Again with That Hugh Jackman Guy!

We're back home after a fantastic evening attending the Hollywood premier of X-men Origins: Wolverine at the famous Chinese Theatre. We got to take my son Michael and my niece Stephanie Valada-Viars with us.

The big party premier was actually last night in Tempe, Arizona, which won some sort of a competition to get it there. We weren't sure who'd be at tonight's event, but it was pretty much the entire cast (we didn't see Liev Schreiber) and, most importantly, the wonderful Hugh Jackman.

We had great seats--row 10 on the center aisle, right in front of producer Lauren Shuler Donner and right behind Kelsey Grammer. We saw Mel Gibson, Dominic Mognahan, Ryan Reynolds, Angelica Huston, among others, in the audience. Chris Claremont, who wrote the X-men book for 16 years after taking it over from Len (he had been Len's assistant) flew to L.A. on his own dime to attend the film. Chris has a lot of characters in the film and sees as little money as we do off of it. We talked to Chris before and after the film, but he had a seat way in the back in the unreserved section.

Then Hugh Jackman showed up, stopping along the way to talk to people. As Hugh came down the aisle, Len said hello. Hugh stopped to talk to us, so my niece and son got to meet him. Stephanie's not planning to wash her hand any time soon. He is definitely the sexiest man alive.

Then Hugh continued down to the front of the theatre where he acknowledged his cast and crew and then told everyone that he had someone that he needed to give special thanks to and asked Len to stand up and then explained that without Len there would be no Wolverine and he, Hugh, would have no career. Len got a loud round of applause from the audience, and then Gavin Hood, director of the film, came across the aisle to talk to him.

The film is fantastic. It is well acted and incredibly well directed. I wish we were going to see some money from it, because I think it is going to kill at the box office. As soon as it was over, Hugh ran across the aisle and scooted down to talk to Len and ask him what he thought--Hugh had been watching Len's reactions throughout the film. He was very happy that we loved it. As was Lauren Shuler Donner, who couldn't wait for our reaction.

This is the Wolverine that Len created: a mutant who fights the overwhelming urge to kill. We are absolutely thrilled with the great job the filmmakers did. It is no wonder that Rotten Tomatoes is giving the film a 100% approval rating so far.

Do stick around for the credits. There are two tags to catch.

I'll be going to see it again this weekend. See you at the movies.