Left to my own devices

The last decade or so in pop culture has really been a nostalgia treat for folks around my age. Our sentimentality for intellectual properties such as Batman, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Transformers,The Conners, Will & Grace, etc. has been indulged to the nth degree. That's a positive, I suppose, though there is a downside: what will the youth of today have to look back on 20-30 years from now for their own nostalgia? The mining of past content to satiate the appetites of people longing to look back really does create a vacuum.

With an opening in the very respectable range of $100 million in North America, the new Wonder Woman movie is certainly taking the world by storm (the overseas box office is in the $122 million range ). Critics and audiences alike appear to love it And I? Well, what follows are my (spoiler-filled) thoughts on the film. First, let's open by saying that I'd give the new Wonder Woman movie a 7 out of 10. If you want something even simpler than a numerical system, I give it a thumbs-up. Having said that, there are a lot of minor criticisms I have about the film, things that could have made it better.

As a kid, I wanted to be Wonder Woman . This isn't a confession of some sort of sexuality (not more than what regular readers and friends already know). I simply liked the Lynda Carter Wonder Woman TV series (1975-1979) and, like most fantasy characters that kids enjoy (Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, etc.) I wanted to dress-up and role play as them. In the case of Wonder Woman, it would have meant wearing a more feminine-defined garb. Such childhood thoughts came back to me recently, no doubt spurred by the Wonder Woman movie released in theaters this week. That movie may be good, but it will never be the show that first introduced me to the character, in all its '70s glory. When I watch it now its corniness bleeds through, but as a kid, it was pure gold. Lots of fun and adventure.