Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a Bloated Whale of A Mess

That Namor Rides In On

There used to be a time when a movie premiered, there was this special energy that emanated around it. The magic, the excitement, the actors who couldn’t wait to promote it, the audience who couldn’t wait to see it. In these past few years though, that has changed tremendously, and not for the better. In those years, there has been this infusion of hostility towards the fans, actors speaking out on justice propaganda, studios' preemptive attacks on the very demographic that fuel their coffers, and a general sense of malaise with the Hollywood industry. What we get to see with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is the contamination of all those ingredients. With a running time of 2 hours and 41 minutes, it’s a bloated mess. If you’re going to see it, I advise you to get a nap before you go in order to stay awake as you slog through this fiasco of a film. There is very little to write home about with this film. Its spirit is haunted by the ghost of the original Black Panther, Chadwick Boseman.

His death permeates through the entire film and they don’t let you forget that from start to finish. There has been a debate surrounding recasting the part of the Black Panther and by the looks of this film, they should have as this became a 2-and-a-half memorial wake. This film lulls you into complacency and if you’re not in a mental stupor, you’ll realize after I did after around the 1 hour 13-minute mark there was yet to see any form of a Black Panther which I’m now calling Blank Panther.

I was getting bored with the “feelings in hallways” of this film. After we are introduced to a funeral for T’Challa, the story is supposed to be a year after Blank Panther’s death. But everyone is still walking around on eggshells. When you look at it for a while, you feel as if those connected to Blank Panther need grief counseling with Dr. Phil to understand the root cause of this mindset. But at some point, you realize that there is supposed to be a story here.

In this iteration, we are introduced to two new characters. The first one calls himself Namor (pronounced No-more) but for those of us who are comic book fans, it’s pronounced Nay-mor. Some pencil neck dweeb decided to refer to Namor as No-more. I had issues with the Namor character and it stems from the comic book version. In the comic book version, Namor was lean and muscularly cut, You saw the definition in his torso, front, and back. The muscles in his legs were tight and bulging. In this film version, the Namor looked like he was three Whoppers away from having a beer belly. He was not cut and when he walked out of the waters on the shores of Wakanda, there were no back muscles. If he was a swimmer, there would have been back muscles like the Aquaman. This Namor is pudgy.

In the comic book version, Namor looked more Euro-Asian with his pale skin and Asian eyes. His ears were more Spock-like and he stood at least 6'-3”. In the film version, he’s a short Hispanic man with the Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power elf ears and he’s just shy of being called an elf. When you hear the powers that be discussing Namor, it was a purposeful decision to go in that direction, screw canon.

There was no logic to Namor and his tribe. The underwater scenes were illogical. I will speak to two of them. The first is the amount of clothing they wore underwater. Why were not they wearing clothing that wasn’t layered in fabric? Sure, the women can’t be nearly or partially naked but wearing togas under the sea is ridiculous. The people were also wearing ornate headgear and ornamental jewelry in battle. In the comic book, Namor wore no such ostentatious jewelry into battle. Did anyone say to the powers that be that this was just dumb?

The second character was Riri Williams, the genius prodigy whom Disney/Marvel is laying out as the new Iron-man. She is supposed to be 19 but she looks 25 so I looked her up and SHE IS 25. Most of her dialogue was painful and if she is supposed to be this genius, why does she speak with a vernacular from someone who went to school in Alabama? This is a trope Disney went down the road with again. We’re going to say that she’s a genius but she speaks ghetto.

Blank Panther is clearly a female-centric film. With the exception of pudgy Namor, there is very little interaction with men. Shuri is not a lead actress and she can’t carry the weight of this film for 2 hours and 41 minutes. I say this because I started to drift away from her at the 1 hour and 13-minute mark after realizing that there was no Blank Panther and the character was losing confidence in me. You stop being invested and you start thinking about when will all of this come to an end. The men are mostly relegated to reaction mode and Winston Duke as M’Baku, is just a limited action prop star. It’s about four steps down from his original role in the first film. Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger serves as a cleansing palate to wake up the audience after being lulled into submission by way too many exposition scenes.

When the Queen died, you felt nothing. The reaction of Shuri to Queen Ramonda was empty. There was no connection in the mother/daughter moment that should have been established in the first film but now it had to be hastily cobbled together with lackluster results.

