Movie Reviews

I’ve never really found Wonder Woman to be an interesting character. Whenever I look at her, my attention is usually drawn to the historically better-written (usually male) superheroes that surround her. But what if Wonder Woman was the only figure in that crowd with whom I could identify? I grew up reading about and watching characters whose shoes I could easily place myself into. It’s one of the many perks of being a white male. Wonder Women!

They appear as two-page ads in magazines, lengthy television advertisements, and are slapped on pens, notebooks, and shirts. Pharmaceutical advertisements are presently the iDrug of our contemporary existence: magical pills that can solve anything and hopefully do not inhibit one of the many items in an exhaustive list of side effects.

I had never heard of Rodriguez until I heard about Searching for Sugar Man, but one of the first songs in the film was enough to pique my interest. Sounding somewhere between Donovan and Bob Dylan, I began to realize that these comparisons are unfair. Sixto Rodriguez’s music cuts deep, and his mysterious persona existed long before his short-lived record deal, and existed up until the film’s central personnel began the search for him in the late 1990s.

For most, our last day alive will come unexpectedly. For Val (Al Pacino) in Stand Up Guys, it is the day after he is released from serving in prison for twenty-eight years. He is met by his friend and former partner Doc (Christopher Walken) who obliges to foot the bill for Val’s night of partying. Val has been marked for death, and Doc has been tapped to make the execution. The reason?