Black Panther (2018), dir Ryan Coogler

it's no batman begins

also: final fight involves a monorail

once the credits were rolling and they were both still kicking (uh spoilers i guess) she realised that it might have been cuz movies have kinda conditioned audiences to expect horrible things to happen to sidekicks/women/black people

― albondigas con gas (bizarro gazzara), Saturday, February 17, 2018

and it's deeply disappointing that nothing horrible happens to martin freeman. every minute he's given in the third act made me crazy lol. (not his fault - he's great, just the part is completely unnecessary other than as a defensive placement to counter #notallcolonizers)

his presence was legit the worst thing about this movie cuz every time he showed up all i could think was ‘this is what this shithead believes irl’

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B8FVWPpCAAIiWKf?format=jpg&name=medium

jesus

"I really liked hip-hop until the gangsta rap took over. I come from a time when not every rap record was 'nigga' this and 'nigga' that; an earlier socially and morally conscious hip-hop sensibility, when it was, 'Don't call people nigga'."

"But now it's nigga, nigga, nigga, and it's not funny or interesting politically, artistically or socially. I really don't like it.

typical fkn hobbit

haven't seen this yet but was caught by the straight-facedness of this headline

https://shadowandact.com/erik-killmonger-forgotten-wakanda/?utm_content=buffer05587&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

?utm_content=buffer05587&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

oh man now shadowandact.com is going to know we clicked on that link on facebook using a link promoted via the buffer tool :(

we didn't tho

help stet make ad $ again

David Brothers:

The black cast and...ambiance (for lack of a better) is tight. But treating this as a civil rights victory or the first time we’ve been here feels like erasure to me. It’s a Marvel movie with a cool cultural hook after actual decades of lip service. Let it be what it is.

— brothers before others, LLC (@hermanos) February 16, 2018

(part of a small thread)

also, his and Tucker Stone's analysis of Panther's Rage by McGregor & Graham & al got compiled and republished this week :Fear Of A Black Panther

great stuff. thanks for sharing the link.

Film crit hulk had an interesting take : https://filmcrithulk.blog/2018/02/17/black-panthers-right-thing/

yeah that’s a good piece

this part resonated in particular:

Wakanda’s very existence posits that what actually stopped Africa’s development was the theft of Africa itself. From the theft of resources, to the theft of their bodies, to the theft of their very personhood.

In blunt business terms this is fully rampaging:

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

Disney is reporting Sunday estimates of $192M over 3-days for Black Panther and $218M over four, however, Black Panther domination is far from over. Industry estimates indicating a $195M three-day for Marvel’s Black Panther and a $225M 4-day. That four-day is a wild number, some have it as low as $218M and others well north of $230M.

As someone noted on Twitter, if you want a bit of hilarity -- if it does in fact hit $230 million, then it will surpass Justice League....'s entire domestic run. ($228 million.)

martin freeman seems to be yet another of these fucking awful wite-pod-people grown from cuttings from the wellerian-wiggins genus. what a fucking cunt.

Meantime, enjoyed this reflection on the movie greatly:

https://theglowup.theroot.com/dont-play-with-our-emotions-black-panther-and-queer-re-1823022917

he's been in a Weller video xpost

there's a surprise!

*thinks up wildwood/mirkwood joke*
*deletes account/brain*

Freeman is hardline leftist Labour iirc, he was one of the early celebrity Corbyn supporters in the leadership election and has been in at least one Lab PPB since.

He also voted and campaigned for Scargill's breakaway Labour party in 2001 because he could never dream of voting for a right wing sell-out like Blair who he's talked about ruining Labour.

he still seems like a complete twat in that old Mail piece.

calzino are there any British people who have been on camera that you don’t hate

mrs slocombe obv

just ignore me, celebz r gr8.

it’s long been established on britisher ilx that martin freeman is bad not good iirc

god almighty have we worked for nothing?

Ye have been disregarded as fringe lunatics long since

Sure many of ye tolerate dr who ffs

gj film crit hulk

thanks for sharing that. I gave up on him over the schtick so long ago and I would have completely missed it and I’m glad I didn’t. that’s the movie I saw, and that’s the way I read it.

it’s a larger issue and it’s the reason artists are always first against the wall but the inability of both woke and racist twitter to tolerate the least ambiguity is maddening.

I thought this was pretty good, though perhaps not as great as it's been made out to be. As per the usual, I doubt I'd be able to sit through it again. Loved the actors, though Freeman was totally unnecessary and Whitaker, as usual as of late, teeters on the brink of terrible.

The only thing that bugged me at all (and it's a minor thing, which I suppose is doubly impressive) is the notion that Martin Freeman's character would be impressed by Wakanda tech in a world with Iron Man and his tech, space aliens, flying fortresses, killer robots, the Vision, Hulks, Thors etc. The bar is set pretty high. Like, "wow, you have hover trains?" Don't pretend to be impressed, Martin Freeman.

