“Chadwick Boseman — A Tribute for a King” Moves to Disney+

by Beth Keating

Commentary/Review

DisneyBizJournal.com

September 7, 2020

I’ve always been a fan of hero movies, whether they come in the form of hero quests such as Lord of the Rings, or the kind that come packaged as “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.” It’s a good thing, since I live in a household of humans of the male variety. I have years of Halloween costumes representing half a dozen different forms of Batman, as well as a myriad of pint-sized Avengers costumes. Occasionally, the kids would dress in complementing pairs, such as Batman and Robin. A few times, we sent two different iterations of Batman out in the neighborhood side by side.

So, when a number of folks recommended watching the special that ABC created after Black Panther actor Chadwick Boseman’s untimely death, I tried to tune in. I had missed it in its original airing on August 30 on ABC, but was assured it had moved to Disney+. I pulled up Disney+, and settled back to watch the 40-minute tribute. Hosted by Robin Roberts, the special edition of 20/20 offered tributes from celebs and fans, and looked back at Boseman’s career and legacy. Boseman passed away on August 28 at just 43 years old, following a four-year battle with colon cancer.

But I couldn’t find the episode.  It wasn’t on any of the “Originals,” “Trending,” “Documentaries,” or “New to Disney+” menus up front. I tried putting the actual title of the show into the search bar, and it told me “No results found for ‘Chadwick Boseman — A Tribute for a King’.” I entered “Chadwick Boseman” and the titles of four marvel movies came up, but not the 20/20 special. I even put in “Black Panther” and only the movie itself showed up. 

Now, I am not known for my technological prowess in our home, but I figured it shouldn’t be this hard. I thought maybe it hadn’t started airing on Disney+ yet, but a quick Google search assured me it had been added, and was still airing. So back to the menus I went.

At long last, I found it. And in case you are interested too, let me share how to locate the special. First, find the Black Panther movie, then hit the “extras” menu. There you will find not only the ABC tribute special, but a trailer for the Black Panther movie; an audio commentary version; and several one minute featurettes, including “Come to Wakanda – After.” 

While playing T’Challa, the king of Wakanda, may have been one of the roles Chadwick Boseman was most recognized for, he had a twenty-plus-year career that showed his tremendous range as an actor. “Chadwick Boseman — A Tribute for a King” is a tug-at-the-heartstrings farewell to a talented performer whose on screen roles were just one part of a life that touched so many others.

__________

Beth Keating is a regular contributor to DisneyBizJournal.

Will Fox Finally Bring Disney a Best Picture Oscar?

by Ray Keating

Analysis

DisneyBizJournal.com

February 8, 2020

It’s kind of surprising given its many successes over ninety-plus years, but Disney has never won an Academy Award for Best Picture.

In fact, it’s even more striking to note that coming into the 2020 Academy Awards ceremony tomorrow (February 9) night, Disney previously had only five films nominated for Best Picture. 

The last one was Black Panther released in 2018, and before that was Toy Story 3 (Disney/Pixar) released in 2010, Up (Disney/Pixar) in 2009, and Beauty and the Beast from 1991. Both Up and Toy Story 3, though, did win Best Animated Feature awards. 

Prior to these, one has to go back to Mary Poppins (1964) for a Disney Best Picture nomination.

But that’s it. This year, though, courtesy of the Fox acquisition, Disney has two Best Picture nominations – Ford v Ferrari and JoJo Rabbit. So, buying Fox already has increased Disney’s Best Picture nominations from five to seven – a 40 percent increase - and opened the possibility for the Oscar.

Indeed, could Disney finally get a Best Picture Oscar on Sunday night, and if so, given that each of these movies were Fox productions, would a win be considered a true “Disney” win?

Ray Keating is the editor, publisher and economist for DisneyBizJournal.com, and author of The Disney Planner 2020: The TO DO List Solution and the Pastor Stephen Grant novels. He can be contacted at  raykeating@keatingreports.com.

