Tag Archive : CULTURE

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11 Cable Alternatives for Cord Cutters

Nearly 20% of US homes have said goodbye to their cable subscriptions. Here are some of the most popular ways to watch your favorite shows after cutting the cord.

Having Hope Van Dyne be front-and-center in Ant-Man and the Wasp was a big deal. Before that film, a female hero had never had her name on a Marvel Cinematic Universe film. Her appearance, and subsequent success, shifted the Marvel movie landscape in way that hadn’t happened in 19 previous films. So yeah, it was very very important.

Yet, Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) isn’t the film’s only heroine. Danielle Costa also deserves some credit. Marvel's head of VFX (she’s worked on every MCU movie since the first Thor) was the one responsible for making sure all of the Wasp's—and Ant-Man's—stunts looked as real as possible. And in a universe where the scale goes from larger-than-life to sub-atomic, that's no easy task. But it was one that was important to Costa because of the gravity of the film.

"What was really cool about this particular movie is the first time the female heroine got her name in the title of the film," Costa says. "She really came to life in a totally different way and we saw a whole other side of Hope Van Dyne in this film than we had in the first film."

How did Costa do that? Well, for one she helped fine-tune the Wasp's costume, shifting it from a more dragonfly-like design to one "more tech-y." She also made sure the heroine’s kitchen-fight scene—you know, the one where she shrinks and runs length-wise down a knife some bad guy threw at her—looked impeccable. "You have to be able to convincingly integrate live-action photography with computer-generated elements, artfully," Costa says.

Find out more about the artist’s VFX tricks in the video above.

If you're a fan of online music journalism, Tuesday was not a great day. Twitter, never adept at evading controversy, went on a suspension spree, freezing the accounts of popular music outlets Fader and Pigeons & Planes, along with more than 20 other smaller accounts. The crime wasn't posting graphic content, or doxxing people, or the targeted abuse or harassment of others, or any of the truly toxic terms-of-service abuses Twitter lists. It was posting short clips of the BET Awards, a four-hour telecast that had happened two nights prior.

According to a DMCA takedown record first surfaced by Vice, BET parent company Viacom had requested that Twitter suspend the accounts in question—a request Twitter granted within 24 hours. If that seems extreme to you, you're not alone: The suspensions soon spawned an obligatory hashtag campaign, with people bemoaning the move. Yet defending Fader was only part of the sentiment; the more trenchant strain of indignation focused on the social media platform's seemingly selective approach to account suspension.

Despite the fact that trademark and copyright violations are at the literal top of Twitter's list of "The Rules," posting clips of award shows is standard social-media fare. In fact, according to Deadline, the BET Awards were the biggest TV show on social media for the week—and as with the Emmys, Oscars, Grammys, and so many others, those millions of interactions could never come from official accounts alone. It's the starkness of the reaction that appears so unbalanced, especially given Twitter's notorious permissiveness around sexual and racial harassment.

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Pigeons & Planes and Fader weren't the only site accounts to be muzzled by Twitter, either. An editor for music site Hip Hop N More tweeted that Atlantic Records had filed a complaint against them recently for posting the tracklist for Yung Thug's then upcoming album Beautiful Thugger Girls. (Atlantic Records did not immediately respond to request for comment, and the DMCA takedown in question, which also includes 2DOPEBOYZ, came at the behest of an unidentified party.)

These kinds of suspensions have happened before. Twitter has taken down sports media accounts like Deadspin and SB Nation, as well as sports-GIF-laden accounts run by average citizens. Looking through the Lumen database of online material-removal requests, though, shows that external complaints tend to come from big businesses. If the suspended account belongs to someone making sports GIFs, chances are the FIFA or the NFL was behind it. (Not, notably, the NBA, which seems to grasp the power of online culture and #engagement better than any other sports league. In fact, the NBA Awards aired on Monday night, and despite clips swarming across Twitter like a trap defense, the league didn't issue a single takedown request.)

Meanwhile, civilians routinely tweet about the difficulty they have convincing Twitter to suspend bad actors—spammers, harassers, impersonators. It's difficult not to read this disparity as Twitter favoring wealthy businesses over smaller users. Some of that partiality is to be expected, considering the deep pockets of media corporations. "Viacom and some of these larger companies have a lot of bandwidth to sue, and have put a lot of energy into protecting their copyrights," says Kate Klonick, a lawyer at Yale who studies private platform content moderation. "Twitter, YouTube, and others are on the hook if they don't comply, so they perhaps over-remove possibly infringing posts at the expense of user speech."

