I was just digesting the shocking news of Chadwick Boseman's death when I heard about Charles R. Saunders, Sword and Soul pioneer and lovely man, who has also passed away. Fellow Howard reader Ben Friberg's parting gift to me before my long absence from Cross Plains was a copy of Imaro: The Naama War, which I read as soon as I got home to Scotland. Fellow New-Pulp and black speculative fiction creators Milton Davis, Kiini Ibura Salaam, Gareth Miles, & Derrick Ferguson offered tributes, as well as Locus Magazine, Ron Fortier, Ryan Harvey, Keith West, Taaq Kirksey, & no doubt more to come.
I had a feeling Black Panther would be my favourite Marvel film for a while now. The first trailer indicated to me that this was going to be a film steeped in the lore, ambiance, and spirit of Africa. I've always loved that continent: the many peoples, the fauna, the landscapes. So much of my favourite pulp adventure - Burroughs, Haggard, Howard - is set in a historical, mythic, or fantastical version of Africa. But so many of these stories are written from the adventurer's perspective - someone going to Africa, where Africa is a faraway land of wonders and mysteries. From the African perspective, Africa is home: it's always been there, they've always been there. Black Panther, being the creation of two North Americans, started life as an outsider's interpretation of an African superhero. Black Panther, the film, seeks to bring him home.
The results are plain to see: an all-star cast and senior crew from all across the world, almost all of whom have a direct or ancestral link to the continent. It isn't an adventure so much as a homecoming.
The depth and richness of Black Panther could easily inspire thousands of words of critique and analysis, from the languages to the clothing; the architecture to the martial arts; the music to the dances. To demonstrate the film's profundity, I'm going to look at one seemingly tiny aspect of the film across three posts, and explore the possibilities and meaning therein - the Gorilla God of the Jabari.
We knew then, that we were being changed... and made part of their world. We didn't know for what purpose... but we knew, we would be told.
- Closing narration, Phase IV
Watching Ant-Man, you can definitely tell what was Edgar Wright, and what was Marvel. I would have loved to have seen Wright's version, of course, but I enjoyed the final film knowing its convoluted history. It was at its best when it shied away from the standard Only You Can Save The World element, as well as the needlessly extended Call To Heroism/Training for Battle section of the film - it was when the film did the things that you wouldn't see in Thor or Iron Man that made it shine. As Captain America: The Winter Soldier was a '70s spy thriller, Ant-Man is a heist movie, appropriate for the character.
Of course, being a science fiction aficionado, I couldn't help but think of other things...
(All the images in this review are from Phase IV, Saul Bass's only feature-length film: visually striking and very weird in the classic British Science-Fiction style. Well worth a watch.)
(Once again, many apologies for the dearth of posts recently.)
As a fan of many things, one has to wonder at times where the distinction between tasteful understated nerdrage and entitled whining lies. Being a fan means enjoying things, but unfortunately that amount of enjoyment can sometimes lead to an equal and opposite dislike of things when it eclipses, disreputes, or is otherwise perceived to threaten the thing you like.
Current fandom doesn’t just get upset when their favorite shows get cancelled, their preferred films flop, or casting choices for their favorite projects go awry. They take to the Internet to absolutely demand that they get their way as a matter of moral principle, damn the business logistics or any other logical obstacles in their way. They swear up and down that not only was John Carter a great movie (debatable) but that it absolutely was a financially successful film that absolutely deserves a sequel. Never mind that it earned $282 million on a $250m budget and lost Disney around $200m, it was merely misunderstood and this time will be totally different. They clamor for sequels to MacGruber, an amusing action-film spoof that couldn’t even match its $10m budget at the worldwide box office. They start online petitions demanding Dredd 2 even though distributor Lionsgate and producer Reliance Big Pictures lost out when the $45m Dredd grossed just $35m at the global box office. I adore Speed Racer, but I and others like me don’t run around pretending that it wasn’t a costly flop that doesn’t justify a sequel. Sometimes one is enough and we should be thankful we got that one.
Despite Mendelson's tone getting my heckles up a bit, I think it's worth examining a few things.
Saw it a few days ago, before I went to the States. I’m not
going to write a full review, but I do feel
sufficiently moved to comment on one thing that really got my brain whirring –
the villain.
As it is, Iron
Man Three is another fun superhero film with top-notch effects, some sparkling
dialogue, a few very inventive set pieces, one or two moments of attempted
profundity, and plenty of nods and winks to fans of the comics. In my opinion,
it’s better than the second film, though not as successful as the first: it’s
largely middle-of-the-road as Marvel Cinematic Universe films go.
But the
villain! What an incredible, brilliant, paradigm-shifting antagonist the
Mandarin was... or could have been, if the film had any guts.
2012 is a year inundated with projects that seem like licenses to print money. We had 3D re-releases of the first instalment of a pop culture phenomenon and one of the most successful films in cinematic history, and we have yet to look forward to the finale of Chris Nolan's shockingly lucrative Batman series, the return of Ridley Scott to the Alien universe, and the first half of a cinematic prequel to what is undoubtedly one of the biggest fantasy film success stories in recent memory. The Phantom Menace, Titanic, The Dark Knight Rises, Prometheus and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey would be sure things in any one year, but fate has brought them all together - and to top it all off, in the same year as a film many comic fans considered an impossible dream not five years ago.
I saw The Avengers on the 26th of April with my ever-tireless assistant. In a year filled with undeserved flops like John Carter and infuriating successes like Wrath of the Titans,* I really could do with a blockbuster that wasn't criminally underrated or undeservedly successful, at least in my estimation. It remains to be seen whether The Avengers gets the type of money Disney were looking for, but I would be astonished if they didn't.
Alright, we all know I really, really want Isaiah Mustafa to be Luke Cage. Fortuitously, Isaiah Mustafa really, really wants to be Luke Cage too: so much, in fact, that he shot this little teaser video giving us an idea of what a Luke Cage movie might be like.
Admittedly, my preferred choice of Luke Cage film would be one set in the '70s with the rest of the Heroes for Hire, but damn, I'll take this.
Hollywood, you know the drill: give Isaiah Mustafa whatever the hell he needs to MAKE THIS HAPPEN. Just don't Jonah Hex it.
