Tag Archives: Ryan Coogler

Yes, There Are Scenes During and After the “Sinners” End Credits

May 2, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Michael B. Jordan in dual roles as 1932 gangsters, one with a red hat and one with a blue hat.

Thankfully it’s easy to tell which one’s Raphael and which one’s Leonardo.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Ryan Coogler rules! The writer/director/producer’s film career began a year after I launched this blog in 2012. I’ve seen them all in theaters and written about them along the way. His devastating indie debut Fruitvale Station was my favorite film that year (back when Coogler was still on Twitter and tossed me a Like for my efforts!). The legacy sequel Creed thoroughly wrecked me at the end. The Academy Award-Winning Black Panther is still one of the MCU’s best entries despite some janky CG in the underground-railroad climax. Its sequel Wakanda Forever is — microscopically splitting hairs — his least-best to date despite that powerful prologue, a worldwide wake for the late Chadwick Boseman. It’s still streets ahead of most Marvel films that followed in its shadow, but it buckled under the weight of the company’s self-perpetuating marketing plans.

With only four films grossing almost a combined $2.5 billion in international box office (well, now he’s passed that mark), the auteur stepped back from work-for-hire and threw some earned clout toward a project of his own, the very first to feature characters of his own creation without shouldering any inherited IP mantles. With that creative control Coogler scores another win in Sinners, once again collaborating with actor Michael B. Jordan, who’s been in all his films to date (erm, light Wakanda Forever spoilers, sorry) and who’s one of this blog’s frequent excuses to name-check The Wire whenever gratuitously possible. (We will never forget Wallace. NEVER.) It defies easy pigeonholing as a vampire survival-horror period-piece musical that demands a 21st-century Black Cinema Renaissance rise up and keep up with him. For anyone who thought the Panther films were still a liiittle bit white at heart, Sinners is here for you.

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Yes, There’s a Scene During the “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” End Credits

November 13, 2022 By in Comics/Lit, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Danai Gurira and Letitia Wright as Okoye and Shuri, wearing expensive non-superhero fashions to "blend in" with mixed results, from Marvel's "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever".

Okoye and Shuri learned everything they know about “going undercover” from James Bond parodies.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: after going 2-for-2 on his first feature films Fruitvale Station and Creed, director Ryan Coogler raised the bar in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Black Panther, and in turn gave Chadwick Boseman a long-overdue boost into super-stardom after years of his own fine works such as 42 and the still-underrated Persons Unknown. His death was among the many, many, many reasons we will never forgive the year 2020 for its endless curses.

Though we were blessed with chances to celebrate his life and talent posthumously in Da 5 Bloods, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and the grand surprisie of an alt-timeline Panther reprise in What If…? season one, the MCU proper never got a chance to say goodbye, to give King T’Challa of Wakanda the big sendoff he would’ve deserved if only Boseman could’ve had a couple more years to perform the honors. Coogler and co-writer Joe Robert Cole return for that very purpose — and so, so much more — with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

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Yes, There Are Scenes During and After the “Black Panther” End Credits

February 19, 2018 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments
2018 Black Panther movie theater standee.

Local theater pays proper tribute.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Ryan Coogler’s emotionally charged directorial debut Fruitvale Station was my favorite film of 2013. His follow-up, Creed, struck a bone-deep nerve inside me and was one of my two favorite films of 2015. It didn’t hurt in the least bit that the star of both films was Michael B. Jordan, who’s been raising his game with every project from his early start in The Wire to Chronicle (my favorite film of 2012) and beyond.

As a longtime comics fan who counts Christopher Priest’s ’90s runs on Marvel’s Black Panther as one of the all-time greats, and who wouldn’t have dreamed of this past weekend ever happening as a kid, I was beyond excited when the reins for the big Panther motion picture were handed over to Coogler, and that Jordan would be a part of it.

In a rare move for me, I kept my expectations unreasonably high. In a rare move for Hollywood, my expectations were blown away.

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“Creed” and the Fight to Mean Something

December 16, 2015 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , 4 Comments
Creed!

You wanna climb to the top, be ready to do the footwork.

It was probably unfair of me to assume Creed would be one of my favorite films of 2015 before I walked into the theater. Previously in the tragic Fruitvale Station, director Ryan Coogler and star Michael B. Jordan together made my favorite film of 2013. A year earlier, Jordan costarred in Chronicle, a left-field surprise that became my no-contest favorite of 2012. Prior to that, he was in season one of The Wire and thereby granted a lifetime pass for any future catastrophes beyond his control.

On the other hand, I’d only seen three of the six Rocky films — the first one as part of a successful ’90s mission to watch every Best Picture Oscar winner ever; Rocky III at the drive-in, where a furious, pre-laughingstock Mr. T frightened 10-year-old me almost to tears; and the shamelessly jingoistic yet totally engrossing Rocky IV, the only time in my life I’ve ever seen dudes in a theater jumping out of their seats and cheering and fist-pumping at all-American awesomeness overload. Yes, really. I’ve never felt the urge to keep up with the Italian Stallion since then, or to backtrack for the second one.

So in fairness, I had to allow that Creed could’ve gone either way.

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“Fruitvale Station”: Last Stop, This Life

August 26, 2013 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Michael B. Jordan, Fruitvale Station

In less than ninety minutes, first-time director Ryan Coogler’s straightforward yet piercing Fruitvale Station introduces you to your new best friend, lets you hang out with him for a while, shows him at his best and worst, and then punches you in the chest while forcing you to watch helplessly as his life is taken right in front of you.

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