Yes No Maybe So: Wonder Woman

They're trying to trick us with this new Wonder Woman poster. Look at all that COLOR. From WB/DC? Could it be possible? Mmmm yes and no. 

Since it was Comic Con weekend the studios were working hard to inundate fans with new superhero footage and the second Wonder Woman trailer is here... which has some color to it but a lot of blue grays since that's how DC (and action movies) likes to play it these days. The trailer is a bit premature as the film is not due for 11 months but we'll take it. It looks pretty good and maybe, just maybe, they'll do right by the Amazon princess?

Our Yes No Maybe So is after the jump but first things first. You must know that we do deeply dig The Little Mermaid shoutout which begins the trailer. Steve Trevor is all washed up on shore like a Prince Eric thirst trap and Diana is eager to drink him up...

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Amelia, Nixon, Byrne, Wonder Woman, and the Original "Death of Superman"

On this day in history as it relates to the movies...

1802 Alexandre Dumas is born. He dies just before cinematic technology begins to blossom so he couldn't have known that his novels like The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers series, and Queen Margot will all be adapted multiple times in a new artform.
1821 Gang leader William Poole, "Bill the Butcher" is born. Daniel Day-Lewis taps his fictional glass eye 181 years later on the big screen...

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The Link Jar

NewsTalk How Cartoon Saloon became a major draw and how those Oscar nominations helped
Playbill Stephen Schwartz says Wicked (the movie) will have several new songs. Geez, it already has a ton of songs. I guess he wants that Oscar.
MTV Frankie & Johnny is Garry Marshall's best film

Variety Idris Elba responds to those endless Next James Bond rumors
Coming Soon Star Wars: Episode VIII (as yet untitled) wraps production. It's due in theaters in December 2017 as these things take time in Post-Production
The Playlist the teasers for all the new Marvel/Netflix TV series: Iron Fist, Defenders, Luke Cage
Towleroad an interview with the stars of Looking 
Comics Alliance Wonder Woman gets her own US postage stamps for her 75th anniversary this year 
AV Club Brie Larson spoils Room for dumb people on Twitter 
The Retro Set looks back at Judy Garland in her final film I Could Go On Singing (1963)
The Guardian celebrates the five great screen moments for Penelope Wilton (of BFG & Downton Abbey fame)
EW Justin Timberlake talks about his theme song to the upcoming Trolls movie 

Finally....
I was going to write a piece about Kirsten Dunst choosing to direct the feature film adaptation fo Sylvia Path's famous novel "The Bell Jar" with Dakota Fanning in the starring role. But Indie Wire's Kate Erbland beat me to it and said basically everything I wanted to say. I love this part.

Dunst’s ability to dive deeply into depression was not just confined to her work in “The Virgin Suicides,” she also captured rich, worldly ennui in Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette” and terrifying, world-ending fear in Lars von Trier’s “Melancholia,” for which she won Cannes’ Best Actress award... Even in her younger years, Dunst was uncannily able to translate bone-deep sadness to the big screen in fascinating ways, like she did as a child in “Interview With the Vampire.” And while most fans of Michel Gondry’s “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” remain hung up on Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet’s work in the film (and rightly so), Dunst’s own subplot about lost love (and lost memories) is one of the film’s most heartbreaking elements.

My only fear here with this project is that it's too on the nose for Dunst. Like Terry Gilliam's desire to make a Don Quixote Picture; haven't they already been making these pictures, figuratively speaking, for their whole careers?

Halfway Mark: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly (So Far)

Mainstream cinema is having a rough summer, qualitatively... but let's honor what mainstream cinema often does best, for this episode of the Halfway Mark Review. Which is to say the broad strokes of Good vs Evil.

Not that mainstream movies always ace this low bar, mind you: Marvel remains mostly terrible at crafting villains, Batman v Superman was so inept that it didn't even understand that you need heroes in superhero movies. X-Men Apocalypse was a crowded repetitive mess on either side of the good/bad divide. But enough about stinkers - happy thoughts:  BESTS! 

Heroes of the Year

• The Avengers (Chris Evans, Cast & FX Team) in Captain America: Civil War
Can't they all just get along? While it'd be silly to say that Civil War doesn't tell you which team to be on (Hint: it's in the title) it does offer up enough sympathetic furrowed brow angst when looking at Team Iron Man that it's easy to understand both sides of this argument. That's half the battle in the selling the film. The other half is staging the battles so that everyone survives but looks deeply affected by the blows, which it also does well. Black Panther and Spider-Man are wonderful new additions, and Black Widow again demonstrates that she's the swiftest, most asskicking, and consistently double sided tape that arguably holds these movies together. If only Captain America, Marvel's most successful comic-to-film translation, weren't having to fight for so much attention in his own damn franchise; Iron Man never had to that. 

• Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) in Gods of Egypt
What's that you say? 'Gods of Egypt is a terrible movie!' Why yes, Yes it is. But that doesn't mean I can't honor Nikolaj's well shaped silly/serious turn as a blinded God. He's one of only two actors who knows what kind of movie he's in (the other is Geoffrey Rush, even better with the heightened camp) and he's fun to watch, helping to make this a sort of enjoyable terrible movie insteaad of just a terrible movie.  

Zootopia, Warcraft, The Conjuring 2 and more after the jump...

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Thoughts I Had... The 'Suicide Squad' Character Posters

After Finding Dory's big opening this past weekend, our last remaining potential mega hit of the summer is Suicide Squad. The twist on the superhero super-antihero blockbuster is our only comic book film of the season left (shocking, right?) and is pushing hard to turn favor for the DC Universe after this spring's unmentionable. While it has a cast packed with stars and recognizable faces, some of its characters are still unknown to the masses.

And wouldn't you know, here's a new set of character posters to get you acquainted! We've covered the film's building teases, but this is too poppy and fun to pass up. 

Here are some thoughts...

Viola Davis: Superhero sounds like the summer blockbuster we actually need and deserve. Special powers include being flawless, cutting victims down to size with a single withering glance, and making the masses cry on cue. "Worst. Heroes. Ever."?? Not on your life, darling...

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