What MOVIE(s) have you been....seeing? watching?

Totally agree with Ancient_of _MuMu said about Wakanda Forever. I thought the new Black Panther was the best Marvel Movie I've seen since 2020. Maybe it's because it's the 1st movie I've seen in the theater since Emma 3/13/20. Maybe it's because of the death of Chadwick Boseman and how they made that part of the script. And maybe it's because it was just a good movie.

Ancient_of_MuMu wrote: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is by far the best Marvel film of phase 4, and I think better than the first one. Much more of a cohesive, emotional and dramatic story than we have seen from Marvel in quite a while

100% agreed. Phase 4 has been pretty hit-and-miss for me, but I liked Wakanda Forever a lot. And that Chadwick Boseman montage at the very end ... damn. Got a little dusty in my movie theater.

All the supporting actors from the first movie, especially Letitia Wright, are forced to step up. It's a credit to Ryan Coogler's first Black Panther movie that he sketched out all these supporting roles so well, that it's not as jarring as it otherwise might have been. Okoye, Nakia, Ramonda, Shuri, M'Baku ... these are all fun, vivid characters played by great actors. Coogler wisely (in retrospect) gave himself a very deep bench to draw from.

That being said, I had two complaints. One, the final battle was quite lackluster, much like the one in the first Black Panther movie. Ryan Coogler just doesn't seem interested in staging the requisite third act big action scene, and it's like he just wants to get it over with as fast as possible to get back to the stuff that he is interested in. And two, the movie lacks the bright colors and cinematography of the first one. I don't know why, but this movie is just so damned dark. Especially the underwater stuff, which looked murky and bland.

Joebot wrote: 100% agreed. Phase 4 has been pretty hit-and-miss for me, but I liked Wakanda Forever a lot.

Marvell in particular has problems with proper storytelling being handcuffed by a set of cultural rules. Part of being a Disney property. Once you are aware of the rules and see examples it explains why Disney movies seem so lackluster. I haven't dug into a lot of them but one of them is that a female isn't allowed to lose a fair fight against a male character. You can see this in the Star Wars movies where Rey wins both fights against Kylo (a scavenger never in a real fight in her life against an extensively trained and battle-hardened warrior), she has no room to grow so there is no tension. Captain Marvell always beats her nemesis even before she gets powers (so is her end of movie victory really a victory?). I point this out because for some reason the original Black Panther did not have to follow the Disney rules. In that sense Killmonger was a real villian to overcome, he beats both Shuri and Okoye in a fight that isn't fair, but in the female's favor. Maybe the Black Panther director is given more freedom so is able to make a better movie and follow proper storytelling principles?

The thing with much of modern media is that, despite appeareances, they haven't done away with their old prejudices about women and other minorities. Rather, they still hold the same monolithic, backwards ideas about these groups, just inverted.

Wakanda is a good example. It's the inversion or "antistereotype", of the backwards, technologically primitive African nation. But since the actual view of Africa hasn't changed, we still have the same old tropes about it, like Rhinoceros, Spear-chuking, Tribal Drums and Trial-by-combat. All that has changed is the perceived morality of the group, not their characteristics.

Modern media is full of these "antistereotypes". From the top of my head we have the Gay Conservative, the Noble Savage, the Black Nerd, the Genius Autist and most instances of the Strong Female Character. All these stock characters betray the idea that skin colour, sex or other equivalent status are the defining aspects of a person, to the point that your whole personality is centered around it. Female characters may go from weak to strong, but they are still women and it's that fact that entirely defines them.

And women can't be the target of violence. It doesn't matter if it would be more equal or if men go through it, it's seen as unacceptable or even sexist to depict violence against women. Hence, the vast majority of games and films still have mooks as men and women are not actually killed as violently. The only MCU film with female mooks is Dr Strange and it's a blip in the radar compared to how often the only person allowed to fight a female superhero is another woman. Because, in the end, despite all the talk about equality, Disney and society as a whole still regard them as weak and, hence, in need of protection.

mtagge wrote: Star Wars movies where Rey wins both fights against Kylo (a scavenger never in a real fight in her life against an extensively trained and battle-hardened warrior), she has no room to grow so there is no tension.

I'm not going to dispute what you say about her character as a whole. I just find it odd that so many people think she never got in a fight before. She carried a fighting staff around and even used it on Finn when they met. We, the audience, actually have no reason to believe she isn't already a strong fighter from defending herself on the mean sands of Jakku.

ChristopherMD wrote:

mtagge wrote: Star Wars movies where Rey wins both fights against Kylo (a scavenger never in a real fight in her life against an extensively trained and battle-hardened warrior), she has no room to grow so there is no tension.

I'm not going to dispute what you say about her character as a whole. I just find it odd that so many people think she never got in a fight before. She carried a fighting staff around and even used it on Finn when they met. We, the audience, actually have no reason to believe she isn't already a strong fighter from defending herself on the mean sands of Jakku.

This is a fair argument but any storytelling which relies on the viewer making unstated inferences about the protagonist’s past is probably not doing a very good job with its exposition.

Agreeing with ChristopherMD, because THE FORCE AWAKENS and THE LAST JEDI both set up Rey as tough as nails and show buffoonish men constantly coming to her "rescue" though she does not need it. I think they also show Kylo's complacency, he's the only real "Force user" around these days and he's gotten soft. As he reckons with someone determined to use the Force for good, he gets even weaker as a foe because of internal Kylo/Ben conflict.

