THE OPTIMIST - MOVIE REVIEWS

    It's been sixteen years since we were first blessed with an X-Men film. Director Bryan Singer delivered one of the coolest comic book movies to date with 2000's "X-Men" and followed it up with what I think is the best X-Men movie to date in "X2: X-Men United". "The Last Stand" was a blunder (though I kind of enjoyed it) and "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" showed no promise of a return-to-form to what we saw in the first two. These first four remind me of the Batman Anthology, in that Tim Burton's films were fantastic, the third by Joel Schumacher was, eh; and "Batman and Robin" was a joke. Weird.    Then the tide turned. Michael Vaughn's "X-Men: First Class" was such a breath of fresh air that it took a stalling franchise and gave it legs once again. I loved "First Class", a lot. It was so different, and yet it fit right into the X-Men family. "The Wolverine" had mixed reviews; not s

   "Money Monster" is the new thriller from well-renown actress Jodie Foster, who has donned the directing cap once again in what will surely be canon fodder this weekend in the wake of "Captain America: Civil War". I'm not saying it's not a good movie, it is. "Civil War" is on the hunt to hit $300 million domestically this weekend and this little movie doesn't stand a chance of knocking Marvel's latest venture off the number one spot in the box office. Again, that has nothing to do with the quality of the movie and everything to do with that fact that Marvel owns cinemas for the next few weeks, easy.    This movie isn't without its charms, and it's worth checking out. The story follows financial TV host Lee Gates, played by George Clooney, and his producer Patty (Julia Roberts) as they deal with being put in an extreme situation when an irate investor takes over their studio at gunpoint. It's a thrilling yet predictab

   Marvel is officially kicking off their Phase 3 this weekend with the highly anticipated "Captain America: Civil War". When it comes to comic book films, Marvel has been pumping out success after success. However, no film is without fault, and the one minor hiccup in their grand cinematic universe is that - save for the Captain America franchise - the sequels seem to not quite live up to their originals. "Iron Man" kicked off this craziness and did so in fantastic fashion. "Iron Man 2" was a bit all over the place (still awesome though) and "Iron Man 3" was kind of this weird installment to the franchise (again, also still awesome regardless). "Age of Ultron", though grand and wonderful as it was, didn't quite capture the same magic as the first Avengers. And as for Thor, both films almost seem interchangeable. Don't get me wrong, there hasn't between a movie within this established universe that isn't awesome in th