Tinsel & Tine's Look at
BLACK PANTHER
By Le Anne Lindsay, Editor
I don’t follow comic books, but I do consider myself a “Blerd” (Black Nerd). I’m all about superhero movies, Sci-Fi Flicks, Game of Thrones, totally love Fantasy, so I see every MCU & D.C. movie that comes out, but the excitement for BLACK PANTHER starring Chadwick Boseman was palpable, building since Captain America: Civil War. Whenever I’d get depressed about something, I console myself by saying, but Black Panther is coming out soon! I took a day off from work to see the press screening, I bought a T-shirt, I even bought a comic book during the @AmalgamPhilly Black Panther panel discussion and party!
It’s a major event to have Disney & Marvel provide an A-List Hollywood marketing roll out for a movie starring a mainly black cast, written and directed by a black man (Ryan Coogler) who I got to interview way back in 2013 when his first film came out Fruitvale Station and I’m ashamed to say it, but he seemed so uncomfortable with the attention that movie was receiving at the time, that I didn’t think he’d amount to anything. So I was blown away when he wrote & directed the Rocky movie Creed, but this… Wow, he’s really arrived. And the black community came out to support him.
Of course you can’t talk about Black Panther without talking about the strength of the female characters – Tech Genius. Warrior General. Activist Spy. Queen Mother. None of them are fighting over a guy, being catty or needing to be saved. They are fierce, proud, intelligent and capable. How are you not gonna love the all bald female warrior army “the Dora Milage”. Can’t help but wonder who would win in a fight between them and the Amazon’s of Themyscira? It might be the Dora Milage because when Gen Okoya (Danai Gurira) stops that charging armor plated Rhino in its tracks, just by her mere presence, I mean that’s cool!
Not to mention, a female Production designer, Hannah Beachler and Costume designer Ruth E. Carter and Oscar nominated (Mudbound) Rachel Morrison as cinematographer.
I’ve seen Letitia Wright (Shuri) in that famous episode of Black Mirror with the Black Museum, but didn’t pay the actress as much attention as the show. But she’s got my attention now as the “Q” of Wakanda. I've added to my Netflix queue the movie Urban Hymn (2015) which she starred in about a troubled girl in the system who’s encouraged by a social worker to find herself through singing. From the trailer it looks like Letitia has a great voice too.
And Oscar winner (12 Years a Slave) and fashion icon Lupita Nyong'o (Nakia) gets to be the object of affection and desire, while at the same time being all about her mission, which T’Challa totally respects despite obviously wanting her to be his queen.
To be fair, I was also excited last year with Hidden Figures portrayal of super intelligent black females at NASA. That movie took pride in encouraging women to enter the STEM fields of (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and now these women in "Black Panther" have taken it all to a new level. As a black woman, my heart almost burst with pride and excitement. Thank you Ryan Coogler & Joe Robert Cole for writing this story and thank you MCU for allowing them the freedom. These guys understand the tropes of good storytelling. They borrow themes we’re familiar with like from James Bond & The Lion King but use them effectively, so as not to feel copied, but a shorthand.
I’m also not taking anything away from Anthony Mackie as The Falcon or Don Cheadle in Iron Man, but of course we all know they are sidekicks and really would never warrant their own movie. What I like about Chadwick Boseman’s portrayal of Black Panther is his lack of ego. He’s really there to be King first, Black Panther second and accepts the fact that it literally takes a village to protect Wakanda and their way of life.
After the screening a whole mess of Black Tribbles stayed to tape an episode of SPOILED TRIBBLES
which you can listen to below:
I also guested on THE LAMBcast BLACK PANTHER Podcast which will also get embedded here soon as it posts. And my 2.20.18 live segment on That's Show Biz w/ Chuck Darrow (WWDB-Talk-869) will feature Black Panther, which I'll link to podcast.
Which brings us to the simplistic yet inspired storyline of Wakanda itself, which is a wonderfully expressed dilemma; a big part of me feels like a sure fire way of turning a Utopia into a Dystopia is to let in outsiders. On the other hand, if your way of life, technology, funds can help the rest of the world, do you have a duty to share?
Coogler says he based aspects of his version of Wakanda on Lesotho, which were able to resist both the Zulus and the Boers, and was only lightly colonized by the British. Which reminds me - love when Shuri calls Martin Freeman’s character “Colonizer” this term for the white race, kinda makes me think of "Muggles" in Harry Potter - those without magic.
Totally didn’t see two villains coming in this movie. I assumed Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) would be a henchman to Klaue/Klaw (Andy Serkis) who is great fun; however, I feel we don’t really get the full sense of his long standing villainy with Wakanda, they talk about never having captured him before, but he doesn’t seem to possess as much power as I understand Klaw does in the comics. I think they down played him a bit because you also have Killmonger, with a great backstory, who truly at times is hard to see as a villain, except when he demands they burn all the purple flowers which gives the Black Panther his power. Which makes me wonder, why don’t they all just drink of the flower and become super human? It takes a lot of loyalty for the people to refrain and agree it’s only for the Black Panther/King to drink.
The first challenger M’Baku (Winston Duke) the leader of the White Gorilla tribe, who have lived separately from the rest of Wakandian society, is also a well-written side character. I understand in the comics he’s called Man-Ape and this is why this movie had to be written and directed by a person of color, because otherwise he might still be referred to as such in the movie, and that would have created a bad backlash. M'Baku is fierce and sexy, but also provides a couple of very humorous moments, telling Ross (Martin Freeman) to be quiet or they’ll eat him, cracks himself up, and then admits they're vegetarians!
Gorgeous world building, love the opening sequence explaining the Vibranium meteor that hit this part of Africa and how that created their way of life. I was expecting a slightly more pronounced visual opening of the city. When T’Challa, Nakia and Okoya first fly into Wakanda, we go from seeing the treetops to just being inside the Capital City. However, the Virtual Reality car chase and flight battle - leading-edge!
When the Wakandans aren't speaking English they're actually speaking Xhosa, a language spoken by the Bantu in South Africa. South African actor John Kani, who plays T’Challa’s father, T’Chaka, suggested using it while filming Captain America: Civil War and taught it to Chadwick Boseman.
Now I just wonder with the success of Black Panther is the D.C. Movie Universe going to move up the Cyborg movie with Ray Fisher which isn’t scheduled until April of 2020.
T & T's LAMB (movie bloggers association) Score: 5 outta 5 #WakandaForever!
(Note: all above links take you to the T&T post for that subject)
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