Uncategorized
https://blacknerdproblems.com/prey-review/
“The worst thing you have ever been through has always been a fair fight”
Derrick C. Brown
There’s mindless action movies, funny action movies, and then there’s those special bread of action movies that sit above all others. The type of movies that tell a story, got great action, keeps you engaged, and makes you say run that shit back. I am happy to report that Prey is that type of action movie. The setting for this Predator prequel intrigued me, but I wasn’t excited until I learned we’d be following a Comanche tribe and the protagonist would be an indigenous woman. Once I found that out I was all in. Then, I found out there was a Comanche dub for Prey as well. Y’all don’t hear me. Indigenous characters? A woman protagonist? Mutha fuckas scrapping and telling a story that keeps me invested? That’s what I am here for.
Directed by Dan Tratchtenberg, Prey takes us back to the root of the Predator franchise which is hunting and having to rely your wits. The film opens up 300 years ago in the Great Plains of North (North America) in 1719. We follow the protagonist Naru (Amber Midthunder) and her journey to becoming a hunter. We see that Naru is knowledgeable in medicine, tracking, and she eventually trained her dog, Sarii, to be her hunting companion. Naru is ready to prove herself and be recognized as a hunter like her brother Taabe (Dakota Beavers). the only thing really standing her Naru’s way is misogyny and this big ass Predator that’s been stalking the hunters of the tribe. Naru gets wind of the Predator’s tracks and takes it as the hunt she will embark on.
Prey: Patriarchy on the Track Featuring Beats by Misogyny
What makes Prey stand out is the plot. The predator isn’t necessarily at the forefront of the movie. He’s around but we’re mostly focused on Naru fighting against what tradition would dictate as her place in her tribe. Ya girl wants to hunt. When her mother asks why, Nary says, “cause you all think I can’t.” Let’s go. That’s what the fuck I wanna see in my protagonist. Naru’s brother knows she has the skills and later on in the film sees just how bout this hunting life Naru really is. We see Naru having to deal with how the other males in the hunting crew view her. We come to find out ya girl is self-taught. We also see glimpses into just how analytical and creative Naru is as she makes her tomahawk more adaptable by adding a rope to it in order to make its retrieval faster. Naru is cunning without being meek and confident without the arrogant. Despite what others would believe, she knows she is bout this hunter shit.
Amber Midthunder’s performance as Naru is nothing short of a chef’s kiss. She got that quiet strength that gets loud when it’s time to rumble. There were so many moments during Prey where Amber’s acting had me clapping my hands together like, “YES!” and shouting, “let’s fucking go” at the screen. Amber was doing all the thing that needed to be done to hold this movie on her shoulders. It’s not easy to make a film in the Predator franchise not only feel like an action movie and horror movie but a coming-of-age story as well. Naru is out there in the wilds on her own hunting a monster unlike anything she has ever seen (on earth as she will come to find out). We also gotta give it up for Dakota Beaver’s role as Taabe too. He plays a very realistic older brother. He gives Naru chances to prove herself as a hunter where others don’t. He shows doubt when she gets hurt, not out of disappointment, but a sense of when is enough enough? Taabe then gets affirmed on just how good his sister is when things come down to the wire. I am very glad we didn’t see him as a typical overprotective or dismissive older brother.
Only Built For Comanche Linx
Another huge draw for Prey is that we get to see indigenous folks at the helm on screen. There is a Comanche dub version of the movie that I really enjoyed. Honestly, this should have been shot in Comanche with English subtitles or an English dub. Folks gotta get over reading subtitles or the idea that subtitles are a death sentence for films. The Comanche dub has certain inflections and cadences that aren’t present in the English version. Years of reading Japanese subtitled anime prepared me for this. I had no complains whatsoever. It was dope to get to see the Comanche folks portrayed on screen. The only complaint I have is the way they their bow strings are drawn back. That wasn’t really historically accurate in terms of archery wise. (The blame on that falls to this particular stunt coordinator that appears to be quite problematic police on the police force.) Aside from that, I loved the constant parallels the movie kept showing between the technologically advanced, the Predator’s use of first aid and tracking, as compared to Naru’s use of nature for healing and hunting.
