Not a superhero movie for people who hate superhero movies, but a really superior example of what this kind of movie can be. The whole production was obviously concerned with getting Wonder Woman right in her debut film.

I can't tell if you're joking. I have the exact same response to the director of every superhero movie of at least the past decade. Basically, they are traffic cops, and the action co-ordinator/fight choreographer, director of photography and editor are much more responsible for what is enjoyable in these pictures. I…

But that scene was doubtlessly filmed countless ways from countless perspectives. It is far less likely that the director had the final decision on which shot was used than the DC executives. It's really, really hard to determine what control a director has today on A-list productions. Especially in this genre.

As a former actor with many actor friends and who reads about moviemaking obsessively, it entirely depends on the director and situation. And action movies are usually not sets on which much discussion of performance occurs. And, again, the conglomerate approach to contemporary movies has done much to displace the…

I see your point, but all attempts at a subscriber base seem to fail. Or at least, not generate half the income hits do.

Well, it's there in the approach and the script. Maybe a male director would have tried to balance that with more cheesecake, but ulimately DC is running the show, not whoever sits in the director's chair. And had DC wanted more of that, female director or no, it would have been there on the screen to see. And…

You didn't catch that my question was rhetorical?

lol, no idea what that is

As a gay man in my late 40's who is fairly well traveled, I have yet to meet anyone past their early twenties who used this term to define themselves, unless they were professional students. As a term for aesthetics, as in "queer culture," I see the word more frequently utilized.

Sorry for being unclear. Yes, I can understand how it means a lot to people. I'm saying that, in terms of how modern movies are made, it isn't terribly relevant to the process. The movie was written by men, the story for the screenplay conceived by men, the movie produced and photographed by men. Objectively that a…

Very pithy final line there. Much appreciated.

Putting aside that the Guardian article is completely misrepresented, I wonder if articles that are actually condescending towards the movie or Gadot are doing so because comic books and comic book adaptations are by nature genres certain critics condescend to anyway. And maybe even a sense that feminism is an…

It's a genuinely exciting, funny, touching human movie. It is far better than any superhero movie has the right to be.

The business model of the internet is to tailor commentary to whatever sites think they should say ( = whom they perceive their audience to be). Challenging viewpoints is not the goal, And indeed the viewpoint of this article doesn't challenge, but flatters the viewpoint of its readers. This is how the internet works,…

I sort of agree, but take the time to read academic articles on various classic works of fiction, or the radically different interpretations in different stage productions/films of Shakespeare's text. Generally, different people have seen different things in a given work, and the more diversity of response, the more…

That wasn't produced by ELO. It was partially written by Jeff Lynne, not quite the same thing.

This is truth.

If this were a conversation about the hypothetical "general viewer," I might agree but to say of critics—people trained to analyze and second guess and stand outside themselves, and who disproportionately hold views very far to the left on issues of gender and sexuality "That’s because they’ve never really had to see…

H.G. Wells, famously, did not agree. But I agree with him. Island of Lost Souls is a wild freak show, eager to gross you out or excite you with any depravity it can dish out. Very well done as a work of cinema that only has to answer to its own aims. Utterly dreadful as an attempt to film Wells' novel. The 1977…

If we are talking about women in pop culture, they can't be reduced to anything because pop culture is already a reduction: to image and sound across technological formats, or from the gulf betrween stage and auditorium. They can't be hurt by this, and generally are in control of their media depiction (Madonna…