I defintely see the MLK/Malcolm X thing. I think the movie can be both. To me the scene with Angel and the shears is all about trying to keep your parents from knowing the truth about you. Trying to cut away that part of you that doesn't fit in with society.

I have just printed out tickets for tomorrow for Ratatouille at the El Cap.

I love the digital age.

Well, I didn't mean that it wasn't used as a metaphor for anything else. But Bobby's conversation with his parents in X2, for example, strikes me as far more a gay metaphor than a racial one. And though it's more subtle, likewise Rogue's discovery of her power as a sexually awakening teen, the resultant shame and issues about romantic interaction, and the trope of fleeing home to build a new family among friends.

Other SF movies:

Play It Again, Sam. One of the few Woody Allen films of the period shot outside of the NYC area, because the NY film crew was on strike.

I'd say a movie (or any artwork) is a "blank" movie if it speaks to the experience of "blanks" as "blanks." X-Men (and the Marvel Universe generally) definitely speaks to the gay experience, and I'll defer to ita as to the black experience.

In a broader context, I'd say there are similarities between the two, but I wouldn't want to stretch the analogy too far. Both groups have been/are treated by society as "other" and "lesser," with that status reinforced by laws. On the other hand, there was never any debate as to whether people "choose" to be black, as opposed to the debate over gay.

Bullitt as the gold-standard car chase through San Francisco hills.

Saw Die Hard 4 yesterday. It was fun, about what I'd expected, and I liked it much more than DH2, not as much as the original. Justin Long did a good job sustaining his character (or he was reeeeally well cast). But I may have been thrilled most that Cliff Curtis has a really good role in it, and does a credible US accent. I hope he gets lots more work from this.

HBO has a 15 minute First Look at OOTP which you can see here.

Lots of clips interspersed with interviews.

there was never any debate as to whether people "choose" to be black, as opposed to the debate over gay.

You'd be surprised. Certainly nothing on the scale of homosexuality, but there are huge racial identity kerfuffles.

No need to defer to my interpretation. Chris Claremont (wrote a bunch fo the comics) has said much the same.

I'm not trying to take away the gay interpretation--just that I don't think it's a gay movie any more than it'd be a black movie if you changed nothing but the race of the director.

I think The comics were dealing with a racial metaphor but Singer felt it as a gay metaphor and chose the events of the film to go more to that place. The whole bit of the family wanting to keep it a secret and being disgusted directly maps to gay experience and I know Singer was interested because of that and wanted the films to address that.

Writers of the comic have cited both race and sexual orientation as the mapping. I guess I didn't see enough different from the comics to shift it in one direction or the other. Magneto is no less Malcolm X for having been directed by a gay guy.