Uncategorized

https://blackgirlnerds.com/review-aquaman-and-the-lost-kingdom-brings-family-to-the-surface/

Maybe Jason Momoa and director James Wan have been spending too much time on the set of Fast and Furious, or maybe just being around Vin Diesel saturates your brain with one idea, because the central theme in DC Studios’ latest film, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, is family. Although the word family isn’t said a trillion times in the film, it is solidified throughout the film with the reminder that Aquaman is not only King of Atlantis but a father, a son, and a big brother. 

Jokes aside, I appreciated the direction the writers went with Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. It had its sweet and heartfelt moments, while still being a fun, action-packed, lively, superhero film. 

The film picks up as a direct sequel to Aquaman (2018). It is best to watch the first film for a refresher before watching this one. The film’s director and co-writer, James Wan, said it’s great to watch them both back to back. Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) is on a mission of vengeance. He wants to kill Arthur and all he holds dear as payback for his father’s death. While searching for a way to power his suit, Black Manta finds the Black Trident, a dark relic powered by an evil ancient force.

Between brief conversations on ocean preservation and global warming, Arthur must work with his little brother, Orm, to protect the kingdom and stop Black Manta from destroying the planet. Along with Momoa and Abdul-Mateen II, also returning is Patrick Willson as Orm, Nicole Kidman as Atlanna, Temuera Morrison as Tom Curry, Dolph Lundgren as King Nereus, and Amber Heard as Mera. New to the action (apart from the post-credit scene in Aquaman) is Randall Park, along with Martin Short, Jani Zhao, and Indya Moore.

One of the fun things about this film is its action sequences. The choreography, the stunts, and the pacing all work really well together in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. The jungle scenes are incredible and probably my favorite parts in this film. Any time Yahya Abdul-Mateen II uses the black trident is a notable experience. The final epic battle with trident versus trident is intense and captivating. The fighting choreo steps it up a notch compared to Aquaman (2018). Seeing these moments in IMAX 3D really makes it pop. It is also cool to see more of Atlantis. But it did leave me wondering where the human-like people hung out because all we saw were quirky CGI fish characters.

Speaking of baddie Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, he kills it as Black Manta. The ruthlessness, the ferociousness, the raw intensity all add up to a performance where he shows up and shows out. His upgraded suit is necessary for plot and substance. There was some clunkiness in the first film, but the kinks have been worked out in time for the sequel. He looks amazing, but his dialogue is lacking. The pain of losing his father and his brooding presence is felt, and he continues the villain role nicely. 

Patrick Wilson is honestly one of my favorite actors to watch. He has an acting quality that really makes those around him step up their game, which is why I think the brotherhood/family storyline worked. Orm had the biggest character development of all the characters in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. His character arc had more appeal in this sequel, even more so than Aquaman himself. While Momoa can deliver the comedy and corny lines, Wilson brings a sincerity and balance to the cast. He isn’t over the top or super dramatic but offers a well-deserved lesson in redemption.

The whole family theme is really thrown in our faces — not sure if the rewrites and reshoots had a lot to do with it, but the amount of Guinness and Aquaman dad montages seem unnecessary. Just when it feels like he was a single parent, a random shot of Mera (Heard) will occur. The Arthur and kid scenes seem like a different film and slightly clumsy. I would have respected it more if he were a single dad at that point trying to balance family, relationships, and ruling a kingdom. 

Other themes that didn’t hit as well were those centered on the Earth’s resources and the land and sea balance. What could have been a real Happy Feet moment ended up being a lackluster conversation in a film tiptoeing around the original reason Arthur took up the role as king in the first place: to keep Atlantis from attacking the surface. 

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is slightly predictable, but still entertaining. The theme of family sits at the center of the film with focus on the father-son and brother relationships. It’s nice to see superheroes in that “real life” light, but unfortunately, the daddy-and-me moments lack the heart and impact that the sibling bonding moments hold. The entire film is a little more grownup, but still uneven. Momoa has had a good run as Aquaman in the DC franchise, and I will be sad to see him go if this is indeed the last time he will don the gold and green.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is in theaters Friday, December 22, 2023.

https://nerdist.com/article/who-is-mrs-flood-in-doctor-who-christmas-special-ruby-sunday-mysterious-neighbor-will-she-return/

“The Church on Ruby Road” gave us a really cute Christmas special starring the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby Sunday. We met Ruby’s delightful family, including her loving adoptive mum Carla and her witty gran Cherry. Her neighborhood is also delightful, including her neighbor Mrs. Flood, played by Anita Dobson. The special teases an ongoing mystery about Ruby’s biological family but something strange is also going on with Mrs. Flood, too. She breaks the fourth wall at the end and it makes us all wonder what’s going on with her. Who is Mrs. Flood in Doctor Who? Let’s dig into how she appears in the episode and what she could do in the future. 

