TelegraphHerald.com • Telegraph Herald • Friday, December 18, 2020 1C

Got a tip? Please contact us Megan Gloss, Features Editor TODAY’S [email protected] current 563-588-5638 or 800-553-4801 TIDBITS movie review Galena Little action and few thrills in ‘Ava’ Center to BY AUSTIN ELLIS of a transaction. maker’s lack of experience directing action. For the Telegraph Herald The film’s surprisingly terrific cast is This script barely feels like it got out of offer holiday completely wasted on stilted and under- the treatment stage. Much more work on “Ava” is a thriller that lacks the written material. Character development is character development and structure were “thrills” and lands with an emphat- nonexistent and plot points happen with no desperately needed. Director Tate Taylor has play reading ic thud. build-up. made some competent films in the past, so Telegraph Herald Ava, a highly skilled assassin, There’s barely even a story as opposed to I’m shocked this is the result. is on the run while attempting to a loosely strung chain of events. I’m shocked There are a number of great movies and GALENA, Ill. — The Galena Cen- make amends with her estranged that this many talented actors and actresses TV shows to check out this holiday season. ter for the Arts will offer a virtual family. signed onto this sleeper. “Ava” shouldn’t be on anybody’s Christmas play reading of “The Regifters.” The film stars Jessica Chastain, John Chastain definitely can carry herself as an list, though. I can’t even recommend this The holiday performance, pre- Malkovich, Common, Geena Davis and Colin action lead. She proves that she’s game for flick to the least demanding viewers. taped via Zoom, will begin at 7 p.m. Farrell. the role with a certain degree of conviction. For some recent TV shows I highly rec- Tuesday, Dec. 22, and will be avail- “Ava” is a paint-by-numbers, miscast and Ultimately though, the paper-thin script ommend, “Euphoria” and “Barry”, which are able to watch through Monday, inconsequential action flick with shockingly and atrociously edited action can’t save her both streaming on HBO Max. Jan. 4. little action. By the time the credits roll, there’s performance. I give “Ava” 1 star out of 5. “Ava” is rated The comedy by not even a definitive storytelling payoff. The use of zooms in the action scenes are R and runs for 1 hour and 36 minutes. It’s Dubuque playwright Originally released this fall on VOD, the film unintentionally hilarious as a failed form available to stream on Netflix. Robert Lynn won the has made its way to Netflix. Even spending of artistic effect. The amount of cuts and New American Come- your time on this dud would be too expensive zooms are clear crutches to mask the film- Ellis is a freelance writer. dy Festival. It’s a story of a couple who regifts Robert a Christmas present, Lynn then finds out it’s worth a fortune and will stop at nothing to get it back. Howev- er, they’re not the only ones who rewrapped it. Featured will be Megan Gloss The journey of and Keith Ahlvin, and Jill and Joe Klinebriel, all of Dubuque; and Bri- an and Lisa Schoenrock, Ben and Maggie Jenkins and Tracy Jenkins, all of Galena. Music will be provid- ed by David Resnick, of Dubuque. To view it on one device is $10, ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ plus handling charges. Tickets can be purchased at www.ShowTix4u. Director tries to connect com/events/Regifters. The play reading is sponsored by with the 1980s with Illinois Bank & Trust. an ‘extravaganza.’

