The Hobbit!

Entertainment Weekly has a few first pics up of scenes from the The Hobbit. Only a year and a half to wait...

The How About Project Parts 12 & 13 (of 26)

At this halfway point I'm tempted to give Hitchcock another gander.

My fave Hitchcock in black & white:

3: Notorious
2: The Lady Vanishes
1: Psycho

And my fave Hitchcock in colour:

3: Rear Window
2: North By Northwest
1: The Birds

Trailer: The Last Circus

This film has had great word-of-mouth and it looks as bloody marvelous as it does insane. From the director of the criminally ignored (at least in North America and the UK) 800 Bullets, this film already feels like a gorgeous tattoo to the brain.

Malick's The Tree of Life in the Eyes of His Contemporaries

X-Men: First Class : From Comics to Film

Critically, where do I place it amongst the others in the franchise? It's on par with the second film and may be the best of the bunch in a lot of ways. I'm not going to review it as I'm biased about my X-Men entertainment. It's like sex or pizza: even when it's bad it's awesome. But I will say that I'll think of this new film as the Magneto movie more than anything. He's been the most consistent, coolest thing in all of the films and he deservedly gets full attention in the prequel, much thanks to the actors portraying him. We end up rooting for the guy and that complicates things for us in a very cool way, since he's known as the "bad guy". I love the film's setting and its rewriting of the Cuban Missile Crisis. I love Prof X's lechery and surprising naivety. Kevin Bacon was excellent as Sebastian Shaw although I was hoping for that signature widow's peak and ribboned ponytail.

And I loved all the significant moments that comprised a stellar ending. However. I hated Beast. January Jones was terrible as Emma Frost -- great-looking but awful line-delivery. Terrible instincts as an actress it seems, unless the editors had it in for her. Hated the choice of opening scene. And will always take issue with the lack of respect for the X-canon.

X-canon you ask?

I hereby provide an incomplete list of offenses committed by the storytellers of this otherwise effective installment. And I do so, not to nitpick or underscore my ubergeekness, but to hopefully entice those of you not familiar with the X-Men in print, to go and seek them out there. The X-canon is a rich and fantastic thing. No, an uncanny thing.

The Hellfire Club: Riptide and Azazel were never members and have zero connection to the Club in the comics. Riptide was a Marauder who helped massacre other mutants and once shredded Nightcrawler with ninja stars that his tornado-body created. Ahem. Azazel is Nightcrawler's father and a demonic mutant from biblical times. (Mind you, Mystique is Nightcrawler's mother so that could still happen in the movies.) The costumes in the movie are not the centuries-old, fetishistic period dress that helped define the Club in the comics. There is no Inner Circle as in the comics. Emma Frost's diamond form is a secondary mutation that shouldn't appear for another 40 years. Don't get me started on the aging thing.

Prof X: In the comics we've never seen him with hair (at least I haven't), he lost his ability to walk during a battle with Lucifer in India, and never knew Mystique as a child. Will he eventually father his insane son, Legion, with Holocaust survivor, Gabrielle Haller, as he does in the comics? Could make a good sequel.

Magneto: Whole awesome chunks of his story are never even mentioned. The first version of his Brotherhood consists of none of the people shown in the film, and should actually include his son and daughter, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. The connection to Sebastian Shaw is created solely for the film.

Moira MacTaggert: Was never CIA. She is a Scottish scientist. She was the one Prof X actually met and fell in love with at Oxford. Eventually, long after the departure of Xavier, she has a son with her Scottish politician husband, and that son becomes the nasty reality-warping mutant, Proteus, who a team of X-Men, consisting of Wolverine and Storm, battle and kill.

Banshee: Should be around the same age as Prof X and Moira MacTaggert. He and Moira eventually become a couple. He was not a member of the first class and actually gets recruited alongside Wolverine, Storm, etc. later on in the series. Oh yeah, and he's famously Irish.

Darwin: Was one of a handful of X-Men recruited secretly between the first class and Wolvie's, who nearly all perished in their first battle against Krakoa, the Living Island. He survived, remains alive in the comics, and is a current member of X-Factor (alongside Banshee's daughter, Siryn, who does appear briefly in the second and third installments of the film series).

Havok: In the comics he is the younger brother of Cyclops. Chronology be damned.

Beast: What a mess. To really appreciate the character, check out his profile at Wikipedia. Too many anachronisms and liberties taken with this fabulous comic-book creation.

How great is it though, that on film the X-Men originate in the 60s just like they do in the source material? 'Tis a great film despite the license taken with the adaptation process. Action-packed and dramatic in the right places. Even funny where its needed.

Just don't get me started on the aging thing.