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Cube Critic: 'X-Men: Days of Future Past', 'Teenage'

  Play Now [7:50]

by Euan Kerr

May 23, 2014

x-men magneto
Scene from 'X-Men: Days of Future Past'
Courtesy of Alan Markfield/20th Century Fox Film Corp.

MPR's Cube Critic Euan Kerr joins Steve Seel and Jill Riley to talk about the latest installment in the Marvel superhero series and about a documentary that explores the invention of adolescence.

X-Men: Days of Future Past takes all the previous films and throws everyone into a blender through the wonder of time travel. The X-Men must band together to repair a rift in time and also to defeat the Sentinels — giant robots made from the stolen DNA of one of the X-Men.

Euan says the film is "a lot of fun," but his one complaint is that the cast is so loaded with stars, each one only gets a few lines.

X-Men: Days of Future Past is rated PG-13 and is playing at theaters everywhere.

And for something to tickle your synapses, Euan also discusses a new documentary called Teenage, which explores the invention of the teenager.

Until the Industrial Revolution, people were children and then they went to work — essentially becoming adults. In the early 20th century, however, in the midst of social change, the idea of adolescence was created out of whole cloth.

Teenage, the documentary, looks at the invention of teenagers in the U.S., U.K., and Germany, with a particular focus at what happened in the early 1900s. It describes just young people became a political and economic force, including the creation of a strong music culture.

Teenage is not rated and is screening at the Landmark Lagoon Cinema in Minneapolis.

MPR's Movie Maven, Stephanie Curtis, joins The Current's Morning Show to talk about films every Friday at 8:30 a.m.