deerstalker
http://www.thenerdelement.com/2018/02/22/black-panther-non-spoiler-review/
For a spoiler review, listen to the Marvel TV podcast, where we discuss the movie in two parts!
Thursday night I saw a packed theater. I’m glad I got there early enough to find a seat. Nervous excited energy ran through me as I waited for this movie to begin. I enjoyed the trailers but I was getting inpatient. I have waited for years darn it, just start it already! Then it happened.
I got transported to a country where a new king had to make complex decisions that not only affected his countrymen but could affect the world. I saw the potential of an African nation untouched by colonization. Most importantly, the main characters featured looked like me. We were not just supporting characters. Someone else was not coming to save us. We had to save ourselves and come out better for it.
Multiple Themes
Moving towards a better future and whether Wakanda should remain in isolation were just a few themes explored in Black Panther. Some of the themes were so profound that it was just scratching the surface. One that resonated with me was the importance of being better than the mistakes of both yourself and others close to you. I feel like some of the consequences in this movie will still be felt in later Black Panther sequels.
There were plenty of emotions that went through me as the movie progressed into a hopeful conclusion. A few times I wish I brought tissues. There was one line that had me bust into tears. Other scenes had me chuckling. Despite predictability, the flick still made an impact.
Characters/Actors
The chemistry between ALL the characters was on point. The casting director hit a goldmine with the actors. Chadwick Boseman had charisma as the newly crowned king of TChalla. I knew he would kill it after seeing him in Captain America: Civil War. He also showed vulnerability that helped emphasize the fact that he lost a parent and now he has the weight of a country on his shoulders.
One actor that stood out to me, because it was so unexpected, was Winston Duke who plays M’Baku, leader of the Jabari tribe. The reason I chuckled a lot in this movie was because of him! It helps that he is a tall drink of water! Oh my!
There were so many standout moments for characters, but I think Okoye, played by Danai Gurira, had the most awesome moments, especially as she was fighting and the interactions she had with King T’Challa (Boseman) and border tribe leader W’Kabi (Daniel Kaluuya).
I loved the sisterhood in this movie! The women were just as important as the men, from leaders in the council room, to the Dora Milaje being the chosen guard of the King. Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), a spy for Wakanda, had significant importance and wasn’t just a love interest for T’Challa. Shuri (Letitia Wright) was intelligent but also had an innocence with the cute sibling moments with her brother, the king.
Michael B Jordan was phenomenal as Erik Killmonger. He made me sympathetic to his character. I knew since Ryan Coogler and Jordan have worked on other films together, that this time the villain would have depth. Loki just became 2nd in my book for best villain in the MCU.
Angela Bassett and Forrest Whitaker as Queen mother Ramonda and priest Zuri were excellent as always. Sterling K Brown, while his role was small, was still important and he made me tear up. I should have known though as he plays Randall on This is Us, a show that’s a tearjerker every episode!
I need to make an effort to read the comics to get to know these characters even more. Reading the first volume of Christopher Priest’s collection of Black Panther isn’t enough. I wouldn’t mind a movie about each of these characters.
Behind the Scenes
Ruth Carter did the damn thing as the costume designer! The colors were so vibrant! I want to do more research now of the different tribes represented. I loved how even when Okoye (Danai Gurira) and Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o) were out of Wakanda they wore something that had either their tribal colors or jewelry. Just straight up represent!
Director Ryan Coogler, who also helped write the Black Panther script, made this movie with such detail. If you have seen the Vanity Fair video where he breaks down the club fight scene, then you can appreciate the attention paid to making this blockbuster. I’m glad Disney and Marvel decided to have Coogler create the story he wanted to tell versus dipping their toes in it to the point where it lost its voice.
The entire behind the scenes crew, from the stunt men and women, to the makeup person, did a great job! I felt the love to make this movie great. Hannah Beachler, the production designer, the art department, digital and special effects outdid themselves creating the world of Wakanda. I thought the technology like the ships and weaponry flowed seamlessly with the real world. I loved the mix of old and new with the architecture of the buildings in the Wakandan city. Nitpick moment, the fight scenes in the panther suits could be a smidge more realistic.
