X-Men: Apocalypse was utter garbage. Fairly decent special effects couldn't save the beyond-stupid plot that featured one of the lamest villains in movie history (a complete 180 from the awesome comic book original). As usual, Bryan Singer can't direct his way out of a paper bag, and continues to randomly assign super-powers to characters and rearrange history just because he needs to fix his crappy "story." So sick of people who obviously don't give a shit about honoring the source material continuing to make comic book films that suck...

The X-Men has perhaps the best potential for a comic book movie that is continuously squandered... over six films now. Seven if you count the beyond-shitty first Wolverine film. Of the entire X-franchise, only X-Men: First Class, The Wolverine, and Deadpool gave us a glimpse of what's possible.

I didn't think any modern comic book film could suck worse than the last Fantastic Four abomination, but here we are. It's incredibly frustrating, and one can't help but wonder how amazing an X-Men film could be in Marvel Studios' hands. We may never know.

I had been to New York City four or five times previously for work, and had done all the "touristy" stuff I wanted to do. Then one trip I decided to take my mom with me so she could see the big city, which meant I ended up doing all the touristy stuff all over again. Since I was not a Broadway fan, I had never seen a show and had no plans of doing so... but my mom thought a trip to New York would be incomplete without "The Broadway Experience" and so I relented. Problem was... good seats at a show were expensive, and I didn't have the money for good seats. I fretted a bit about my mom's first Broadway show being seen from the back of the theater, and mentioned it to a co-worker. She told me about TKTS, a place where you could get half-off same-day shows that had seats left. I was also told that the Times Square location could get a bit nuts and I should try the location at The World Trade Center. And so the next morning, off we went... where I got us third-row seats, center-stage for "Miss Saigon." Since we were already there, I suggested we visit "The Top of The World"... which I hadn't planned on doing since we had already been up The Empire State Building. It ended up being a pretty great day... got to see NYC from the top of the Twin Towers... went to a couple cool museums... ate lunch at the Stage Deli... visited Central Park and the world-famous FAO Schwartz toy store... all topped off by the lavish stage production of Miss Saigon.

Years later, 9/11 would happen and I'd be forever grateful that fate took us to The World Trade Center for theater tickets so my mom got to see The Top of The World. She wouldn't have another opportunity.

And this is why I can't think of The World Trade Center without hearing "Last Night of the World" from Miss Saigon in my head, and the irony of it all is not lost on me.

Fifteen years later. The song still haunts me.