Will the Oscars Finally Recognize Superhero Films? The Lord of the Rings Example

by Ray Keating

Commentary

DisneyBizJournal.com

June 14, 2019

Can Avengers: Endgame lay waste to Hollywood’s Oscar bias against superheroes?

The Academy Awards just announced the date for its 2022 Oscars show, and confirmed the dates for the 2020 and 2021 shows. I understand that February 9, 2020, for the upcoming Oscars seems pretty far off, and we still have plenty of movies to watch in 2019, but this announcement got me thinking about whether or not Avengers: Endgame might finally have the power to break through the Academy’s opposition to superheroes.

If there’s hope on this front, it can be found in The Lord of the Rings movies. The first in that film trilogy – The Fellowship of the Ring – hit theaters in December 2001, followed by The Two Towers in December 2002. Both films were nominated for Best Picture, but failed to win, only taking home technical and music Oscars. And then came The Return of the King in December 2003. All three movies, by the way, were filmed together, and then released over those three Decembers.

It was noted at the time that Academy voters were holding off on awarding the big Oscars until the last movie in the trilogy. However, that was no slam dunk. It needs to be pointed out that no true fantasy movie had ever won Best Picture. In fact, Fellowship and Two Towers were, it can be argued, the only other true fantasy films ever nominated for Best Picture to that point.

So, at the 2004 Oscars, The Return of the King broke through, winning Best Picture, Best Director (Peter Jackson), and a total of 11 Academy Awards.

There are parallels when it comes to Avengers: Endgame, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Released in April 2019, Endgame not only was the second part of an epic story that began in Avengers: Infinity War (April 2018), but it brought to a close this part of the MCU that covered a breathtaking 22 films, starting with Iron Man in May 2008.

Also, no superhero movie has ever won a Best Picture Academy Award, with Black Panther (February 2018) becoming the first movie in the genre to be nominated for Best Picture. And there have been assorted snubs in terms of nominations over the years, in particular with Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight (2008).

And of course, there is the critical and box office success of Endgame itself (see the DisneyBizJournal review) as the crescendo of these 22 interlocking movies that included very few misses. 

Also, if the Academy sees wisdom in nominating Endgame, and it is considered a serious contender, people might actually watch the February 2020 Oscars show, as opposed to the show’s long decline due to, in large part, a lack of interest among most of the movie-going public for the films nominated.

Endgame and the entire MCU truly rank as a monumental achievement in cinematic history – one that deserves recognition by the Academy. And that recognition should come not just in the form of a Best Picture nomination for Avengers: Endgame, but in the actual awarding of the Best Picture Oscar. It made sense for The Return of the King and it does for Avengers: Endgame.

Ray Keating is the editor, publisher and economist for DisneyBizJournal.com, and author of the Pastor Stephen Grant novels. He can be contacted at  raykeating@keatingreports.com.

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The CIA, Black Panther and Wakandan Tech

by Ray Keating

Commentary

DisneyBizJournal.com

February 28, 2019

You just never know who might be watching ... the Oscars? According to a report from CNN, the CIA was tweeting about Black Panther and the tech of Wakanda during the Academy Awards telecast.

It was noted that the CIA tweets were “part of the CIA's ‘Reel vs. Real’ series, which seeks to demystify the CIA's mission by comparing what's seen on screens to reality.”

Among the topics from Black Panther touched on by the CIA were holograms: “They’re real-life hot tech right now & as they improve, intel practitioners in the future could incorporate holographic displays for operations or holographic projections to illustrate situations to the President or other policymakers.”

And on vibranium, the CIA tweeted: “The #vibraniumin Black Panther’s suit protects him from kinetic damage, & vibranium sneakers are both super-quiet & amazing shock absorbers for jumping. Those would be great for spies, right? Too bad vibranium isn’t real.”