But while it's easy to rant about the relative toxicity of alt-right figurehead Richard Spencer's account, it's important to not get falsely equivalent here. "Looking for copyrighted material is a lot easier than finding hate content," says Jen Golbeck, a computer scientist at the University of Maryland. While social media platforms like Twitter and Youtube have access to a vast database of copyrighted material they can easily crosscheck posts' images, video, and audio against, no such tool exists for hate. Yet, anyway: "Twitter has the world's best database of hate content in the form of tweets that have been reported and removed," Golbeck says. "They could easily use that to develop the world's best filters for hate content, but they don't seem to have put much money or effort into that." So to all the beleaguered music blogs and victims of harassment: If you want to get your needs to the top of Twitter's priority list, you'd better start making some serious money.

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In Memoriam: Twitter Egg Edition

With the social-media platform killing off its infamous avatar, we pay our respects to the departed Twitter eggs.

Fifteen sharks swirl in figure eights beneath me. But I’m not peering over the side of a boat or secured in an underwater safety cage. I’m snorkeling in the open ocean, 3 miles off the North Shore of Oahu. Ocean Ramsey, a shark behaviorist and cofounder of One Ocean, bobs in the waves beside me. Her company runs this open-to-the-public pelagic shark-diving program—the first of its kind in the US. When I first slip into the water, the Jaws theme song echoes in my head. I frantically recall the safety instructions I’ve been given: Don’t splash. Keep your arms against your body. If a shark nuzzles your GoPro, drawn in by its electrical impulses, gently flick your wrist. Most importantly, never take your eyes off the sharks. When I timidly submerge my face in the water, I’m soothed by the sharks’ slow aquatic choreography. Galapagos and Sandbar sharks glide within a few feet of my body, their eyes gleaming like buttons on a peacoat. Forty minutes later, I climb from the choppy waves into the boat and my stomach does backflips. When I stop dry-heaving, I chuckle at the irony: For all my trepidation, it wasn’t the sharks that did me in—it was the seasickness.

While on the North Shore

STAY: Sleep among fragrant fruit trees at Orchard Oasis (aka the Hobbit Hut), a cozy AirBNB with a chicken coop and a heated outdoor shower.

EAT: Tuck into a plate of fiery jumbo shrimp from Giovanni’s food truck, then cool down with a lilikoi, guava, and papaya shave ice from Matsumoto’s.

DO: Zipline over taro and cherry tomato fields at Climb Works Keana Farms.

This article appears in the October issue. Subscribe now.

Man, these short Game of Thrones seasons are brutal, aren't they? Now that the fantasy series is in its final run, HBO is cramming more action into fewer episodes and making them longer—at nearly 80 minutes, Sunday's finale "The Dragon and the Wolf" is the show's most lengthy yet. It's exciting and all, but sheesh, does anyone else feel like they just did a 12-parsec Kessel Run through Westeros? A lot's gone down these last few weeks and it's been tough to keep up.

(Spoiler alert: If you’re not caught up on the current season of this show and don’t want to be spoiled, stop reading now.)

To get you up to speed: Sansa Stark is now ruling the North as the Lady of Winterfell, reunited with her siblings Arya and Bran, who—for reasons that are unclear—seem set on calling her disloyal and reminding her of her abusive marriage, respectively. Their bastard brother, Jon Snow, has teamed up with Daenerys Targaryen to fight the Army of the Dead north of the Wall. (They might be teaming up for something else—Dany looked a little thirsty during last Sunday's episode didn't she?—but they're technically related, so…) Cersei Lannister is queen of the Seven Kingdoms and sits on the Iron Throne, but Daenerys and Jon are (probably) coming to meet her in King's Landing, presumably to show her the White Walker they kidnapped and make her believe the Dead are coming. Oh, and when they were absconding with that Walker, the Night King killed one of Dany's dragons, effectively giving him a Zombidragon. Whoops?

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All of which means there's going to be a lot to resolve in the hour and 20 minutes of fantasy TV coming to HBO this Sunday. Will it give fans everything they want? Probably not! This is Game of Thrones—everyone you love will die and plot points will be left out like so many flakes of snow, probably forever. Nevertheless, we got together the WIRED Westeros Braintrust—editors Michael Calore, Peter Rubin, Andrea Valdez, and Angela Watercutter—to hash out what we hope will get resolved in Sunday's finale. It's kind of a lot.