The original score by Ludwig Göransson is WAY better than the movie soundtrack. The mix of African tribal sounds with a slight hint of hip-hop was a great way to emphasize what was happening plotwise. I only liked songs from the soundtrack that were played during the movie.
Action scenes
There was a predictable flow to the action choreography, but there was a nice mix of fighting styles. It wasn’t stale by any means. The first fight scene was meh because it was shot mostly in the dark. Flashbacks of ‘The Incredible Hulk’ *shudder* make me leery of dark fight scenes just because it makes it seem lazy in regards to any CGI used or fight choreo period. The scene still had relevance because of Nakia’s mission so it wasn’t a total loss. Plus it was a great way to reintroduce T’Challa as Black Panther.
I think my fave action sequence was the car chase scene. It reminded me of Fast and the Furious movies, which are a guilty pleasure of mine. The tribal battles were also cool, especially with the score in the background, you felt transported to a past that could’ve been.
Final Thoughts
I wanted to immediately get tickets for the next showing after I saw the film for the first time. After seeing it three times so far I’m still peeling the layers of this movie back. Black Panther is a worthy film added to the Marvel cinematic universe. One thing that I hope gets some love are characters from the LGBTQIA community if there is a sequel.
Someone from this movie better win an Academy award, Golden Globe, something. Can we continue wining from playing positive characters please? People who don’t normally watch comic book movies, or sci-fantasy should see Black Panther. How often are you going to see this genre feature a mostly black cast? Relationship, comedy, and historical films shouldn’t be the only films that feature us.
This movie shows that us “nerds” can make a deep movie but can also be fun! There are plenty of black comic writers who I see at conventions where their material could also be a good movie or even a TV show. Hopefully this starts a trend that will be felt for a long time.
Wakanda Forever!
What did you think of the movie? Sound off in the comments below! Try to keep it spoiler free! I know I want to greet folk this way!
The post Black Panther Non-Spoiler Review appeared first on The Nerd Element.
For a spoiler review, listen to the Marvel TV podcast, where we discuss the movie in two parts!
Thursday night I saw a packed theater. I’m glad I got there early enough to find a seat. Nervous excited energy ran through me as I waited for this movie to begin. I enjoyed the trailers but I was getting inpatient. I have waited for years darn it, just start it already! Then it happened.
I got transported to a country where a new king had to make complex decisions that not only affected his countrymen but could affect the world. I saw the potential of an African nation untouched by colonization. Most importantly, the main characters featured looked like me. We were not just supporting characters. Someone else was not coming to save us. We had to save ourselves and come out better for it.
Multiple Themes
Moving towards a better future and whether Wakanda should remain in isolation were just a few themes explored in Black Panther. Some of the themes were so profound that it was just scratching the surface. One that resonated with me was the importance of being better than the mistakes of both yourself and others close to you. I feel like some of the consequences in this movie will still be felt in later Black Panther sequels.
There were plenty of emotions that went through me as the movie progressed into a hopeful conclusion. A few times I wish I brought tissues. There was one line that had me bust into tears. Other scenes had me chuckling. Despite predictability, the flick still made an impact.
Characters/Actors
The chemistry between ALL the characters was on point. The casting director hit a goldmine with the actors. Chadwick Boseman had charisma as the newly crowned king of TChalla. I knew he would kill it after seeing him in Captain America: Civil War. He also showed vulnerability that helped emphasize the fact that he lost a parent and now he has the weight of a country on his shoulders.
One actor that stood out to me, because it was so unexpected, was Winston Duke who plays M’Baku, leader of the Jabari tribe. The reason I chuckled a lot in this movie was because of him! It helps that he is a tall drink of water! Oh my!
There were so many standout moments for characters, but I think Okoye, played by Danai Gurira, had the most awesome moments, especially as she was fighting and the interactions she had with King T’Challa (Boseman) and border tribe leader W’Kabi (Daniel Kaluuya).
