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Do we still have to identify the movie this came from?

I think Martin Scorsese may be even better as a teacher than as a filmmaker. In reviewing Silence, a critic disparaged the cinema. Scorsese accepts criticism of his work, but you do not say that about the movies. Go Marty, the mayor of our imagination.

I am neither a writer nor a theorist. I’m a filmmaker. I saw something extraordinary and inspiring in the art of cinema when I was very young. The images that I saw thrilled me but they also illuminated something within me. The cinema gave me a means of understanding and eventually expressing what was precious and fragile in the world around me. This recognition, this spark that leads from appreciation to creation: it happens almost without knowing. For some, it leads to poetry, or dance, or music. In my case, it was the cinema.
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Achtung: Spoilers.

For two hours we were charmed, fired up, and inspirited by Wonder Woman, directed by Patty Jenkins and embodied by Gal Gadot. After a week of terrible news we were so cheered by the tale of an Amazon meeting the outside world for the first time, that towards the end when the movie suddenly dove into a pot of cheese fondue, we decided to overlook it. Truly casting is half the work, so whoever thought of putting Gal Gadot in the costume: You are brilliant. We know she was an Israeli army combat instructor, so we hope to see her fighting in long takes and not those slowed down-sped up cuts. (DC, please stop recycling your final fight scene.)

As Steve Trevor, Chris Pine is not photographed as lovingly as he is in Star Trek and elsewhere—sometimes he looks pudgy. This makes sense, as no one should out-gorgeous Diana, and it actually boosts Pine in the Chris rankings because it means he’s not overly concerned with his looks. And the DC Universe has added a color to its palette (blue), yay. As the Amazon general Robin Wright is so fearsome, there should be a remake of The Princess Bride in which Buttercup is also Inigo Montoya. She should be the President in House of Cards. Also if you’re a Chris playing a Steve in a world war, stay away from the plane carrying the weapon.

There is no end credits sequence. If you’re planning to catch the movie tomorrow, get your tickets now because they’re almost gone.

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Patty Jenkins directed Monster, which won Charlize Theron her Oscar, in 2003. Since then she has directed for TV, but Wonder Woman is her first movie in 14 years. Success is sweet.

My friend who is indifferent to superhero movies says she was not prepared for how Wonder Woman affected her. It was the No Man’s Land scene that made the movie for many viewers. In her case it was the Amazons training on the beach at Themyscira, and seeing Artemis, a black woman and a senator.

And beautiful as Diana/Gal Gadot is, her Wonder Woman is not sexualized or ogled by the camera. In fact her beauty is a weapon to disarm the patriarchy.

More women filmmakers, please.

My anxiety levels (5 being the highest) and the books, movies, and TV series I use to deal with the dread/prevent myself from going completely bonkers.

1: Tranquil

Detective novels
Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul
Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot

2: Ordinary, everyday tension

Seinfeld
Kate Atkinson novels
Early Cameron Crowe movies (Say Anything, Almost Famous)

3: Worrying over nothing in particular but unable to stop

The Avengers
Preston Sturges screwball comedies (The Lady Eve, Sullivan’s Travels)
P.G. Wodehouse books

4: Screaming inside

Buffy the Vampire Slayer
The Lord of the Rings trilogy
The Once and Future King

5: Screaming outside

Wouldn’t be able to hear the movie or myself.

What are your anxiety alert levels?

Now watching: Buffy Season 1

The best part of Medieval English Lit class, where one could become catatonic from reading Piers Plowman, was studying the many versions of the story of King Arthur. I have loved T.H. White’s The Once and Future King since I saw Walt Disney’s The Sword in the Stone, and I enjoyed reading the sources of the tales, including Geoffrey of Monmouth, Chretien de Troyes, the Mabinogion, and later, Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur.

These source materials do not figure in Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur, not that we expected them to. The movie is blithely unaware that it takes place in the Middle Ages. There is no point in reviewing this King Arthur, which is the laddie movie reunion of Charlie Hunnam and Aiden “Littlefinger” Gillen of Queer As Folk. Monty Python and the Holy Grail is more faithful to the sources (seriously). So is John Boorman’s Excalibur, though the acting makes it campy (Merlin, please). So are Robert Bresson’s meditative Lancelot du Lac and its very colorful tights, and in its way, Terry Gilliam’s The Fisher King. We will not mention any TV series.

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Colossal’s premise is weird: a woman’s anxieties are manifested as a monster stomping a city on the other side of the world. But Nacho Vigalondo’s movie aims for more than that Wii connection. It takes Godzilla-like monsters and giant robots, the staples of our protracted adolescence, and uses them to make its protagonist confront the uglier parts of her personality. Are the problems of one person so important that the people of Seoul have to suffer for them? Is this not wish fulfillment for the super self-absorbed (the ultimate making-this-about-me)? Then again, when we have personal problems our sense of proportion is the first faculty that gets vaporized.

So it’s an extended metaphor about facing the monster inside you, but it’s funny, unsettling, and comfortable in its absurdity. Also I didn’t feel like watching Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur without a row of friends to elbow and make snide remarks to. Anne Hathaway is terrific in Colossal—I’ve forgotten why everyone turned on her. Jason Sudeikis is funny with an edge of malice, and Dan Stevens seems to be in every movie these days.