Near the beginning of the episode, Ruby Sunday comes home with two handfuls of groceries. We watch her neighbor Mrs. Flood argue with Abdul, another neighbor, about a large object that she’s sure he put on the sidewalk. That object is none other than the TARDIS. Abdul insists he knows nothing about this blue box. Ruby comes up and Mrs. Flood, who calls her Rubes, complains to her as Ruby looks at the box with lots of curiosity. She asks Mrs. Flood what it is and her neighbor says it is a police box. She admits she hasn’t seen one on the streets of London in around 50 years… and doesn’t want to see one now. 

Later in the episode, Mrs. Flood is walking home when she witnesses the TARDIS dematerializing. Of course, she’s in shock and drops her shopping bags. After the Doctor returns from saving baby Ruby in the past, he parks the TARDIS on the other side of the street. Mrs. Flood is rather chipper and waves hello to him. When he comes back out, they have a short conversation, including Mrs. Flood asking who he is. Predictably, the Fifteenth Doctor just says he’s passing through and she tells him to take care. At the end, Ruby comes out to inquire about the Doctor and Mrs. Flood points her to the TARDIS. Strangely, she calls her Ruby and wishes her good luck. Mrs. Flood is even nice to Abdul, who is shocked to see the TARDIS disappear. She then turns directly to the camera and says “Never seen a TARDIS before?”

What Is Going on with Mrs. Flood in Doctor Who?

So, what’s up with this lady? Well, she clearly didn’t know what the TARDIS was at the beginning of the episode. There would have been no reason for her to put on a front (and argue) with Abdul if she knew the truth. It’s plausible Mrs. Flood did a bit of research after seeing the TARDIS leave. She’s an older lady but that doesn’t mean she can’t use the internet, right? However, the Doctor was only gone for a short amount of time. Did she have time to even look it up? Hmmm.

It’s not impossible that Mrs. Flood could have seen the TARDIS when the Doctor went back to that church on Ruby Road. It was a dark and wintry night and other houses were around. This episode revolved around coincidences, after all. Some fans wonder if Mrs. Flood is Ruby’s mom and we aren’t sure that’s the case. Ruby is 19 years old while Mrs. Flood appears to be in her 70s or maybe even 80s. Yes, some women do have children later in life but it’s a little too coincidental that she’d abandon Ruby and then end up being her neighbor. However, she could know more about Ruby than she’s letting on. 

Hell, maybe Mrs. Flood is a villain. A flood is an influx of rain and rain is an anagram for… RANI. (I’m kidding about the Rani… or am I?) Or, there could be no mystery with Mrs. Flood and she simply said that line for funsies. Anita Dobson grew up watching Doctor Who, so perhaps it’s just a fun nod to her being a fan. It seems a bit too deliberate to just be this but who knows what Russell T Davies has in store.

Will Mrs. Flood Return to Doctor Who?

Either way, it seems we will get more Mrs. Flood in the future. You don’t score a legend like Anita Dobson and only use her once, right? During a charity appearance, Dobson hinted that her character’s nosy nature could draw her into the Doctor’s adventures. We will surely return to Ruby’s home life in Doctor Who season one and that’s where Mrs. Flood is. Hopefully, the questions we have about her will get answers as the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby Sunday’s journey continues. 

The post Who Is Mrs. Flood in DOCTOR WHO? Ruby’s Mysterious Neighbor Raises Eyebrows appeared first on Nerdist.

https://blacknerdproblems.com/the-view-from-the-top-haikyu-and-reaching-my-peak/

I’ve been rewatching episodes of Haikyu lately. It’s that weird time of the year (a.k.a. the end of it) where everything seems to slow down and there’s not that much new content in circulation, so I turn to my old standbys: the shows I know by heart and by soul, the easy comforts. I would say I’m not entirely sure how an anime about a Japanese boys high school volleyball club became a vital touchstone in my life, but I actually do know. I know it very deeply, and I know this because back in 2020, I wrote about it. And at the time, it was perhaps the best thing I ever wrote. I was fresh off a week-long intensive non-fiction writing retreat, and I was inspired, emboldened. The end result was an essay that managed to effortlessly combined a deep dive media analysis of a sports anime, my own meditations on the pandemic, and a poignant reflection on the importance of human connection. 

