"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" Trailer & "The Multiverse Saga" Timeline

by Nathaniel R

Queen Bassett contemplates the future of Wakanda (as we contemplate the future of the MCU)

We try not to care about the MCU because it's become so dominant as to be oppressive on movie culture BUT we did grow up reading Marvel comic books so it's hard to look away. Phase Four of Marvel's Cinematic Universe has brought (comparatively) mixed reactions with people griping that the work is getting sloppier, particularly vfx and action-wise, in their rush to have literally dozens of subfranchises under the overall MCU umbrella. We'd also argue that they're getting a bit lazier in character development, trusting that comics lore and general fan culture will sell everything rather than putting the personality onscreen where it needs to be.

We hope it improves soon and if it's going to, Wakanda Forever (trailer below just dropped) would be the ideal place to right the ship what with a strong proven director and cast (Ryan Coogler and several cast members returning), a beloved property, and one of Marvel's most intriguing characters (at least on the page) being introduced...

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Tweetweek: Nope, Crawdads, and the ongoing saga of the great Barbie vs Oppenheimer war of 2023

!!!

Gore Vidal, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, James Dean, and Anthony Perkins all lived together at Shirley MacLaine’s house in Malibu in the summer of 1954, before any of them had really “made it” in Hollywood. I’d like to watch a stage play/film about THAT.

— Just Jack (@luxurytrash_) July 22, 2022

Yes please. Would very much like to see this movie. More curated tweets for you (so you don't have to waste time on Twitter) are after the jump...

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Review: Jordan Peele strikes again with thrilling overstuffed "Nope"

by Nathaniel R

We name them. We train them. We live with them. Some people work with them. But do we ever really know our animal friends? Since we can't speak directly to them, their emotions and thoughts are mostly guesswork on our part. Nope takes place largely at a horse ranch. It's run by the Haywood family, Father Otis (Keith David), son OJ (Daniel Kaluuya), and daughter Emerald (Keke Palmer). The Haywoods have been training horses for movie and television shoots for generations. OJ, perpetually tense, quiet, and observant, notices it quickly; something is off with the horses. But what? The answer, without spoilers, is this: they know it's a horror film before the Haywoods do.

What kind of a horror film it is, though, is another question...

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1997: The Ensemble of "Female Perversions"

We're revisiting the 1997 film year in the lead up to the next Supporting Actress Smackdown. As always Nick Taylor will suggest a few alternatives to Oscar's ballot.

Women, amirite? You've got the unique expectations foisted upon them to perform their gender by strangers, coworkers (no matter the field), loved ones, and themselves. There’s the generational traumas, both inherited and inflicted. Not to mention the way their psychosexual hang-ups function as ungainly manifestations of their repressed selves desperately seeking some kind of release. You can try reaching out to others for help, but all you’ve really got is yourself, and who trusts that bitch?

This is the territory Female Perversions resides in...

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Links: Death Scenes, Star Salaries, and Filmmaker Arrests

Today's Must Read
• Slate examines the "50 Greatest Fictional Deaths of All Time". For a piece on death it's surprisingly fun and life-affirming. But the best reason to read it is that, unlike 95% of "all time" lists unline, it's genuinely far reaching stretching across all storytelling mediums and time periods. At this point it's a miracle to see an "all time" list that acknowledges that the world existed before the 1990s! Obviously spoilers abound though...

Movie and tv salaries at the moment, Jafar Panahi's prison sentence, Amanda Seyfried's Wicked audition, Bollywood anxiety and more after the jump ...

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