BY LINDSEY BAHR The Associated Press new movies atty Jenkins wasn’t even finished making “Wonder “WONDER WOMAN 1984” Woman” when she started Rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture dreaming up a sequel for Association of America for se- Pher and star Gal Gadot. quences of action and violence. 151 The first film had the weight of minutes. ★★★ both female-fronted superhero If you’re going to make a movie films and female-directed block- about wish fulfillment, 1980s Amer- busters on its shoulders and had ica is about as good as you can do yet to prove the skeptics wrong. for a setting outside the Arabian But Jenkins had a hunch it was Desert. going to be a success. “Wonder Woman 1984,” Patty Besides, she thought, she Jenkins’ time-traveling sequel to hadn’t technically gotten to make 2017’s record-setting “Wonder a “Wonder Woman” film yet. Woman,” shuttles Gal Gadot’s war- “That first film was a birth of a rior to the era of Regan economics, hero,” Jenkins said. “Now I wanted parachute pants and “Rio.” All have to do something with that hero.” their cameos in “Wonder Woman There was never a specific 1984,” a superhero parable of greed threshold that the first had to and fanny packs with pointed refer- meet, but producer Charles Roven ences to today. said a follow-up was “undeni- Two movies in, it’s clear that Jen- able.” “Wonder Woman” was CLAY ENOS/WARNER BROS. • The Associated Press kins and DC Comics have a thank- not only a critical and box office Director Patty Jenkins (left) and Gal Gadot return for “Wonder Woman 1984.” fully different concept for Wonder success, making $821 million Woman as a film franchise. Like globally, but it also hit a cultural James Bond would find grueling. ences into the neon-hued 1980s, one of the year’s most profitable its predecessor, “Wonder Woman nerve. It became the event film Through the course of the eight- introduces two villains from the films and the crown jewel in a 1984” is spirited, purposeful and that everyone had dreamed. and month shoot, the stunt and effects comics in the insecure scientist banner year for female-directed blessedly lacking in grandiosity. Jenkins knew that it was time teams — and often Gadot — were Barbara Minerva turned rival, blockbusters. The pandemic And both films place Wonder to ask for what she wanted and put to the test executing wildly Cheetah, played by Kristen Wiig, upended all of that, however, and Woman not under the burdensome deserved. ambitious sequences including and the ambitious businessman suddenly Jenkins, Roven, Gadot heft of world building or even On the sequel’s long journey to an Amazonian games with 242 Maxwell Lord, played by “The and everyone at Warner Bros. universe saving — or at least Gadot audiences, Jenkins would secure stunt women, a difficult mid-air Mandalorian’s” Pedro Pascal. Both found themselves chasing an comes across as too resplendently an historic and equitable raise for rescue requiring complex wire rig put a changed Diana to the test. ideal theatrical release date that regal to ever seem weighed down. herself, figure out a way to resur- work in a real mall’s atrium and “We find a very different Diana would never come, at least not in She’s more a moral and muscular rect Chris Pine’s character from a 360-degree aerial truck flip that than the wide-eyed one that we 2020. counterweight to ego-driven male the dead and agree to a release had never been done before. established in the first one,” Gadot As the Christmas date neared misdirections, steering history plan that even a few months ago “I don’t believe that sequels said. “She’s very lonely.” and coronavirus cases continued through the pitfalls of megalomani- would have been unthinkable: always have to be bigger. And I The marathon shoot, and spiking in the U.S., they agreed on acs intoxicated by power. Putting the $200 million film in think you can get in a lot of trouble reshoots, were taxing. Jenkins a compromise to release the film Like the last movie, “Wonder theaters and on HBO Max, for doing that,” Jenkins said. “But in said she’s been told that “Wonder in theaters where they are open Woman 1984” becomes consumed free, on Christmas Day. this case, I was actually aiming Woman 1984” is the hardest film and free for subscribers on its by its (admittedly quite good) “Wonder Woman 1984,” a for a very specific thing, which is many of the crew had ever done. parent company’s new streaming antagonist. It drags in the third act poppy, maximalist fast-forward the type of ’80s movies that I saw But no one could have planned for app HBO Max. in a messy White House battle and in Diana Prince’s journey set in that were colossal extravaganzas just how complicated it would be “It wasn’t an easy decision,” a prolonged finale. an age of excess, ups the ante for the whole family and joyful on to simply get the film to audiences. Gadot said. “I’m just relieved that However, the films feel both with action, practical effects every level.” In one timeline, “Wonder we’re going to share the movie campier and more real than Marvel and globe-trotting that even The film, which plops audi- Woman 1984” might have been now.” movies — more like the page-turn- ing thrill of a comic book.

OTHER RELEASE “We find a very different “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”: Chadwick Boseman’s final perfor- Diana than the wide-eyed one mance makes this the stuff of legend. August Wilson’s 1982 play is set around a recording session in 1920s that we established in the Chicago as a blues band awaits the arrival of Ma Rainey (Davis). Bose- first one. She’s very lonely.” man is Levee the trumpeter.

GAL GADOT Telegraph Herald wire services

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