Angela Watercutter: OK, I'll start by saying this season has largely gone the way I expected it to go (though not the way I wanted it to go). I couldn't have predicted every beat, but I presumed this was going to be the season of great reunions and a general setting up of the chessboard for Dany's final march to take her rightful seat on the Iron Throne. That said, like most people I've been alternately shocked and excited by the vastly accelerated pace of this season. Like our recapper Laura Hudson, I've also been disappointed by a lot.

But generally speaking, I'm just glad this show is finally getting somewhere. It's taken up a lot of my life and I'd like it to pay off. And right now I want that payoff to come in the form of Dany riding into King's Landing on Drogon and breaking some wheels. (I also want her to free Yara Greyjoy, because they're my OTP, but I've pretty much given up that dream.) The Mother of Dragons is noticeably absent in the promotional photos HBO sent out this week, so I'm guessing that's because she'll be making a grand entrance. But who knows?! What are you guys looking forward to?

Andrea Valdez: I am most intrigued by what the title of the show portends. Every episode, I steel myself for tragedy to befall a beloved character (I was completely convinced Tormund would be killed in that last episode), but "The Dragon and the Wolf" suggests at least a couple of things. One: It appears to confirm Dany and Jon Snow will survive the great convergence on King’s Landing (and perhaps may have a great, ahem, convergence of their own). And two: Their familial history is likely to finally be revealed.

But honestly, I’m most looking forward to a Dany and Cersei meeting. There’s a lot of speculation about Cersei morphing into a Mad Queen, but Dany’s recent bloodlust-y behavior suggests she may befall the same fate (the dragon egg doesn’t fall far from the nest, it seems). There are some interesting parallels between Cersei and Dany, of course, not least of which is what catalyst would send them directly into the mouth of madness. Cersei has already lost her three children, Dany has now lost one of hers, and, I suspect, will have lost all three by the end of the series. And while, yes, Cersei says she is pregnant again, if the prophecy is right, her fourth will not survive. Good things do not come of incest, a lesson Game of Thrones shouldn’t have to teach, but here we are. Dany says she cannot bear children, but a surprise pregnancy wouldn’t surprise me. But again, see previous note about children born of incest. So ultimately, what happens when two mad queens spar to win the game? I suspect everyone loses.

Peter Rubin: I’m a card-carrying member of the Tormund Tories, Andrea, but his not dying felt like a total cop-out. In fact, the back half of the season has been virtually free of momentous deaths, save for Viserion. (Lady Olenna met her fate offscreen, as did Ellaria and Tyene.) Were we really supposed to care about Thoros of Myr, or Benjen ex machina, or Dickon? Also, can I just call everyone Dickon from now on? I have a feeling we’re due a Red Wedding-level bloodbath, and I kinda don’t even care who’s on the receiving end.

Given the way the past couple of episodes have gone, concentrating on Dany and Jon’s intertwining storylines—which I and (a few others) assume will get even more intertwined on that boat—I’m actually craving a little bit of of a check-in with the various other plot threads. How’s Yara faring after being paraded through the streets by her meth-kingpin uncle Euron? What does fate hold for Varys and Melisandre? Why is Bran Stark’s warging straight off a prog-rock album cover? And especially, especially, when will Arya and Sansa get to the bottom of Littlefinger and the Plot of the Planted Papyrus? To see him finally get his due after seasons of slimy manipulations would be a Baelishious treat indeed.

Valdez: Yes! And Gilly and Sam Tarly, who will surely make a reappearance, if only to finally unpack the discovery Gilly stumbled upon while reading from the painstakingly detailed diary of High Septon Maynard. As for Bran, will he finally provide the window into the battle of Harrenhall? And what’s going on with Ghost? Is he still waiting for Jon Snow in Winterfell?

Michael Calore: Great questions! But just like the quibbling lords and ladies, you're all missing the big picture here. The Night King now owns a Zombidragon. Are we going to get to see it deployed in this week's finale, or will we have to wait until 2019 to witness its wrath? More importantly: What is going to come out of its mouth? I vote for blue ice-flames. Think about it. Real dragons breath fire, but this is, after all, a battle of Fire and Ice. So undead dragons obviously spew ice. Flaming blue ice that turns everything animal and vegetable into brittle icicles. Imagine a hundred firehoses engorged with liquid nitrogen. That's going to be epic! But also, yes, I bet Sansa and Arya will team up and skewer Littlefinger before we wrap the season, and Yara will break her chains and give Euron what-for, and that the two remaining dragons turn on their sibling Viserion and barbecue him to a reptilian crisp. Because as this show has taught us, there's no justice like family justice.

