X-Men: First Class

James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender

When we first see the adult Erik Lehnsherr — the super-powered mutant who will become the villain Magneto — in X-Men: First Class, he's a multilingual globe-trotting assassin hunting down the man who tortured him years before in a Nazi death camp. This seems a suitable origin for a character who eventually turns against humans and comes to believe that mutants should rule over them. (George Lucas, take note: this is how you turn a character to the dark side!) What is not so suitable is that in Magneto's own origin story it is revealed that before there was Magneto, there was . . . another Magneto. Perhaps not the Magneto, but an evil mutant named Sebastian Shaw, who has his own dangerous powers, dangerous motives, and a dangerous team of evil mutants similar to the one the aged Magneto commanded in the previous X-Men movies. This is the disappointing thing about X-Men: First Class, because the interesting possibilities of such an origin story — in which the future Magneto befriends and then parts ways with his future rival Charles Xavier — are abandoned in favor of the team-vs.-team formula of the previous three X-Men films.

This is particularly surprising because First Class uses as its backdrop the Cuban Missile Crisis, a historical event weighty enough to provide sufficient threat and conflict for any super team. Given the novelty of the period setting and the possibilities inherent in the blending of history with fiction, it is puzzling why the filmmakers decided to eclipse the drama of Magneto’s supposedly unique origin with a villain who is essentially the character we know Lehnsherr will become, a character we have seen plot against humanity and be defeated before.

The other major figure is Charles Xavier, destined to become Professor X, a man committed to protecting humans regardless of how poorly humans treat mutants. The younger Xavier portrayed by James McAvoy is less restrained than the serene elder portrayed by Patrick Stewart in the other X-Men movies. Because his mutation — the ability to read and influence other peoples' minds — is not readily apparent to the outside world, Xavier effortlessly enjoys human society, winning drinking contests and hitting on women with a practiced pickup routine. Consequently, he is detached from the pain felt by mutants who, like his friend Raven, a scaly blue-skinned shape-shifter, must work hard to conceal their difference in order to be accepted. We see in Xavier a genius with a lot to learn, and though we can assume the events at film's end will humble him somewhat, we never see a true epiphany.

We do get to see Xavier, supposedly a professor in earlier films, actually teach in First Class — he helps Lehnsherr develop his powers of magnetism to astonishing levels, and watching him show a young mutant named Banshee how to fly is the film's highpoint of fun. The role of cool Nazi hunter suits actor Michael Fassbender very well, maybe in part because he played one so well in Inglourious Basterds, though certainly his own multilingual European background and good looks make him a natural for such a role. He keeps Lehnsherr's childhood trauma just under the surface at all times, unpacking it as needed to great effect and making Lehnsherr the most tortured — and most appealing — character of the film.

See also: Iron Men

Triple Feature: Lone Star, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and Touch of Evil

Similarities abound in this trio of films about law, history, and legends in the American West.

Lone Star (1996)

"Forget the Alamo."

In Lone Star, the past of a small Texas border town is dug up — literally, in the remains of Charlie Wade, a cruel and corrupt sheriff who some 40 years earlier controlled the town through intimidation, extortion, and racial hatred until a young deputy named Buddy Deeds confronted Wade and ostensibly ran him out of town. When Wade's skeleton and badge are found barely below ground in a remote spot of desert, though, Sam Deeds — Buddy's son and the current sheriff — soon has reason to believe his late and now-legendary father may have been the killer. Sam continues digging, talking to townspeople who lived through Wade's tyranny and who view Buddy as their emancipator. The closer Sam gets to learning the truth about Wade's death, the more he learns about his own past and what it could mean for his future.

