Wonder Wheel

This will probably be Woody Allen’s last or next-to-last movie (A Rainy Day in New York is in the can, but there is some question as to whether it will ever be released) since most of the people in Hollywood have belatedly decided to believe his daughter who claims he groped her, once, and so will never work with him again. They even donated his tainted money to ... Read more »

Wonder Woman

I broke my resolution to never bother myself with another superhero movie and rented this one. Some people told us it was good, and the reviews were quite good. So what was the result? Some good and some bad. I’m not really sure which one outweighs the other.

The good: I liked the opening a lot. It told the story of a battle of the Greek Gods, how they were destroyed with only Ares ... Read more »

Wonder Woman 1984

It was streaming for free on HBO Max, but only for thirty days. I (once more) broke my resolve to not watch any more superhero movies because I liked the first part of Wonder Woman and because the notion of an all-female world, like the notion of an all-black hidden community in Black Panther, seemed to offer an interesting alternative ... Read more »

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

I know many people who have “heroes,” men and women who they admire pretty much without reservation. They will not hear anything bad about their hero. Myself, there are many people who I admire for one thing or another, but I’m quite aware of their flaws, and I don’t give them a pass on them. Martin Luther King is a good example. I wish I didn’t know the things I know about him, I wish ... Read more »

The Wooden Camera

Madiba and his friend Sipho are hanging around the tracks one day in Capetown when a man falls or is pushed from the train. Looting his dead body, they find some money, a gun with one bullet it in, and a video camera. Sipho takes the gun and Madiba takes the camera. They return to the squalid shantytown where they live, basically nothing but sheet metal and scrap wood and cardboard. They ... Read more »

The Woodsman

It takes some real guts to make a film where the main character is both a child molester and not a monster. It takes some guts to take the part, too, and my hat is off to Kevin Bacon (who I am only 2 degrees away from).

Pedophilia is something that runs the gamut from John Wayne Gacy to guys (like me) who look at a nubile 15-year-old and feel a hot flash of guilt because she is so ... Read more »

Woody Allen: A Documentary

From the PBS American Masters series, this film is a two-parter that runs about four hours. I could only wish it had gone on longer, because this is by far the best look we have ever had at this real American master. It covers about 18 months, during which he was one of the judges at Cannes (which he wasn’t too enthused about). But the important thing is the it ... Read more »

Wordplay

A few minutes ago I sat down to do the New York Times crossword, as I do every morning at breakfast and sometimes three or four times later in the day. This being a Saturday, it was formidable. Many people assume that the Sunday puzzle is the toughest thing out there, because it’s bigger. Not true. The Sunday puzzle may have a trick, such as the use of ... Read more »

Words and Pictures

Clive Owen is an alcoholic teacher of honors English at an exclusive prep school. He was a writer, but hasn’t written anything in many years. Juliette Binoche is an abstract expressionist artist with a substantial reputation in her field, but with a terrible case of rheumatoid arthritis, hobbling about on crutches. She is finding it very difficult to paint. She takes a job teaching honors ... Read more »