Watercutter: Oh man, I cannot WAIT to see Zombidragon sing that song of icy fire. (Is Icee Fire a thing? If not, a lot of crossover marketing potential is just being squandered. Latchkey kids outside 7-Elevens would go crazy for that shit.) My gut instinct, after too many years of watching this show, is that Undead Viserion will show up in the final dun-dun-dun shot of this finale. But that’s just a guess.

Ultimately, I’m with Peter. I’m ready for some bloodbath. Since Arya was acting so weird and out-of-character last week, my feeling is that she’s up to something. She has to know Littlefinger is watching her and is setting a trap. I, personally, want her to put on Catelyn Stark’s face and just ruin him. This won’t happen, but she’s up to something. Littlefinger is about to get his comeuppance.

As for the meeting of the two queens: I think Cersei and Dany will both make it out alive. (Emilia Clarke already told Rolling Stone earlier this year that she has a contract for next season.) But there has to be at least one more sacrificial lamb in this finale and my money is on Theon Greyjoy. After he totally botched saving his sister at the beginning of the season, I think he’ll risk it all fighting Uncle Meth to save Yara when the gang gets to King’s Landing. Reek In Peace.

Rubin: Damn, I’m already pouring out a little Dornish wine for Theon. Couldn’t happen to a more ineffectual eunuch. My only real lingering question for the finale—since we’ll get into larger questions next week—is who will be this season’s Ramsay Bolton? We’re all assuming some of the good guys will perish, and some pawns as well, but the best GoT seasons treat us to some real RAWR-level catharsis. I’m not talking Littlefinger, either; I’m talking Joffrey’s agonizing death-by-poison, or Ramsay getting his allover houndstooth print last year. The Five Kingdoms might need to unite in the face of the threat from beyond the Wall, but there’s still some baddies left to off.

The problem is, no one’s had time to emerge as a true heel. Cersei’s always had a method to her madness, and Euron’s a veritable rookie in this villain game. We might well need a new Big (Human) Bad for next season. In other words, I’m going to head waaaay out on this limb and guess that one of our previously beloved characters might be undergoing a drastic moral recalibration—otherwise who will we have to root against? So does that mean Dany breaks bad, making Andrea’s Mad Queen showdown as inevitable as a Clash of Cleganes? (You can keep the Mayweather-McGregor fight; I’ll take The Hound vs. The Mountain any day.) Does Jaime turn full heel and kill Bronn? All I know is someone is about to stray into some dark territory—and I, for one, am ready for it.

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Alfie Allen on Game of Thrones

Alfie Allen talks about his character Theon Greyjoy on the show Game of Thrones.

Sure, other things happened last week—ABC decided to keep making Roseanne but without Roseanne Barr; some nerds came up with a plan to remake Star Wars: The Last Jedi; that guy from Saturday Night Live got engaged to Ariana Grande—but, honestly, there’s only been one story that people were really talking about, and it’s not a light one. From jackets to missing girls (told you it wasn’t light) and back again, via failures of democracy and terrible press briefings, here’s what has been happening on the internet over the last seven days.

Reactions to Trump's Border Policy Get Much Worse

What Happened: The Trump administration created a problem, then claimed it couldn’t fix it until the bad PR got out of hand.

What Really Happened: It can't have escaped your notice—not least of all because we mentioned it last week that the United States has been separating parents and children at the southern border recently, as part of a new policy from the Trump administration. Last week, things came to a head.

The week started with the revelation that it was a familiar figure who claimed responsibility for the policy—

But, according to some inside the administration, it wasn’t actually a policy at all. Obviously. (This is a lie, by the way.)

That’s from a press briefing that, apparently, even Sarah Huckabee Sanders didn’t want to handle.

Instead, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen took charge, and let’s just say that Nielsen's performance was generally viewed as being pretty awkward, to be polite.

Here’s the audio referred to in the above tweet, which understandably caused a stir when released.

As protest against the policy grew, an unusual thing happened: All the living former First Ladies came out to publicly condemn it.

…We’ll get to what the current First Lady was up to soon enough. In the face of this response, however, President Trump turned his back on his own arguments and attempted to roll back the worst of the policy … on the face of it, at least.

It didn’t actually deal with the problem, though.

