Entertainment

Unfortunately, this year's Comic-Con didn't provide much news for those of us hoping to see more female superheroes on the big screen; male characters continue to dominate the genre—surprise.

There are, however, three superheroine films in the works: Magdalena, Red Sonja, and The Witchblade. (Wikipedia can help if you're not familiar with the Magdalena, Red Sonja, or Witchblade comics.) I suspect all three films were motivated by the hotness factor with little consideration for much else, and casting splintery Rose McGowan as Red Sonja is probably a recipe for box-office disaster (see: "The subtle sexism behind bad female action films"). I'll try to remain optimistic, though.

On another front, a recent summit between Warner Bros. and DC Comics may be a sign that we're finally getting close to seeing a Wonder Woman movie. Time Warner shareholders have no doubt been happy with Dark Knight's box-office receipts, but they must be asking themselves, How much more are we missing out on? And there is no better comic-book character to discover that with than Wonder Woman, easily the most identifiable, and thus bankable, superhero still without a feature film.

We have this news from Comic-Con 2008 about the recently announced Red Sonja movie. Rose McGowan has been picked to star, but the 5'4" McGowan looks too delicate for such a role. (A few commenters suggest that Rhona Mitra or Jessica Biel would be a much better choice; I agree.) However, McGowan does say that she is working out three hours a day in preparation—let's hope that is enough.

Expect to see Red Sonja in theaters sometime in 2010.

Some things are worth doing twice. I posted this wonderful clip last month, but here it is again. Except this time it is the high-quality version, together with a button (bottom right) that allows you to view the clip in full-screen mode (and trust me, you want to use it):



I get goose bumps when I watch this. Will television again give us a female action star who inspires sheer awe the way that Jennifer Garner did? I sure hope so.

Playing with Hulu (I love new toys) has given me an idea: virtual Wonder Woman auditions. True, Joel Silver and the ninnies at Warner Bros. do not have a movie ready for production yet, but it can't hurt to get an early start on casting; besides, Silver and company need all the help they can get.

First up, Jodi Lyn O'Keefe. You would be hard-pressed to find an actress who fits the traditional Wonder Woman image better than this athletic, blue-eyed, raven-haired Amazon. This clip (use link if you cannot view the clip on the page) is from season three of Prison Break. Jodi is in her evil mode here, but she can do nice, too:

[Edit: Hulu has the bad habit of not leaving videos up very long. Thus you will have to accept this Hollywood 411 interview as a substitute; I apologize.]

There is something I should have mentioned in yesterday's post but didn't, because I didn't realize it at the time. That being, Aneta Florczyk finished her Dancing on Ice stint on May 17. This means she only had a week to focus her attention on preparing for the World's Strongest Woman competition, which makes her fourth title grab that much more impressive.

This piece at ABCNews.com rightly calls attention to how absurdly thin Angelina Jolie is in Wanted, and then it bothers to ask if that is really a good thing. The answer seems self-evident to me. No, it isn't. True, the image a rail-thin action heroine projects is harmful to young women, which the article seems to concede, but what is more, it makes for a bad movie, perhaps a risible one, too. (It's hard to imagine her arm not snapping if she were to strike someone, and harder still to imagine that the blow would actually inflict damage on the other person.) This isn't a new problem, either. Jolie was a letdown as Lara Croft, for instance—she even complained about the intense physical training and the (very slight) effect it had on her body. Thus I was disinclined to go see Wanted, the type of movie I'd normally rush right out to see, and it appears I was smart to stay home.

I should have noted this earlier. Aneta Florczyk has once again earned the title of World's Strongest Woman, winning her fourth championship this year at the contest held May 24 in Tczew, Poland. During a break in the competition, Aneta entertained the crowd by pressing a man over her head—for reps:



And earlier this year, Aneta competed on the Polish version of Dancing on Ice, where she made it all the way to the semifinals. Aneta seems intent on smashing stereotypes, and she's doing a good job of it. Showing us that a woman can be extremely powerful, far stronger than most men in fact, yet still graceful and alluring in that ineffable way a beautiful woman simply is: