Viewers and fans will contemplate whether Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was the best Ryan Coogler and company could have done with their tragic circumstances. They will wonder if this pivot and royal escalation was the right approach. At some point, all of those questions (and others) have dual contexts between what they mean on-screen and off. Those questions also do not have a universal best, right, or perfect answer. For better or worse, we are now past “must” and the show emphatically goes on.
Read MoreDue to scheduling hurdles, the usual comic book film roundtable called in by the Kicking the Seat Podcast hosted by Ian Simmons had to merge their voices over the fun for an extended and perky podcast to cover Marvel's record-shattering blockbuster phenomenon, Black Panther! Ian was joined by myself, David Fowlie of Keeping it Reel, and Emmanuel Noisette of Eman's Movie Reviews.
Read MoreThe 88th Academy Award nominations will be announced tomorrow morning, January 14, 2016, hot off of the weekend's 73rd Golden Globe awards. I've been following the full awards season over on my Awards Tracker page. Using that data as the tea leaves and a truckload of hunches, I'm going to attempt to closely predict the Oscar nominations for the "Big 8" categories for the third year in a row.
Read MoreTake away every rooted piece of cheesy disconnect and disdain you have calcified in your hearts and minds for whatever bloated quality you remember or assigned to the six-film "Rocky" series and shelf it immediately. The spin-off film "Creed" is a new tangent that gracefully and respectfully builds from the nostalgic anchor that comes with the "Rocky" territory, but grows to never be bound by that history for a second. Ryan Coogler's film successfully strives to be its own bold and rousing saga fitting of the shared connection.
Read More