As of this writing, it seems as though families may no longer be referred for prosecution even as military bases are being prepped to hold 20,000 migrants, the Department of Justice has officially asked to modify the Flores settlement limiting child incarceration to 20 days and officials are now claiming that 500 families have been reunited since May. What is actually happening? No one seems to know. Clearly, only Congress could fix things now. But keep reading to find out if they do or not.

The Takeaway: Really, this says it all.

[Sad Trombone Noise]

What Happened: It turns out that some people still get upset when you make fun of kids being separated from their parents at the border.

What Really Happened: Hey, remember former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski? Last week he went on TV and this happened.

Immediately, many people noticed, because of course they did. How can you mock the story of a girl with Down syndrome being forcibly separated from her mother and not provoke widespread outrage? It was so bad that even conservatives turned on him.

Some wondered if this was a career-ending mistake (or, at least, hoped that it would be).

As it turned out, at least one organization cut ties with him as a result of his comments. Still, Lewandowski had a plan to get out of it all: Refuse to apologize and pretend it hadn’t actually happened the way everyone happened to see it because it was on live television.

On the, uh, "plus side"…? Lewandowski has now been even more embraced by the far right as a result of his comments, so there's that.

The Takeaway: Of course, why should we be surprised about any of this?

Just Sitting Here on Capitol Hill

What Happened: For many, the one hope as the news from the border continued to spread was that Congress could somehow magically sort things out. It wasn’t a good week for people with that hope.

What Really Happened: As the heat continued to come about the Trump administration’s immigration policies, U-turn or no—really, who can actually tell at this point?—President Trump continued to try and shift blame ahead of a Congressional vote on potential immigration reform.

The whole, "Listen, I can’t believe those Democrats are totally responsible for everything" excuse turned out to be a plan of attack for other Republicans, as well.

The Democrats weren’t buying it.

And neither were experts.

For what it’s worth, the media was equally unconvinced, opting to go with the more real version of events: Separating parents and children is a Trump administration policy, and Republicans control all branches of government right now so it’s actually pretty hard for the Democrats to really be that obstructionist on anything. You might be wondering: How did the vote go, after that ramp-up?

Damn those Democra—wait, there’s more:

As a vote on the so-called "compromise" bill got delayed until the following week, the president took to Twitter to once again.

Ah, yes. "Wasting time on immigration." That sounds about right, right now.

The Takeaway: If only there was some way to link this particular thread of the immigration story up with an earlier thread…

Oh, right. That’ll do it.

Who Where Why

What Happened: With so little transparency into what’s going on, it’s no surprise that there’s one question hanging over events as they slowly unfold. It’s a very simple question with disturbing implications.

What Really Happened: As if everything about the current border crisis wasn’t disturbing enough, the little access the media has had to the detention centers children are being kept in—US Border Patrol doesn’t want to call them cages, we found out this week, even though they are cages—has been … lacking something.

Remember the Kirstjen Nielsen briefing referenced earlier? It turns out, someone asked her about this very question, and the answer wasn’t particularly reassuring.

At some point this week, it looked as if an answer might be forthcoming.

Unfortunately, this turned out to be, at best, an optimistic estimate.

The Takeaway: As media interest grows, observers are no closer, it seems, to actually seeing where the girls are being held, even as allegations of abuse in detention centers start to surface. Still, does everyone agree that this is bad? Oh, maybe not.

When Jackets Turn Into Subtweets

What Happened: You know what would make matters worse? A passive aggressive photo opportunity in the middle of this whole thing. But passive aggressive towards who?

What Really Happened: As all of this was unfolding, the Melania Trump jetted off to Texas for a visit to the border to see what was happening for herself. However, many people were more concerned by what the First Lady chose to wear while boarding the plane than the trip itself.

To be precise, she didn’t wear the jacket in Texas; just boarding the plane in DC. Oh, and then getting off the plane on the return flight, after everyone had gotten upset about the whole thing. (And, oh boy, did people get upset about this.)

But it was all part of a plan, apparently. Well, according to everyone’s favorite 4-D chess player, at least.

That was certainly some plan; presumably the entire point was to make Melania seem like an amazingly uncaring and unlikable person?

And certainly the First Lady’s team agreed that’s what it was…

So, clearly, the thing she doesn’t care about is … her principles? No, wait. Help us out here.

The Takeaway: Yes, everything is going really well here, thanks for asking.

