Black Panther

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A superhero fights the bad guy to save his country.

Seriously, that’s the basic plot…sounds pretty dull, doesn’t it?

But unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last year, you know how much more there is to this movie-not only an excellent addition (#18, I think) to the Marvel universe of movies, but the first big-budget high-profile superhero movie about a Black superhero and country.

The hype was astronomical, but the trailers looked damn good. Even Mr. Otter wanted to see this, so on a Monday holiday a few days after it opened, we sauntered down to our local Emporium des Movies at 9:30am, thinking we’d walk right into the 9:45 show.

Were we ever wrong. Not only that show, but the WHOLE DAY, was already sold out. So being retired, and Mr. Otter having Tuesdays off right now, we bought a ticket for the NEXT day, getting excellent seats, and went home and watched the second season of Preacher instead. And loved it.

But I digress.

So on Tuesday, there we were, Mr. Otter with his chai and me with ice cream, and the movie…was amazing. Beautifully filmed, gorgeous sets, costumes and special effects, good acting, good writing…pretty much what I expect from most Marvel movies, although this was better than most.

T’Challa (the eponymous Black Panther) has recently inherited both the name/powers of this superhero, and the rule of the kingdom of Wakanda, from his father. Wakanda (which is somewhere in central Africa) is a super-technologically advanced country that also is sitting on the world’s supply of Vibranium, which is not only the hardest metal in the world (Captain America’s shield is made of it) but also incredibly valuable. This is one of the plot lines, since nobody else in the world (except for a select few) knows that Wakanda is anything but a backwater third-world country. The other is the contention between T’Challa and someone from his past, Erik Killmonger (The Bad Guy), and all kinds of issues about freedom and responsibility are raised. This was so well done that there is a big faction who object to how the movie played out and are on Killmonger’s side. That’s some seriously good writing, folks.

But the best thing was having a movie written by and starring Black actors that was so intelligent, had such great characters (especially the three women) and a really well-thought-out plot. (With no major plot holes that I could see…and that’s really rare for a superhero movie, even a good one.) What a game-changer. At least I hope it will be, and from now on superhero movies will have a whole lot more variety and inclusiveness.

Here is a great article by an African-American writer that talks about some of the racial issues and attitudes that were part of the impact of, and discussion sparked by, this movie, including the number of people who were rooting for the ‘bad guy’. This article has SPOILERS, which I am trying really hard to avoid in this review.

Basically, this movie was very, very good; run, don’t walk, to the theater and see it.

Alan Partridge

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Alan Partridge is an inept, self-aggrandizing DJ in a small-town radio station, and a new company buys out the station…shenanigans!!

Steve Coogan is an Otter Family Favorite Actor, and one day when I was looking around for a movie to take to the Red Cross while I did apheresis, Mr. Otter handed this to me. Perfect, I said, and took it.

And it was good for a long period spent unmoving with needles in both my arms, I have to say. Funny, easy to follow, not complicated but interesting enough to keep my attention. Coogan was great as the smarmy self-involved idiot, and Colm Meaney (who I will always think of as the asshole guy from Con Air) was also in it, and was very good.

This is one of those movies where everything just keeps getting more and more crazy and out of hand, and it builds nicely. Worth seeing, if not funniest movie ever.

Cars

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Race car Lightning McQueen (get it?) has to get to California to win the big race, but gets stuck in a tiny town in the Southwest, and of course it’s full of eccentric characters and he falls in love and learns about life.

Music Mike knows this guy who could get us into Disneyland for free, so of course we were all over that. We went in the middle of the week in January, so as to avoid crowds, and since neither of us had ever been to California Adventure, we decided to do that (we had to choose one place or the other.) A chunk of CA is about the Cars movie, and more is getting changed over; it’s a HUGE deal with little kids, especially little boys, as I know from working on a children’s desk in a library since forever.

The thing is, I had never seen the Cars movie (nor, of course, any of the sequels or the million videos or cartoons or books or any of the other spinoffs.) So when we walked through Radiator Springs downtown, and there was Luigi’s tire shop with the tower of tires, and the traffic-cone motel, and Fran’s V-8 Diner, and the awesome spinning ride that was a bunch of tractors with Tow Mater’s voiceovers, and the big car race ride, and the neon at night, I didn’t get ANY of it.

But the neon was great, and the big ride (and some of the little ones) was really fun.

So when I got home from that trip, I checked the Cars movie out of the library and watched it. I told Music Mike, and mentioned to Mr. Otter, that I thought Mr. Otter and I had watched it way back when…but it’s not in my reviews, and neither of us really remembered it, so obviously we didn’t.

And (getting back to the review) I have to say, it was really fun. The animation was good; not as spectacular as today’s movies, but damn good. The story was pretty predictable, but told with wit and charm. And it didn’t hurt that most of the story takes place in my favorite place ever, the Southwest.

The voice actors were good, although I didn’t recognize any of them (including Serious Honeys Paul Newman and Michael Keaton). There were plenty of in-jokes and asides for the grownups to be entertained, and it never got boring.

And I sat through the credits and laughed hysterically…they’re almost the best part of the movie.

A fun time. Didn’t make me want to go out and see the sequels, but I sure enjoyed it…and now I appreciate what I saw at Disneyland even more.