We see that the Predator isn’t the only thing to worry about out in the wilds as the presence of French trappers becomes alluded to and felt. What I found really interesting is the different approaches these two groups (Comanche tribe v French trappers) had towards engaging with the Predator. The Comanche tribe got down and dirty in the mud for their fights. Even the warriors you knew were goin get got, still gave the Predator a run for its money. They ain’t just keel over. They mos def got their licks in. Whereas the French trappers who relied so heavily on guns, weren’t able to really do much one those were deemed obsolete against the Predator. All of which is to say, it went to show how things could go wrong when you rely too heavily on technology as a substitute for strength instead of just a tool.
“This is as far as you go, fam”
I feel like I’ve said everything I can say about Prey without spoiling anything. Y’all have no idea how hard it was for me to not put .gifs of the fight scenes in here. Prey has the best fight scenes I’ve seen in the Predator franchise. Every Comanche tribe member that stepped to the Predator got fucking busy. Taabe worked the Predator so bad that he threw on Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak once shit got real. I ain’t ever seen that level of close-range archery using a single arrow to do that much damage. The final fight scene with Naru? Woooooooooo. The girl so cunning. The girl so clever. Naru is a fucking mud made monster. I love this film and have been bothering my friends to watch it.
My favorite Predator movie are the ones with the Black folks coming out on top. Predator 2, Aliens Vs Predator, and now I can add Prey as my favorite and I’m so thankful it’s with an Indigenous person of color at the helm. My only gripe with the film in terms of continuity stems from the pistol Easter egg. For those that don’t know In Predator 2, after defeating a Predator, Lt. Michael R. Harrigan (Danny Glover) is confronted by a Predator clan that takes their member’s body. The elder predator leaves, then turns around and tosses Harrigan an old 1700’s era pistol with the name Raphael Adolini inscribed on it. The gesture is done as a sign of respect. This was supposed to be the catalyst for the third film to be a prequel showing that Predators have been around for hundreds of years and stepping to humans in different eras and tribes. This happens in 1990, when the prequel didn’t happen due to Predator 2‘s box office, Dark Horse wrote a comic explaining the pistol. It belong to a Black pirate captain named Raphael Adolini.
Adolini was scolding his crew for killing a priest and taking the church’s gold. They mutiny against him. A predator was watching and challenges Adolini after he lays waste to his crew. They test one another fighting, and Raphael realizes what the Predator is about as a hunter testing its strength. They are then attacked by the rest of Adolini’s crew. A dope bonding moment as they take out the rest of the mutineers back to back, and right as they were bout to square off again, Adolini is shot in the back. After the Predator takes out the last of the backstabbing crew. Adolini gives the Predator his pistol as a sign of respect. The Predator buries Adolini then tosses his sword in his grave as a sign of respect as well. This is the history of the gun given to Harrigan.
Prey undoes this by having Raphael Adolini being this indigenous native that works with the trappers. This shit irks me because in this case Raphael wasn’t with the shits. The gun becomes Naru’s but it’s his name that’s on the pistol. Which makes it seem as though he was the one that earned the Predator’s respect…which wasn’t true. It erases not only Naru (even tho she owns it in this retcon) as well as the Black Pirate captain in terms of continuity. However, there’s still time for that to be adjusted perhaps in the next film as the post credit scene implies we could be seeing more form Naru and these Predators.
Regardless, this is still my favorite Predator movie. Prey is streaming on Hulu, and you should really check this out (in the Comanche dub). Trust me you goin rock with this film.
Want to get Black Nerd Problems updates sent directly to you? Sign up here! Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and Instagram!
The post ‘Prey’ Makes Predator Franchise Get Busy appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.
“The worst thing you have ever been through has always been a fair fight”
Derrick C. Brown
There’s mindless action movies, funny action movies, and then there’s those special bread of action movies that sit above all others. The type of movies that tell a story, got great action, keeps you engaged, and makes you say run that shit back. I am happy to report that Prey is that type of action movie. The setting for this Predator prequel intrigued me, but I wasn’t excited until I learned we’d be following a Comanche tribe and the protagonist would be an indigenous woman. Once I found that out I was all in. Then, I found out there was a Comanche dub for Prey as well. Y’all don’t hear me. Indigenous characters? A woman protagonist? Mutha fuckas scrapping and telling a story that keeps me invested? That’s what I am here for.
