Black Panther (2018), dir Ryan Coogler

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.

then again, i don't think the purpose of watching a film is to vigorously scan for aspects of the film's ideology that i disagree with ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

having said that it would have been fun to have shuri pilot the plane instead and send ross up to the surface to get turned into jam by a heavily-armoured attack rhino

i just hope they go into space in the next film and take that afro-futurism to the next level.

Shuri for Nova Prime

i'll bet they could make their entire nation a spaceship...just sayin'....

Re: the ost, it’s very cohesive and makes a great album to listen to.
And « All the Stars » has a classic 80s soundtrack main song feel. Love it. And I haven’t even seen the film !

it was a little disappointing that they didn't manage to fit in a few more tracks from the score, but as mentioned upthread, the score was plenty evocative. Was nice to catch a bit of Mozzy in that final Oakland scene though

I had a moment of fridge logic about a half hour after leaving the movie when I realized the "tell me a story" bit at the very beginning was Eric and his father, not T'Challa and T'Chaka. Also that whole opening was fucking cool as hell, as good as if not better than the similar bit in Wonder Woman.

Oh that is a good point.

Also: piloting a spaceship by meditating - awesome or completely awesome?

I thought that was more "meditating while the autopilot is on"

The meditation-as-rocketship idea has strong Afrofuturist sanction:
https://cdn.albumoftheyear.org/album/20906-om.jpg

(ok lol i can't find my copy of more brilliant than the sun to back this claim up)

I love how they refer to the guards at the start as "these two Grace Jones looking chicks."

I couldn't not think of Willie D saying "YOU REMIND ME OF THAT MONKEY LOOKIN BITCH GRACE JONES"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sWfk1H6ZpE

I wonder if the Coog is a Geto Boys fan considering he got a Too $hort song and two Public Enemy posters in here, much respect

Loved the music in this btw! Baaba Maal!

Would have been neat if they got the Bomb Squad to do some of the score, but the music in this was a nice change of pace, especially for a Marvel movie.

Yeah, however, you gotta remember that the lefty political stuff of Huey P Newton poster/Public Enemy poster represented the bad guy(!!) and the more personal Kendrick stuff represented the good guy, so it makes sense that it was Sounwave

It's kind of wild to think about how the Killmonger ethos of "seize the means of production and weaponize the oppressed" would have fit right in on ca. 1992 Bay Area rap records like 2Pac, Paris and the Coup; and now something being universally praised as one of the most radical movies of all time treats that like an throwback for a bad guy's origin story

Dammmnnnnnn

well in the nineties, the oppressed hadn't weaponized our own passenger planes against us, and we hadn't responded by occupying two countries on bullshit assumptions and pretense

I didn't get that. T'Chaka's brother who was embedded in Oakland as a spy was violating their non-intervention rules by trying to introduce Wakandan technology, even hiring someone to break into Wakanda to steal it at great cost to his own people. It wasn't that they weren't willing to help people outside Wakanda, it was they refused to tip their hand and provide material resources.

Would have been neat if they got the Bomb Squad to do some of the score,

the Bomb Squad split up 25 years ago (almost 28 for the proper lineup!) so nah

I know, I meant reunited in some regard.

Fun observations: Killmonger's "Hey, Auntie" brought the house down in my theater, as did Danai Gurira taking off her wig and throwing it in a guy's face.

oh yeah that was a great line

my favourite gurira moment was her sly little grin and wink to shuri when t’challa arrives in wakanda for the first time - just a lovely little character touch that perfectly punctures the cool detachment we’ve seen from her up to that point

I know, I meant reunited in some regard.

yeah but my point is that they'd suck now if they did

Biggest reactions in my theater were to "hey, auntie," and maybe Killmonger going "'S'up." Driest joke maybe the "sneakers" joke. Lil' sis got a lot of good lines. No one laughed at the soundcloud/mixtape joke.

yeah, all the WHAT ARE THOSE MY SOUNDCLOUD MIXTAPE I MADE IT RAIN jokes were super cringey and I was thinking, "What do these guys think we're teenagers or something?" and then it's like ... "Oh... oh yeah."

i did enjoy ‘what are thoooooose’ because i still miss vine

but those jokes in the hands of the white dudes were maybe intentionally cringey?