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Author
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Topic: Wonder Woman (2017)
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Sam Graham
AKA: "The Evil Sam Graham". Wackiness ensues.
Posts: 1431
From: Waukee, IA
Registered: Dec 2004
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posted 06-04-2017 10:11 PM
CINEMA: AMC Council Bluffs 17, Council Bliffs, IA
AUDITORIUM: 1, SEAT: D8
PRESENTATION: AMC Recline-o-Vision
PRESENTATION PROBLEEMS: None ![[Cool]](cool.gif)
RATING: Three stars (out of four)
I was going to finally get around to checking out the Alamo Drafthouse they built on the west side, but I heard they weren't showing this to men. Thank God for the progressive, gender-tolerant Chinese.
Cripes. Who did Anthony Hopkins piss off to end up in a Transformers movie?
THE PLOT: A virgin crash-lands on Paradise Island. Wackiness ensues.
Supposedly Joss Whedon wrote a Wonder Woman script, but Warner shot it down because Whedon would have come up with something fun and likeable, which is strictly forbidden in DC movies. So instead we get a World War 1-era opus that feels like it's longer than the Twin Peaks revival. Still, all of it is good, especially the advancing the front scene. And there are moments that somehow slipped by the DC anti-fun censors.
Probably the second best DC movie behind The Dark Knight.
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Bill Brandenstein
Master Film Handler
Posts: 413
From: Santa Clarita, CA
Registered: Jul 2013
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posted 06-14-2017 04:22 PM
Happened across a $6.50 "Twilight" 4pm show while out of town with my wife on Monday. Edwards (Regal) Camarillo 12. You guys are spot on with your reviews. This was a fun movie, not amazing, but overall works.
We LOVED the new recliners. Well, and the low price. Grade: A-
We LIKED the sound, which at first I thought was tepid, but eventually the mix bloomed when the action kicked in, and I liked that they saved some dynamic range for when it was needed. Grade: B+ cause it coulda been louder, it wasn't Atmos, and you could hear the movie next door quite frequently.
We TOLERATED the visual presentation. The Sony dual-head projector was tepid or worse in brightness. The screen wasn't masked for scope. The side masking on the right wasn't hanging straight. Worst of all, the 39,528,412 rather bright aisle lights fogged the screen and white ceiling, ruining anything but the brightest scenes, some of which lights were placed right under the screen due to a very, very long wheelchair-access ramp to the emergency exit. Grade: C-.
I really hope I can get down to Sherman Oaks and see it again in 70mm before it's gone. Good, light fun, and that's from someone who thought the trailer was kinda a turn-off.
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Tyler Purcell
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 180
From: Van Nuys, CA
Registered: Dec 2015
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posted 06-19-2017 12:04 AM
CINEMA: Arclight Sherman Oaks
AUDITORIUM: 3 (J22)
PRESENTAION: 5/70
PRESENTAION PROBLEMS: (none)
RATING 2 1/2 out of 5
I'm not a fan of the franchise, not a comic book fan either. Where I grew up with Tim Burton's Batman and rather like Nolan's take as well, super hero movies to me have very little purpose but wasting time and money. In a world where movies cost $14 -$20 depending on the theater, it's hard to justify. Still, getting a chance to see GOOD 70mm projection these days, is hard. With Warner Brothers doing an admirable job re-inventing the format, I have gone out of my way to support their and Kodak's effort by giving them some of my hard earned money. even if I'm less then enthralled with the content. As a filmmaker who shoots primarily on film, it's important to support this effort.
Never the less, the Century JJ worked flawlessly, correct screen matting, excellent brightness across the screen, registration was perfect, splices were well made (no cue marks) and not a bit of dust or scratches. I have a keen eye for anything that "could" have gone wrong and I was VERY impressed by the presentation, even after a week of showing, the print looked brand new.
I did think the sound mix was poor, it needed another few weeks and the dynamics of the mix were just not there. I also didn't care for the horrible visual effects in some areas, which were more like the filmmakers having fun with toys rather then telling the story.
Over-all the experience was good, but the film itself needed a lot of work. It was a shame because they had a lot of opportunity to make something good out of it, but it felt like another movie made by a committee of people who were more interested in whiz bang, then making a good product. It wasn't a complete waste of time, but I was happy when it was over.
