Black Panther

Started by jenkins, February 12, 2018, 01:44:32 AM

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jenkins

16 February 2018 (USA)

this is the comic book movie to see this year isn't it, isn't this it?

WorldForgot

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 ~

©brad

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.

Drenk

I didn't like Creed. And Marvel movies are Marvel movies.

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

Ascension.

jenkins

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.

Sleepless

He held on. The dolphin and all the rest of its pod turned and swam out to sea, and still he held on. This is it, he thought. Then he remembered that they were air-breathers too. It was going to be all right.

samsong

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. 

jenkins

okay yeah that's not the kind of attitude i'm going to bring into seeing the movie.

Kal

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.

WorldForgot

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

samsong

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.


ono

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.

jenkins

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....

BB

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.

WorldForgot

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."