Black Panther (2018), dir Ryan Coogler

I'm sure there's some lesson in responsibility about a more technologically advanced nation not unilaterally deciding to arm people in less-developed nations in order to bring about regime change, but I just can't quite put my finger on it

Less-developed here includes the US tbf.

Less-developed here includes the US tbf.

You must have heard the pun scott

xp that's kind of the buried lede

i don't know where klaw is supposed to be from...guy with the accent

surely he was meant to be south african?

just dawned on me that the only white people in the movie were gollum and bilbo...

lol yes, i mentioned that to the people i came with during their interrogation scene. no riddles, though.

klaw's accent was (roughly) south african, yes

(i think his full marvel lineage is more complicated than that) (ie his dad was a nazi?)

I like the light continuity of him just being some south african mercenary that, we now know, entered the story when he was contracted by a rogue Wakandan

so he's a villain, but it's refreshing when the actual antagonist wastes him partway into the movie

the part in the museum where Killmonger observes that security has been watching him like a hawk since he arrived but haven't been watching what she's been putting in her mouth was a good one. basically racism got them all killed.

Before I saw it I read a review that said the fight scenes were kind of incoherent, especially from the director of Creed...

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, February 20, 2018

The fight scenes in Creed were kind of incoherent too! Creed is not a very good movie!

i know i said it already but the museum scene is my favorite thing in the movie. i could "unpack" it but i almost don't want to disturb it...

but yeah, it's not just racism that bites our Africa Expert, it's the consequences of what she's been ingesting all this time...

the beat at the end of the scene, where killmonger reappropriates the mask not bc its vibranium, or even wakandan, but bc he's just feelin it... i could watch that over and over

And what color is coffee? Black!

I liked Creed.

Klaw (at least in this movie) is from South Africa. He even makes a reference to returning to Jo' Burg.

Killmonger's final monologue would have been incredibly heavy-handed in so many movies but I feel like it worked here? My jaw dropped in the the theater

xpost well sure i like some crap movies too but that doesn't make them good

how many of the rhinos did Andy Serkis play

The final monologue was indeed all that.

Final business end update:

http://deadline.com/2018/02/black-panther-thursday-night-preview-box-office-1202291093/

Disney has just confirmed what we saw earlier: Marvel’s Black Panther is the second-biggest 4-day opener of all-time at the domestic B.O. with $241.96M, after Force Awakens ($288M) and beating Star Wars: Last Jedi ($241.6M). Monday also marked an all-time record with $40.167M, beating Force Awakens‘ $40.11M (Dec. 21, 2015). Black Panther also posted the second best Sunday ever at the domestic B.O. with $60.096M behind Force Awakens ($60.5M).

"He even makes a reference to returning to Jo' Burg."

forgot about this. yes. maybe Die Antwoord can avenge his death in the next movie.

I was thrown off by the heaviness of the monologue set against what looked like a backdrop for the (currently filming!) CGI The Lion King.

Ooof though when T'Challa takes the herb the second time and is yelling at his dad, the mystical land of the ancestors looks like a matte painting 3 feet behind his head.

I wonder if that boils down to the distance you're sitting from the screen. We were up in the second tier and none of the CGI took me out of the film at all.

Interesting detail here to keep in mind, building on the much noted fact that Coogler is only 31 -- we've been so steeped in the 'filmmakers recalling the 80s' wider culture that we're missing other kinds of referents and acceleration, combined with the fact that ten years really is a long time:

https://io9.gizmodo.com/theres-more-going-on-in-black-panthers-end-credit-scene-1823050309

“I saw Iron Man the first day it opened,” Coogler told io9. “I was at film school the day it came out. I was in Los Angeles. Iron Man is the first movie I saw at the Arclight, which is like my favorite theater in Los Angeles."