I loved the sisterhood in this movie! The women were just as important as the men, from leaders in the council room, to the Dora Milaje being the chosen guard of the King. Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), a spy for Wakanda, had significant importance and wasn’t just a love interest for T’Challa. Shuri (Letitia Wright) was intelligent but also had an innocence with the cute sibling moments with her brother, the king.
Michael B Jordan was phenomenal as Erik Killmonger. He made me sympathetic to his character. I knew since Ryan Coogler and Jordan have worked on other films together, that this time the villain would have depth. Loki just became 2nd in my book for best villain in the MCU.
Angela Bassett and Forrest Whitaker as Queen mother Ramonda and priest Zuri were excellent as always. Sterling K Brown, while his role was small, was still important and he made me tear up. I should have known though as he plays Randall on This is Us, a show that’s a tearjerker every episode!
I need to make an effort to read the comics to get to know these characters even more. Reading the first volume of Christopher Priest’s collection of Black Panther isn’t enough. I wouldn’t mind a movie about each of these characters.
Behind the Scenes
Ruth Carter did the damn thing as the costume designer! The colors were so vibrant! I want to do more research now of the different tribes represented. I loved how even when Okoye (Danai Gurira) and Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o) were out of Wakanda they wore something that had either their tribal colors or jewelry. Just straight up represent!
Director Ryan Coogler, who also helped write the Black Panther script, made this movie with such detail. If you have seen the Vanity Fair video where he breaks down the club fight scene, then you can appreciate the attention paid to making this blockbuster. I’m glad Disney and Marvel decided to have Coogler create the story he wanted to tell versus dipping their toes in it to the point where it lost its voice.
The entire behind the scenes crew, from the stunt men and women, to the makeup person, did a great job! I felt the love to make this movie great. Hannah Beachler, the production designer, the art department, digital and special effects outdid themselves creating the world of Wakanda. I thought the technology like the ships and weaponry flowed seamlessly with the real world. I loved the mix of old and new with the architecture of the buildings in the Wakandan city. Nitpick moment, the fight scenes in the panther suits could be a smidge more realistic.
The original score by Ludwig Göransson is WAY better than the movie soundtrack. The mix of African tribal sounds with a slight hint of hip-hop was a great way to emphasize what was happening plotwise. I only liked songs from the soundtrack that were played during the movie.
Action scenes
There was a predictable flow to the action choreography, but there was a nice mix of fighting styles. It wasn’t stale by any means. The first fight scene was meh because it was shot mostly in the dark. Flashbacks of ‘The Incredible Hulk’ *shudder* make me leery of dark fight scenes just because it makes it seem lazy in regards to any CGI used or fight choreo period. The scene still had relevance because of Nakia’s mission so it wasn’t a total loss. Plus it was a great way to reintroduce T’Challa as Black Panther.
I think my fave action sequence was the car chase scene. It reminded me of Fast and the Furious movies, which are a guilty pleasure of mine. The tribal battles were also cool, especially with the score in the background, you felt transported to a past that could’ve been.
Final Thoughts
I wanted to immediately get tickets for the next showing after I saw the film for the first time. After seeing it three times so far I’m still peeling the layers of this movie back. Black Panther is a worthy film added to the Marvel cinematic universe. One thing that I hope gets some love are characters from the LGBTQIA community if there is a sequel.
Someone from this movie better win an Academy award, Golden Globe, something. Can we continue wining from playing positive characters please? People who don’t normally watch comic book movies, or sci-fantasy should see Black Panther. How often are you going to see this genre feature a mostly black cast? Relationship, comedy, and historical films shouldn’t be the only films that feature us.
This movie shows that us “nerds” can make a deep movie but can also be fun! There are plenty of black comic writers who I see at conventions where their material could also be a good movie or even a TV show. Hopefully this starts a trend that will be felt for a long time.
Wakanda Forever!
What did you think of the movie? Sound off in the comments below! Try to keep it spoiler free! I know I want to greet folk this way!
