Daily Archives: August 3, 2013

‘X-Men’ – Meet the Sentinels

The Sentinels are finally ready for their close-up.

The three-story tall robots, in case you’re not familiar with them, are the hulking menaces used by the government to try to to exterminate mutants in the “X-Men” comics.

They were introduced in “Uncanny X-Men” 14 in November 1965 and were created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

They’re nearly as much the archetypal villain for The X-Men as Hydra is for Captain America.

The Sentinels were apparently on the “no-no” list at Fox during the years the “X-Men” movies were being made, although I’m not sure why. The only appearance of the robots in the initial round of movies is in a Danger Room practice in “X-Men: The Last Stand.” Wolverine beheads one in a training session after being thrown by Colossus.

They apparently figure prominently in “X-Men: Days of Future Past,” the 2014 feature mixing the classic and new movie casts. Their creator, Bolivar Trask, is played in the movie by Peter Dinklage.

Could that ‘stache be any cooler or more 1970s period?

At top is a shot from the movie, featuring a Sentinel watching over the Reagan inauguration in the movie’s fractured timeline.

RIP Michael Ansara

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Another great Hollywood character actor has left the stage.

Michael Ansara has died at age 91.

Ansara was born in Syria and had an extensive career in Hollywood playing good guys and bad guys, often with an exotic edge. He played the Djinn on TV’s “I Dream of Jeannie,” opposite wife Barbara Eden, and starred in the series “Broken Arrow.”

He is best known for playing Kang, a Klingon captain who was Kirk’s equal and counterpart, in the original “Star Trek” series.

It was a role he returned to in later series, including “Deep Space Nine” and “Voyager.”

Thanks, Mr. Ansara, for your memorable presence.

New ‘Thor: The Dark World’ poster

There’s something old-fashioned, almost “Star Wars” or “Raiders of the Lost Ark” -like, about the new poster for “Thor: The Dark World.”

Maybe it’s the lack of photoshopped photos of the cast, standing in random poses and staring off at nothing.

No, it’s a nicely done and composed poster – not unlike that for “Captain America: The First Avenger” or “Iron Man 3” – that shows the ever-growing cast, including Christopher Eccleston looming as villain Malekith the Accursed.

We even get Idris (“We are canceling the apocalypse!”) Elba as sturdy Heimdall.

“Thor: The Dark World” comes to theaters on Nov. 8.