To celebrate the home entertainment release of the X-Men: Days of Future Past Rogue Cut Blu-ray on July 14th, fans at San Diego Comic-Con were treated to a special advance screening of the extended version of the film. Shown on four screens simultaneously at the Reading Cinema in downtown San Diego on Saturday, July 11, the Rogue Cut features an extra 17 minutes of footage including bringing Anna Paquin’s Rogue into the film’s main plot.

The additional scenes add some more humor and action to the film. It’s important to note that although the Rogue storyline accounts for probably 50% of the extra footage, the other 50% is equally as golden. Highlights of the later portions include some very funny bantering between Quicksilver and Magneto and a romantic scene between Beast and Mystique. Several fans at the SDCC screening pointed out they had already seen these portions online as deleted scenes.

As for the Rogue bits, they fit and strangely enough they seem essential to the plot. Sadly, since we’ve all seen how the film carries on without, they end up feeling more superfluous than they were intended to be. That said, that Bryan Singer was able to take Rogue out and still make Days of Future Past work and work well is commendable. It couldn’t have been easy to re-work scenes, dialogue, and climatic moments all to remove one character.

If there’s one role for which Kiefer Sutherland will forever be identified, it’s Jack Bauer. His turn as the CTU agent gone rouge, doing whatever it takes to save the country and the President, has left a lasting mark on the TV landscape.

And now, after being gone from the scene for a few years, Jack Bauer is back in 24: Live Another Day. This time around Jack is in London and as you can imagine, shit goes down and he need to take care of business … his way.

The first full trailer for Jack Bauer’s return is now live and we’ve got it for you. Check it out after the break.

Look for 24: Live Another Day, which in addition to Sutherland stars Mary Lynn Rajskub, Yvonne Strahovski, Benjamin Bratt and Kim Raver, to arrive May 5 on Fox. Can’t. Wait.

To be honest, I’m kinda looking frward to this movie more than pretty much any other this Summer. Why? Well, because it’s the X-Men, that’s why.

Plus, Bryan Singer in the director’s chair and a cast that’s the envy of the civilized movie-watching world. Also, it just looks cool. Oh, and because this sound like a movie I’m gonna love:

The ultimate X-Men ensemble fights a war for the survival of the species across two time periods in X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST. The beloved characters from the original “X-Men” film trilogy join forces with their younger selves from the past, “X-Men: First Class,” in order to change a major historical event and fight in an epic battle that could save our future.

And yes, there’s a new trailer that’s just dropped today. Check it out after the break.

Look for X-Men: Days of Future Past to arrive in theaters on May 23.

This week on The Following Mark hears noises coming from Luke’s room, and finds Giselle dead in Luke’s bed. Luke is pretending that she’s alive, but it’s very obvious that Giselle is dead. Luke tells him that Hardy killed her.

Max is stitching up Hardy’s gunshot wound while Hardy calls Mike. He tells Mike that Lily has a whole family, and that he thinks they (including Joe) are nearby. Mike tells him he’s on the way, and takes off without telling anyone at the FBI. When Mike arrives by himself, he tells Hardy he thinks the FBI has been compromised, and that someone from the inside has been tipping off Joe.

Lily and Joe are still in bed, and Lily is telling Joe all about how they can take the whole family to Venezuela. She has her own plane, and a place on the beach, and it’s very tough to extradite from Venezuela. Joe tells Lily that there are always options. Lily is upset that he doesn’t want to just pick up everything and leave. One of the French girls comes in to tell Lily there is a problem.

Joe and Mandy are watching a house from their car. The woman finds her young son missing and panics. She sees a man outside and goes to confront. Joe says hi to her, and she is happy to see him.  Her name is Jenna, and she is a member of Joe’s cult.

Hardy thinks that all of the new cult activity is to lure Joe out of hiding. Max is skeptical that Joe is alive, but is willing to listen if Hardy can find some proof. Hardy doesn’t want her jeopardizing her job to help him, but she is stubborn too and says she is helping him whether he likes it or not.

Weston has found some information on Lily Gray. Her parents died when she was young, and she was adopted by a wealthy man. He died, and left all his money to her. Lily is worth 1.4 billion dollars. The twins are boys she adopted after their mother died giving birth. Lily’s business partner, David Roland, is out of the hospital but is refusing to speak to authorities.  The FBI doesn’t know if he’s involved or in danger.

In this week’s episode of The Following, Joe is living in Arkansas under an assumed identity.  The only ones who know who he really is are his girlfriend Judy and her daughter Mandy.  Joe’s new name is Daryl, and everyone thinks he is Judy’s brother, which is kind of mind boggling considering she is a prostitute and he just sits outside on a bench while she conducts her business.

Judy questions him about the cult subway murders, but he claims to know nothing about it.  She tells him that they have a good thing going and she doesn’t want it ruined.  They hug, and Joe has a certain “I’m a lying jackhole” look on his face.