Directed by Dan Tratchtenberg, Prey takes us back to the root of the Predator franchise which is hunting and having to rely your wits. The film opens up 300 years ago in the Great Plains of North (North America) in 1719. We follow the protagonist Naru (Amber Midthunder) and her journey to becoming a hunter. We see that Naru is knowledgeable in medicine, tracking, and she eventually trained her dog, Sarii, to be her hunting companion. Naru is ready to prove herself and be recognized as a hunter like her brother Taabe (Dakota Beavers). the only thing really standing her Naru’s way is misogyny and this big ass Predator that’s been stalking the hunters of the tribe. Naru gets wind of the Predator’s tracks and takes it as the hunt she will embark on.
Prey: Patriarchy on the Track Featuring Beats by Misogyny
What makes Prey stand out is the plot. The predator isn’t necessarily at the forefront of the movie. He’s around but we’re mostly focused on Naru fighting against what tradition would dictate as her place in her tribe. Ya girl wants to hunt. When her mother asks why, Nary says, “cause you all think I can’t.” Let’s go. That’s what the fuck I wanna see in my protagonist. Naru’s brother knows she has the skills and later on in the film sees just how bout this hunting life Naru really is. We see Naru having to deal with how the other males in the hunting crew view her. We come to find out ya girl is self-taught. We also see glimpses into just how analytical and creative Naru is as she makes her tomahawk more adaptable by adding a rope to it in order to make its retrieval faster. Naru is cunning without being meek and confident without the arrogant. Despite what others would believe, she knows she is bout this hunter shit.
Amber Midthunder’s performance as Naru is nothing short of a chef’s kiss. She got that quiet strength that gets loud when it’s time to rumble. There were so many moments during Prey where Amber’s acting had me clapping my hands together like, “YES!” and shouting, “let’s fucking go” at the screen. Amber was doing all the thing that needed to be done to hold this movie on her shoulders. It’s not easy to make a film in the Predator franchise not only feel like an action movie and horror movie but a coming-of-age story as well. Naru is out there in the wilds on her own hunting a monster unlike anything she has ever seen (on earth as she will come to find out). We also gotta give it up for Dakota Beaver’s role as Taabe too. He plays a very realistic older brother. He gives Naru chances to prove herself as a hunter where others don’t. He shows doubt when she gets hurt, not out of disappointment, but a sense of when is enough enough? Taabe then gets affirmed on just how good his sister is when things come down to the wire. I am very glad we didn’t see him as a typical overprotective or dismissive older brother.
Only Built For Comanche Linx
Another huge draw for Prey is that we get to see indigenous folks at the helm on screen. There is a Comanche dub version of the movie that I really enjoyed. Honestly, this should have been shot in Comanche with English subtitles or an English dub. Folks gotta get over reading subtitles or the idea that subtitles are a death sentence for films. The Comanche dub has certain inflections and cadences that aren’t present in the English version. Years of reading Japanese subtitled anime prepared me for this. I had no complains whatsoever. It was dope to get to see the Comanche folks portrayed on screen. The only complaint I have is the way they their bow strings are drawn back. That wasn’t really historically accurate in terms of archery wise. (The blame on that falls to this particular stunt coordinator that appears to be quite problematic police on the police force.) Aside from that, I loved the constant parallels the movie kept showing between the technologically advanced, the Predator’s use of first aid and tracking, as compared to Naru’s use of nature for healing and hunting.
We see that the Predator isn’t the only thing to worry about out in the wilds as the presence of French trappers becomes alluded to and felt. What I found really interesting is the different approaches these two groups (Comanche tribe v French trappers) had towards engaging with the Predator. The Comanche tribe got down and dirty in the mud for their fights. Even the warriors you knew were goin get got, still gave the Predator a run for its money. They ain’t just keel over. They mos def got their licks in. Whereas the French trappers who relied so heavily on guns, weren’t able to really do much one those were deemed obsolete against the Predator. All of which is to say, it went to show how things could go wrong when you rely too heavily on technology as a substitute for strength instead of just a tool.
