Reviews

I grew up watching films like "sex, lies & videotape" and foreign films that were like slices of life, not epic adventures. This is a beautifully-made film, sensitively directed, and the actors were flawless. It's a significant indie film, and a refreshing break from the countless CGI superhero spectacles that have (pretty much) ruined cinema. It's not an obvious "genre" movie, like a horror film or a mystery. It's simply about feelings and about relationships -- the stuff that cinema was about before Marvel Studios arrived and killed everything.

Anyway, great job by Amber Midthunder and Taylor Gray. Beautiful work! Bethany Anne Lind and Nelson Lee were also terrific in supporting parts. I don't know what other projects these actors were in, but they performed like seasoned veterans. But maybe that had something to do with the director, Steve Pink, who obviously has a way with actors. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this started out as a stage play. It has that feel, leaning heavily on dialogue and performance.

I would definitely watch this film again.

By the way, I noticed someone left a review about "low budget phone quality" ... which is absolutely incorrect. It's in fact beautiful shot and edited. So I have no idea what that comment was about -- other than to leave a 1-star review, out of spite. People can be jerks, really.

There's a definite Euphoria vibe to this. The slow motion shots, the way it's scored, the blocking here and there. I hope this director continues to make films.

Whenever young women are portrayed as mercenary, it's hated by everyone, hence the low rating here on IMDB. Like, women are not allowed to be villains, the way men are.

Just look at the cool film-making. The short is on YouTube, at the moment. This is solid work.

The term "Millennials" should be removed from the movie description, however. All these terms are hateful.

"Millennials," "Boomers," etc. It's all just discriminatory -- a way that people are divided and made to hate each other. If it's not by the color of our skin, it's something else. Let's not it off.

Endlessly inventive and spectacularly shot and edited. The first 12 minutes of this episode alone made me lightheaded. But the entire episode is excellent. Levinson's best script -- from start to finish. His best directing so far. The episode pushes boundaries of sexual awareness, and is funny in an adult way. This is a great writer-director hitting his stride. I hope the whole second season stays like this.

Cast is phenomenal. Excellent acting all around. Beautiful direction. I was sad to see that the young actress didn't do too many more films after this one -- because she is phenomenal in this. Great movie ... but not for politically correct American audiences. A film with this kind of delicate poetry can only be made in France.

You cannot imagine a more pathetic excuse of movie than OUTBACK. It has to be one of the most painfully boring so-called horror movies ever made. The screenplay in particular is awful! A nothing idea that goes nowhere. A dumb American couple gets lost in the Australian outback and have to contend with scorpion, dogs, snakes and every other cliche you can think of. Like a bad Disney movie. And guess what, it's called Outback. How's that for clever?

And the people at ScreenCraft are selling their screenwriting contests using this incredibly lame film as an example of a "success" story. The world is full of scams I guess and ScreenCraft and this movie are examples of it. But, guess what -- you can make an effort to avoid both!

This will linger in my memory for a very long time. Excellent documentary on how evil exists in the world and the more helpless are preyed upon. The cops and FBI come across with the intelligence of simple-minded plumbers. The story of Brian Wells is very sad ... and in part law enforcement is to blame.

Grateful to have caught an early screening of this movie in NYC, in which the cast made a brief appearance at the movie theater. The first thing I want to say is that this is a movie I will watch more than once.

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women is a film about ideas. It explores polyamory ("the philosophy or state of being in love or romantically involved with more than one person at the same time") and touches on explorations of dominance/submission and role-play, along the lines of BDSM.

Having read Jill Lepore's excellent book, The Secret History of Wonder Woman, I knew a great deal about this story before going into the theater. As Lepore writes, "Wonder Woman's debt is to the fictional feminist utopia and the struggle for women's rights. Her origins lie in William Moulton Marston's past, and in the lives of the women he loved; they created Wonder Woman, too." It's this dynamic that sets the stage for this story, and the preview trailer for this film made it look erotic too. But those expecting to see a film along the lines of Henry & June may be disappointed.

I enjoyed this movie, but wished the romantic elements were explored more fully, particularly between the two women. The editing seemed at times overly efficient, too much in a hurry, far more concerned with propelling the narrative forward than in creating a relaxed, intimate atmosphere where the characters could indulge in the situation and be in the moment. I wish there were more "real time" scenes of foreplay, actually. Not sex, foreplay - as in flirting. Because I couldn't see the bond these people shared, and this was a movie about how these people connected.

My favorite character, by far, was Olive Byrne as played by Bella Heathcote, who is vulnerable and beautiful in the film. A real Gwendoline, to use fetish parlance. Least favorite would be Marston's wife as played by Rebecca Hall, who's an accomplished actress but seemed too uptight - and, worse, too contemporary - in this role. It always amazes me that costume and set design for period pieces like this are thoroughly researched and accurately reproduced, while almost no research goes into reproducing language use and speech patterns of the day (1925 - 1947). Did people actually use the f-word as much as Rebecca Hall uses it in this film? I think not. It made her character more grating than she needed to be. This is a fault of the script, and the f-word was used as a crutch far too often.

Marston was played adequately by the rugged-looking Luke Evans, who bears no resemblance to the overweight, dreamy-eyed real-life William Moulton Marston, but this was a concession to female audience members I suppose.

In real life, it's unknown how Marston developed an interest in BDSM. In the film, it's through Marston's encounter with the mythical pioneer of fetish history, Charles Guyette (the "G-string King"), a real historical figure. What I know of Guyette I learned through reading Charles Guyette: Godfather of American Fetish Art by Richard Perez Seves. As suavely played by JJ Field, he serves as mentor to Marston. Again, this is a bit of shorthand. Guyette is not mentioned in Lepore's history, but the audience is quickly introduced to this fetish underworld, which serves as a strong influence in the creation of Wonder Woman. No mention of Guyette being French in the Seves's book; in fact, he was born and raised in Massachusetts, according to Seves, but the people making this film may not have known this at the time as this brief book is more recent.

Overall, I'll wrap up this review by saying that despite these flaws, this is a film worth viewing. Maybe my own high expectations for it were impossible to meet. I enjoyed many scenes, with my favorite relying on the lie detector machine used in the first half of the movie; I truly loved those scenes. Again, I loved Bella Heathcote as Olive Byrne in this. So, in spite of all my nitpicking, I still give this movie a strong 7 out of 10. The ideas explored in this film make it worth watching. Maybe there's a director's cut of this film out there with additional scenes between the actors. One can only hope. But I would still see this movie again, as is, and certainly plan to.