One thing I didn’t talk about as much during that essay though was how much the vocabulary of Haikyu had become ingrained in my speech. The most obvious one was “tempo.” Maybe that’s because it’s the one term that had significant overlap with my musical theater and writing background, but in any event, I have incorporated it into conversation, whether it is matching, speeding up, slowing down. 

The other phrase though? Well, that’s the title of this essay.

“The View from the Top.”

At the start of the series, the five words specifically means the apex of the spiker’s jump, the vantage point where they are at their highest above the net and can see the entirety of the court. Over time, it becomes a more metaphorical one. To get to the proverbial top, to get to the summit, the boys from Karasuno had to put an incredible amount of effort to scale peak after peak. They had to constantly become better than they were in the last match, defeat seemingly undefeatable foe after foe, and even at their best, their best wasn’t always enough. And if it was, would that one victory be enough to satisfy them?

I have historically not been the biggest fan of New Year’s Resolutions. I’m not particularly fond of arbitrary goal setting based on the revolutions of the earth, and I’ve come to accept that my goal setting is best done at my own tempo (yes, this is entirely intentional). But as the calendar change looms, it is hard not to look at the journey thus far and wonder where else you can go from here. Of course, the journey looks a little different for a pop culture journalist and aspiring nonfiction writer than it does for a volleyball player, but I think the sentiment is the same.

For writers, sometimes the goal is a byline, is a book deal, a screenplay, a script. We all are looking to write our Magnum Opus, the defining work that we will be remembered by, the best thing we ever wrote. But that’s also impossible to assess in the moment.

Back in 2017, when I first joined Black Nerd Problems, my third ever piece was “Trains of Thought on Asian American Representation in Comics” and at the time, it was the best essay I ever wrote. Comprehensive in its viewpoints, reasonably complex in its structure, the piece was emblematic of the work I always admired BNP for producing, the cross section between pop culture and deeply personal. I felt like I hit it, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried that I’d never be able to produce something of that caliber again.

But then in 2019, I managed to dig deep thanks to the works of Raphael Bob-Waksberg and found it in me to write another thousand some words on the absurdity in fiction and reality. I weaved in anecdotes, I juxtaposed against media samples, I wrote one of my favorites line that still stings whenever I read it:

If you were to be on the other side of the beer-bottled kaleidoscope, would it really be that unfamiliar? Doesn’t it cut deep because it’s supposed to? Doesn’t it cut deep because it is a shard of glass?

And that was my best piece until the Haikyu piece came, and then even that was eventually displaced by my first ever non-pop culture related byline when I got to spend a thousand words talking about an abandoned cement factory in St. Louis. That was back in February of this year, and while I’ve written other things I’m proud of in the intervening time period, I have yet to write something quite like that, something that galvanized me to write it and something that reached readers. 

Stagnation is a scary thing when you’re climbing, when you’re trying to reach the top. Stagnation means you’re wasting so much energy just staying exactly where you are, and in a world where the peaks are rising steadily, staying still feels awfully like going backwards. I’m about to quote a very silly source, but I often think about the final scene in Zac Efron’s We Are Your Friends, where he screams: ARE WE EVER GOING TO BE BETTER THAN THIS? Before dropping the beat, and I have already admitted that this is a silly thing, but I think it’s a valid question, an important inquiry, and one that still motivates me in a weird way.

I think I can safely say that I will write something better. I think as long as I keep trying, keep pushing the limits, keep tinkering, I’ll manage to find yet another thing only I could write. I’ll string together words in a novel way that will resonate like mountain winds.  And all of these “best things I ever wrote” will act like a map to a summit I’ve yet to reach and will try to. The view from the top is not a fixed point, it is a relative point to reach, it is a modular mindset, and if you think you can be better, there’s probably a good chance you can get better. 

Want to get Black Nerd Problems updates sent directly to you? Sign up here! Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram!

The post The View from the Top: ‘Haikyu’ and Reaching my Peak appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.

https://blackgirlnerds.com/10-best-books-by-black-authors-of-2023/

This year, Black authors gave us some of the most illuminating and one-of-a-kind stories. From debut authors to those who are well-seasoned, I’ve gathered my 10 picks of the best books by Black authors this year to add to your reading list and give as gifts.

Chain-Gang All-Stars, by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

A dystopian parody in which death-row inmates duel on TV for a chance at freedom, Adjei-Brenyah’s debut novel pulls the reader in, making us complicit with the bloodthirsty fans sitting ringside. As much as this book makes you laugh, you feel disturbed at the fact that it does. Nonetheless, you can’t stop reading. It’s also amid a love story between the two top competitors who are forced to choose between each other and freedom.

