Xixax Film Forum

Film Discussion => The Vault => Topic started by: jenkins on February 12, 2018, 01:44:32 AM

Title: Black Panther
Post by: jenkins on February 12, 2018, 01:44:32 AM
16 February 2018 (USA)

this is the comic book movie to see this year isn't it, isn't this it?
Title: Re: Black Panther
Post by: WorldForgot on February 12, 2018, 01:56:35 PM
Took a t-break from the good greenz for this! More than ready to teleport into Wakanda via the TCL Chinese'z laser-tech. Expecting Coogler's blockbuster phenom to be Marvel's first genuine explosion of personality since GotG Vol 1 ~
Title: Re: Black Panther
Post by: ©brad on February 12, 2018, 04:56:15 PM
Quote from: jenkins on February 12, 2018, 01:44:32 AMthis is the comic book movie to see this year isn't it, isn't this it?

Yup. I stopped watching comic book movies years ago but I'm so pumped for this one.
Title: Re: Black Panther
Post by: Drenk on February 12, 2018, 05:01:10 PM
I didn't like Creed. And Marvel movies are Marvel movies.

So my comic book movie of the year is this one.

Title: Re: Black Panther
Post by: jenkins on February 12, 2018, 09:52:58 PM
there's this earliesh scene with Creed at like a table and Michael B. Jordan crushes it in this vital human way that's every bit as essential to the Rocky franchise as boxing, so i can't imagine a better contemporary entry into the Rocky franchise and i think it exceeds despite the possible limitations of the type of movie it is, and i'm therefore going to apply this perspective toward seeing Black Panther, hopefully, i'm actually in this "serious" phase and i have to cut loose, like i did last year for Skull Island, and Skull Island paid off for me, so in short the easy sounds complex but it'll sort itself out like how all narratives do.

Into the Spider-Verse i'll have to see since animation can embody imaginative faculties to a high degree. animation begins and ends from a perspective of infinite possibility. the creative forces are charged. and it's not until December anyway.
Title: Re: Black Panther
Post by: Sleepless on February 15, 2018, 03:07:31 PM
actually

Title: Re: Black Panther
Post by: samsong on February 16, 2018, 04:46:00 AM
well, this was no paddington 2, but then again, thats an impossibly high bar to clear.

hugely disappointing.  would go so far as to say it's bad.  almost dc bad. 
Title: Re: Black Panther
Post by: jenkins on February 16, 2018, 12:03:27 PM
okay yeah that's not the kind of attitude i'm going to bring into seeing the movie.
Title: Re: Black Panther
Post by: Kal on February 17, 2018, 12:19:55 AM
Quote from: samsong on February 16, 2018, 04:46:00 AM
well, this was no paddington 2, but then again, thats an impossibly high bar to clear.

hugely disappointing.  would go so far as to say it's bad.  almost dc bad.

I know this isn't a superhero loving board, but I don't understand how this movie is bad... as far as comic book adaptations and superhero movies go, it's pretty great I think and I am very impressed with Coogler's work once again, the visuals, the music, and loved the cast.
Title: Re: Black Panther
Post by: WorldForgot on February 17, 2018, 05:11:03 AM
Ludwig Goransson's score is something else ~

Really dig this flick. It feels like a genuine burst of personality. The first since Guardians Vol 1, maybe. Michael B Jordan, as always, elevates every scene (and every other performance). Usually the sidekicks in Marvel movies don't do anything for the dynamics or story but Princess Shuri and Nakia + Okoye feel fully realized, T'Challa'z missing pieces. So, yes, the performances, but also the script. It's tight. An origin story that considers 'origin' as thematic scope.