“This is as far as you go, fam”
I feel like I’ve said everything I can say about Prey without spoiling anything. Y’all have no idea how hard it was for me to not put .gifs of the fight scenes in here. Prey has the best fight scenes I’ve seen in the Predator franchise. Every Comanche tribe member that stepped to the Predator got fucking busy. Taabe worked the Predator so bad that he threw on Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak once shit got real. I ain’t ever seen that level of close-range archery using a single arrow to do that much damage. The final fight scene with Naru? Woooooooooo. The girl so cunning. The girl so clever. Naru is a fucking mud made monster. I love this film and have been bothering my friends to watch it.
My favorite Predator movie are the ones with the Black folks coming out on top. Predator 2, Aliens Vs Predator, and now I can add Prey as my favorite and I’m so thankful it’s with an Indigenous person of color at the helm. My only gripe with the film in terms of continuity stems from the pistol Easter egg. For those that don’t know In Predator 2, after defeating a Predator, Lt. Michael R. Harrigan (Danny Glover) is confronted by a Predator clan that takes their member’s body. The elder predator leaves, then turns around and tosses Harrigan an old 1700’s era pistol with the name Raphael Adolini inscribed on it. The gesture is done as a sign of respect. This was supposed to be the catalyst for the third film to be a prequel showing that Predators have been around for hundreds of years and stepping to humans in different eras and tribes. This happens in 1990, when the prequel didn’t happen due to Predator 2‘s box office, Dark Horse wrote a comic explaining the pistol. It belong to a Black pirate captain named Raphael Adolini.
Adolini was scolding his crew for killing a priest and taking the church’s gold. They mutiny against him. A predator was watching and challenges Adolini after he lays waste to his crew. They test one another fighting, and Raphael realizes what the Predator is about as a hunter testing its strength. They are then attacked by the rest of Adolini’s crew. A dope bonding moment as they take out the rest of the mutineers back to back, and right as they were bout to square off again, Adolini is shot in the back. After the Predator takes out the last of the backstabbing crew. Adolini gives the Predator his pistol as a sign of respect. The Predator buries Adolini then tosses his sword in his grave as a sign of respect as well. This is the history of the gun given to Harrigan.
Prey undoes this by having Raphael Adolini being this indigenous native that works with the trappers. This shit irks me because in this case Raphael wasn’t with the shits. The gun becomes Naru’s but it’s his name that’s on the pistol. Which makes it seem as though he was the one that earned the Predator’s respect…which wasn’t true. It erases not only Naru (even tho she owns it in this retcon) as well as the Black Pirate captain in terms of continuity. However, there’s still time for that to be adjusted perhaps in the next film as the post credit scene implies we could be seeing more form Naru and these Predators.
Regardless, this is still my favorite Predator movie. Prey is streaming on Hulu, and you should really check this out (in the Comanche dub). Trust me you goin rock with this film.
Want to get Black Nerd Problems updates sent directly to you? Sign up here! Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and Instagram!
The post ‘Prey’ Makes Predator Franchise Get Busy appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.
It’s a strange thing, seeing abject misery commingled with the utmost horror. Even to live it vicariously almost breaks you down completely.
There’s the ceiling-high water, containing the flotsam of sunken dreams and devastated plans. There are the rooftops protruding from it like desert islands, entire neighborhoods reduced to a miserable series of archipelagoes.
And then there are the people. They’re trapped on these islands. They’re making desperate calls while telephones still work. They’re singing songs while trapped in attics to keep a shred of stability and dignity. They are children, and they’re watching people decay from dying to dead and dead to detritus.
If it brought me to tears watching it secondhand, imagine what it must’ve been like to experience.
Katrina Babies, a HBO documentary directed by New Orleans native and first-time filmmaker Edward Buckles Jr., is about these people, these children, and their lives. It is about not only the 2005 hurricane, but also about its immediate aftermath and especially the trail of health issues — both mental and physical — left in its wake seventeen years later.
It is a documentary made, according to one interviewee, in the style of African oral tradition. “Katrina has become a folktale,” he says. And he is correct, but it is important to distinguish a folktale from a fairy story. The former exist as tales told over the years to explain why things are the way they are (why the sun sets, why the moon rises, etc.). The latter is a story for children full of pure good and pure evil and populated by wizards, goblins, sprites, and magical godmothers.
