Wonder Woman

6/6/17

I broke a promise to myself. 

What promise?

Never to pay to see any blockbuster superhero crap unless maybe I was taking a kid to the movies. 

But my wife mentioned she wanted to something superheroish, and that and all the foofara about Gal Gadot, who I had to tell to stop calling me, poor obsessed kid, and about the movie as a feminist statement (as if) blah blah blah overcame my self insistence to give superheroes and heroines a wide berth.

We went to see it tonight and I regretted it. Lots of sensational effects, a gorgeous lead actress, a story of sorts, a puerile theme. All in all, it wasn't for me. I'd rather see a 83' quiet black and white French film about a 16 year old boy losing his virginity to his best friend's mother or some such, with a lot of talking and prosaic coming and going.

Seeing the movie reminds me of something I have tucked away in my mind: in Toronto, as in other fair sized cities, you can pay hundreds of dollars to go see mind numbing musicals and other such mediocre stuff. But, in contrast, on Saturday afternoons at the Pilot Tavern on Cumberland Street just on the outer eastern edge of Yorkville or at the Rex on Queen Street East, both for free, though you'll likely order a beer or two, maybe some food as well, but maybe not, you can see and hear some of the the best jazz and blues musicians in Canada, some being world class. 

That's what Wonder Woman reminded me of, the difference between paying money to see loud blaring effects, all kinds of sensational craft but having no aesthetic, sensual or emotional depth, just sensational noise and images, and seeing something without anything sensational in it, without a lot of staged hullabaloo, but that has in it something insightful, or thoughtful, or moving, or funny, or stirring, or outrageous, or satirical, or sexy, or romantic, or tragic, or one or more of eight thousand other qualities that might be encapsulated by the word human. 

Not to get too censorious but Wonder Woman seems to me an instance of us amusing ourselves to death, (or at least to a bad cold.)