Wonder Woman - Movie Review

Starring Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Connie Nielsen, Robin Wright, David Thewlis, Danny Huston, Elena Anaya, Ewen Bremner, Said Taghmaoui, Eugene Brave Rock and Lucy Davis.
Written by Allan Heinberg, Zack Snyder & Jason Fuchs.
Directed by Patty Jenkins.

★★★½

After she stole the show in Batman v. Superman, I'm not surprised Wonder Woman is still winning in her own movie. The real surprise is that DC has delivered its first really good movie since The Dark Knight.

We met Diana (Gal Gadot) in modern times, but this is her origin story. Diana is being raised to be the next queen of the Amazons, but when WWI pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) crashes on to their beach, these women need to confront the outside world they've been able to ignore for millenia.

Patty Jenkins (Monster) does a good job balancing action and humor. Act I has the beach fight; terrific. Act II has No Man's Land; excellent. Act III has the big-explosions showdown with the main villain. Honestly that might be the movie's weak link, in that all of these movies tend to end with big-explosions showdowns.

Gadot captures the combination of fierceness and naivete of Wonder Woman. She has the physiciality down, but she's quite charming in her fish-out-of-water scenes where this Amazon, who's never met a man before, must now fit in 1917 England. The chemistry between Gadot and Pine is solid. Like Christopher Reeve/Margot Kidder solid.

Really enjoyed it. It's in my top five for 2017 so far.

House of Cards Season 2 - Netflix Review

With Breaking Bad out of the way, it may be time for Kevin Spacey to get an Emmy for his role as the conniving Vice-President Francis Underwood.  I watched all of season 2, and it's darker and sudsier than season 1. We knew Frank was evil last season when he murdered his "friend" Peter Russo, but in the first episode of season 2, we see just how far his evil will go.  We also know his wife (Robin Wright) is Lady Macbeth, and in season 2, we see just how hand-in-hand she is with Frank's schemes. They're a model marriage. They tell each other everything.

Stand-outs this year include Molly Parker as an Iraq War vet and the new Majority Whip of the House, Jimmi Simpson as a hacker caught in his own web, and Gerald McRaney as the increasingly dangerous billionaire Raymond Tusk who always has the President's ear. And while Underwood is evil, I can see why he's so admired in Washington in a guilty pleasure way.

Watts & Wright as Grandmothers, Benoit biopic, etc.

- Naomi Watts and Robin Wright have signed on for The Grandmothers, about two lifelong friends who wind up falling for each other's teenage sons.

- SRG Films will be making Crossface, a biopic of pro-wrestler Chris Benoit, who after years of drug use, depression and head trauma, murdered his wife and son before taking his own life.
- Remakes of RoboCop and Total Recall are on their way, and now Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers is getting the remake treatment.


- Speaking of RoboCop, Peter Weller has joined the cast of Star Trek 2 for director JJ Abrams. He joins new cast members Benecio Del Toro and Alice Eve, and the returning seven of Chris Pine, Zoe Saldana, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, John Cho and Anton Yelchin.

- This week's Super Bowl halftime show performer: Madonna.

The Conspirator - DVD Review

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Starring James McAvoy, Robin Wright, Kevin Kline, Tom Wilkinson, Evan Rachel Wood, Danny Huston, Justin Long, Colm Meaney, Alexis Bledel, James Badge Dale, Toby Kebbell, Norman Reedus and Stephen Root. Directed by Robert Redford.

As a portrayal of historical events, this film is a valuable document. As its own entertainment, it never really comes to life.

The Civil War is finally over, and Pres. Abraham Lincoln has cause to celebrate, but before the nation can even exhale, he is shot in the back of the head. Quickly, John Wilkes Booth and his conspirators are chased down. Booth was killed, but the rest are on trial.

Only one on trial is Mary Surratt (Robin Wright), and as her reluctant lawyer Frederick Aiken (James McAvoy) quickly learns, she may be innocent after all. The movie is seen through Aiken's eyes, and the more convinced he becomes of Mary's innocence, the more the chips are frighteningly stacked against her.

If The Crucible was a response to the McCarthy hearings, then The Conspirator is a response to Guantanamo Bay. The parallels are too juicy. The nation is in fear, prisoners' right are ignored, a military tribunal judges instead of a civilian court, and the movie all but argues that Dick Cheney was War Secretary Edwin Stanton in a previous life.

One choice I wish Redford hadn't made: all the interior shots are done with realistic lighting, so that beams of light coming through the windows puts half of any room in shadow. Another is to keep Mary Surratt a cypher. Oh, Robin Wright makes you think more will be revealed about Mary, but it's never allowed to surface. It's all about the lawyer.

I support this being shown in high-school classrooms, but it is about at the level of your average Masterpiece Theater.