Set in a contentious town along the Texas/Mexico border where parents clash with teachers about the history of the Texas Revolution, Lone Star fills every moment with consideration of the past — certainly the pasts of Wade and Buddy, but also those of Sam, his high school girlfriend Pilar, Pilar's mother and successful businesswoman Mercedes, Wade's surviving deputy Hollis, and the estranged father-and-son pair Otis and Del Payne. Everyone is made to consider the past and to decide if history should be rewritten or if old legends should remain untarnished.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

When prominent senator Ransom Stoddard arrives in the western town of Shinbone to attend the funeral of all but forgotten rancher Tom Doniphon, the editor of the local paper demands to know why. Stoddard unravels a tale of Shinbone's past, of his arrival in the frontier town as a young lawyer eager to bring civilized justice to the West, of a ruthless gunfighter named Liberty Valance who terrorized the town with a gun, and of how Stoddard's showdown with Valance catapulted Stoddard to fame and to Washington, D.C. The more Stoddard reveals, however, the more the reasons behind his now-legendary rise to power are made suspect. When the editor finally learns about the role of Tom Doniphon in these events and of the secret Stoddard has been concealing, he must decide how important the past is to Stoddard's reputation and to the town of Shinbone.

Touch of Evil (1958)

"He was some kind of a man. What does it matter what you say about people?"

Mike Vargas is a Mexican narcotics officer just married to an American woman. Out for a stroll with his new wife, he witnesses a murder-by-car bomb the moment he steps across the border into the US. He is soon joined on the scene by Hank Quinlan, an American cop who bears no love toward Mexicans and who doesn't hesitate to use intimidation and excessive force when interrogating Mexican suspects. Vargas and Quinlan butt heads and end up working the crime separately. To Vargas' surprise, Quinlan arrests the first suspect he finds, claiming to have found conclusive evidence. Vargas does some investigating of Quinlan, though, and what he finds threatens Quinlan's perfect record — and Vargas' life.

Superbear smackdown!

The Contenders
The bear from Grizzly (1976): A 15-foot, one-ton grizzly wandering outside its normal territory during a national park's busy post-season	The bear from Prophecy (1979): A large animal mutated by mercury poisoning, wreaking havoc in the forest near a toxin-spewing paper mill
The location
An unnamed national park somewhere in the contiguous United States	The deep woods of Maine
What makes it a monster
It's larger and stronger than the average griz, able to swat the head off a horse with one easy swipe. Unlike other grizzlies, this one hunts — and eats — people.	A freak of nature created by the reckless pollution of its once-pristine environment, this grotesque creature walks and runs upright and can snap the head clean off a man with one bite of its massive jaws.
Method of attack
Grizzly stalks its prey in point-of-view shots, bursts out of woods or through shelter walls to batter victims with limb-severing force, then finishes with a deadly bear hug.	Prophecy Bear forecasts its attack with heavy breathing, then surprises victims by breaking through trees, cabin walls, or the water's surface. It kills by hitting and biting.
Body count
8 people, 1 bear cub, and 1 horse dead; 1 person maimed	14 people and 1 dog dead
Gore factor
Victims' limbs are bloodily severed, a horse loses its head, human victims are dragged and shaken violently, and one spurts blood from the mouth while being squeezed to death.	A couple victims get badly mangled in the face (one loses his head), but it's the bear's disfigured face and body, as well as the sight and sound of its mutant offspring, that are most repellent.
The hunter
Park ranger Michael Kelly	EPA hired hand Robert Verne, MD
How it's killed
After absorbing several rifle shots, the big bear is brought down by nothing less than a shot from a bazooka, which blows it to bloody bits in a fiery explosion.	The mutant beast is shot several times by rifle and bow, though it's the relentless stabbing in the eye by arrow-wielding Verne that finally does it in.
Judge's decision
It's tempting to declare the gruesome Prophecy Bear the winner on looks alone, for Grizzly, despite its ferocity, still looks like a big cuddly bear. But PB is an environmental avenger, and there is a sympathetic righteousness to its violence in defense of its home, its cubs, and its right to live free of industrial contaminants. Plus, it's killed by a city-slick MD using nothing more than a pointy stick. Grizzly kills for no reason but sport and snacks, and it takes a manly park ranger with an anti-tank weapon to bring him down. Winner: Grizzly.

Hang 'Em High: the Clint Eastwood primer

Hang 'Em High (1968), Clint Eastwood's first American western after the Sergio Leone trilogy, contains many of the motifs recurrent in Eastwood movies of the following decades, particularly his action movies and Westerns.

The lawman who clashes with the law
Eastwood's Marshal Jed Cooper repeatedly disagrees with his boss' idea of justice, at times seeing it as too lenient, at others too severe. This conflict is further played out in the Dirty Harry movies.

