Blue Cherry Frosting

I  was just thinking about the wondrously appropriate casting of Kelsey Grammer in the X-Men franchise. It really is up there with Patrick Stewart's Proffy X. But I was just musing about its applicability on a deeper level.
Beast was always an exemplar of duality. Mentally, he's an erudite and amiable gentleman, but in physical terms, he's monstrous enough to warrant his code name. And old Kels is a dualistic dude too, famous as he is for two things. First, he's the refined intellectual Frasier Crane. The next thing that jumps to mind after that is his true persona of a ravenous hedonist.
Boom! Dude knew how to get rid of the pain of being a man even before he became the Beast. Blue fur's just a bonus.

Bonus Question! 

"American Beauty" versus KGBeast?

I think that KGBeast could  be drawn to the movie for Kevin Spacey, and he'd appreciate the guy's performance. It's the type of thing he'd jump to after finishing "House of Cards" on Netflix, and though it wouldn't fully scratch that itch, it'd still see him through a few hours of the night quite pleasantly.

Grimly Phoenix

Just saw "Dark Phoenix". Can't understand the hate. It was a fun X-Men film filled with classic X-Men nonsense. Like "Apocalypse". On a tonal level, I did prefer "Apocalypse", but that's  because it was more uplifting, and my own tastes might have liked that to be the end point. But I'm also the guy who used to end the Ziggy Stardust album on "Suffragette City" because "Suicide" seemed too dour to end on, and now that's one of my favourite songs.

But it's pretty rare for a dude to get a second chance at seeing his vision through without interference, and that's what Kinberg got for this after the complications of "Last Stand". He rose from the ashes of that and made his Phoenix play here.

I will say that the X-Men uniform popped better onscreen than I expected, though I still would have preferred the wilder costumes that were teased at the end of "Apocalypse". What else popped? Mystique's hair. That  coif was radical. It could have come from a bottle called "Radical Red". Pure comic book colour. Cheers for that. And cheers to Kinberg for managing to convince her to come back for endless hours of makeup application.

And I realise now that Tye Sheridan might have won the casting call in large part by virtue of his mouth. That blind pout is pure Cyclops. I loved Marsden in the old movies, but he might have almost been too stylish for the role. He might have made me like Scott more than I should have. But Tye's performance is incredibly honest.

Also. At one point, the X-Men are antagonised by the Mutant Control Unit or whatever, with big letters on their outfits that read "MCU", which seems appropriate after all the legal issues between the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Fox's X-Men franchise.

And the ending reminded me of the epilogue to "Dark Knight Rises", which mainly had the effect of making me want to watch a conversation between Xavier and Michael Caine. It doesn't even have to be with Alfred. Any Michael Caine.

Bonus Question!

How was the last season of "Jessica Jones"?

She's not my favourite character of the Netflix Defenders, but for some reason, her show always goes down smoothest.

Mutant Material

I've got to assume that mutants in the Marvel universe would have started up their own sperm banks and stuff at some point. Right? In the real world, blood banks still seem reluctant to accept gay blood. Oh. I'm sorry. That should be "blood that had had sex with a man in the last two years". Or whatever nonsense equivocation current regulations use.

But yeah. I'd think that mutant genetic material would be a harder sell. But I'm sure that there are many mutants who can see the value their genes would have for the overall health of their species despite their unwillingness to actually have kids. Especially because the more powerful ones have a higher tendency to get drawn into situations that would raise their life insurance premiums.

And that's not even mentioning the hordes of base humans who'd be lining up to carry genetically gifted babies. It'd be a brisk business. Doctor Nemesis probably runs it in his spare time. Maybe with Cecilia Reyes's eyes over his shoulder.

Find me a dude who makes surgical gloves look more epic.

Bonus Question!

Best gloves worn by a doctor?

Doctor Strange's leopard style, boy!

Finally Ready

I watched "Ready Player One" on the weekend. I think that it's the second thing I've seen Tye Sheridan in after "X-Men: Apocalypse", and it continues the trend of giving him a fixation on an awkward but headstrong girl with red hair and putting the dude in a visor. Apparently, some faces are just made for visors? I don't know. Maybe mine is made for eyeliner. I haven't had a day of bare lids in years.

So yeah. In a movie that was apparently going to drown the audience in explicit references to popular culture from the 80s, I was mainly thinking about its unintentional resonance with X-Men. But then I'm often thinking about X-Men.

Bonus Question!

Tye Sheridan versus a Sheraton Hotel!

Though he checked in slightly late, he still managed to get a decent sleep and wake up in time to get in most of an hour with the complimentary breakfast buffet.

Check out that visor face. 

All Horrors

I recall feeling some anxiety about the placement of Halloween in a week during childhood. Whenever it seemed far removed from the weekend, I'd get twinges of despair at the thought of all the Halloweens that could fall on school nights.

But I've come to realise that the adult world just decided to work around that. Halloween's tacitly agreed to be whatever the last Saturday in October happens to be. Friday if you're nasty.

Bonus Question!

Watching?

The new season of "American Horror Story". In large part because of Evan Peters. He's a fun dude to watch. I first saw him in that X-Men movie wherein he played Quicksilver. In one iteration of the comic universe, that guy had some incestuous subtext with his twin sister Scarlet Witch. It later turned into text right around the time at which that particular universe basically went to hell. Death. Mass destruction. That whole deal. But more than usual.

Scarlet Witch wasn't even a presence in the X-Men movies, but in "Horror Story", Peters does have a sister, and they do have some incestuous subtext that develops into text. Nice bit of symmetry?

Nice Hair, Cool Shades

A show about Professor X's son is  out. They ditched the extreme hair, but they kept the dissociative identity disorder and its attendant powers. It's one power set for each personality? Or a personality for each power set? It's a bit of a chicken-egg situation. But that's what the X-Men are all about. Mutation's why the chicken hatched from an egg that was laid by something slightly different from a chicken. Also, a lot of chickens seem to possess multiple heads. Mutation!

But first the dude who actually played Professor X is giving his own take on DID in that "Split" movie. Heredity! A related genetic concept!

But I've heard whispers that the next actual X-Men movie might touch more on that Phoenix business? Which . . . There are probably more novel places to go, but I can understand Bryan Singer's urge to give that plot a just screen treatment after "The Last Stand" took the threads he'd woven for it in "X2" and pulled them into a frayed mess because no one could wait for him to finish "Superman Returns" with his best buddy James Marsden before returning to his rightful place atop the X-Men film throne. The throne is obviously cruciform. 

But yeah. "X2" basically set up the Phoenix pins, and then "The Last Stand" wandered in and threw a watermelon at them. It definitely wasn't a strike, and it left gross bits of watermelon all over the lane. Now, I personally enjoyed "The Last Stand" more than I like watermelon, but it was clear to see that it had nothing to do with the vision Singer left in the air at the end of "X2". But on the subject of vision, I can say that Cyclops's shades never looked better than they did in "Last Stand". And apparently they were all that survived his fiery kiss death in that movie. Technically, they had more screen time in that film than he did. So.

Bonus Question!

Best Cyclops sunglasses?

See above.