The disaster that is Hurricane Katrina will live on because its survivors will talk about it and those who survive them will do so in turn. It will be a reminder of Black America’s resilience but also of its sorrow. It will serve to tell future generations why New Orleans now doesn’t feel quite as Black but it still has some groove.
This is the impression one gets from watching Buckles’ documentary about his hometown.
Utilizing the oral mode of storytelling, Katrina Babies is a mélange of interviews, news footage, and even some animated collage work that serves to illustrate various interviewees’ stories. The camera work is simple because the story is the thing. We look at the subjects head on. At times, it becomes uncomfortable, nearly claustrophobic. This is not due to a failure on Buckles’ part but rather the success of his project. He has set out to do what few have done before: ask the children what they are thinking.
Now, the “children” are largely in their late twenties and early thirties, but, because this is a topic none of Buckles’ subjects have been asked nor spoken about previously, memory’s power seems to transport them back to childhood. The burden of undisclosed trauma bears down on both the interviewer and his respondents. They have to take a break at one moment because a woman, Miesha, doesn’t want to cry on camera. Her tears, in turn, make Buckles lachrymose. He’s lived through Katrina as well, but talking about it this much with this many people is taking its toll. He’s tired, and we completely understand why.
If I haven’t explained the thesis of the documentary much, it’s because there isn’t one that’s necessarily very grand. It boils down to this: many adults took their children’s silence during these travails as a sign that they were doing okay. Buckles’ mother, another interviewee, even points out that, whenever she would ask a teenage Buckles if he was okay, he would say he was fine.
So, unlike a fairy tale, there are no good/evil parents. There are simply adults whose livelihoods and homes were washed away, and, if their children weren’t forthcoming or in open mourning, they’d have to take it as a sign that the children were okay, that they can have anything wash off their backs.
Of course, in an age of counseling and therapy, we now know this is not possible. But if you were the parents, if you had only perhaps faith and personal dignity to keep you upright after losing everything, you might just allow yourself not to look too deeply at what’s bothering the children. It’s not good, but I can’t condemn it as evil. It’s just the way things are sometimes.
Besides this, the central conceit of Katrina Babies seems to be that the storm washed away foundations of every kind. As a consequence of homes being destroyed, neighborhoods were uprooted, and so were their people. Kids had to start all over in new towns and make new friends. Sometimes these new “refugees” didn’t fit in, and the locals let them know.
Katrina Babies suggests that one lasting scar from the storm was the psychological effects of displacement. “When so much of who you are is where you’re from,” one woman says, “and where you’re from is now destroyed, what does that say about your identity?” Kids who were actual babies and toddlers during Katrina now face rising violence in the city. Displacement put rival neighborhood gangs in close proximity to one another, so now they’re shooting it out in resettled neighborhoods. Nothing feels certain after having everything taken away, so why, they ask, care about anything?
The film spends a little time concerning itself on the catastrophe that was the federal government’s response. The incident with FEMA trailers being filled with formaldehyde is covered as we meet a woman who developed several health problems — including cancer — after living in one. We meet Adriana, a transwoman who, as a nine-year-old, captured news crews’ attention for her articulate excoriation of conditions in the Superdome, one of many poorly served Katrina relocation camps. We see Kanye West say, “George Bush does not care about Black people.” Given what we’ve witnessed, it feels like the man is onto something.
Buckles ends his documentary like the best of tales — with a glimmer of hope.
He reconnects with family that had lived in New Orleans with him but has since relocated. He shows us that his subjects have tried their best to lead hopeful lives. They may not have talked about — may not have been asked about — their feelings concerning such a consequential time in their lives, but they are talking about it now. At this stage in their lives, they’re open to openness. “I think it’s hard to talk about Katrina because it takes having some form of vulnerability,” a woman says. “If you’re not able to be vulnerable, how do you heal?”
In the end, Katrina Babies seems to say New Orleans wasn’t rebuilt, but, rather, built over. The formerly Black neighborhoods have been broken up and gentrified. Families that had been there for generations are gone. And, sometimes, the old residents are too afraid of the new New Orleans to ever come home.
But still, there’s hope. The folktale will be told for generations and become a part of a cultural memory. They’ll be unable to overlook the crime.
And they’ll never forget the healing that came after.
Katrina Babies premieres on HBO and HBO Max Wednesday, August 24, 2022, at 9pm ET/PT.