The post Black Panther Non-Spoiler Review appeared first on The Nerd Element.
The world might be focused on the athletes in Pyeonchang, South Korea right now, but I’m still obsessed with a fictional competition that took place over 25 years ago during the Winter Games in Albertville, France. That’s when former hockey player Doug Dorsey shocked the sports world by winning gold with Kate Moseley in pairs figure skating. But as much as I love The Cutting Edge, one of the greatest sports movie/romcom hybrids ever, one thing has always bothered me about it: is it possible? Is there any way you could really turn a hockey player with no prior figure skating experience into a gold-medal winning pairs champion?
To finally get an answer I consulted real figure skating champions: 2011 and 2012 U.S. national pairs champion John Coughlin; 1992 Olympic women’s gold medalist Kristi Yamaguchi; and Yamaguchi’s husband Bret Hedican, a 17-year NHL veteran, Stanley Cup winner, and former Olympian.
Based on their responses let’s just say things do not look good for Doug Dorsey-truthers.
Quick refresher if you haven’t seen The Cutting Edge recently (don’t act like you’ve got better things to do). At the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, men’s hockey team captain and college junior Doug Dorsey is on the verge of joining the NHL. He’s described as being one of the best skaters in amateur hockey, but his career is cut short after a cheap shot leaves him partially blind in one eye. Meanwhile, Kate Moseley is dropped by her pairs partner during the figure skating pairs competition, ending her gold medal hopes.
Two years later Doug is working construction, and the difficult-to-work-with/pain-in-the-ass Kate can’t find anyone willing to skate with her. That’s when her famous figure skating coach approaches Doug about getting back to the Olympics by converting him into Kate’s partner. In only two years time Doug makes the skating transition and the pair become one of the best duos in the world, winning the gold medal at the Albertville games.
Could A Hockey Player Make The Transition?
Doug doesn’t just learn how to figure skate; he is good enough to compete at the highest level and win. Considering Kristi Yamaguchi was standing on that same podium in Albertville herself, does she think that transformation is really possible?
“I wouldn’t say it absolutely couldn’t be done,” she says. But don’t rush out to buy your first pair of skates, because she also said that if you took a world class individual figure skater with no pairs experience and tried to convert them into a top pairs team it “would probably take a few years, because you really have to gel with your partner, trust the relationship, and grow together as a team.” So even for someone who was already an elite figure skater trying to transition to pairs for the first time, getting to the world-class level would take longer than Doug Dorsey had to learn everything from scratch.
Yamaguchi says to have any hope of actually pulling the movie off, you’d need to start with a hockey player who was already a strong skater. But there would still be a steep learning curve because of weight distribution on the skates.
“The weight distribution on the blade where a hockey player skates versus where a figure skater skates is very different. Figure skaters who count on the toe pick are trained and it becomes second nature. We’re more on the middle to the back of the blade when we’re skating forward and obviously learn how to use the toe pick for the jumps and spins, and some of the other tricks,” she explains. “The hockey player will use the front of their blade to push off and even glide on.”
So does Bret Hedican, who was on the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team in Albertville, think he could have become a figure skater if he really committed to it? “No, I don’t think so,” he said, “Even if I’m a good skater, learning how to do a double axel or things you’d have to do technically to land the performance they’re landing right now in the Olympics—is it possible for someone like me to learn that even in my prime?”
“No,” Yamaguchi jabs.
How much of that has to do with one of the best scenes from The Cutting Edge, the toe pick montage in which Doug keeps tripping over his new skates (hockey skates don’t have a toe pick). It turns out that might be one of the movie’s most accurate scenes.
“Kristi and her coach had me on figure skates. I was feeling pretty good–until I tried to accelerate and I leaned forward and I toe-picked,” he says,” And down I went.”
“It echoed through the arena,” Yamaguchi laughs.
“I had a bruise on both elbows and both knees for weeks,” he said. He eventually had a little more success, but no one would confuse him for an Olympic figure skater.
