Last movie you watched......

Sure. And I certainly don't advocate culling "X-Men: First Class" or "The Avengers" into "Waiting for Godot." But I do think that the current ensemble mania can hurt the films quite a bit.

 

See, that's where I think you are missing the point. Emma Frost (January Jones) was mostly a waste, but there were points where it was useful to have a telepath who could counter Xavier. That and eye candy were the only reasons for her to be there.

But Raven/Mystique (Lawrence) was important to the main story and the smaller one. Even after she has been intimate with Erik, she remains loyal to Xavier. All through the movie, she is the voice of mutants who feel like they can't fit into Xavier's dream of humans and mutants living together peacefully. That is why he sends her off with Magneto at the end. He knows she agrees with Magneto.

That's one of the best things about X-Men: First Class. The hero loses. Xavier is crippled physically and when Xavier and Magneto put their philosophies to the test, humanity proved Magneto right by attacking all of them. Xavier's oldest, most loyal friend, leaves his cause despite her loyalty to him, making his failure to "save" Erik from becoming Magneto even more of a personal loss.

I get your point about too many characters in some of these movies, but including Lawrence doesn't help your argument at all.

Would they be better off with more focus on those three and less training stuff? Maybe. But the mixture of action, the exploration of mutant abilities and the philosophical battle between Xavier and Magneto is a big part of what has worked in X-Men stories for decades.

 

Well said, OOP.

 

My girlfriend had never seen the show so as Season 2 began, we watched Season 1 - the first time for her, second time for me -- and caught her up. The second viewing made the series so much better. I just got such a better grasp of who everyone was and their relationships to each other.

 

The Blu-Ray version has a feature where you can get thumbnail bios up on the screen for characters who are on the screen at any given time. It's a huge help.

 

I saw "Kill The Irishman" last night. It's the (mostly) true story of Irish mobster Danny Greene, the main figure in the Cleveland mob wars of the 1970s.

Of course, it being a mafia-type movie, it definitely kept my interest, but I found a really good movie with an excellent cast. Ray Stevenson, whom the comic-book movie crowd may remember in the "Punisher" sequel and in "Thor" as one of the title character's allies, plays Greene and does a great job IMO. Vincent D'Onofrio, Christopher Walken and Val Kilmer (whose presence in the movie isn't really as big as you might think) all do a great job. And it Laura Ramsey, who plays Greene's post-divorce girlfriend, was a nice discovery.

 

Might have to check that out. Stevenson does a nice job every time I see him, even without much to work with. I thought he was an odd choice for that role in Thor, but he pulled it off.

 

Sound City - Dave Grohl's documentary about the Sound City Studios. It's a bit of a mess and painfully uninteresting at points. He completely glosses over the '80s metal that was recorded there. Doesn't spend too much time on his '90s peers that recorded there. Rick Springfield? Yeah, he's all over this. It stops being a history lesson about 3/4 of the way through and then it becomes another movie about making an album with the Sound City soundboard. The Nirvana reunion with Paul McCartney is by far the coolest thing in it, but it's a blip at the end of the film.

 

Skyfall twice over the weekend. Glad I saw it again. Just a very well-done movie.

Ocean's 11 (Clooney/Pitt version). Never gets old.

 

That and I'm sure going back and watching again would be very helpful with this series. So is reading the books.

 

Just saw Flight on DVD. John Goodman's character is now my favorite Goodman role of all time. He should have been nominated.

And the opening minutes should be watched more than once by the male SptsJ faithful.

 

Kill Bill I. Hated it. I should have known better, because one of my best friends loved it and we never, ever like the same movies.