"in your satin tights, fighting for your rights... ♪ "

She makes a hawk a dove, stops a war with love, makes a liar tell the truth. She's a wonder, wonder woman.

Yes, it's the first official photo of 27 year old Adrianne Palicki (Tyra from Friday Night Lights) as the new Wonder Woman. I'm not sure what the rights issues are for this Big Three DC character but they've been rejecting movie concepts forever, whilst the the DoubleW watches Supes and Batman get multiple big screen reboots. So why not TV again for the Amazon? THR has some extremely vague details on the show. Cary Elwes will play the CEO of the company Diana owns and Elizabeth Hurley a rival CEO and thus, we assume, the Big Bad. David E. Kelley, aka Mr M. Pfeiffer, aka TV's favorite legal dramedy hit-and-miss machine is the man flying this particular invisible plane. Invisible for now that is...

And maybe forever. You never know with TV shows. Movies don't have "pilot season" in which entire crews and casts and production happens before studios decide whether or not to give the property a go. They'll do their pilot and NBC will take a looksee at this (and all the other pilots) and in May they'll order some of them to series. So if they say yes, we'll see it. TV is so volatile. Movie studios have to order basically the same amount of stuff every year. TV does too but whether or not it's new stuff is a different equation. All of the new pilots will only be competing for the open slots after all so they're all undoubtedly hoping for several series to be cancelled so that there are more slots to fill.

But for now we have the new costume to ogle. I know people are going to hate it but I think it's okay. It's not like Wonder Woman can be uncheesy. Her costume requires tiara, lassos, bracelets, and multiple colors so it's always gonna be busy. It also requires patriotism which is the final straw; ever noticed how silly people look when wearing their national flags? So for what it needs to be, I kinda like it. But I'm not trying to make your opinion for you. Do you?

Here's all the spins from the original "Wonder Woman"s second season with Lynda Carter.

 If the new Wonder Woman doesn't spin, I'm out. That's always the best part.

NBC is promising that this is a serious and non campy take on WW, but I'm hoping that Kelley manages to shove in a few musical numbers because that's always endeared me to him. The best part of Ally McBeal was that he found a way to gave every cast member the opportunity to belt their little lungs out at least once.

'Crimes of the Heart': The Other 'Steel Magnolias'

Kurt here from Your Movie Buddy. 

Crimes of the Heart is for people who love Steel Magnolias, who can't bring themselves to change the channel when The First Wives Club plays on cable, and who can't resist a small handful of emotive, big-name actresses playing off each other courtesy of a witty, womanly text. Now that I have the attention of what I'll dare to guess is about 89 percent of you, allow me to resurrect this twangy, dysfunctional black comedy, which turns 25 this year. Directed by Bruce Beresford (Tender Mercies, Driving Miss Daisy), it's one of those films whose title is so generic you'd swear you've seen it a dozen times, and yet its drop into the proverbial cracks has all but erased your knowledge/memory of it.

The film's official release-date birthday isn't until Dec. 12, but it's fresh in my mind because I just caught a fine stage rendition of playwright/screenwriter Beth Henley's source material – a Pulitzer Prize-winning work that draws its power from Henley's keen ability to mash the comic and the tragic with the frequent spikes and dips of a heart monitor (think Rachel Getting Married with more irony and fewer shattering tears). The story takes place in Hazlehurst, Miss., where the MaGrath sisters – Babe, Lenny and Meg – are reuniting at their childhood home under characteristically eccentric circumstances. Babe, the youngest, just got out of jail for shooting her husband in the stomach (she “didn't like his stinkin' looks”). Lenny, the melancholic eldest, just turned 30 and is nursing her pent-up sexual frustration with cookies and self pity (a shrunken-ovary problem makes her think she's useless to men). Meg, the rebel, has returned from L.A. with nothing to show for her singing-career ambitions but the after-effects of a nervous breakdown.

What's more, Lenny's horse was just struck dead by lightning, nosy and pushy cousin Chick is nagging outside the screen door, the girls' granddaddy/surrogate father is ailing in the hospital, and then there's the memory of the suicide of their mother, who, years ago, hung herself along with the family cat. You get the picture.

At first, it seems this movie – which is available to watch in its entirety on YouTube, btw – doesn't have much to offer in regards to justifying the play being committed to film. Despite its undeniable retro charm, the Plain-Jane opening is super indicative of the film's subsequent obscurity, from its credits (which could make a Power Point presentation look masterful) to its score (best described as low-rent Kenny G.). It doesn't take long, however, for the hooks to dig in. Turns out Crimes is quite the watchable little gem, thanks mainly to its four lead stars: Diane Keaton, Jessica Lange, Sissy Spacek and a marvelous, neglected old Victorian that serves as the tack-tacular setting.

Diane Keaton as Lenny

The actress who portrayed Lenny in the stage version I saw was by far the funniest cast member because she was able to nail her character's emotional volatility and spastic, hysterical neuroses. Naturally, this is a role for Diane Keaton...

