First Post: Call Me Vapes.

BLOGGING.Honestly, I never really thought I'd have an official, public-access, 'thoughts on pixels' (Thank you, Morgan Freeman) blog. Sure, I have a LiveJournal. I even used to occasionally update with a message on MySpace, back when that was still considered cool. Never a blog, though. What am I supposed to do now? Oh, get to the point. That helps. The reason I created this blog is because my LJ, MySpace, and even TheForce.net's Fanfilm Forums (hi, guys) are an inadequate space for me to post my everyday thoughts in a place where it can just be about what I'm saying, without focusing on any of my particular cliques of friends. People on my LJ usually won't care about what I would talk about on TFn, and vice-versa. Anyone who knows me prolly will tell you the thing I think, reference and care most strongly about (other than certain living people/creatures) is movies. Film, cinema, movies, picture shows, whatever you want to call 'em. I love 'em. I live by 'em. Maybe someday I'll be professionally making 'em. Okay, about me. Back during high school, when I was getting into LAN parties and various other forms of gaming, my friends were telling me I needed a handle (hey Dash, Apheleon & Zaff). You know who came up with mine, though? My mother. Shut up, she's cool. When she's not being motherly. Then she's a mom, and we all know what they're like. Anyway, this is back when I had aspirations of running through the Air Force RotC (a medicated chemical imbalance will quickly shoot that one down), so while we were sitting at the drive-thru of a Rally's, she looked up and saw a plane in the sky, with the white contrails flying off behind it. "What about Vapor Trail?" mom says. "Fuck yeah!" I replied. Pfft, of course I didn't say that. You don't swear in front of your mother. Anyway, I don't remember what I said. However, it stuck. At some point I combined those into one word (looked better in Quake3, I think), and eventually one of the TFn'ers (I always forget which, I have such a bad memory) chopped that down to Vapes, hence the title of this post which I just paused in the middle of this sentence to write in. Made my LAN buddies make less fun of me for being "the guy with the long-ass handle", too. Well, I like to think it did. The power of editing. Oh! I have a degree in "Broadcast & Cable Productions" (aka a Bachelor of Arts through Western Michigan University). However, that's just what they called it during my last semester cuz of some technicality. Prior to this, it was "Film, Video & Media Studies". I minored in Writing, but let's face it. No one cares what you minored in. So what this means for you is that I have studied film theory, from concept to storywriting, all the way through the production phases to release and reception. I know what I'm talking about, so you absolutely, positively have to listen to me, and agree with what I say. Beyond any reasonable doubt, I am right. Okay, I'm not that much of an ass. You're free to your own opinions (I just hope one of them is that I'm not an ass). I want to use that degree to become a film editor for features. Being a film critic would be another way to go, but that's what this is for. Anyway. A friend of mine (hey, Ben) recently opened his own blog to review films, but he's going in the opposite direction. It's a very clean-0cut, professional read. It lets you know what he thought about the film without really telling you what happens, just in case you haven't seen it and want an opinion before you decide. Tell you what. Watch the trailer, then decide. I love my friend here, don't think it's about that, but one thing I will never do is read someone's online review to allow me to make a decision to whether or not I should see a film. They can tell me something I didn't know, remind me of interest, but odds are I'll see it or not. I'll want to see it or not, or maybe I'll be forced into it or manage to escape through the basement window. Regardless, if you are unsure about a movie, watch the trailer. Decide if there's something better you should be doing tonight. Ask yourself the last time you talked to someone of the opposite sex (about something other than your grocery total). Then decide if you want to go see it. I'm really a nice person, I swear. So what I thought would be kind of fun is to have a place where I can write as much as I want, spoilers, plot points, twists and all, about any movie that tickles my fancy. We'll probably get a lot of old mixed in with the new here. Possibly some non-movie related posts like this in-between. I'll try and warn you early on which I'm going for. I really haven't decided on a style of presentation yet. The layout's still in a default format at this moment, I'll play with that soon. When I'm writing though, I'll probably just cut loose and write what I'm thinking. There may be references you don't get, or jokes that won't seem funny. Just roll with it, it's normal. I might try to explain some of it, we'll see. If you're wondering why I said "Thank you, Morgan Freeman", one of his lines that stood out in Se7en was "His thoughts on paper", regarding Kevin Spacey's thousand notebooks. This place'll prolly be something like that. So. Seen a movie, but still excited about it? Hated it so much you just gotta find a place to rip it apart? Mildly curious about some backstories or plot-points? You've come to the right place. To start off, I'm gonna do something kind of fun. I just saw Iron Man last week, and of course I loved it. (I'm a Marvel kid. Been reading comics forever). So, for the first run of reviews I think I'll be starting with the earliest of the Marvel trend, X-Men, and working my way through chronologically to Iron Man. I know what some of you are thinking: "But Vapes, Blade started the comic film trend. It came out in 1997, and X-Men wasn't released until 2000." Well, if you ask me, it was X-Men we have to thank for this. I don't think Blade was high-profile enough, with a wide reception outside of comic fans, vampire nuts and those weird kids in high school that always wore black. Then again, I didn't really like it, even back before my film education. Maybe I'll have Netflix send it and I'll watch those too. Some of the TFn socialites have been razzin' on me for not liking those, whilst I am very fond of films such as Daredevil and Ang Lee's Hulk. (They're ART!), so maybe I should give 'em one more try, and actually see Trinity. We'll see. With a little luck, I'll finish just in time for The Incredible Hulk, and then I can start talking about, like, normal movies. Welcome to The Spenceley Spoileriffic. This oughta be fun.