X-Men: First Class: Compelling!

Faced with a couple of film choices to see at the theater last night, I found myself drawing the conclusion that you know that a man's *whipped* when he's coerced by his girlfriend/wife to watch Bridesmaids. I could never subject my husband to such torture. I honestly believe that an important key to keeping the romance alive in a relationship is to constantly offer choices e.g.Sushi or Steak, Cuba or Mexico, grey or beige, uh, top or bottom - which may require a great deal of compromise, downright relinquishment of personal preference/ forfeiture of rights, concessions, sacrifices but give rise to interesting decisions like "Chinese," "Greige," etc. With Hangover 2 being another movie option and after hearing that its writers relied too heavily on the mass appeal of tasteless, what we will just call, "kinky" "monkey jokes" that they forgot to actually write, to see X-men First class was a no-brainer (and a mutually acceptable choice!)

As it is the case for any movie for that matter, but especially so for prequels of hugely successful sagas and virtual "institutions" such as X-men, Batman or Star Wars, the challenge is to create something compelling. I think X-men was veeerrryy compelling. The incorporation of the mutants' own reality into humankind's true atrocious past and pop culture is seamless and is not just incidental. It's a fine tapestry of fiction "gold."

The casting was impeccable with James McAvoy as mutant adoptive patriarch Xavier whose bluest limpid pools for eyes I had never resurfaced from since The Last King of Scotland! Kevin Bacon as the antagonist Shaw whose smirk you've been wanting to effectively wipe off with a sledgehammer since Riverwild, January Jones as Emma Frost who is the *real* motivation for Kumee's Madmen marathons besides its male cast's classy skinny-tied fashion, of course. German actor Michael Fassbender as the emotionally scarred Magneto, who made my husband feel threatened when I asked him "who's that"??? Academy award nominee Jennifer Lawrence as the young Mystique to whom I give the credit for recalibrating and lifting ideal body image for girls and women back to normal proportions - literally - when she said that she'd rather appear "chubby onscreen than look like a scarecrow in real life" and the rest of her youthful up and coming peers who play other mutant proteges that officially lauched me into midlife crisis....but then again, you kinda know you're pushing mid-thirties and up when you find yourself absolutely giddy with excitement, as I was, as everything came together and I began to understand the inception of the X-men "Freshmen," if you will.