that it's cheese.

Also what the hell is up with Affleck's hair in this movie?! I mean, I know the dude is blind but COME ON [/Gob Bluth].

And Colin Farrell as Irish hitman Bullseye who can make a dart out of a paperclip? GENIUS. Farrell is actually a brilliant comic actor, so I have high hopes for his character. And right on cue, he just killed an annoying old lady on a plane by flicking a peanut into her gullet cos she wouldn't shut up. I FRAKKING LOVE THIS MOVIE.

Since this is set in Hell's Kitchen, if there isn't a "can't stand the heat, get out of the Kitchen" like pretty soon, I'm gonna be well disappointed.

This is so much the poor man's Batman, it's hilarious. 

Seriously, is that a wig Affleck is wearing? It cannot be his real hair, it just can't. It's the real MARVEL in this movie. See what I did there, eh? Eh? Ah, my wit is wasted on yous.

And the obligatory 'blind man touches beautiful girl's face' scene. Followed by the 'blind man can somehow see in the rain' scene. Yeah, I dunno what the hell that's about either.

Jon Favreau is typically pretty good. As such, he's a little out of place in this movie.

This whole 'lawyers who only represent innocent people' thing - isn't that sort of against whatever the lawyer version of the Hippocratic oath is? (You can tell I'm well versed on all this legal stuff).

Also, Jennifer Garner's boobs are highly unnatural. And no, I'm not providing a photo of that.

Affleck just promised Garner that nothing bad is going to happen. BUT YOU HAVEN'T SEEN YOUR HAIR, BEN. THE WORST IS ALREADY UPON US.

God love Colin Farrell, he's hamming it up like Peppa Pig out here. He just killed Papa Nachos (What? I can't be bothered looking up the proper spelling) with Daredevil's blind stick thingy. Which the baldy journo starts to figure out belongs to blind lawyer guy, but Elektra can't figure it out even when she's shagged him. Bit dim, her.

It's Papa Nachos' funeral, but I need to pee, so apologise if I miss an important part of the movie while I'm gone.

I'm back, and Kevin Smith is asking if we want to see something really cool. It's the stick that killed Papa Nachos, and the journo just realised that the stick is actually a blind man's white stick. And what's more, he thinks he's seen it before....dun-dun-duuuun!!!

*light bulb*

Bullseye just met with the Big Bad Guy (The Kingpin) who wants him to kill Elektra, I think. I don't know, I wasn't paying all that much attention to be fair. But at the end of this bad guy versus bad guy exchange. Farrell leans in and menacingly grunts that.....he wants a costume. Srsly.

Now Elektra (also a superhero type) is working out with knives and bags full of sand to a rousing soundtrack of Evanescence. Good. Grief.

Now Elektra is kicking Daredevil's ass, cos she thinks he's responsible for her father\s death and obvs doesn't know he's her main squeeze. That, or she's just really had enough of his stupid hair. Who could blame her? She's stabbed him in the shoulder, and can't tell from looking at the lower half of his face from about 4 inches away that he's the bloke she's been shagging. OMG, srsly like.

Elektra goes to do battle with Bullseye, where she throws a big knifey thing at him, he catches it and throws it back. So she catches it. With the palm of her hand sort of getting in the way. Who tries to catch a knife like that, when they have another one in their hand? Pick it up later, love ffs.

Bullseye also seems to like to do card tricks, whipping out an ace of spades from nowhere and slashing Elektra's throat with it a little. "Illusion, Bulleye, illusion!! A trick is something a whore does for money!" Which clearly applies to no one in this film. Nooooo.....

Oh aye, and Bullseye also stabbed Elektra right in the stomach. Oh noes, etc etc.

This whole fight scene in the church between Bullseye and Daredevil (complete with a giant organ that they pull apart to hit each other with, and actual bats in the belfry) is just a tad too mental for me to comment on. I'm literally like:

And what is the deal with this Irish priest? Other than to embarrass the entire Irish nation, between him and Bullseye. I guess he's meant to be something of an Alfred-type character, but that's not really made clear enough. It feels like there might've been a lot of stuff cut out of this (hilarious, given what they left in) that might've helped to develop it a bit. Either that, or I've passed out occasionally from the sheer hilarious-slash-ridiculousness of it all.

So anyways. Daredevil has gone to fight the Kingpin, he smashes something with water in it to help him 'see' better, and he ends up kicking Kingpin in the knee, which makes the huge dude cry like a little girl. I don't get it.