Of the action scenes that were very little of for this two-hour and 41-minute movie, there was no excitement to them. Good action films put you in the middle of the action like a good Bruce Lee film where you mimic the punches thrown by Bruce as he connects to the target. The chase and bridge scenes were tepid. The battle scenes on the ship weren’t as memorable or even a water-cooler moment. When Shuri gets run through with a spear, we are supposed to suspend the belief that this was a kill shot. I remember seeing The Sixth Sense and when Bruce Willis is shot in the gut, I said to myself that that was a fateful shot and I was right. Growing up in a city of violence there are certain things that you learn and death, violent death became par for the course. Shuri took a spear to the stomach and was run through. The blade would have lacerated her stomach, her kidney, large intestines, and gall bladder and may have nicked her spine. The internal damage would have been massive and yet she pushes herself off the spear which would have caused her to bleed out but no, she finishes the fight with Namor because she’s a strong woman.

This is The Woman King 3. There were the all-women pallbearers, all-women fighters, the woman boss played by Julia Luis-Dreyfuss, and the woman over the underwater exploration team, all the women were tough with the exception of the scuba diver who screamed at the unknown. Pudgy Namor gets defeated and makes a truce. Shuri lets M’Buku fight for the throne without any explanation. Okoye breaks out Everett Ross from the back of a prison transport and calls him a colonizer which is the equivalent of calling him a slave master and he has no comeback for that insult because he’s a white man. Stand up for yourself, Ross. Shuri goes to Haiti where Lupita Nyongo’s Nakia is working and walks on the beach and begins to live in her memories reflecting on her life with T’challa. It started off as maudlin and it ended with maudlin.

The question most people would want to know in these times is, was the film woke? In a nutshell, yes. There was no strong-male lead. It had identity politics throughout. There was no discussion of any romantic love interest, not even when Kakia was reminiscing about her life with T’Challa. I was expecting more, something deeper but I got little service.

I don’t know if they did Chadwick Boseman any favors with this rendition of Blank Panther. Only historians will look back on it and make that assessment. The only thing this version of Blank Panther did was for it to live under the shadow of Chadwick Boseman for eternity. For now and what was presented, it’s a no for me. Two out of five stars.

 

Music From My Youth: 

The Allman Brothers - These Days

You may not want to admit it or maybe you just haven’t given it a second thought but you have to come to the realization that we are fortunate to live in the times that we are living in. More specifically, we are living in this technological world of media. It wasn’t that way seventy years ago as we take for granted some of the advancements that we can’t live without. Sometimes the things that we want are just a keystroke or finger swipe away. One of those finger swipes is access to music. Music was an integral part of me for a long time. As a kid, I joined the school band in seventh grade starting off on the trumpet. As each upperclassman in the band graduated, I was moved up on the brass section from trumpet to trombone to the baritone horn to finally tuba. Playing that instrument through high school earned me a music scholarship to college. But it was the high school that opened me up more in expanding my appreciation of rock and roll music.

Growing up in the predominately black urban city of East St. Louis, Illinois, and attending Lincoln Senior High, our school wasn’t particularly unique at all. It was your standard everyday high school that wasn’t insulated by the violence surrounding it. We just accepted it as part of the fabric of East St. Louis. As the typical days rolled on, one of my classmates did something that may have altered a life or two. You just don’t know what impact you may have exposed on malleable minds. On this particular day, he brought in a turntable and a stack of albums to the gym. In reflecting back on that time, I don’t think he got permission to bring in that turntable or use it as he did. I am not sure if he cared or not, he just did it.

He plugged it in and proceeded to play from his stack of albums and what he played was something new to me. There was Satana — Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen, Mountain — Nantucket Sleigh Ride, Led Zepplin — Stairway To Heaven, The Doors — Riders On The Storm, the immaculate Jimi Hendrix — Purple Haze, and more. My classmate had just opened up a door to a new world of sounds that led to new adventures. It was this initial offering that ignited the fire to rock and roll. R&B was the dominant music at the time but this was different. As my horizons evolved, I started listening to more rock.

