Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines is a meditation on the history of the female hero in modern American culture told through the changing interpretation and representation of the character of Wonder Woman, and if that doesn’t already sucker you in to watching it, then maybe the fact that it’s being lauded from all corners, including the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in the Media, will.

It’s an independent documentary film, so screenings in your area might have been thin on the ground. The good news is the movie has become part of PBS’ Indepedent Lens series, which runs a new independent film every Monday night. Wonder Women! airs tonight at 10 pm, though you probably want to check your local PBS listings. Afterwards, if you just can’t get enough of discussion about female characters and gender representation in media, you might want to check out this panel discussion that followed a screening of the film in Los Angeles a few weeks ago. It included folks from the Geena Davis Institute, the LA Times, and our contributing writer Zoe Chevat. An upcoming Wonder Women! panel in New York will feature yours truly, so stay tuned for info on that as well!

I’m a die-hard Trekker but that doesn’t mean I have to love everyone who’s ever acting in the long-running saga. For every George Takei or Wil Wheaton, there’s a William Shatner. The Star Trek actor has certainly made a niche for himself in recent years acting as the spokesperson for Priceline and performing in other comedic offerings but he’s also turning into a documentarian. Previously he directed The Captains, a film more suited to his expertise, and a Trek fan documentary called Get a Life, but now he’s set his sights on fans of Xena: Warrior Princess and it’s safe to say he’s out of his depth. 

[Warning: This Video Contains Some Graphic Injuries]

Wrestling in campy outfits may not be an Olympic sport, but it sure is awesome. Check out this trailer for GLOW: The Story of The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, a documentary that celebrates the 1986 all-female, pro-wrestling show in all of its brash and bloody glory. There is no release date yet as the filmmakers are still raising money on Kickstarter to fund the project, but I think its safe to say that it’ll be a hit when it’s released.

(via Jezebel.)

So, Harvey Weinstein and the filmmakers behind the documentary Bully have lost their appeal to the MPAA to get their movie a PG-13 rating so their target audience can actually see it. Rather than take the R — guaranteeing that theaters will show the movie, but not allowing the kids who need to see it in to see it — it was decided to release it unrated, meaning that technically, there are no audience restrictions. But now this raises a new question: Will theaters even let kids in?

The public outcry over the harsh R rating for the documentary Bully has hit a new level and headed straight to the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the people who granted that rating, the Motion Picture Association of America. In an attempt to quell criticism over the rating — which prevents the people who need to see this movie from seeing without adult supervision — the MPAA held a screening and panel discussion to try to convince the highly-influential guests who were invited (including Congressional Representatives) why the R rating was sound. The opposite happened, and now the MPAA is under fire on its own turf.

You may remember, we brought you news of the successful Kickstarter funding for the documentary, Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines. The film, set to premiere at the South By Southwest (SXSW) festival was produced by Kristy Guevara-Flanagan and Kelcey Edwards, and features interviews with Gloria Steinem and Shelby Knox, actresses Lynda Carter (Wonder Woman) and Lindsay Wagner (The Bionic Woman), and numerous fans. The clips gives us a look at Wonder Woman fan and mother, Carmela Lane. You can find out more about the project at WonderWomanDoc.com, or, if you’re going to SXSW, you can see the documentary for yourself when it premieres Saturday night.

(via The Hollywood Reporter)

Start your promotional video for a new documentary show about geeks with a grown man doing a Wookie impression and it’s safe to say you’ve already played your cards. TLC has ordered a new geek dating show called Geek Love that premieres next month and it’s safe to say, it isn’t doing anything to help break the stereotypes the general public have about geeks.

Hey, Potterheads: Remember that time over the summer when you found yourself feeling all kinds of emotional feelings about how the Harry Potter series really, truly was all over? Well, it’s not over yet. As a Target store exclusive, a 46-minute documentary called When Harry Left Hogwarts will be a part of the four-disc Blu-ray set for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, which will be released on November 11. Maybe it’s just the music, or maybe it’s the hoods covering the aged faces of what we now know is Harry, Ron, and Hermione in the last scene. But this trailer for the documentary is positively haunting. And yes, you will probably cry again.

(via Bleeding Cool)

Remember being a little kid and getting freaked out by The Dark Crystal? What if you’d seen the people behind the scenes, undertaking the super-unglamorous task of putting the movie together? Yeah, probably less freaky. A 1982 documentary about the making of the Jim Henson movie just popped up on YouTube, and all four of its parts are here for your viewing enjoyment. The last three are after the jump.

Genetically speaking, chimpanzees are the closest non-human relatives to actual humans, falling in the Hominidae family alongside us (humans), gorillas, and orangutans. (Thank you, Wikipedia.) But if we are so closely related, does that mean humans can raise a chimpanzee from birth as a human and it will behave as such? Or is this just a misguided attempt at what I will dub “Reverse Tarzan”? Project Nim is a documentary that explores just this and discovers: nope — still a chimp. But an interesting experiment, nonetheless.