Unless a moviegoing-miracle occurs, you have just a few days left to become FilmStruck: On November 29, the movie-streaming service—which hosts everything from hard-to-find foreign films to vintage Warner Bros. musicals—will be shut down by Warner Media overlords AT&T. Though the provider’s subscriber base reportedly consisted of about 100,000 cinephiles, FilmStruck’s demise prompted an online petition that’s so far accrued more than 50,000 signatures, and earned tweets of support (as well as a few passionate letters from such filmmakers as Guillermo del Toro and Barbra Streisand. Some FilmStruck lovers are no doubt concerned about the startling number of classic films missing from streaming services; others probably want to ensure they had 7-day-a-week access to 8 ½. But because 2018 is the year in which literally nothing good has happened, their pleas are likely to be ignored.

For those hoping to cram one last movie-blitz before the site departs, here are 10 invaluable classics that illustrate FilmStruck’s breadth, depth, and sheer art-house-in-your-house joy.

Alice in the Cities (1974)

The first entry in writer-director Wim Wenders’ famed mid-’70s “Road Movie” trilogy casts Rüdiger Vogler as an aimless, irritable writer who’s tasked with accompanying a rebellious young teenager (played by Yella Rottländer) from America to Germany. An unassuming, happily chatty travelogue that’s at once unsparingly funny and deeply empathetic.

The Candidate (1972)

Robert Redford, at his peak early-’70s power, stars as a reluctant U.S. Senate candidate who’s plunged into the national spotlight—and finds that all he can do is stare back blankly. A cynical and absorbing American-politics tale, one as relevant now as it was more than 45 years ago.

Cat People (1942)

Not to be confused with the 1982 remake, this genuinely creepy big-city horror tale finds Simone Simon as a young woman afflicted with a long-running feline curse. Worth it alone for the film’s infamous pool scene, a remarkable feat of shadows and sound effects.

Chungking Express (1994)

Wong Kar-Wai’s mid-’90s hit—a propulsive tale of love, heartache and “California Dreamin’” in Hong Kong—has become inexplicably elusive in recent years: The Criterion Collection DVD is now a high-priced rarity, and FilmStruck appears to be the only streaming service hosting this gorgeous and essential romantic drama.

Fear of a Black Hat (1993)

A low-budget time-capsule mockumentary from writer-director Rusty Cundieff, Fear spoofs early-’90s hip-hop culture via the antics of N.W.H., a fictitious bad-boy rap outfit trying to be taken seriously. Fear’s jabs come off as more affectionate than acidic, and some jokes have aged better than others. But try watching it and not having [“My Peanuts”[(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sH9lYCMf1w) in your head for a days afterward.

Key Largo (1948)

Noir has been a staple of FilmStruck’s line-up, in no small part because of its access to the Warner Bros. archives. And rainy-day viewing doesn’t get much better than John Huston’s classic slow-burning tale of a virtuous World War II vet (Humphrey Bogart) who stares down a cackling kingpin (Edward G. Robinson) while stranded at a hurricane-hampered hotel. Contains perhaps the greatest mid-shave rants ever filmed.

King Kong (1933)

Granted, pretty much everyone has seen this towering monster-movie classic, but the FilmStruck edition features the informative (and hard-to-find) commentary track by historian Ronald Haver–widely considered the first of its kind.

Mikey and Nicky (1976)

Director Elaine May’s filmography includes one irrefutably perfect film (The Heartbreak Kid), one unfairly beat-up semi-diversion (Ishtar), and one recently reclaimed lost ‘70s pearl: Mikey and Nicky, a tale of two scheming, skeevy L.A. mob-mooks (played by Peter Falk and John Cassavetes) who get in way over their heads … and get deeper in conversation along the way.

The Passage (2018)

This genial, rollicking 22-minute short—which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival—stars Philip Burgers as a mute, an on-the-run mystery man who stumbles into one unexpected set-up after the next. Produced by SuperDeluxe, the comedy outlet whose own existence was cut down by Warner Media this fall, The Passage is the sort of sweet-natured, experimental tale that fits right in among FilmStruck’s offerings.

Salesman (1969)

It’s not the most riveting documentary by the legendary Maysles Brothers (that would be Gimme Shelter, also on FilmStruck). Nor is it the most immediately quotable (that honor goes to Grey Gardens, which you can watch on—wait for it!—FilmStruck). But Salesman, which follows a crew of Boston-area bible-stumpers on their door-to-door sales calls, is an unforgettable (and sometimes uncomfortable) depiction of bright-eyed, go-get-’em mid-20th-century capitalism—and the quiet strain it imposes on its disciples.