The Fraud, by Zadie Smith

Based on a celebrated 19th-century criminal trial in which the defendant was accused of impersonating a nobleman, Smith’s novel successfully taps into the social controversies of an era. Among them are a widowed Scottish housekeeper who avidly follows the trial and a formerly enslaved Jamaican servant who testifies on behalf of the claimant. Smith is a talented novelist, and she gives us the culture of the time while reflecting on whose stories are told and whose are overlooked.

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, by James McBride

The National Book Award-winning author of The Good Lord Bird sets this energetic novel in a dilapidated Pennsylvania neighborhood before and during the Great Depression. There, Black and Jewish residents come together to hide an orphan from state officials who want to send the boy to a terrible institution. Sometimes, these circumstances provide a sad story, but this is a book by James McBride. Vitality and humor are the foundation of this stories, even in the midst of despair.

How to Say Babylon, by Safiya Sinclair

Born in a seaside Jamaican village near Montego Bay, Sinclair grew up in a strict Rastafarian family. She wanted more than the Rasta wifedom that was mapped out for her, and in her memoir, she chronicles how she threw off that yoke. Doing so risked the wrath of her father, a reggae musician who feared that corrupting Western influences would ruin his daughter. Sinclair is one of my favorite poets, and the book grabs you with the beauty of her words.

The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts: The True Story of the Bondwoman’s Narrative by Gregg Hecimovich

In 2001, the professor and literary scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. purchased a novel of unknown authorship at an auction. He verified that it was authentic and had probably been written by a Black person before 1860. It was published to wide acclaim as The Bondwoman’s Narrative. With academics Gates and Gregg Hecimovich acting as editors, the book tells the incredible story of Hannah Crafts, the woman who wrote it, and of the efforts to discover her identity and reconstruct her trajectory. It is part thriller, part mystery, and part biography.

Maame by Jessica George

Families can be complicated. Twenty-five-year-old Madeleine “Maddie” Wright’s family is no different, and she is struggling. The daughter of Ghanaian immigrants settled in London, Maddie, working a dead-end administrative job, is responsible for the care of her father, who has advanced stage Parkinson’s disease. Her mother, who alternates between Ghana and London, is constantly critical of Maddie, but this does not stop her from guilting Maddie into shouldering the greater part of all financial responsibilities. Maame is her mother’s nickname for Maddie. In their native Twi, it means woman; the responsible one. As Maddie reflects on her life, she shares how she feels this nickname has somehow defined her, has determined how she is perceived by her family members, and has influenced not only how she interacts with others but also how she treats herself.

Quietly Hostile: Essays by Samantha Irby

Irby’s take on being 40+ in today’s culture is hilarious. If you’ve ever wondered about stupid things out loud, then this book is just the kind of stuff Irby describes. So, I burst out laughing whenever she suggested something unusual, like her love of QVC, a bachelorette party at Red Lobster, or the time the store on her book tour got robbed during her talk and they told her to just keep going. It’s brilliant, funny writing.

Homebodies, by Tembe Denton Hurst

Mickey loves her job in media, and she loves writing. Even though she only gets to write 10% of the topics she pitches, she knows she’s in a great position. When she’s suddenly let go, she’s furious at herself, her boss, the industry, and the systems that do not serve her. In a fit of rage, she pens a detailed letter outlining all the things she endured as a Black woman in media, hoping to get some coverage. At the same time, Mickey’s relationship with her girlfriend of over five years starts to unravel. With so much going on, she decides to head back to her hometown to decide on what’s next in her life.

We Are a Haunting, by Tyriek White

This book follows three generations of New Yorkers over thirty years. Grandma Audrey lives in Brooklyn and is on the verge of losing her apartment. Before she passed, her daughter Key could speak to the dead. Key’s son Colly grieves his mother’s death and learns he has a similar gift, all while navigating a world filled with injustices. The writing in this debut novel is poetic. It’s more slice-of-life and focuses on moments of these characters’ lives. The timeline skips around with each point of view. It discusses a range of topics, including systemic issues and generational trauma.

What Never Happened, by Rachel Howzell Hall

Twenty years ago, Colette’s entire family was brutally murdered. She moved away as soon as she was able and made a name for herself as an award-winning obituary writer. Unfortunately, she has to return to Catalina Island to help care for her aging aunt and to get some distance from her ex. Luckily, the local paper is owned by her college bestie and she is actually the owner of the house where her aunt has always lived. The island has an aging population, which means there’s no shortage of obituaries to write. But why are all the deaths so similar?

All of these great reads are available wherever books are sold. Consider purchasing your books from Bookshop.org, a platform that gives independent bookstores tools to compete online and financial support to help them maintain their presence in local communities.