It's because he's racist

Wow, thanks for the Film Hulk tip upthread, I forgot he existed, too, but that essay was great.

i wanted to love this but i kinda didn't. everyone looked amazing though. i just wanted to see lupita and danai and black panther go out into the wider world and kick ass for two hours. but the set-up took so long and all you got was the guy from friday night lights being all pissed off. so the korea part was my fave part i guess. the rhino battle just wasn't that amazing. i wish their enemy had been the c.i.a.

also they should have left that c.i.a. guy to die. who wants to see him be a hero? he was dumb.

the rhino battle just wasn't that amazing. i wish their enemy had been the c.i.a.

Ha ha, I agree!

I thought it was pretty obvious that Freeman is supposed to be the white audience surrogate and that his reaction to the whole underground Wakanda setup is genuine, and from essentially the same context as a person who has seen all the preceding terrestrial Marvel movies. He’s also there as a setup for a lot of decent gags. Basically, he is Agent Everett K. Ross, but with a less pathetic back story than the comic book version. I don’t see why people have such a problem except the general hatred of Freeman that seems to pervade the ilxosphere.

My wife asked if this Ross was related to Thunderbolt Ross and I didn't know the answer.

1. How do the suits know when to drop the face mask part? Does that just happen whenever the wearer starts talking or emoting?

2. Why didn’t Shuri make better armor for Nakia and herself? I mean all the vibranium is right there

3. Michael B. Jordan will always be Wallace.

4. Wakanda living appears to be hard on men. Between 1992 and whatever year it is in “present day” MCU, T’Chaka and Zuri both appear to have packed in an extra decade somewhere.

5. I think I like the score the most of about any MCU entry, but I’m a sucker for odd time signatures and syncopation.

6. Oh and the line outside before our showing was as long around the block as it was when I saw The Force Awakens at the same place three years ago.

I thought this was...fine.

Thanks, I've translated that and I figured as much.

So many awesome and it beautiful gems in this. I really didn't expect to care for this since I don't like the Marvel movies, but I'm so glad I was wrong. Shuri should get her own movie, btw.

Michael B. Jordan will always be Wallace.

i get where you're coming from with this since wallace is such an brilliantly-written, indelibly-performed part but he's more than proved himself enough since to put distance between himself and wallace

i really liked the way killmonger's pain and vulnerability is always visible underneath his anger and aggression - it really is another great performance

5. I think I like the score the most of about any MCU entry, but I’m a sucker for odd time signatures and syncopation.

my classically-trained percussionist wife was really impressed fwiw

I didn’t mean that in a bad way. I mean that I can’t help but see Wallace when he’s on, and/or Wallace informs everything he does, but I can’t tell which is going on. Especially in a role like this. He was great of course, I mostly agree with everyone saying he’s the best villain in the MCU so far. To veer off into fanfic territory for a minute, I feel like he and Loki could have had some good conversations.

7. N’Dajaka / Killmonger’s MO isn’t the only thing rooted in his time with the black ops JSOC whatchamajig. His outlook and his stated goals are all a projection of American Exceptionalism and neoconservative interventionism onto Wakanda and the African diaspora. He doesn’t even want to start on the continent, he wants to disrupt world capitals in Europe, Asia and North America first - classic USA.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could have a President make a speech as good as T’Challa’s in the mid-credits, though.

A...black president?

Cmon man

His outlook and his stated goals are all a projection of American Exceptionalism and neoconservative interventionism onto Wakanda and the African diaspora.

yeah despite all the handwringing over having a white cia guy help save the day i think it's worth noting that ross explicitly says at one point that killmonger's plan is based on the training the cia gave him - there is a lot more explicit criticism of imperialism than critics are giving it credit for

He's also their monster, in a sense. He was abandoned by his African family and raised by the US military, which adds another layer of complexity to the character.

The Attack The Block essay in the 'see also' links under the Film Crit Hulk is very very see also, though it is in Film Crit Hulk voice.

Also a lot of the time, the bits where Erik's pain and vulnerability come through _are_ the bits where he's most Wallace to my eyes - I don't know if that's a specific choice on MBJ's part or if that's just what he looks like when he's in that register.

That’s a better way of putting it, thanks AF.

yeah, i'd def agree with that

Also uncanny likeness

yeah despite all the handwringing over having a white cia guy help save the day i think it's worth noting that ross explicitly says at one point that killmonger's plan is based on the training the cia gave him - there is a lot more explicit criticism of imperialism than critics are giving it credit for

totally agree with this. calling t'challa "a cia-backed monarch," as I've seen, erases the deep world-building and history that the movie works so hard to establish.