Ruth Carter's costume designs go from Bond to tribal futurism and back.
If T'Challa is new Cap can Shuri be new Stark? plz n tx
Title: Re: Black Panther
Post by: samsong on February 17, 2018, 06:53:36 PM
the last paragraph of keith uhlich's review sums it up pretty well for me:

"The tension between commerce and craftsmanship is a key facet of American pop cinema. But as the budgets for blockbuster tentpoles have gotten larger and the projects more risk-averse (with Marvel Studios and its parent company, Walt Disney Pictures, as Exhibit A overlords of the trend) it's become much too easy to acclaim fleeting inspiration and shallow gesturing toward diversity and goodwill as some kind of apogee. There is no doubt that Coogler makes the most that he can out of this property. And it's more than certain that Black Panther will give audiences, especially underrepresented ones, a vision of themselves that Hollywood historically denies. And still the film seems, even at its best, like an apex of lowered expectations."

i thought coogler was clearly in over his head handling something this big.  any semblance of personal style creed (i haven't seen fruitvale station) hinted at is virtually gone in black panther.  it's a very sterile product off the marvel production line.  on a technical level i found the movie wholly mediocre.  the action set pieces are pretty lifeless and incoherent. 
it's clear coogler understands the cultural importance of a movie like this with his thematic moon shots, but his reach exceeds his grasp by quite a bit.   well intentioned but really poorly executed.

Title: Re: Black Panther
Post by: ono on February 17, 2018, 07:56:13 PM
I watched the trailer because of the hype, but it made it seem like it wasn't really about anything.  Seemed like a black Avatar, but I've never seen either.  Point being, I want to embrace a movie like this, but there's no reason yet for me to, and I think samsong's last paragraph sums up how I would probably feel about it.
Title: Re: Black Panther
Post by: jenkins on February 17, 2018, 08:04:19 PM
personally i feel calmer now, it's becoming clearer to me. "more people are going to see this than have read The Invisible Man" has been my favorite high-culture insult. Ellison of course. i like that it's letting people down, that they're giving it really high expectations. that's interesting. it's a comic book movie! what days we live in. i most prefer people in over their heads with something big, plus moon shots, and i have zero idea what the marvel production line is like. he brought in his dp and i think he did all he could do to make it his own. it's just not a high-culture genre, i mean....
Title: Re: Black Panther
Post by: BB on February 17, 2018, 09:22:23 PM
Quote from: jenkins on February 17, 2018, 08:04:19 PM
it's just not a high-culture genre, i mean....

Haven't seen this yet, but you beg an interesting question: could it become one? If these things are really here to stay, is somebody gonna make a true art film out of one? Sure, there have been gestures towards elevating the material, but I'm talking an out and out Bela Tarr comic book movie.
Title: Re: Black Panther
Post by: WorldForgot on February 18, 2018, 12:21:14 PM
Quote from: BB on February 17, 2018, 09:22:23 PM
Quote from: jenkins on February 17, 2018, 08:04:19 PM
it's just not a high-culture genre, i mean....

Haven't seen this yet, but you beg an interesting question: could it become one? If these things are really here to stay, is somebody gonna make a true art film out of one? Sure, there have been gestures towards elevating the material, but I'm talking an out and out Bela Tarr comic book movie.

Mangold suggests he did with Logan.

There's no shallow gesturing in this film. Even the punchlines to their jokes are coded with cultural dialogue. While I agree it's clear these films are formulated by Disney committee, Coogler injected as much meaning to each beat of the formula as can work within the (Marvel) origin story aesthetic and skeleton.

On top of that, it doesn't feel like a director going through the motions to fulfill that skeleton, either (Iron Man 2, Ant Man, Thor), but somebody whose films have all been about primarily race and violence, eager, etching Black pride onto the Disney catalog of Princes, Princesses, and mythical personas, all the while keeping his thread of rage intact. The casino brawl here is Creed lvl fluid. But its ritual combat, that's layered in its own way. A bluff and a precipice. All the rest, aesthetically, is prescribed by the studio/producers, as it goes with this sort of movie. The costume designs pay homage to so much history (Oscar Grant intertextuality via the prologue'z styling, traditional body mods, natural hair from every black character), its score interplays between the traditional and modern in this really fun leaps, gah, Xixax... "I'm just feelin it."
Title: Re: Black Panther
Post by: jenkins on February 18, 2018, 03:21:49 PM
WorldForgot xx.

