Drescher borrows from life for new TV Land sitcomFran Drescher stars in “Happily Divorced,’’ premiering Wednesday on TV Land.

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The Journal303 North Minnesota | New Ulm, MN

www.nujournal.com

TELEVISION PROGRAMMING FOR JUNE 11-17, 2011

Matt: Passes withHonors, Josh: One smallevolutionarystep, one giantleap for super-hero movies

Matt: Go. See it. Now.The rest of this summer’sreleases are going to havea tough time outdoing X-Men: First Class, whichhits near perfectly thesweet spot of fun, style,character development,and action. And this com-ing from someone whodoesn’t much like the se-ries.

Yes, director MatthewVaughn (Stardust, Kick-Ass, Layer Cake) hastreated the material like itbelongs in a real movie,rather than just an excusefor hastily-scripted explo-sions. Unlike the over-stuffed X3, First Classactually knows what to dowith its mutants – andhow to effectively inte-grate their powers into thestoryline. It’s a movie thatputs its characters first,and allows their actions todrive the “action” in the“action movie.” Actionand dialogue interminglein scenes that actually ad-vance the plot, oftenwhile taking just the rightamount of time to buildatmosphere and revel inthe 1960s setting’s retro-cool.

Gone is the self-serioustone that made BryanSinger’s first two entriesso sluggish and in itsplace is not just sheer funbut also a refreshing am-biguity to the sides in themutant war. First Classsees Professor X as abrash, somewhat naïveidealist and Magneto as aviolent, scarred pragma-tist – depictions morecomplex than the goodand evil of most super-hero movies and thebluntness of the previousX-Men films.

Still, there are a fewcaveats. It is embarrass-ingly conspicuous for aseries that trumpets thevalue of diversity thatonly Caucasian mutantschoose to side withXavier and live to tellabout it. And if First Classis meant as the start of anew trilogy, it doesn’tbode well that before thecredits the boundaries forthe series’ central conflicthave more or less beenset, rather than “set up” tobe explored later. I’m all

for more period pieces ofmutant armies battlingthrough the 70s and 80s,but it’s possible the mostsignificant plot develop-ments will relate to Pro-fessor X’s male patternbaldness.

Josh: X-Men: FirstClass is not so much a su-perhero film as a greatfilm that happens to coin-cidentally involve super-heroes. That’s a gooddistinction to make; allthe best superhero filmshave it. So far, the onlyone that has really mas-tered it is The DarkKnight. Unfortunately,First Class falls just shortof The Dark Knight be-cause of cheesy bitsforced in (seemingly bythe produces). However,it’s still a great, fun flickthat will hopefully showproducers that they willbenefit from investing in

story.As Matt mentioned,

this film dominates yourinterest with ambiguous,adult ideas/story lines, butnot in a manner that re-quires you to be a philos-ophy major to understand.Rather, it’s the ideas thatare fun to ponder on theirown merits, but with theadded benefit of havingthem played out in color-ful scenarios.

The film’s problem ishow it tries to shoe-hornin melodramatic aspectsof comic books for brand-recognition purposes. It’sespecially thick at the endwhen they try to tie thefilm to the previouslymade ones. I don’t thinkit’s needed, because Ithink this film is strongenough to branch off to itsown interpretation of X-Men characters and itsown franchise.

To explain the weird-

ness of name-checking,image this: McDonald’sfinances a good, smartfilm that is fun to watch.Now image, after all thegreat stuff the films haddone, all the characters goto McDonald’s for no rea-son and spend the last fiveminutes of film talkingabout how good it is. Re-ally off-kilter and annoy-ing because of how goodthe film was, right?

Matt: Prequels run arisk of being superfluousbecause we all knowwhere the story goes.While not exactly neededper say, I have to giveFirst Class props for notfeeling unnecessary. Per-haps the general incoher-ence of 2009’s Wolverinemade the producers real-ize they would have tobring their A-game if thefranchise was to continue.Unfortunately, early boxoffice totals, for whateverreasons, have been lowerthan expected. It’s kind ofa shame, given how manymuch worse movies willno doubt out-gross it thisyear, but then, the samecould be said of any num-ber of movies, many ofwhich don’t involve su-perheroes.

Josh: I also have tomention, the film shouldget bonus points for style.It uses the 60s era closesand style without beingkitsch. It actually adds tothe film’s visual look. Theaction scenes are tense

and fun, and shot in a so-phisticated way that theycan convey violence with-out going over PG-13.

Matt: Go. Enjoy your-self! There are plentymore superhero moviesyet to come this summer,but I doubt any will be asgood as First Class.

Josh: Go see this film.It’s a film you’ll actuallybe glad you saw.

Matt: 8/10, Josh: 8.5/10

THE JOURNAL, New Ulm, MN Friday, June 10, 2011 19

Double Take: X-Men: First Class

Synopsis:

Meeting in their 20s,psychic Charles Xavierand Erik Lehnsherr – aconcentration camp sur-vivor with the power tomanipulate metal withhis mind – work withthe CIA to build a teamof super-powered mu-tants. As the CubanMissile Crisis heats up,tensions mount be-tween the two over howmuch to trust regularhumans.

Director: MatthewVaughn

Writers: AshleyMiller, Zack Stentz,Jane Goldman, MatthewVaughn

Starring: JamesMcAvoy, Micahel Fass-bender, JenniferLawrence, Kevin Bacon

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The X-Men are shocked to find there is some creativityleft in Hollywood.