Aw, then we get the scene where Daredevil could deliver the death blow to the Kingpin, but chooses not to cos he's all healed of his vengeance and shit now, which his wee Irish priest will be very pleased about.

And after some boring shit about the Kingpin being arrested by the cops, baldy journo deciding not to reveal the true identity of Daredevil and Elektra leaving a sign for The Terrible Haired One, that's that. Well, apart from a coda at the end where we see Bullseye in a full body cast, being irritated by a fly which he eventually manages to nail to the wall with a syringe despite being basically immobile.

So, there we go. Potential to be hilariously awful, but it gets just a wee bit too boring in places for that. It can't make up its mind if it's trying to be funny, or trying to be serious, and it ends up being a bit like a fallen souffle in the process. Action movies can have very funny scenes in them, and have a great sense of humour - there's plenty of examples of this, especially in the comic book movie genre, but this one just doesn't work. At all. Although, having Ben Affleck in it should've been the first sign. Still, good for a laugh, even if it's not a very well intentioned laugh.

This, however, is a movie I would love to see. It...would....be....in....credible!

Brown paper packages tied up with string...

I really am being a bit trigger happy lately with the oul blogging. My apologies for the rambling - procrastination has been a bit of a problem today for sure. Mostly it's my nerves, I think. There's meant to be a conversation that I'm both desperate for and terrified of sometime this week, and it's all rather up in the air, so I'm a bit more anxious than I have been to date.

But anyway. I mentioned in a previous post about how I'd gotten away from the things that I like and care about, so I thought I'd write a little about what those things are, to help me get back into them. I almost can't remember the things that I like, to be honest. So this will probably be rather stream of consciousness-y and waffly. Mmm, waffles....

I love music. I love it. I live for it; or at least I used to. It's a magical thing to me - I will never understand how people sit down to compose a piece of music, I have utterly no comprehension where that comes from. Well, the good music anyway. It enchants and bewitches me, it moves me and lifts me, it lives inside me. It can make the heart soar and sink at the same time. It truly is one of the greatest things humanity has ever created. I'm in awe of it.

I also love film and TV. I studied media studies at university (not as much of a Mickey Mouse course as everyone thinks it is, although I did write a dissertation on The Simpsons and another on the films of Kevin Smith, so maybe I should just be quiet on that front....) so I've always had a rather academic interest in them. Which isn't to say that I don't have an emotional reaction - that's not true at all. I have such an emotional reaction to really well made drama that I've been purposely avoiding it for a really long time now, because I just couldn't take it. It's been a long time since I've watched anything other than a thriller/action/adventure or comedy type film, unless I had to. I want to change that. And I used to be really good at writing about film because I could analyse it like literature, thanks to basically doing just that at university. I miss writing about something and feeling like I know what I'm talking about.

I love ranting. I realise that may not sound like a particularly positive or attractive aspect of my character, not to mention well random, but I genuinely love a good oul rant about something. Not complaining and bitching (something I have a certain amount of experience in.....*sheepish face*), but having a really well crafted rant. My writing is often at its best when I'm giving off about something that really matters to me. My imagination and vocabulary seem to flow more easily, and I'm funnier. And I like being funny.

And I love lolcats. And getting angry at the Daily Mail. And making bad puns, laughing at other people's puns, sleeping, eating pizza, baking, going on touristy trips, running around London like a megadork with a doll of the Doctor and taking photos in front of the "Tardis" at Earls Court tube station, doing things for other people that they really appreciate, Christmas jumpers, Christmas hats, Christmas decorations, Christmas gift wrapping, Christmas music (ok, basically everything to do with Christmas), dancing like an idiot in sweaty clubs to good music, getting my teeth stuck into a project that I get a kick out of, making my nieces and nephews laugh, getting into fresh sheets in bed with clean jammies and clean hair, the smell of anything baking (even if I grumble about the mess my flatmate made making it), the feeling you get when someone genuinely compliments you, crisp sandwiches, bouncy castles, candyfloss on a stick, looking at pictures of cute animals, getting overawed with a feeling of wonderment at the universe, my hair, how much I made my friend laugh that time I did the Shaft dance from Father Ted, singing my lungs out when no one is home, cake, my yellow bag from Pennys that people always comment on, and the smell of the ocean.

There are a lot of things that make me smile and laugh. I have to remember that more often.

To do:

I've been talking about all the things that I need to do to change, to make myself the person I want to be, blah blah blah, but it occurs to me that it might be a good idea to actually list them out so that I can better work on them, and make myself a bit more accountable when it comes to the things I want to achieve. Again, probably of absolutely no interest to anyone else - I really am going to try to come up with something non-head related to write about very soon - but this seems to be keeping me together at the minute, so I'm just going to crack on with it.