i went to see it and i don't want to talk about this/that. i don't care. i adored this movie.
Title: Re: Black Panther
Post by: Punch Drunk Hate on February 18, 2018, 05:44:40 PM
As someone who isn't a Comic Book person, do you think this film would worked for me? I'm curiosity of all the cooperative elements of Afro-culture that makes up the world in the film. It's heartening to think a majority-black casted film will dominated the global box office and hope this will be a wakeup call for Hollywood executives who keep propitiating the myth that films starting a black actor don't travel overseas.
Title: Re: Black Panther
Post by: jenkins on February 18, 2018, 06:15:11 PM
as far as i can tell the less you think about it as a comic book movie the better. whatever the qualifications of a comic book movie are, and they sound as rigorous as any other qualification, this movie works at an elemental level. it has what's called a radiating theme. and it's a mature voice succeeding in the mainstream, which is a great type of movie, always a great piece of art. yes i think it'd work for you.
Title: Re: Black Panther
Post by: Tictacbk on March 07, 2018, 02:11:57 AM
I gotta say, it kinda bums me out that xixax seems to be embracing Game Night more than Black Panther. I liked it!
Title: Re: Black Panther
Post by: ono on March 10, 2018, 12:23:53 PM
There are like two posts in the Game Night thread.  Wat?  :)
Title: Re: Black Panther
Post by: pete on March 17, 2018, 11:38:32 PM
I like that this movie exists. I know I shouldn't be distracted by the cinematography and the effects but I am. I hope the movie works properly on the younger ones out there who'd really benefit from seeing a non-cynical superhero movie that actually seems to inspire and seems to understand actual world struggles instead of mere geopolitical jibber jabber like Captain America (tho he's my favorite superhero and winter soldier was the best executed marvel movie).
Title: Re: Black Panther
Post by: Drenk on March 18, 2018, 09:02:14 AM
I can't give a pass to Marvel. Black Panther is ugly, but it's not new for them. Those movies make billions and I should think that they can't make two people at the top of a mountain not look ridiculous? They don't care.
Title: Re: Black Panther
Post by: pete on March 19, 2018, 01:53:42 PM
especially when Star Wars that works with similar budget and schedule consistently has looked pretty amazing.
Title: Re: Black Panther
Post by: BB on March 19, 2018, 04:33:42 PM
Yeah, they seem to have settled in to Joss Whedon's Avengers aesthetic template, which is peculiar because I remember Iron Man being a little more interesting to look at (though it has been a while). Kind of like DC settling on Zack Snyder's artificial weirdly muted-yet-high-contrast look when they had the Nolan movies right there.

Title: Re: Black Panther
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on January 29, 2019, 12:50:12 AM
Finally got around to Black Panther to see what all the fuss was about. I'm not sure if I had unreasonable expectations, but this seemed like a very standard comic book movie with average execution. Aside from its cultural context and importance (which I know should not be understated), the only special thing about this movie was a handful of good performances. Otherwise, yeah, I was pretty dismayed by how poor the writing was. The movie's visual scope was shockingly limited — didn't get to see much of Wakanda, and what we did see looked like unfinished effects.

Spoiler: ShowHide
A couple story things really stuck in my craw and continue to erode my opinion of the film.

The challenge ceremony is reeeaaaal dumb. This technologically-advanced society chooses its all-powerful leader based on a wrestling match? Nope, don't buy it. There isn't even any discernible religious meaning attached to it. They just care about physical strength that much, I guess. What are they, the Dothraki? I know this is a trope that goes way back, but maybe cut that part out of the mythology, because it's extremely stupid.

Except obviously it's needed to open the door for Killmonger. Which is why it's there. Of course.

My other complaint is actually much more significant. Killmonger's plan basically involves becoming an Afro-futurist Hitler. That's fine, but at least offer more than one sentence of dialogue about it. This is what your movie hinges on. Can we get just a little explanation? They have their spies or whatever (sleeper cells?) already stationed in countries around the world where black people are oppressed. So umm, are these like, miniature armies? Squads of dudes with laser spears are going to stage a bunch of military coups simultaneously? Was this always a potentiality? Going to need a little more info. They just hand-wave it, though. No time, sorry, next action scene.