Delivering prisoners against great odds
Jed's cross-desert trek with three murderous cattle rustlers and no backup sets precedent for elements of Coogan's Bluff, Joe Kidd, The Gauntlet, and In the Line of Fire.

Back from the dead — for vengeance
Jed Cooper is left for dead twice‚ at the lynching that opens the film and the saloon shootout later on. Both times Cooper surprises his would-be assassins by reappearing and taking revenge, either with badge or gun. Other Eastwood characters make similar death-defying comebacks, symbolic or otherwise, in High Plains Drifter, Sudden Impact, Pale Rider, and Unforgiven.

Sex crime
Rachel Warren, Jed's love interest, is on constant watch for the men who raped her years ago. She looks at every prisoner brought before the judge, hoping one day she will see her assailants hang. Similarly victimized characters — several of them prostitutes — appear in The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Gauntlet, Sudden Impact, Tightrope, and Unforgiven.

The Clint Eastwood Repertory Company
Several actors appear frequently in Eastwood's movies. Hang 'Em High features regulars Pat Hingle (The Gauntlet, Sudden Impact) and Jack Ging (Play Misty for Me, High Plains Drifter).

Dirty Harry's race for a life

Dirty Harry: the race begins

"All right, police officer, this is how we play. I bounce you all over town to make sure you're alone. No car. I give you a certain amount of time to go from phone booth to phone booth. I ring four times. You don't answer by the fourth ring, I hang up and that's the end of the game. The girl dies." With those instructions from a sniper named Scorpio, Detective Harry Callahan sets off to deliver $200,000 ransom to save a kidnapped 14-year-old girl in a suspenseful foot race through San Francisco in Dirty Harry (1971).

Filmed on location, Dirty Harry showcases many San Francisco landmarks, several of which are used in this sequence. The Google map below shows all of Harry's stops as he runs from phone to phone trying to keep pace with Scorpio's game. Click on the map markers to see a movie still of that location. Zoom into "street view" and you'll get to examine some of the surroundings seen in the film — the marina, Forest Hills Station, the hamburger stand at Aquatic Park, and the big cross in Mt. Davidson park where Harry and Scorpio ultimately meet, for better or worse. While an exact street route is never detailed in the film, the lines on the map show the minimum distance between locations, all but one of which Harry travels on foot.


View Dirty Harry's Race for a Life in a larger map

For more information on the shooting locations of Dirty Harry, see the excellent Dirty Harry Filming Locations.

Wishing you some action on Valentine's Day

Relationship in a rut? There's nothing like Valentine's Day to rekindle romantic feelings — except maybe some shared high-stakes danger. Take a lesson from the following estranged spouses as our resident couples counselor plots out plans to rescue their endangered unions.

Twister

Stormy weather
Jo and Bill have been through a lot...of tornados. The storm-chasing scientists called their mariage quits, though, when Jo's twister obsession clashed with Bill's desire to settle down.

Doctor's Orders
Jo, stall on signing the divorce papers so that Bill and his new fiancée are forced to track you down in the field. When Bill arrives, tempt him to stay awhile by unveiling the tornado maping device he designed. Bill, lead the old rag-tag team on a few more tornado chases, and make sure you're there to talk Jo down from her freaked-out personal vendetta against the storm that killed her dad. (This might be a good time to hint that you still have feelings for her, too.) If the two of you can work together to sucessfully deploy the mapping device, you should have clear skies ahead. This will be tough on Bill's fiancée, but that relationship was only motivated by the need for technical exposition, so it probably wasn't meant to last anyway.

Independence Day

Feeling alien-ated
Connie is an ambitious political strategist. David is a quirky but brilliant underachiever. When offered the chance to work for the president, Connie chose career over marriage, leaving David feeling betrayed and bitter. Luckily, David didn't lose any of his genius in the separation, so when aliens invade Earth he still has enough wits to understand the situation better than any government official.