That's not to say the grander point is not true; comic book movies are tremendously violent and most of it is by male-identified characters (or trees or raccoons, what have you). The exceptions prove the rule.

Erik Twice wrote: .
Hence, the vast majority of games and films still have mooks as men and women are not actually killed as violently. The only MCU film with female mooks is Dr Strange and it's a blip in the radar compared to how often the only person allowed to fight a female superhero is another woman. Because, in the end, despite all the talk about equality, Disney and society as a whole still regard them as weak and, hence, in need of protection.

While I agree with most of what you said, this sticks out to me because I HAVE seen more random female mooks in films lately (Mr Nobody specifically, but there have been others) and it actually bothers me. Not just in a chivalric way, though that is a prime reason, but just on a visceral human level it hurts more to see women ragdolled the way we are accustomed to seeing men treated in action films.

Though the semi comic way it happened in my holy grail film, BTiLC, just shows that Jack Burton doesn't discriminate

Erik Twice wrote: The thing with much of modern media is that, despite appeareances, they haven't done away with their old prejudices about women and other minorities. Rather, they still hold the same monolithic, backwards ideas about these groups, just inverted.

Wakanda is a good example. It's the inversion or "antistereotype", of the backwards, technologically primitive African nation. But since the actual view of Africa hasn't changed, we still have the same old tropes about it, like Rhinoceros, Spear-chuking, Tribal Drums and Trial-by-combat. All that has changed is the perceived morality of the group, not their characteristics.

Modern media is full of these "antistereotypes". From the top of my head we have the Gay Conservative, the Noble Savage, the Black Nerd, the Genius Autist and most instances of the Strong Female Character. All these stock characters betray the idea that skin colour, sex or other equivalent status are the defining aspects of a person, to the point that your whole personality is centered around it. Female characters may go from weak to strong, but they are still women and it's that fact that entirely defines them.

And women can't be the target of violence. It doesn't matter if it would be more equal or if men go through it, it's seen as unacceptable or even sexist to depict violence against women. Hence, the vast majority of games and films still have mooks as men and women are not actually killed as violently. The only MCU film with female mooks is Dr Strange and it's a blip in the radar compared to how often the only person allowed to fight a female superhero is another woman. Because, in the end, despite all the talk about equality, Disney and society as a whole still regard them as weak and, hence, in need of protection.

The MCU has dominated the box office in recent years, but most of the characters were introduced in the '60s or '70s. So there is this weirdness of updating the characters to our time, but also hanging onto the foundational elements of the characters despite the passage of so many decades. The things that you say about Wakanda are true, but they were also true in 1966 when the Black Panther first appeared.

Erik Twice wrote: And women can't be the target of violence. It doesn't matter if it would be more equal or if men go through it, it's seen as unacceptable or even sexist to depict violence against women. Hence, the vast majority of games and films still have mooks as men and women are not actually killed as violently. The only MCU film with female mooks is Dr Strange and it's a blip in the radar compared to how often the only person allowed to fight a female superhero is another woman. Because, in the end, despite all the talk about equality, Disney and society as a whole still regard them as weak and, hence, in need of protection.

She Hulk was extremely jarring to me because of this current paradigm. Episode one starts off with her buffoon male coworker trying to pull male privilege and she not only shuts him down but embarrasses him (and continues to do so for as many episodes as I was willing to watch). After she is transformed she is instantly better than Bruce at every task he tries to teach her (plus she is more flexible and able to do advanced yoga poses). When Bruce tries to mentor her to give her tips to control anger she goes into a five minute rant about how she, since she is female, has superior anger management as all women do since all women's lives are a constant stream of disrespect. It was odd because the whole pre-Hulk portions of the episode showed the exact opposite, sure she had a dipshit coworker but she controlled him like a puppy.

Willow - I thought I'd do a refresher, since there's a series coming out for it and it had been literally thirty years since I had seen it last. I watched the first half-hour of it last night, and it was kind of bad. I guess I owe it to watch the rest; maybe Joanne Whalley will save it or something.

Kilmer (Val, not Johanne) saves that film for me. It is a strongly nostalgic driven experience. I hear the new series isn't the best but I'm gonna give it a go anyway. Warwick Davis has never been that strong of an actor and in the days of CGI/perspective shrinking normal folks to play small statured humanoids the awkwardness of medical dwarves is a bit much, but its still nice to visit the world.

It may be nostalgia, but it’s a movie I love. Like a budget LotR. It has heart.

Fanboys is absolute dreck. It’s a rancid cream of lazy ‘09 gay insults and sex jokes on the stale cake of nerd jokes because people obsessed with Star Wars definitely say “What in Greedo’s name?”

It’s a pity because there is a core of something interesting in a road trip to steal the rough cut of Episode 1 for a friend dying of cancer and there is just one moment where an argument breaks out regarding Luke and Leia’s relationship that feels authentic. Unfortunately the rest is just an executive shouting “Make it dumber.” “Make it more obvious.” “Nerds are virgins.”

Fanboys knew its audience.

I'm still not that convinced the fan base for genre has really grown so much as other folks just have no choice but to consume simply because there are few alternatives. I refuse to believe that there has been this HUGE secret love of comic book or sci-fi/fantasy stories that for some reason just now has revealed itself.

What really perplexes me is that the genre that DOES have legit MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of fans is vidja games yet no one can crack the code as to why a Call of Duty or GTA film wouldn't make BILLIONS veca se the games certainly do.