6/6/11:  "The X-Men superteam created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1963 was the first of Marvel's comics to receive big-budget big screen treatment thanks to Bryan Singer's 2000 blockbuster X-Men.  It's also proven to be the most durably intriguing because of all its great characters and some really cagey casting decisions.  So, it was easy to scoff (and I did), when producer Singer and the 20th Century Fox studio that had killed off most of the major characters in 2006's underrated X-Men:  The Last Stand announced plans to film an origin story with new actors in the major roles.  Turns out, Professor X and Magneto are even better characters than I thought, because not only do they survive the transition from Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen to James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender, but X-Man:  First Class finds oodles of new and fascinating things to say about them and their friendship-turned-eternal struggle.  Director Matthew Vaughn, who famously dropped out of Last Stand at the 11th hour, finally gets his turn at the X-helm and turns in a wonderfully staged retro superhero movie that feels very much like a product of the 60's period in which it's set and speaks to the timeless dichotomy Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr represent:  our choice to either fight for what we hope or against what we fear." MORE

5/1/09:  "Yeah, yeah, prequels sound like a good idea:  fans clamor to “fill in the blanks” or actually witness the previously described backstory of their favorite films.  The problem lies in the execution.  To truly fill in those blanks, the important dramatic beats of the story often become secondary to the Mad Libs exercise of filling in whatever data it takes to make the original movie(s) track.  As such, the average prequel is a dog being wagged by its' own tail, a story no one would tell on its' own because it must end in some indeterminate manner opening the door for the “future” stories we've already seen.  That's what's wrong with the clumsily-titled X-Men Origins:  Wolverine, a movie that never really grabbed me emotionally because so much of it is predetermined by the events of X-Men and X2:  X-Men United.  But while I wasn't often engaged, I was consistently entertained because Hugh Jackman once again owns his iconic role and a formidable roster of guest stars bring mutants old and new to interesting life.  Without its' predecessors, Wolverine would be nothing to start a franchise over, but it is two perfectly adequate hours of homo superior spectacle." MORE

7/25/08:  "Television and the movies are two entirely different beasts.  Perhaps it's because movie characters are fifty foot faces being projected over your head in a public venue while their TV counterparts are smaller-than-life presences we invite into our homes on a daily basis.  We tend to visit the characters in  a movie franchise only for the most Earth-shattering events in their lives, while we can spend every day (even every hour, in the case of 24's Jack Bauer) with our TV pals.  As such, while we may love and even empathize with the characters in a movie, we BOND with the people we see on our favorite TV shows.  When they're gone (yes, Virginia, every TV show is eventually canceled), we still wonder what they're up to.  And, perversely, more and more of them are popping up in the movies to let us know.  It's been 6 years since the disappointingly overstuffed two-parter “The Truth” brought a close to 9 seasons of The X-Files, which reigned for a good chunk of the 90's as my favorite show.  The last two seasons were a mess, and both cast and fans alike needed a bit of a time out.  But for a few years now, my mind has begun to wander back to where iconic FBI truth-seekers Fox Mulder and Dana Scully have gotten to.  At last, the answer comes in The X-Files:  I Want to Believe.  The film tells a forgettable paranormal story that's no better than any middling 4th or 5th season episode, but it's in reconnecting with those characters and what has become of them that the movie soars."  MORE