Tag Archives: x-men days of future past

Jennifer Lawrence’s 10 Best Movies

Jennifer Lawrence

Jennifer Lawrence has been the most in-demand actress in Hollywood this decade, and also the highest paid (until recently passed by Emma Stone).  Still in her late 20s, Lawrence already has four Oscar nominations for outstanding performances in films like Winter’s Bone, Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle.  She’s also been a gigantic box office draw in two franchises, helping to reboot the X-Men as Mystique and in the adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games novels.  She is in a bit of a slump the last few years, but with a legion of fans and undeniable dramatic skills, that could change at any time.  She was so young when Winter’s Bone put her on the map that it’s hard to remember how young she still is, but this is an actress who has decades of work ahead of her, so an off year or two (unless it becomes four or five) isn’t going to stop audiences from keeping her in demand, despite her performance in the recently divisive mother!.
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The Most Expensive Deleted Scenes Ever Filmed

Deleted scenes are sometimes more than just cool features on a Blu Ray; little gems that didn’t quite make the final cut.  Sometimes deleted scenes are deleted swaths of the film that make a huge impact on the film’s tone, budget, and shooting schedule.  Looper (which is a great channel to follow on YouTube for cool videos like this) has put together a piece on the most expensive deleted scenes in Hollywood history from recent films like World War Z and X-Men: Days of Future Past all the way back to The Wizard of Oz.  I’m fairly certain the video was made before the release of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story‘s massive reshoots last summer.  Though Disney hasn’t released a figure on how much it cost (and don’t expect them to), bringing in writer/director Tony Gilroy to help with the process cost $5 million before they even began reshooting 20-30 scenes, so it’s safe to say it would make this list as well.  However, when you end up with the #7 grossing film in US history, fiscally it all balanced out.


Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Director Orson Krennic, Ben MendelsohnThe piece also mentions the $10 million original opening sequence to Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns that was cut in which the film originally opened with a silent exploration of the ruins of Krypton by Superman in his ship.  Superman Returns is a polarizing film, but it’s still my favorite Superman film of the bunch, but this was definitely a good cut.  If you have never seen it, it was released back in 2011 in the Superman Anthology Blu Ray set, but thanks to the awesome power of YouTube, I can just plop it below.


Hugh Jackman’s 10 Best Movies

Hugh Jackman

Hugh Jackman is done playing Wolverine.  As Logan continues to do well at the box office, it seems so weird to think that we’ve seen Jackman as the X-Man for the last time.  Perhaps only Sean Connery as James Bond has so indelibly taken a popular culture character and married it to his own identity.  For 17 years, Jackman embodied the character from the first time we saw him cage fighting in a bar in X-Men to his farewell in Logan.  Not too shabby for a song and dance man.

The Wolverine, Logan, Hugh Jackman

X-Men was most people’s first exposure to Jackman, but his talents are far from merely dicing people in super hero films.  He’s a consummate Broadway actor; an old-fashioned song and dance man, as I said.  He’s hosted the Tony Awards on four occasions; winning an Emmy for one of the shows.  He most famously got to put his musical gifts to use on screen as Jean Valjean in Les Miserables; Jackman’s only Oscar nomination.  He’s an outstanding dramatic actor, you need only watch The Prestige and Prisoners back-to-back to see the amount of range he has.  His good nature also makes him a gifted comic actor, which I think has been best shown in the underrated Real Steel and Eddie the Eagle (where, yes, he is playing Wolverine as a ski jumping coach, but it WORKS!).  It’s always possible that a payday or Ryan Reynolds stalking him to be in a Deadpool or X-Force film could give us another Jackman as Logan turn, but his career is far from over just because he’s said farewell to his most famous alter ego.


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Top 5: Xavier/Magneto Scenes

Professor Xavier, Magneto, Ian McKellan, Patrick Stewart, X-Men

Last week, in my weekly “My Favorite Scene” column, I talked about my favorite scene from X-Men: First Class: The Point Between Rage and Serenity.  It’s one of my favorite Xavier/Magneto scenes.  Then I started to think how many iconic scenes there have been through the seven films that have contained Professor X and Magneto, and thought a top 5 list was in order.

Professor Xavier, Magneto, X-Men: First Class, Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy

It seemed almost impossible that suitable matches could be found to carry the torch for Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan after they made those characters theirs starting in the second scene in the first film.  However, James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender have proven to be every bit their equal, and have had better, meatier parts of the Xavier/Magneto relationship to work with as they chart their friendship and the schism between them that would divide mutants. Quite frankly, you could make the whole list out of chess matches, but I tried to spread them out.  Here are my five favorite (plus the scene I already wrote about, which you can see by clicking the link above).


Chess in a Plastic Prison, X-Men (2000)

The Breaking Point, X-Men: First Class (2011)


We Are the Future, X-Men (2000)

You Abandoned Me!, X-Men: DOFP (2014)


Gifts, The Wolverine (2013)

 

Poll Results: Best X-Movie of All-Time

X-Men: Apocalypse hits theaters tonight, and it will be following the KT Readers’ pick for Best X-Movie of All-Time: X-Men Days of Future Past.  Just edging out this year’s Deadpool, DOFP captured the crown in voting that saw nods to six of the eight existing entries (someone voted for X-Men Origins: Wolverine….I want to find you).  My favorite film in the series is X2 followed by X-Men: First Class, but the readers have spoken and DOFP is our official answer to The Mutant Question.


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