Doctor's Orders
David, what I'm going to ask you to do sounds impossible, but you're obviously the only guy who can pull it off. Using only your Apple laptop from 1996 and your knowledge of cable television, I want you you decipher the aliens' secret plans, write a virus that can shut down their computer network, co-pilot an alien spacecraft without any previous flight experience, dock with the alien mothership, and — truly putting the "universal" in USB — connect your Mac to the ship's network and implant the virus. If saving the world doesn't convince Connie to give you another chance, perhaps the hefty check from Steve Jobs will.

The Abyss

Underwater rift
Lindsey and Bud were the perfect deep-sea duo: she designed a revolutionary underwater oil rig, and he could run it like no one else. Nowadays Lindsey keeps to dry land while Bud wallows at the bottom of the sea. Recently the military comandeered their rig in order to retrieve a sunken nuclear submarine, so the estranged couple has been forced to reunite and assist in the operation.

Doctor's Orders
Lindsey, when things are worst and you and Bud are trapped in a broken mini-sub on the sea floor, suggest a horrific survival plan: drown yourself and let Bud use the scuba gear to swim you back to the underwater base. He'll have to bring you back from the dead once he gets there, but all the mouth-to-mouth, defibrillating, and pounding on your chest are sure to stir up old feelings of the heart — literally. Later, let Bud make an equally self-sacrificial gesture by diving to record depths to defuse a nuclear bomb. Only afterwards, when he has no apparent hope of returning, will he confess his true feelings for you. Sounds grim, to be sure, but with a little luck (and extraterrestrial intervention), I think you guys may be able to salvage the nukes — and your marriage.

True Lies

Truth and consequences
Harry has been keeping a secret from his wife, Helen, for seventeen years — a BIG secret: while Helen thinks her husband is a humdrum computer salesman, he is actually a government super-spy living a life of glamorous danger. Harry's secret job takes up much of his time and attention, and consequently a neglected Helen has started looking elsewhere for excitement. To Harry's surprise, Helen has begun flirting with a used car salesman who pretends he's a spy.

Doctor's Orders
Harry, you need to give Helen something to be interested in. First, round up some of your agent buddies and storm in on Helen and her phony spy while he's trying to put the moves on her in his trailer. Abduct the two, then interrogate Helen from behind a two-way mirror to confirm that she still loves you. If you don't feel you've already strained the ties of marital honesty too much, tell her she's free to go if she cooperates on a secret mission: make her pose as a high-priced prostitute and entertain you with a humiliating striptease while you remain concealed in darkness posing as an international bad guy. If, however, you and Helen should be abducted by terrorists (it's likely), you should probably come clean about what you've been up to all these years. Letting her in to your secret life will give you more "together time," provided she forgives you for the years of lying, the staged abduction, the forced striptease, and for allowing terrorists to kidnap your daughter. Something tells me she will.

Jurassic Park III

Living in the past
Paul and Amanda haven't gotten along well since their divorce. To make matters worse, their tewlve-year-old son Eric recently went missing on an off-limits Costa Rican island swarming with cloned dinosaurs. Tensions between the parents are at an all-time high.

Doctor's Orders
I recommend a tropical getaway. First, pretend to be wealthy adventurers (lots of couples find roleplaying theraputic) and use this front to convince dinosaur expert Alan Grant to accompany you on a tour of Jurassic Park, the abandoned island theme park where genetics corporation InGen created clone dinosaurs which ultimately escaped and either ate or scared away all humans. On this island inhabited by creatures from earth's past, you'll have plenty of time to ruminate on your own — when you're not running for your lives, that is. Remembering the good times may help you envision a happy future. (Though finding Amanda's dead boyfriend decaying in a tree couldn't hurt either.)

Die Hard

Long-distance runaround
John and Holly have been in a slump ever since Holly's job promoted her all the way to California. Macho John's not about to give up his job as a New York City cop, so now the two are barely keeping things together across the miles.

Doctor's Orders
Holly, reach out to John and invite him to L.A. to attend your office Christmas party. John, when international terrorists crash the festivities, make a narrow escape, then proceed to eliminate the criminals one by one. When their leader takes your wife as his personal hostage, do some last-minute rescuing and save Holly from being pulled to her death — and from her pesky notions of having a career! You'll give Holly a "second chance" and get to feel needed and in charge again, just like the manly man you want to be.

Happy birthday, Thomas Edison