Depending on who the artist was, a lot of rock music hand nuance to the lyrics. There was a suitableness to it, a lot of double meanings. Sometimes a song would find its connection with you and that is what The Allman Brothers Band did for me with the song, These Days. High school wasn’t necessarily a happy time. Things went on and not necessarily for the good. Unlike schools of the day where you have counselors attending to students during tragic events, we weren’t afforded that luxury. Starting in sixth grade, I had a friend who shot and killed his brother by accident. No professional attended to our needs. In junior high, a classmate brought a gun to school and pointed it at the head of another classmate sitting in front of me. He didn’t pull the trigger and placed it back into his jacket. Nobody said a word. That classmate was dead a few weeks later due to gun violence. One classmate was killed in a car crash. He was a basketball prodigy destined for greatness. Another classmate overdosed. High school just added to the turmoil with violence. Rock music became this escape from the chaos.

The Allman Brothers, These Days, became my mantra to life then as it does now. Unlike Cardi B’s WAP, the lyrics had weight, value, and meaning to it. There was meat on these bones. As old as this song is, it still has meaning and significance to the listener. The first two lines of the song grab you, “Well I’ve been out walking, I don’t do that much talking these days” Those first two lines are me. I don’t do a lot of talking to old friends anymore. Maybe it’s because there is no commonality anymore, maybe there is a shift in politics, or maybe there isn’t anything to say anymore.

There are some more significant lyrics as we continue on: “Well I had a lover, I don’t think I’ll risk another these days.” It seems like this song is mirroring my life. I was married, never again. I had lovers but I’m not committed. The last one, we mutually ended with a clean break. In the final analysis, it felt like empty calories in the relationship.

The most memorable lyrics to this song are the last two lines which read: “Please don’t confront me with my failures, I’m aware of it”. I always say” I’m aware of them” because failures come more than once.

The Allman brothers had a lot of hits during their heyday, Whipping Post, Midnight Rider, Ramblin’ Man, and Melissa to name a few and many of these songs still hold value. Melissa and Midnight Rider still carry the day. The music eventually took me out of East St. Louis. Many years later I would wind up being the executive producer and head comedy writer for a morning drive-time show at an Album Orientated (AOR) rock station The station is no more. Clear Channel flipped it to a Tejano station. For them, rock died but for some of us, it still lives on.

So, what are your childhood songs? What became your mantra song?

Well I've been out walking
I don't do that much talking these days
These days
These days I seem to think a lot
About the things that I forgot to do
For you
And all the times I had the chance to

Well I had a lover
I don't think I'll risk another these days
These days
These days I seem to be afraid
To live the life that I have made in song
But it's just that I have been losing
For so long

These days I sit on cornerstones
Count the time in quarter tones 'till ten
My friend
And now I believe I've come
To see myself again

These days I sit on cornerstones 
Count the time in quarter tones 'till ten
My friend
Please don't confront me with my failure
I'm aware of it

 

Hollywood: Why are Black U.K. Actors Portraying Iconic Historical  American Figures

When Black American Actors are Being Overlooked?

I had always assumed that I wouldn’t be that person who made a big deal out of racial equality but this isn’t about race, it’s about American exceptionalism. Let me explain. Are you familiar with the actor, Daniel Kaluuya? You may remember him from the Jordan Peele movie, Get Out, He also was in the film, Judas & The Black Messiah. In that, he portrayed activist and deputy chairman of the Black Panther Party, Fred Hampton. What about the actress, Cynthia Erivo? In two of her film works, she portrayed Harriet Tubman and Aretha Franklin. Chiwetel Ejiofor portrayed Huey Lucas, the brother of gangster Frank Lucas, in the film, American Gangster. David Oyelowo has been acting for a while now. You may recall him portraying Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the film, Selma. He also will be portraying the legendary lawman, Bass Reeves, who was the race-swapped inspiration to the old TV series, The Lone Ranger. which premiered first as a radio show in 1933 in Detroit, Michigan, and later as a TV series on NBC that ran from 1949 to 1957

What makes these actors unique is that all of them are from the United Kingdom. I do not know what they did to earn the role or what politics was used to secure the part, either way, they got the role. The only question that I have is, wasn’t there any black American actor or actress in this entire country that could be found to play these parts? I originally had asked that question first after Cynthia Erivo was cast to play Harriet Tubman. She’s British. Why was she portraying this iconic American figure? The American actress, the late Cecily Tyson portrayed her so effectively that she became the benchmark and set the standard for those who would follow and mirror her performance. Erivo’s casting did not go as smoothly as she had wished because of a controversy she made at the expense of American blacks. Needless to say, many questioned why no actress from descendants from American slavery had been cast? I refused to watch her rendition of Harriet Tubman.

