A couple years ago, I reviewed the disastrously bad X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I concluded by saying that, unless they got Bryan Singer back, I wouldn’t be fooled into seeing another of these movies.

Executive Producer Bryan Singer

Story by Bryan Singer

… well played 20th Century Fox.

The previews also looked good, but I still waited for the reviews. And when the reviews came back positive (the film is currently reviewing better than Thor on Metacritic, and I thought Thor was a pretty good flick) I decided to take the risk.

And I’m really glad that I did.

Not only is X-Men: First Class better than X-Men Origins: Wolverine (a very low hurdle to clear), I think it may be the best X-Men movie they’ve made. It’s not perfect. But it is very, very good and I recommend checking it out. (Particularly if the only reason you’ve been holding back is because, like me, you were so bitterly disappointed by X3 and Wolverine.)

So, in my opinion, that’s two good comic book movies out of two so far this year. And I’ve got my fingers crossed for both Captain America (which looks great in the trailers) and Green Lantern (which will either be amazing or painful).

(Tangentially, I’ve seen a lot of industry “experts” claiming that X-Men: First Class is having a poor box office turn-out because Wolverine isn’t in it. Well… no. It’s having a poor box office turn-out because the last two movies in the franchise sucked and sucked hard. You can’t just bounce back from that. I think the only way they could have avoided a poor opening weekend for this movie would have been to get Bryan Singer back in the director’s chair and prominently advertise that fact. Frankly, I’m surprised they weren’t plastering Singer’s name all over the previews. I had to go digging to find out he was re-involved in the franchise. It would have sent a very clear “sorry about the last two films, please give us another chance” message to the audience.)

Continuing this sequence of “video trailers recently produced by Justin”, I have a book trailer for The Outlaw’s Tale by Margaret Frazer. This one is a little crude, since I was basically test-bedding the Animoto platform as a tool for quickly generating these things. (I’m still using it occasionally, but unfortunately it proved to be too limited even after you paid for it.)

You may also want to check out the book trailer The Bishop’s Tale that I shared back in April if you haven’t seen it already. I also provided the voice of Sir Clement Sharpe for that one.

I’m very busy with about a half dozen different projects right now, so for the next few days I’m going to be shamelessly showcasing some video trailers I’ve produced over the past few months. Hopefully you’ll find them interesting and/or entertaining. If not, I’m planning to be back sooner rather than later.

Up first: A trailer for the Oh! Gnomes! video game. Awhile back I mentioned the game, which is produced for Groundling Games (a small indie game studio for which I have done some minor scripting in the past). It is available for both Android and the iPhone. I had nothing to do with the development of Oh! Gnomes! then and that remains true now, but I did put together this trailer for them.

It’s interesting watching PCs (and their players) slip through a varying appreciation of cash. The same folks who will cheer at a 100 gp payout at 1st level will gradually become far more jaded towards their bank accounts as the levels tick past.

“I’ve only got 2,000 gp!”

Ah, yes. You poor dear. You’ve only got as much money as the average person makes in two lifetimes.

Of course, this might all be funnier if it didn’t happen in real life and with real money all the time.

This is the awesome trailer for a bizarre, time-bending video game that’s currently seeking sponsors on Kickstarter. It’s got less than a day to go, but I recommend checking it out.

I am you from the future. There is No Time To Explain. Follow m– AAAUAUUGHHH!!!! Be part of an indie game with a sense of humor.