So. In no particular order, things I need to stop or start doing:

• Write. I need to write more. About everything and anything. This sort of stuff about myself so that I can try to benchmark what I'm doing (I'm in the middle of a management practices course, can you tell?), and since they do tell you to write about what you know. But I want to write about other stuff too, whether it be short stories, random articles, reviews of music, tv, movies - whatever. I just need to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard in this instance). But I do want to set myself a target of doing the NaNoWriMo thing in November. I want to complete a whole something. Probably not a novel, more likely to be a screenplay or something, but I want to do actually finish something. Doesn't matter if it's crap, just need to finish it. 

• Recruitment stuff. I need to sort out my CV, talk to recruitment agencies and careers guidance people and get a better plan (or even, a plan) for how to get a new job.

• Put my foot down at work. I need to stop giving into everything at work and bending over backwards, doing stupid hours and taking on far too much because I feel it's expected of me or that there's no other option. I have to make it clear that there are limits, and that we have to find another solution. No exception. 

• Re-connect with people. I've drifted away from so many friends over the years. I put it down to them not making the effort to keep in touch with me, and taken it very personally, but I can't know any of that for sure so I really ought to just put it behind me. I don't have to be suddenly best friends with these people, but it would be nice to get in touch again, occasionally talk to and see each other and enjoy each other's company again. I guess under this heading also comes spending more time around my flatmates. I've become so good at avoiding them and keeping a low profile at home that I'm practically a domestic ninja (note to self: write treatment for sitcom called Ninjaz In Da House). All that time spent alone isn't good for me - too much time to day dream and dwell on things. 

• Stop daydreaming. It's sort of an odd thing to say, I suppose, but it's a big problem for me. I spend so much time daydreaming and fantasizing about how I want things to go that I become convinced that that's how they actually will go, making it well nigh impossible to deal with anything that diverges from the fantasy. 

• Treatment. I need to get serious about treatment for this depression/anxiety stuff. I've upped my meds already, so I'll be keeping an eye on that with my doctor, and I've started the Beating the Blues thing. I think I quite like it so far. It's Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, which I've never had much luck with before, but I understand more than ever now that I need to have certain things to each day, and to hold myself accountable for doing or not doing them. It's a session every week conducted online, and it gives you weekly projects to complete. I've only done the first session so far, so I'll see how it goes. But I think it could be a good support.

• Lose weight/get healthy. I'm not setting myself specific targets for this just yet. I've basically not been eating much for over a week or so because I'd gotten myself into such a state that I was nauseous and completely devoid of appetite. That is slowly starting to return, but I don't want to just jump back into my bad habits of eating junk all the time, I want to start eating healthily again. But (and apologies for the TMI nature of this, but...) healthy food when you've not been eating can have a bit of a fight with your innards, so I'm trying to do it all gradually. I've lost a little bit of weight thanks to the nausea so I want to make sure I keep that off, and it's been a good motivation for me to avoid junk food and comfort eating. The exercise portion of this will need to wait a little bit till I feel physically a bit stronger and have work a bit more sorted out so I can plan out when I'll do things. 

• Do the things I love again. I used to love music and movies. LOVE. I lived for them, they were the only things that kept me going sometimes, and touched and moved me in ways I can't put words to. But lately, I've just been using them as vague distractions, if even. I've found that I couldn't watch or listen to anything 'serious' (for want of a better word) - anything that encouraged much of an emotional reaction in me. Because I was trying to avoid emotional reactions, I guess. I'm a bit wary still of putting myself through the wringer with anything like that, but I want to get into a place again where I live and breathe this stuff like I used to.

• Stop procrastinating. I realise there's a great irony in me saying this, as I often take to this blog when there's something else I want to not do or distract myself from, but I need to just get off my arse and do things when they need doing. It's the only way to build momentum and thus energy. I've had huge problems with it lately, but I think I'm making some tiny inroads with it. 

• Finish and pass my course. I had, of course, wanted to pass my course with a distinction (I'm  a perfectionist, which I will write about at some point in the future), and did well on the first couple of assignments, but since everything sort of fell apart a bit after that I'm just going for a pass now. I was pretty close to throwing in the towel with the whole thing recently, so I just want to get it over and done with, pass it and put it on my CV. Thankfully I've less than a month to go with it, so hopefully I can cross that one off the list soon!

And so, back to work for me.