And that brings us back to Mr. David Oyelowo. He’s portraying Bass Reeves in an upcoming film. Aside from him being British, he’s also a producer on the production of this film. He took it upon himself to cast himself as Bass Reeves. Number one, he’s too old for the part or he just looks too old  and number two, he doesn’t look black American. They should have cast younger. I don’t think they have it in their budget to de-age Oyelowo as they did to Luke Skywalker in The Mandalorian as it would look strange and for him to do an American accent is just disingenuous to the role. There is something inheritably unique about being a black American. Underneath those layers of skin, you will find angst mixed in with bravado, heart, and bravery that battles the fear and anxiety and solation wrapped around truth and misunderstanding where we fight to be a part of something greater than the history that taught us that there are no handouts to what you want.

If I were casting this role, I would have selected an American actor, Clifton Duncan.

Clifton Duncan

Bass Reeves

He’s a working actor and doesn’t get the recognition he deserves and maybe that is because he doesn’t check all of the boxes necessary to play in the social milieu. I’m starting to see more and more of how these British actors are portraying Americans, regardless of the skin tone, that they are becoming caricatures of a prototype (long haul trucker with a southern accent, New York woman with a thick New Jersey accent). As the networks and studios keep cranking out content, you’ll find the American-based content involving actors is lined with foreign actors.

I have no problem with that as long as it’s fictional. When it comes to foreign actors playing American roles, you may be surprised that the following actors are not American and yet they get the lion’s share of these roles: Delroy Lindo, a U.K, has been playing American for a very long time; Damien Lewis has been playing American for such a long time that whenever he speaks in his natural accent, you’d think he was putting on an act. Karl Urban, the lead actor in The Boys TV series on Amazon, is not American but from New Zealand. Archie Panjabi is not from New York as she portrayed in The Good Wife but is from the U.K. Alfred Molina, Doc Ock from Spiderman is from London as is Andrew Garfield. Lennie James, the guy from The Walking Dead is a Londoner and it goes on and on and on.

The same can’t be said about black American actors playing foreign parts in whatever foreign country happens up an acting role unless the part is an American part. I do not know if black American actors are aware of this or have not connected two and two together? But when it comes specifically to black foreigners taking on historic iconic American roles, the black American actors have been losing out and I don’t know why? White American actors have no problem playing foreign parts. Meryl Streep infamously portrayed the U.K. Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher which she won an Oscar in 2012 for her efforts.  When she was cast for the part, many in England raised the question of why wasn’t a British actress cast for the role instead of an American?

Jennifer Hudson did portray Aretha Franklin that came after the Cynthia Erivo performance. I saw it as a hollow consolation prize as Aretha Franklin did sign off on her portraying her but the script was not so stellar and it felt more like an afterthought from the first Aretha film.

America has a wealth of historic black American figures. The U.K. not so much. You can understand why black actors from the U.K. clamor for these roles of iconic figures. Crispus Attucks fought in the American Revolutionary war and was the first person killed in the Boston Massacre. Madame C.J. Walker pioneered hair care for black women and became an entrepreneur in the process. Frederick Douglas escaped slavery to become a statesman, abolitionist, and writer. George Washington Carver was an agricultural scientist who discovered and created more uses for the peanut.

I’m not familiar with the contributions of blacks in the U.K. I do not know if there was anyone who may have fought for a cause and created something or guided a movement in the making of the U.K. At least with America, we have the recorded and told history as well as the untold stories of so many who walked this land in those monumental moments. You can not just act American, you have to eat, sleep, breathe, and be American. Maybe I should write a script on the life of George Washington Carver and have Clifton Duncan play the part. Who knows or maybe Crispus Attucks?

