Wonder Woman

CHICAGO – Often on my weekly appearances on WGBR-FM (Monroe, Wisconsin), there is a topic associated with that week’s reviews. I don’t usually publish them, but the result of May the 4th was special. Host Dan Baker and I did a ranking of our favorite superhero movies on “Guardians 3” release day, and the talk was lively and surprising.

CHICAGO – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Ben Thompson on WBGR-FM (Monroe, Wisconsin) on July 29th, reviewing “DC League of Super-Pets,” an animated comedy/adventure featuring Krypto the Super Dog, opening in theaters beginning July 29th.

CHICAGO – Elena Anaya has had an adventure in her career of over 50 films … from the role of Dracula’s Bride in “Van Helsing” to notable work with director Pedro Almodóvar in “The Skin I Live In,” and up to her current role as Dr. Jo Rojas in “Rifkin’s Festival,” she has embraced the journey with a grateful enthusiasm.

CHICAGO – For a film that has free love, lie detection, bondage, the origin of a great comic superhero and 3-way carnality, “Professor Marston & the Wonder Women” still comes out rather flat… quite a achievement. Wonder Woman is the comic hero, and this is the rest of her story.

CHICAGO – There are few films in 2017 that are as historically important as they are cinematically well-crafted. Of those, there is only one I saw three times in theaters. That honor comes in the form of the revolutionary “Wonder Woman,” which not only shows huge promise for the future of DC Comics films but for comic book-based films as a whole.

CHICAGO – There is a truth in the latest superhero epic, “Wonder Woman,” that is undeniable. The suppression of the power of woman in society, and denying the acceptance of all people – who just desire love – is the evil that can destroy the world. Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman saves the day.

CHICAGO – Dang it, DC Comics and Warner Bros.! Two of my favorite comic book characters get dragged through a dull mud in “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.” There is a dawn all right, but instead of the bright sun over the horizon, it’s a full mooning to the fans who anticipated the film.

CHICAGO – One of the weirdest pre-upfronts weeks in a long time continues as sources are reporting that NBC will renew “Parenthood,” as HollywoodChicago.com predicted, but will not include the already-buzzed “Wonder Woman” when their schedule is announced on Monday.

We got these two right. In our feature earlier this week predicting what would happen at the NBC Upfronts on Monday, we predicted that “Harry’s Law” would get a second season and that “Law & Order: Los Angeles” would not and this is exactly what TV By the Numbers is hearing has been made official (as has the expected pick-up of “Wonder Woman”).

CHICAGO – Comic book fiction has a long history of parallel world and alternate universe stories and it only seemed a matter of time before the popular DC Universe series of straight-to-DVD animated films got around to making one. After the so-so “Wonder Woman,” the less-than-good “Green Lantern,” and the slight improvement of “Superman Batman: Public Enemies,” the series has returned to what they do best - team heroics - with the entertaining “Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths”.