John Coughlin, two-time U.S. pairs national champion, thinks the the toe pick problem would only require a few months of adjustment. So does he find the movie’s premise more plausible?
“Anything is possible,” he says, because all world class figure skaters are very polite not to instantly crush your insane dream. “Two years would be a bit ambitious. I think pair-specific skills–lifts, twists, throws, death spirals–would come if a male skater had NHL strength and balance. However the individual skills needed for the side-by-side skating–the jumping, spinning, and pure skating ability–would be an uphill battle.”
Yamaguchi points to the Canadian reality show Battle of the Blades, which paired former hockey players with figure skaters, and notes some “amazing performances” with only a few weeks of training. “Obviously they were not doing jumps and things required in the Olympics.”
There’s a very good reason for that, Coughlin notes. “In pairs you have the safety of another in your hands at all times. There aren’t really any small accidents in pairs.” That must make that super dangerous Pamchenko move Dorsey and Moseley did during their final performance even more insane, right? Yes, but mostly because it’s “not physically possible,” according to Coughlin.
Doug Dorsey was so good he defied the laws of physics.
Coughlin says The Cutting Edge is a classic in the figure skating world, but many other elements in the movie are unrealistic, giving Dorsey mythical advantages in his seemingly impossible endeavor. Coughlin says Moseley’s “private skating rink in her backyard” and the fact her legendary coach only trains her is ridiculous. “We’ve all daydreamed of having these kinds of resources for training!”
How Would You Train?
So clearly Dorsey’s transformation couldn’t happen in two years, but what would it take to make a hockey player into a world class, gold-medal figure skater? Coughlin and Yamaghuci both agree they’d want to start with a younger hockey player who was already an upper echelon skater.
“I’d want to handpick someone off Team USA’s junior team, and it would be immediate immersion into figure skating,” Coughlin says. In addition to elite skating skills, it would require someone flexible, but also strong enough to handle throwing and lifting. Coughlin says the first year would be purely about basic skating, working on proper figure skating posture, and alignment, which is very different from hockey players who are “pitched over” on their sticks. During year two, he would “introduce some basic partnering movements.”
So in Doug Dorsey’s timeline, he is winning Olympic gold in year two, but in Coughlin’s he would be trying to get his former hockey player to learn basic pairs side-by-side skating, without any lifting or jumping. In years three and four he would start to focus on the advanced, dangerous movements, and even that would depend on how fast a learner his athlete was.
But they would still need time to find music, add choreography, build stamina, and install a difficult program that could score well. And none of that factors into the mental aspect of going from a team sport to being a duo whose entire training comes down to seven minutes over two skates performed in front of the entire world. “There aren’t too many pressure cookers that compare in sports,” Coughlin says. Doug Dorsey needed ten minutes to stop throwing up, so not ideal.
How Long Would It Take?
That’s why Coughlin says the most realistic scenario, which would require a young, already great skater who is strong but flexible and also a fast learner, would still be four to six years, which he says “would be an incredible achievement.” And even then, the chances of that person being part of an Olympic gold medal team is still unlikely, because it’s really hard to win even for the best skaters who have done it all their lives.
“Skating is such a unique animal, because it’s not just who gets across the ‘finish line’ first, it’s also who makes it look the best/easiest as they do it. That’s hard for some people to wrap their minds around. Think about it: essentially you need to be the best athlete, make it look effortless, and be the most entertaining in the process. It’s a brutal test of athleticism and performance.”
Verdict
So no, The Cutting Edge isn’t realistic. No one will ever be the real-life Doug Dorsey. It’s not possible to make a hockey player a gold medal pairs figure skater in only two years, and it would be remarkable to do it in any amount of years.
But after two-and-a-half decades of obsessing about this question, I’m not bummed out by this at all. This just means he’s the greatest fictional Olympic athlete of all-time. Pretty sure Kristi Yamaguchi would agree.
What do you think? Could any athlete have the cutting edge? Tell us why in the comments below.
Featured Image: MGM