George Washington Carver

 

This Is Us: In Defense of Toby

It’s been a couple of rough weeks for the beleaguered Toby these days on This Is Us. Toby is being painted with the brush of becoming a toxic man. That characterization is heavily flawed however and it is a complete disservice to the character of who Toby was in the beginning and who he is now. So why the maligning of his character?

A reporter from TVLine.com, Kimberley Roots, wrote an article that stated in the banner that Toby is the worst. Really? Why such a declaration? Why so definitive? Isn’t that just a bit hyperbolic? In the episode entitled, Up That Hill, Toby is going through life thinking that what he is doing is being a provider for his family. He is working hard to give his family the things they need and you can see his focus is on that. Little does he know, however, that his partner, his wife, Kate, does not share his vision of a steadfast union as we saw at the end of the episode. So how did Toby become the villain in this story when viewed from a different perspective, why label him as the worst?

In the unfolding of Up That Hill, Toby is doing well at his company. He appears to have the respect of his colleagues and he is an asset as well. Toby is also looking into purchasing a home in San Francisco for his family. One would think that these are good things but to Kate, they are not. In this episode, Toby is painted with the brush of selfishness. How dare he finally have a good job after being unemployed and having to suffer indignities from his much more successful brother-in-law. How dare he have a job where he feels like he is contributing to his family as opposed to what he was doing first which was feeling anxious about not having a job. Toby wasn’t cheating on his wife. Toby worked a successful job and his colleagues seemed to respect and enjoy his contribution, But somehow, he is the worst.

Kate views Toby differently these days. She envisions Toby as the “old” Toby. The one that was big as her, the one who had no confidence, no motivation, no desire. The old fat Toby was her equal. The old Toby lost the weight and kept it off. He got in shape. This bothered her and it had an impact on her self-esteem. Kate is a study of failure in taking charge of her life. In looking back on her forty years of life, we get to see that Kate avoided conflict. She has relied on her brothers to solve her issues and to excuse her issues more importantly.

In the follow-up episode entitled Saturday In The Park, Little Jack takes off on his own and heads to the neighborhood park. Kate puts all of the blame on Toby in a heated argument outside their home. In the ensuing shouting match, Kevin and Randall show up and intervene in the dispute. What was interesting was seeing Kate retreat to the back while her brothers took charge. This is who Kate is, a passive doorstop of a woman in damsel-in-distress mode.

The problem with Kate and Toby’s marriage isn’t mountains of issues but small hills when you look at the grand scheme of things. The writers chose to make the mountains and make Toby a bad guy when in fact he’s a good guy. They have chosen to tear down Toby because he is a white male while propping up the female while being virtuous. Kate’s issues run deep, childhood deep and one of her issues was her weight gain as a child. Her mother should have recognized there was an issue then and sought help to understand the root cause. Kate’s childhood traumas impacted her life for thirty years.

Earlier in the previous season, there was a flash-forward episode showing Toby sitting up in bed by himself. The question at the time was, where was Kate? Toby appeared to be sad in the flash-forward. Was Kate dead? There was no other indicator other than speculation on the fate of Kate. Subsequently, in future episodes, we saw that Kate was getting remarried. As the puzzle of the pieces slowly come together, there will be no happily ever after for Toby and Kate.

In Saturday In The Park, Kate was gunning for a fight throughout that episode. Toby could do nothing right as it unfolded with Kate hammering him for everything going on. With all of those adults in the house, why was Toby the one who had to deal with all of the chaos? Why did Kate teach her small child how to open a door? Why didn’t Kate accept any responsibility for aiding and abetting Little Jack’s wandering off by himself? Why didn’t she go with her mother to the park when Rebecca figured out where he went and she just stood there like a lump?

The emphasis though is to demonize Toby though. He is a bad father, a bad husband because that’s how he is being painted outside the lines. Kate would like the fat old Toby back, but why? Does he represent the aimless, uncertain Toby that Kate’s life was? The failed singer, the teenage girl who became pregnant and had an abortion, the teenage girl who found solace by eating away at everything in sight?

Setting up Toby as a bad guy is just a symptom of Kate’s issues that rest just below the surface. This Is Us has done Toby a disservice to the character. We went on a journey with him as he traverse the ups and downs of life. We rallied for him as he found the job he needed as well. But to treat him with so much disrespect is a black eye for This Is Us.