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Bill Brandenstein
Master Film Handler
Posts: 413
From: Santa Clarita, CA
Registered: Jul 2013
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posted 06-20-2017 02:46 PM
Tyler, we went there yesterday! Were we there at the same time? Definitely a beautiful presentation, and Arclight, WB, and Kodak should be proud. Also appreciated hearing it on a good sound system at a good volume. However, the subs struck me as overdriven but not incorrect in general loudness. That tells me they're underpowered. So I'm curious what would you think a few more weeks would've added to the sound mix in maturity? Also, have you heard this mix "as intended" in an Atmos room? Too bad 70mmn with Atmos isn't a thing yet, which we'd all appreciate.
You missed some minor scratching: two top-to-bottom hairlines during the Dunkirk preview that cleared up within a couple of minutes; and a minor here-again gone-again issue that recurred throughout the entire show. It was about 10% of the total image height, just to the right of center, and is very intermittent but present throughout. Also, so much of the movie is dark, the problem is only visible when there's reasonable brightness. Maybe it just happened, but there IS a very little scratching about 75 passes in.
Otherwise the screen was full of gorgeous, clean, bright analog film, and IS a beautiful thing.
Now that I've seen this twice, I'll add a bit to the reviews. This has enough character development and both of the leads have enough personality to make you care about them as the plot develops. The Amazon-goddess-popping-into-a-real-world issue is worked up believably and logically, something that surely will never happen again in the likes of Justice League. The conflict of good overcoming evil is played out on the basis of unabashedly pure sincerity and moral character (helping people not specifically because they deserve it but because of what's believed to be right), almost with a sense of religiosity. And, the movie was as enjoyable the second time as the first, if not more so.
3 stars out of 4 and definitely repeatable.
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 06-26-2017 08:27 AM
quote: Terry Monohan
I wonder If there is a site that tells what Imax movies use the whole screen or use It some time during the movie?
You can simply check IMDB on the Technical Specifications part. Although not always entirely accurate, it gives you an idea what to expect.
Then again, if you can choose between Dolby Cinema and Digital IMAX (no matter with or without lasers), I'd really choose the former any given day.
quote: Bill Brandenstein
Also, have you heard this mix "as intended" in an Atmos room? Too bad 70mmn with Atmos isn't a thing yet, which we'd all appreciate.
I'm pretty sure Atmos and 70mm will never be a thing, ever.
If there is any hope for any MDA format in combination with 70mm, then it will most likely be DTS-X. Still, I don't think anybody at e.g. Datasat will really spend the time and efforts to implement it, since the market for 70mm is tiny and such an implementation would not be entirely trivial. In any case, you would need a separate delivery format for your audio component and something that can read the DTS timecode on the print.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 07-03-2017 04:27 PM
Saw it in screen 11 at the Harkins Mountain Grove, Redlands, CA, yesterday.
PRESENTATION:
Very pleasantly surprised. Screen was about 40 feet across in an auditorium that seated around 200, and so nice and big. Picture was sharp and bright, looked 2K to me, contrast ratio was as good as xenon-lit DLP is likely to give you, but there was a slight hotspot toward the right. It was only noticeable on bright scenes (of which there weren't many in this movie) and trailer rating cards, though.
MOVIE:
Sorta pleasantly surprised. Difficult to say much about it without getting political, given that the plot involves chemical weapons, western military intervention in a foreign conflict (albeit an historical one), and several of the countries you'd expect that message not to go down well in have banned it. Suffice as to say that I think the nationality of the lead actress is not the only reason for that.
Acting and directing were OK and competent, but nothing memorable; music was standard video game stuff; script followed the formula, but had some clever detail (see below).
Sets and costumes were excellent: particularly impressed that the Belgian village square and most of the London interiors were real sets, into which a lot of care went to make them look authentic, and not just digital backdrops. All told, there was more traditional craft skill on display in this movie than I was expecting.
There was one nice touch I noticed in the script. When Erich Ludendorff first appeared, I immediately thought, "They can't kill him off at the end - even Wonder Woman's Greek goddess powers can't change the fact that he survived the war, became a major political figure in 1920s Germany, and lived until 1937!"
PLOT SPOILER: She did kill him off, with a sword through the back - click here for in-joke reference.
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