Hardy is using his shamelessly promoted tablet and major name search engine to look up Lily Gray, the survivor of the subway attacks.  He finds that she is an art dealer and goes to see her.  He asks her a bunch of questions that the FBI already asked her, and she admits to him that she looked him up online.  I’m surprised they aren’t already in bed together.

So what I totally missed last week was that the girl the twins killed was not a totally random aside.  They had posed her dead body on a bench for the cops to find.  That went way over my head.  This week, Weston and Mendez determine that she was posed to reflect a certain passage in Joe Carroll’s book Gothic Sea.

When I heard this week was a double episode I was surprised, and even more surprised to find it was the season finale.  It seems rare to have just a 13-episode season, especially for a network show.  And throwing the two episodes together seemed a little haphazard, but it actually worked really well. 

The first half was a basic episode, but left enough to want to watch one more.  And the ending of this season was so good and so unexpected, I was floored.  It’s not too often that my jaw drops during a TV show, but it did twice during the last few minutes.  Please keep in mind that this review covers two episodes, so it will be fairly lengthy.  But, enough preemptive reacting, let’s get to the meat and potatoes.

Brooks finds his way into Abbie’s house and tells her that Washington’s bible contains instructions on finding a map that can lead them to a way to stop Moloch.  Moloch cannot use the map, but wants to get it so they cannot use it.  If Abbie gives Brooks the bible, she will be spared and given a spot in Moloch’s clan.

Following a season one recap, the whole of the fight between Hardy and his neighbor is shown.  She stabs him and Claire, but Hardy fights back and breaks her neck, killing her.  Hardy later finds out at the hospital that Claire did not survive.

Fast forward to one year later, where Hardy is five months sober (apparently there was a relapse after Claire died) and a professor at the New York College of Criminal Justice.  It is coming up on the one-year anniversary of the “Carroll Cult Killings”.

Hardy’s niece Max wants him to meet her new boyfriend, so he has them over to dinner, along with his AA sponsor and another woman from AA.  Max admits she set up the dinner mostly to help distract Hardy from the anniversary of the murders.  She also thinks that Hardy should ask out the woman from his AA class.

Hardy, as well as Mike Weston, are dragged back into action after some murders on a subway car in New York.  The killers, donning Joe Carroll masks, enter subway car, pose for the cameras, and then stab everyone in the car, leaving only one woman as a witness.  They chant “Resurrection” and say that Ryan Hardy cannot stop them, Joe Carroll lives, and the resurrection is coming.

This week’s episode is brought to you by the Denzel Washington suspense film Fallen. It centers around a demon called Ancitif that is harassing Captain Irving and his family. The demon can pass from person to person through touch, just like the demon in the above-mentioned film.  It was a great movie by the way, with a great supporting role played by John Goodman.

 Captain Irving is trying to get answers out of the vendor that spoke to him as a demon in the park. Irving finally realizes that the demon passed from him to an older woman that the man bumped into at the park. The woman is coming in to speak to police when she touches one of the officers, passing the demon to the cop.

 Irving receives a call from within the department from the demon, demanding George Washington’s bible in return for the safety of his daughter Macey.  Irving finds the possessed officer and attacks him, but the demon had already passed to someone new by the time he got to him.

 Irving calls his priest, who urges him to find a safe house.  Irving brings his daughter and wife to a safe house, not realizing that the demon is in one of the two officers helping him lock down the house.  The unidentified officer (to me at least) harboring the demon passes the demon to Morales, who then kills the first officer and enters the safe house.

If you’ve been to McDonald’s recently you may have seen their latest pull tab giveaway is focusing on XBox. While Taco Bell is backing the PlayStation 4, Mickey D’s is going gung ho with Microsoft to push the XBox One, XBox Music, XBox Video and the XBox Live Arcade. Unlike previous giveaways like Monopoly where McDonald’s food items were up for grabs, everything that can be won from this promotion is XBox related. You’ll find the full breakdown of prizes below including the top prizes, XBox Ones with a copy of Forza Motorsport 5.

The one thing that stood out though were the XBox Live Arcade titles. All of them are on the 360. Now I understand the idea is to give people something they are more likely to be able to use like XBox Music, Video or Gold since they can be applied to either the XBox One or 360, but it seemed strange to not give games for the previous gen system and none for the XBox One. It’s true not every game could be redeemed for XBox One yet, especially since these seem to have limited codes, but it feels a little like the early adopters are getting ignored for their fervor to get the system early yet again.

That said, I was able to win the only game from Twisted Pixel Games that I didn’t already own, The Maw. It is currently downloading on my XBox 360 as the XBox One cools down from another busy weekend.

Take a look below at the full list of prizes and chick out One Hot Holiday for more details.

• XBox One & Forza Motorsport 5
• XBox Music Pass & XBox Live Gold 1 Month Membership
• XBox Live Gold 1 Month Membership
• The Maw for XBox 360
• Ms. Splosion Man for XBox 360
• Aqua for XBox 360
• The Wolverine Digital HD movie download
• Episode of a Fox Series: Enlisted, Bones, Raising Hope