Theater Whore: Black Panther

Black Panther 10/10

There will be some spoilers. It has been so hard not to see or hear spoilers about this movie and waiting until I could see Black Panther with my cousin yesterday. This movie is fucking awesome. Its dazzling. I was sitting there with my mouth open too much to even take in everything that I was seeing on the screen. I will try not to bounce around too much but I'm sure I will because that is how I am in writing and conversations. This starts off with the telling of five tribes that would one day form the nation of Wakanda. It is done with this cool ass sand animation and gives hundreds of years of history in about two minutes. There. I have gotten upset with movies in the past doing this exact thing but the way it was handled here worked perfectly. All five tribes huddle up except the Jabari Tribe who decide to post up in the snowy mountains. These people all use vibranium (which is what Captain America's shield is made of) and have ultra advanced technology while to the rest of the world they look like regular ass Africans. It's cool.

Theater Whore: Creed

Creed 7/10

I finally got around to watching the new Creed film starring Michael B. Johnson and Sylvester Stallone. I was slightly hesitant to watch this. There has been six previous Rocky movies and I've enjoyed five of them. We don't talk about Rocky V. With this one I was expecting a bootleg style reboot but I was wrong. This movie blended perfectly into the previous films and I would actually like to see some more of these. The story is pretty simple the way it should be.

Jordan plays Adonis “Donnie” Johnson. He lives in a juvenile center when a lady played by Phylicia Rashad that slept with Apollo Creed shows up and takes him into her home. He is a bad ass kid which fast forwards to him quitting his job so that he can learn to be a better fighter. His mother does not want him doing it explaining to him how she had to wipe his dads ass because he was so hurt from boxing. Oh, and he died in the ring. That happened. He ends up getting Rocky to help him train after much convincing. Bring on the training montage!

Theater Whore: Fantastic Four

Fantastic Four 7/10

There will be some spoilers. I managed to dodge all the spoilers about this new Fantastic Four movie but managed to hear about all of the terrible reviews that it was receiving. When I wrote about this movie before it came out I said they already had a leg up on the other films because I was interested in it because I am not a fan of the FF whatsoever. This film managed to actually get me interested in the characters by going in a very different direction than the comics or previous films did.

It starts with a young Reed Richards in his science class being told by his teacher that what he wants to be can not be done. Just like real teachers do! He ends up befriending Ben Grimm while stealing junk from the junk yard that Grimm's family owns. They blow out all the power in the neighborhood. Fast forward years later and they have made another version of the device and are discovered by Professor Franklin Storm played by Reg E. Cathey. He invites Reed to help him create this machine on a larger scale since they have been working on something like it.

In Defense Of Fantastic 4 Reboot

I love pointless outrage. I like to think that I have mastered the ability to get upset about nothing. But the rage towards the reboot of The Fantastic Four film is funny. Most people are mad that The Human Torch is being played by a Black guy to which I reply “Its the fucking Fantastic Four...” meaning “Who gives a fuck?!” A little bit ago I defended Ben Affleck as Batman and this time I'm not gonna strongly attempt to defend a Black Human Torch so much as make you all realize that this isn't worth getting upset about.

There is this video that Max Landis, the writer of the second best superhero film Chronicle, made called The Death And Return Of Superman where the first thing he says is “Nobody gives a fuck about Superman.” That is how I feel about FF (I'm not typing their name a hundred goddamn times). This new movie is directed by Josh Trank who directed Chronicle which makes me far less concerned if this movie will be cool. Forget trying to convince people that a Black guy can be a fictional character. Getting me to even be interested in seeing a FF movie is far more remarkable.