When J.J. Abrams was wrapping up Star Wars: The Force Awakens, he showed a rough cut to Ava DuVernay, the Selma director he'd recently befriended. It needed something, she told him. Daisy Ridley’s Rey needed to have one more powerful moment, one more show of strength in her final battle with Kylo Ren. Abrams took her advice, shot some new footage, and added a close-up of Rey’s face as she strikes a massive lightsaber blow. If you watch it now, it's very clear which one it is. Just ask any 15-year-old female Star Wars fan—even now, she can probably recall it from memory. When you don't expect to see yourself as the hero, you don't easily forget what it looks like.

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Wonder Woman has more than 20 hero moments like this. It even ends on one. They’re not all close-ups like the one Abrams added to Force Awakens, but they do show a hero in action. Filmed in slow motion, almost always in battle, they feature Diana Prince (Gal Gadot), as well as other women. It's trite to say, but I'll say it anyway: This is revolutionary.

The hero shot is a staple of superhero movies, and action movies in general. If you had to think of one right now, though, your mind would probably light on Thor hoisting a hammer or Superman floating above Metropolis with his cape billowing in the wind, not of a woman saving the world. Katniss Everdeen got some of them in the Hunger Games films, the female mutants have had their share in the X-Men movies, Joss Whedon gave a couple to Black Widow and Scarlet Witch in the Avengers flicks—but rarely, if ever, has one film been dedicated to them in the way Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman is. Viewers not thinking to look for it might not even notice it (looking at you, gents), but the impact of those shots is hard to ignore.

As more and more women saw Jenkins' movie this weekend, their reactions tended to fall into two categories. First, they liked it. Second, they felt empowered by it. Sure, many were just excited that after 75+ years there was finally a movie dedicated to their favorite hero, but the sentiments went deeper than “yay movie!” MakeLoveNotPorn founder Cindy Gallop tweeted a note to Silicon Valley VCs pointing out that Gadot shot Wonder Woman while pregnant, adding “Don't ever doubt a pregnant female founder [is] not up to it.” Actresses like Lupita Nyong'o and Jessica Chastain took to social media to express their excitement over the film. Some praised Antiope’s (Robin Wright) battle face; others joked about the ability to ask guys in the theater whether they just came because their girlfriends brought them, not because they like comic book movies. DuVernay herself retweeted this:

Much gets said (and often by us) about the lack of female heroes and heroes who are people of color, but Hollywood is only just now starting to see the results of efforts to diversify. This weekend, Wonder Woman gave audiences something they'd been waiting for for a long time. And, in return, they gave the filmmakers an expectation-shattering $103 million opening weekend in the US, and proof that women could rule the box office and save Warner Bros. and the DC Universe in the process. In Wonder Woman, Diana’s mother Hipplyta (Connie Nielsen) tells her daughter that the world of men does not "deserve" her. That may be true for the Allied powers in World War I, but for everyone who has been championing a proper female-led superhero movie since the dawn of time, they definitely do.

Back to all those hero shots, though. If this had been a Batman movie, their sheer number might have been too much. But for the first female-led, female-directed superhero movie, showing off is necessary. It's Dottie Hinson doing the splits to catch a pop foul in A League of Their Own—a little performative, sure, but also a way of saying "yeah, I did that." When Wonder Woman has her first big hero moment crossing No Man's Land (see what they did there?) to save a village, it's tear-jerking; when she gets her umpteenth slow-mo shot in the finale, it's just awesome. Female superheroes haven’t gotten a lot of big heroic movie moments over the years, so to make up for it Wonder Woman got all of them.

Now that Wonder Woman is a massive success, that kind of badassery just got carte blanche. It means Diana Prince can now thank Bruce Wayne for that sweet note he sent her at the beginning of her movie and tell him, “Thanks. I’ll be leading the Justice League now.” It means Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel—already slated to be the most powerful superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe—gets to have a movie that could leave the Iron Mans and Captain Americas in the dust. It means that Whedon’s Batgirl movie has a real shot, and if Marvel was ever wavering on whether or not to give Black Widow a standalone film, now might be the time to green-light it. And it means Rian Johnson should take a good, long look at his latest cut of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Because this time around, Rey gets all the hero shots she deserves.