As a friend said on Twitter: "a bit like when rock & roll starts being played by people who grew up listening to it"

https://donmclean.files.wordpress.com/2003/02/leg1.jpg

many xposts omg Creed is a legit great movie
so help me I will fight u rogermexico 🥊

I swear the site has been purposefully blocking me from posting to this thread

Oh cool, now that I’m in I’d mainly like to tell everyone who called Killmonger a villain instead of an antagonist to shut the fuck up

would like to have myself entered in the record as having aligned with that point previously

My local cinema does not appear to be showing this what the actual fuck

DJP otm

VG MBJ alone is not enough to save a movie. See F4 if you want to test that theory lol.

many xposts omg Creed is a legit great movie
so help me I will fight u rogermexico 🥊

yeah haven't seen this yet but creed is v good

Creed is good and it really should have been crap idk if that makes it great but it sure gets the director plenty of credit

Oh cool, now that I’m in I’d mainly like to tell everyone who called Killmonger a villain instead of an antagonist to shut the fuck up

― Embalming is a flirty business (DJP), Tuesday, February 20, 2018 5:03 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

sorry for creed digression but i gotta defend my movie

my love for Creed isnt just bcz mbj is great
i legit love it as a movie on its own but i love it especially as a rocky movie & how deftly it hooks onto the back of the existing mythology
i love that it covered familiar “rocky” story beats but in a new way
adonis has a girlfriend but she’s successful too! and she’s all for him fighting! there’s no “voice of reason” like every other female partner in a boxing movie
it gave you fan service in organic ways that were not cheesy but earned
it filled in subtle story gaps in ways that were interesting & made sense, like rock hadnt talked to mary anne since apollo’s funeral
at the beginning when adonis stands in front of the youtube video of apollo & you think he’s going to shadow box as apollo but he shadowboxes AGAINST him & it’s like oh shit movie alright let’s go
and it makes me cry like 5 times every time I watch it & i have seen it 10 times easy

would you believe I agree with almost all of that?

when I posted earlier I almost added what makes Creed interesting isn’t that it’s good (bc it’s at best a fight scenario) but that Coogler found a rocky story worth telling at all. and as with Bo the attention to detail is really evident. This is not a guy who’s comfortable painting by numbers ever and that is fkn rare I will see anything he shoots.

I’d mainly like to tell everyone who called Killmonger a villain instead of an antagonist to shut the fuck up

I get it, and allow me to provide everyone with some large salts in granulated form, but isn't "villain" kind of a genre jargon term for whomever the "hero" faces off against?

i went back & watched fruitvale & creed in the last few days & Coogler is so good at small, uber-personal & tightly focused stories cradled within these fairly huge settings/backdrops. his emotional beats are so good & so real that in being *so* personal and *so* focused that while speaking so beautifully to his & so many ppl’s specifically black experience, it’s unintentionally, or just naturally inclusive rather than isolating - because on some level, complicated unfiltered raw emotion, hurt, anger, loss, is relatably human as well.

* i heard an interview the other day & i didn’t realize til then that he has a speech impediment. which only makes me love him more. my dad has a stutter so i always feel solidarity w ppl who are trying to overcome that.

Really enjoyed this piece

https://www.theroot.com/audiences-across-africa-hail-black-panther-for-humanizi-1823155921

He's a guy who does bad things who needs to be stopped by the hero. That doesn't make him a villain? Is it just because he's angry and motivated?

smdh

Xp, is it a speech impediment? I thought it was just a very pronounced version of the NorCal/Oakland accent, a la Marshawn Lynch: https://youtu.be/IBMCZN9TYbM

http://www.learnersdictionary.com/definition/villain

http://www.learnersdictionary.com/definition/antagonist

xpost that for sure but Coogler definitely has a speech impediment on top of all that - he's obviously worked on it but it's there. he gets 'stuck' sometimes at the beginning of a sentence, where he'll repeat a sentence fragment a few times before he moves through the whole thing, definitely noticeable in situations where he's nervous.

killmonger did nothing wrong, everything he did was consistent with his sympathetic, yet contrary and violent, relatable views

t’challa opposed him philosophically and definitely opposed his course of action but remained sympathetic throughout — his bad acts were in the service of a goal that was disagreed with, but was understandable. being the king means taking blame for your nation, and his nation fucked up

what about when he killed his girlfriend

what movie did you watch

didn't he kill that co-conspirator lady he was smooching with?

and also the guards killed in the museum, they were killed in service of ... ?