Keaton, Lange and Sissy's Oscar-nominated work after the jump.

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When Did Stars Start Posing As Other Stars?

Remember these photos of Julianne Moore as Bette Davis, Ann-Margret and Marlene Dietrich? I can't remember when they were taken exactly. I want to say 1999?

When did all this start? It's a question for the pop culture historians out there. It's been going on for as long as I can remember. And one of the funniest things about is it people get excited each time like it's a new concept. Remember the hoopla over that Vanity Fair Alfred Hitchcock shoot a couple years back when Jodie Foster did The Birds, Javier Bardem and ScarJo did Rear Window and Marion Cotillard did Psycho and so on and so on and so on?

Often this star-on-star mimicry involves Marilyn Monroe. One might have an easier time listing the people who haven't posed as her than listing the people who have. I'm not even talking about the people who have actually played Her (or thinly veiled interpretations of her) in the movies or on television or stage and that list is even longer.

Here's just a small sampling or Marilyn tributes from Madonna, Lindsay Lohan, Angelina Jolie and Scarlett Johansson.

Yes this has a lot to do with iconic imagery and nostalgia but both iconography and nostalgia predate the birth of Marilyn Monroe. Unless the scientists and the zealots are both wrong and the world began on June 1st, 1926. And if it did why the hell was Marilyn Monroe pretending to be Theda Bara?

But anyway... by the time I was born, Marilyn was already well established as Hollywood's most present ghost and she's never stopped haunting popular culture. [Tangent: The first star that I actually remember the death of was Natalie Wood on November 29th, 1981 since West Side Story, which I watched religiously every time I could find it on tv, was my gateway drug into movie freakdom. Rapid onset Oscar mania was just a few years round the corner. Was I trying to fill the hole that Natalie left by discovering Streep, Close, Hurt & Turner, Bridges & Pfeiffer and all the rest?  I was... distraught...  to say the least.]

This subject is on my brain since I unpacked that "Life at the Movies" book and saw this photo of Tony Curtis and Natalie Wood doing a silent film Rudolph Valentino & Vilma Bánky thing.

Isn't that cute? But wait there's more. How about Paul Newman as a swashbuckler a la Fairbanks / Power

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First and Last, Walk Away

on the first and last images from motion pictures. I should note here that for future reference "first" shot always refers to the first image with something in it. I've jettisoned way too many movies because they start with a shot of an empty blue sky. Doing this series I've realized that a great number of movies start with a blank blue screen (sky) and then pan down to a building, house, yard, person or skyline or some such, as is the case here.

A great number of movies end with shots of people walking down streets, too. So here's another clue in the first and last lines of dialogue:

first: How about I dry you off?
last: by the time I count to fifty. One...

Can you guess the movie?

The answer is after the jump.

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Unsung Heroes: The Props of "This is Spinal Tap"

Michael C here from Serious Film this week to throw a little love to the technical support who help make it possible for the geniuses in front of the camera to change comedy forever.

I do not for one think the problem was that the band was down. I think the problem may have been that there was a Stonehenge monument on the stage in danger of being crushed by a dwarf. That tended to understate the hugeness of the object. -  David St. Hubbins

One of the things that makers of Hollywood spoofs and satires seem to have forgotten is that it is important to first establish the reality of the story, and then, and only then, does one proceed to twist and subvert the conventions of the genre. Kubrick knew to let Dr. Strangelove play out with stark simplicity for the whole opening act before the big laughs started to creep in. Mel Brooks knew to let Young Frankenstein feel like a convincing horror classic before the monster started putting on the Ritz. And Rob Reiner clearly knew that his off-the-charts hilarious This is Spinal Tap would be dead in the water if every detail didn’t ring true. The prop work and set decoration placed the bar for mockumentaries at a level that has rarely been approached since.

Everything here is exactly the right level of awful. The crappy plastic pod that captures Shearer’s Derek Smalls and the crappy plastic demon skull that looms over the stage are both just good enough to allow the band to delude itself into thinking they're awesome. The legendary amp that goes to eleven displays that extra level with the perfect degree of carelessness, as if a disinterested roadie hastily tacked on the elevens in order to placate the band. One of my favorite bits is the series of briefly glimpsed past albums. The blindingly tacky cover art lets you know in an instant precisely the type of horrible band Spinal Tap is.

And what words can do justice to Stonehenge? That henge has a lot of buildup to fail to live up to and it delivers spectacularly at failing to deliver. Yet one can still spot the faint glimmer of the awesome spectacle the band imagined it would be.

It occurs to me I may be going overboard handing out credit. The wonderfully cheap look of Spinal Tap’s props may simply be a fortuitous result of the movie’s limited budget and shooting schedule. But even if that were that case what difference would it make? Would it be more praise-worthy if Spinal Tap had a prop department the size of Lord of the Rings and the budget of Avatar? The question comes down to how much more perfect could every minor detail of Tap, from the tiny bread on Nigel’s refreshment tray to the cucumber in Derek’s trousers, be? And the answer is none. None more perfect.