Thirty-three years. It's been thirty-three years since a female superhero has anchored her own movie—1984's Supergirl being the most recent example¹. (Catwoman and Elektra? Both antiheroes. Don't @ me.) And as comic books' first female hero, Wonder Woman was long overdue for her full-length feature adaptation, which dominated theaters this weekend. But despite Diana of Themyscira's legacy of empowerment and independence, it wasn't either of those things that gave us she of the golden lasso and the invisible jet—it was a crush gone wild. In fact, her entire comic-book career has been a frustrating slow march to heroism, beset throughout by a series of story constraints that conspired to make both her power and her character the product of other people's decisions.

Wonder Woman's first appearance, 1941's All-Star Comics #8, recounts why she came to America in the first place. To save the world, right? you guess. Nope! Wonder Woman came to America as a lovestruck teenager. Captivated by dreamy American soldier Steve Trevor, who crash-landed on her home island, Diana enters a contest to demonstrate that she is "the strongest and wisest of the Amazons." If she wins, she gets to accompany Trevor back to his home country in "Man's World." Her mother, Queen Hippolyta, is not so into this whole contest thing, but Diana is so busy being a heart-eyed emoji that she doesn't care. "I must see him!" she exclaims to her mother, arms outstretched. "I must know who he is, how he got here! And why he must leave? I—I love him!"

And win she does, which leads to Diana's adoption of her heroic moniker. Again, though, outside forces dictate her path; it's not Diana who chooses the title, but her mother. "In America you'll indeed be a 'Wonder Woman,' for I have taught you well," Hippolyta explains. Diana gets no credit: Not only is she doing everything because of a man she literally has just met, but she's using an identity given to her by her mother.

It gets weirder, though. According to 1959's Wonder Woman #105, baby Diana was visited—and gifted—by a pantheon of mythological beings. Aphrodite gave her "all the beauty of goodness," Athena, "all the wisdom of the planets," and Mercury and Hercules granted her speed and strength (respectively) greater than even their own. In other words, she's smarter, faster and stronger than everyone else; looking back at her first appearance, her ruse to win a contest reads more and more like a lovesick girl abusing her abilities to spend more time with her first crush.

The bedrock of Wonder Woman's character didn't change, in fact, until George Perez rebooted her mythos in 1986. The first issue of Perez's Wonder Woman Vol. 2 #1 (written with Greg Potter) rewrites the hero's origin significantly: Instead of leaving the island of the Amazons to follow Steve Trevor, Diana emerges as a champion to battle Ares, a god whose philosophy of brute force has corrupted the outside world. So much for Diana's lovestruck ambitions—here, she simply wants to do good, for its own sake.

Still, even this rewritten version of events doesn't let Diana stand on her own two boots. Not only are her powers literally god-given, but even her rebellion against her mother (who forbade her to compete) is approved and encouraged by Athena. Diana's destiny is a matter not of decision, but of fate. True agency was still another 30 years away.

That's when the "Year One" storyline began in the current Wonder Woman comic book. Writers Greg Rucka and Nicola Scott, both longtime fans of the character, managed to synthesize the Wonder Woman's various origins into a complete whole—one that grants Diana the power to make her own decisions and standing up for herself. Steve Trevor is back in the "Year One" origin, once again showing up on the shores of Themyscira. He's still dreamy, but this time it's not a crush that motivates Diana to become champion of the Amazons—it's a competitive streak. She wants to be the best she could be in her own right. Compare 1941's "I love him!" to the exchange to the left below.

Does she win the contest? She's Wonder Woman; of course she does. However, this time around, the gods don't grant her powers until she's already left the island—she excelled purely because of her own efforts. And while there is divine intervention in his version of Wonder Woman's past, it's of the distant prophecy kind rather than the gods-put-their-finger-on-the-scale variety.

The current version of Wonder Woman's origin, then, recognizes what makes her an inspirational figure and reshapes her to be an aspirational figure as well: a hero whose struggles are central to her identity. (Tellingly, perhaps, "Wonder Woman" is a name given to her by the media after she arrives in America.) It's been a long time coming, but finally, comic-book Wonder Woman is an icon of strength and self-determination—and is truly worthy of her name.

¹ Correction 7:46 PM EST 6/5/17 Due to being dragged through a wormhole by Lex Luthor, WIRED erroneously stated that Supergirl had come out in 1994, rather than 1984—which, of course, makes it thirty-three years since a female superhero has anchored her own movie. The sentence has been corrected, as has the historical record. Luthor, unfortunately, remains at large.

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