Movies
The last day in the life of Oscar Grant, a young black man shot down by railway police in Fruitvale Station. It's a case that got a bit of media attention, so it's not too surprising to see a film based on these events. The film would be Coogler's big breakthrough, not too surprising since he adds his signature to this story. Performances are good, and the drama is solid. Coogler gives his version of the facts and Oscar's character does feel a little too idyllic, but there have been so many similar cases that you can take the plot as an abstraction rather than a realistic account of Oscar's last day. Not quite as impactful as I'd hoped, but certainly not a bad film.Read all
Going into this film, I didn't even know it was an official Rocky spin-off, just that it was a contemporary, often lauded boxing film by Ryan Coogler. What you're getting here is simply Rocky 2.0, a reboot of the original franchise in a more modern and black setting, warts and all. Jordan is pretty decent, Stallone is passable (which is a big win). Other than that, there's really not much to say about this film. If you've seen one boxing film you've seen them all, and apart from a more hip-hop inspired soundtrack and a slightly blacker cast, Coogler does very little with the material. Creed is way too long, doesn't offer enough excitement and chokes on the more dramatic parts, but boxing fans should be happy that this contemporary update is on the same level as the original.Read all
Yet another Marvel film. The good thing is that general interest is starting to wane a little. Sure, these films still end up with pretty impressive box office stats (marketing is definitely a part of it), but the mind-numbing hype seems to be something from the past. Fingers crossed the frequency of releases will follow that trend. Typical Marvel nonsense. The film is way too serious for its own good, has gaudy and childish designs, a predictable and generic plot, and is overly long. The film is a solid 2.5 hours, for something that should've been handled in 90 minutes tops. A serious waste of money is what it is.Read all
Another horrible superhero flick. It's cheesy, boring and the shallow attempts to do something more serious are painful to watch. So yeah, it has lots of black actors. If that gets you hot then go for it, but apart from that this film is a complete disaster. That's on par for Marvel though.