Mostly Spoiler-free X-Men: Days of Future Past Review

X-Men: Days of Future Past is the third Marvel super-hero movie of the spring (just had to bring that up.  That's insane), and the fifth movie in the current X-Men series of movies (nope, First Class was not a reboot).  It also marks the return on Bryan Singer to the director chair, who has not directed one of these since the amazing X2.  So, with how well Captain America: The Winter Soldier was received, coupled with Singer's return, Days had a lot to live up.  And, for the most part, it did.

X-Men movies always have a chance of falling into a trap of introducing too many random characters.  This happened badly in The Last Stand and to a lesser extent in First Class.  Days does a good job of focusing on the characters we know already, so there's very little exposition going on here.  Sure, we get a handful of newbies in the future battles with the Sentinels (I was pumped to see Bishop's big screen debut), but they prove to ultimately be window dressing.  It's nice to have a super hero movie where we are immediately thrown into the fray, and get right down to business.

Without getting to much into the plot, the crux of the story involves a little butterfly effect fun where Logan's consciousness is sent into the past to change the course of history and stop the future from ever happening.  So we actually spend most of our time in the 70's, following around Logan and the First Class versions of Prof X, Magneto, Mystique, & Beast, as well as the lone major newcomer, Quicksilver.  I thoroughly enjoyed Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique - she got a much bigger role this time around (shocker), and she nailed it (shocker).  McAvoy is fine as Xavier though I have to admit he's not my favorite.  He does that stupid pained face constantly and, yes, he's constantly touching his temple.  The real shocker was Quicksilver.  I loved his character.  He's clearly comic relief, but he's a lot of fun to have around.

We also got a lot of Peter Dinklage as the defacto human "villain," Dr. Trask.  I found it refreshing that him being a little person had nothing to do with the role.  In fact, there's a solid shot you'll forget he is a little person at some point - it's never mentioned once.  As for his performance, I was slightly underwhelmed as he was rather one-note.  I can't help but compare him to Tyrion, and considering what he's going through on Game of Thrones, it's tough to look at this performance as anything but pedestrian.

I'm not going to go too much into the conclusion other than it was overall a satisfying experience.  The inevitable final battles were tense, but not dragged out in excess.  And yes, they do end up doing the expected parallel final battle a la The Matrix, with action both in the 70's and the future.  Both are well done and have some pretty amazing setpieces I won't go into, as where is the fun in that?  I would like to go a little bit into the denouement, but I feel it's a bit too spoilery.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie.  The 131 minutes moved briskly, there was plenty of solid action, and we didn't have to deal with any boring X-Men for too long.  On a personal note, the X-Men Age of Apocalypse lore is one of my favorites, so I figured it'd bias me unfairly.  Overall, it really didn't, as we spend far more time in the past then in the desolate future.  Looks like if you're going to one "summer" blockbuster this Memorial Day weekend, you'd be best to go to this one.

Grade: B+

Favorite Baseball Movie

As I grade finals watching Major League, I want to know your favorite baseball movie.

First, what makes a good baseball movie, maybe sports movie in general? I think relatively good realism, drama, intriguing characters, and a little comedy are a must. I can't get past a sports movie where they don't look the part.

Metacritic Streaming List

Looks like Metacritic created a new monthly feature listing what good movies have just started streaming on Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu.  Here's this month's edition.  VERY handy for making picks.  Glad to see Beasts of the Southern Wild on Amazon... I've been curious about that one.

http://www.metacritic.com/feature/best-new-streaming-titles-may-2014

Greatness Barometers

Taxi Driver is the most critically acclaimed movie we've picked so far.  It's universally regarded as a capital-G Great movie.  My question for you guys is how you decide what falls into that category.  Is a great movie great because you personally love it, or does critical validation inform part of that classification?

I do think about that kind of thing a lot.  For me, the number one authority on Great movies is Sight and Sound magazine's once-a-decade list.  Critics vote on a list of 250 movies, and directors vote on a list of 100.  FYI, Taxi Driver is #5 on the director's list and #31 on the critic's list.  The film snob in me plans on watching most of the stuff on that list, though I'm sure a lot of it is pretty impenetrable.

Metacritic is also a pretty solid barometer for Great movies.  The top ten rated films for any given year are surprisingly accurate IMO, compared to Rotten Tomatoes which is not the case.  Reliable film critics and their top ten lists.  A lot of sites did best of the decade lists in 2009 that I've pored through.

Award nominations have gotten better in recent years, but the actual winners rarely hold up.  AFI's lists are not reliable either, for me.

What do you guys think?  I might be a film snob, but The Bicycle Thief was pretty great.

Game of Thrones 37: Mockingbird

Godzilla (Some Spoilers)

I watched Godzilla last night and have a few thoughts.

Started in east Asia - Japan - ends in San Francisco.

Godzilla tore down the Golden Gate Bridge.  Why?  It just appears whenever an action movie involving the GGB, it gets destroyed.  Do that stuff in Oakland.  No one would be that surprised if it happened there.

Godzilla makes the "King of Monsters" the hero.  I am unsure how to feel about that.  Its set up that Godzilla returns to restore balance among monsters, dinosaurs, or whatever they are.

Best thing was the fight scenes.  They were pretty awesome but too short.  Don't know if $9 is worth it.

It's an OK movie, nothing spectacular.  Not worth the price.  Grade: C-

Game of Thrones 35: First of His Name