Wakanda Forever

 

"Wakanda Forever", both a unifying cry and greeting for the fictional country in Marvel's Black Panther, and the title of the newest sequel and Marvel blockbuster.

Jamie and I saw the film yesterday, and I highly recommend it.  For a Marvel movie, the depth of prior movies needed is really small.  You only really need to have seen the first Black Panther movie to understand this film.  In that way, these two Ryan Coogler films are fairly contained, their own pocket of the Marvel universe that can reference the broader picture but never really need it.

The film is particularly impressive in that it does something that is rare not only in superhero movies, but surprisingly rare in film today - it has something to say.  Meaning, the story has a broader message that it would like to share.  And this message is how to deal with grief.

When Chadwick Boseman passed, everyone wondered how they could continue to have a Black Panther film series.  His presence and charisma as T'Challa, the titular Black Panther, shown through his Marvel films and loomed bright the entire Marvel Universe. Coogler addresses that question by making it the central conceit of the film.  How do you tell a story, how do you move on when someone so impactful has died?

The film has each character impacted by loss experience it in a different way, some retreating into work, some into faith, and some disappearing completely.  Through the events of the film, it raises questions of the importance of faith, of believing in something larger in the grief process, on the dangers of holding on to the past, on the importance of a structure around you for support.

If you have any interest in seeing it, I highly recommend it.  One of the better films I've seen this year.  It may not be my favorite Marvel film (as I hold Endgame there just for the feelings that it brings), but to me it ranks as probably the best cinematically.

Noirvember 2022

It's November again, and in our house that means one thing - Noirvember.

Noirvember is a celebration of the greatest film genre of all, film noir.  Film noir refers to the stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations.  It's the genre that provides us the smooth talking detectives, the hard as nails femme fatales that get them in trouble, and the criminals we love to hate.

It remains my favorite genre of film and of literature.  I've spent the last couple of years reading through the works of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and James M. Cain.  And now that I've finished there, I've switched to the precursor with Agatha Christie and murder mysteries.  I've poured over the film careers of Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum, Dick Powell, and Richard Widmark.

To me, film noir is best served in black and white, as only that setting can provide the dark enough shadows to make it so perfectly captured.  This puts the best films in the 1940s and 1950s, which unsurprisingly, is the era I have logged the most film viewings in my Letterbox app.

Like last year, we've seen quite a few film noir new discoveries, a few of which I'd like to pass along as recommendations today:

• The Killing - Stanley Kubrik's tight heist noir.  It breaks the rules in all the fun ways.
• Force of Evil - We saw this at the TCM film festival with a live introduction by Eddie Muller for a live Noir Alley.  A fairly straightforward noir with a fantastic performance by Thomas Gomez, an underrated character actor.
• The Bad Sleep Well - Kurosawa's tale of revenge and corporate corruption.  Tense all the way through and while the ending can be frustrating, it sticks with you.  A great use of black and white and lighting in a famous alley scene. 
• The Hitch-Hiker - Ida Lupino's directorial triumph and the first film noir directed by a woman.  Tight, tense, three person film based on a real life crime.  Keeps you on edge to the end.
• Boomerang - bit more of a court-room drama, but compelling performances, nonetheless, by Dana Andrews, Arthur Kennedy, and Lee J Cobb.
• Panic in the Streets - this one was a trip to watch in the height of the CoVID.  Elia Kazan film with Richard Widmark as an officer of the US Public Health Service trying to stop a pneumonic plague from spreading through New Orleans.  Really interesting parallels.

Let me know your favorites.  Until next year, there's more Noir Alley ahead.

What I'm Listening To

I spend a lot of time in the car.  And I've found there are two types of people regarding their time in cars.  Those who prefer music and those who prefer conversations.  Growing up, I would never have imagined myself a talk radio person, but for me, the best way to break up the long drive is with long-form interview conversations.  Generally in the form of podcasts.  Thankfully the car has an option to connect to my iPod, so I can select the podcasts and go.  (This also enables me to switch to my music should I be in the mood).  When my iPod is not available, the go to is NPR - KERA 90.1.  But when I'm all connected as I like to be, these are my favorite things to listen to:

Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me! -  The NPR news quiz.  I love this show.  It helps me keep up to date on current events, with a wonderfully sarcastic streak which I love.  I always apprecite Peter Sagal and Bill Curtis (rest in peace Carl Kasell) and am a fan of so many of the panelists.  I wish I would have known about this in preparing for UIL Current Events (and it does surprise me that it is twenty years old this year).

Word Balloon with John Siuntres - The comics conversation show.  John Siuntres is a former sports radio guy from Chicago who engages in in-depth interviews with comic creators and other geek culture related people.  I love that John is interested in the conversation, not looking for sound bites but truly looking to capture the creative stories.  And I appreciate his development of a great catalog of older creator interviews.

The Q&A With Jeff Goldsmith - I came to this podcast in a little different way.  Goldsmith recorded conversations from the TCM Film Festivals and I first noticed those.  I've since listened to some of his conversations on more recent films with the creatives involved and appreciate his style.

ID10T with Chris Hardwick - I listened to a lot of podcast interviews by Chris Hardwick from the Nerdist and through ID10T.  I appreciated his style of interview, again preferring the longer conversation style and letting the guest cover the topics they desired to explore, not just a series of soundbites.  Further, I genuinely appreciated his outlook on life (as I remembered him from the Singled Out days and noticed the turn around).  The variety of guests that he has been able to interview is amazing.  I'm a little conflicted on this one due to his own #metoo allegations from his ex and he has not posted any new interviews since that time.  Still working through my own feelings on listening any further or to old podcasts, but wanted to include for completeness.

All of these have a long enough runtime to be enjoyable on my drive.  And I generally learn a lot about the creative process from people I admire and respect (plus make some new discoveries and learn to appreciate a few things I had written off before).

If you listen to podcasts, what are you listening to?  What are your go to genres?