In fact, there’s more on the CIA and Black Panther. Check out the CIA’s deeper dive on Wakandan tech, based on questions posed to, as the CIA explained, “one of the CIA’s most innovative scientists. We will call her ‘Rebecca’ Rebecca not only has a background in the traditional sciences, but also in emerging technologies and digital innovation.”

What about the invisibility tech that hides Wakanda from the world? The CIA’s Rebecca notes:

Wakanda keeps itself hidden from the rest of the world by a sort of invisibility cloak that covers the whole nation, and presumably blocks all sorts of radiation, not just light. In real life, I think spy satellites would have picked up the heat, radio waves, microwaves, or other signs of a fully-industrialized country otherwise. (Apparently the internet somehow gets through for the remote-control cars though). 

The bad news is that this is physically impossible. The good news is that with vibranium and super-science it’s plausible, and it’s already being done in our real world on a much smaller scale. 

  You can use lenses to bend light around small objects, like a person’s hand. The lens approach could scale up to hide a vehicle, but only from the person looking through the lens, and only from human vision. You can also use nanotechnology, like Black Panther’s suit, to hide other nanotechnology or something up to the size of a cell. So in theory, Shuri could make every bit of the Panther Habit invisible, but I doubt she wants to. 

  To hide a nation from the rest of the world, you’d need a combination of metamaterials (material engineered to produce properties that don’t occur naturally) to affect the magnetic components of light and other radiation. Vibranium has interesting magnetic properties that Shuri uses in the kimoyo beads and EMP beads, so a cloak laced with it could give you that. This has to be a physical cloak, though, something like researchers at Boston University and Tufts University made out of silk to block the terahertz band (a wireless communication frequency found between radio waves and infrared light).

 Well, there you go – a mix of Disney, Wakanda and the CIA. Who says spies aren’t fun?

Ray Keating is the editor, publisher and economist for DisneyBizJournal.com, and author of the Pastor Stephen Grant novels, with the three latest books being Reagan Country: A Pastor Stephen Grant Novel, Heroes and Villains: A Pastor Stephen Grant Short Storyand Shifting Sands: A Pastor Stephen Grant Short Story. He can be contacted at raykeating@keatingreports.com.

Who Are the Superheroes in Hollywood?

by Ray Keating

Commentary

DisneyBizJournal.com

February 26, 2019

Do you want to know the real state of the movie business today? Well, then simply read a Wall Street Journal piece titled “Superheroes are Rescuing Hollywood” by Andy Kessler. 

That’s right, I writing to tell you to read something by another writer. Suddenly, I feel like Andy Richter and Kyle Gass, playing two writers, sitting across the desk from James Caan’s Walter in Elf, urging Walter to go hire another writer, Miles Finch (Peter Dinklage). Hey, sometimes you just have to tip your hat.

Anyway, Kessler nails what’s wrong with Hollywood, and why the industry, which looks down on superhero movies, would be a complete mess without such superhero movies.

So, what’s wrong with the movie biz these days? Kessler points to the following:

• “In a decade, 20 Marvel superhero movies have grossed a total of more than $17 billion. That pays for a lot of dull arty films, flatulence-joke comedies and oversexed, clichéd rom-coms that nobody goes to. It’s as if Hollywood has forgotten how to make movies people want to go see.”

• “At the Oscars, the word ‘best’ in best picture has been watered down to be almost meaningless. Same with ‘based on a true story.’ They’re almost all message movies doing battle in America’s overblown culture wars, and they either rehash past cultural transgressions, are antibusiness, or both.”

• “Hardly anyone watches one of the message movies these days until it’s been nominated as ‘best.’ And of course, they have to have the right message. Ryan Coogler’s terrific ‘Black Panther’ was criticized for being too conservative. Its theme of ‘let’s all work together’ was considered not revolutionary enough. Really? Jeez, everyone’s a critic. The last truly pro-business movie was ‘Ghostbusters,’ in 1984. When the villain from the Environmental Protection Agency orders the ghostbusters’ ‘Containment Unit’ shut down, Dr. Egon Spengler says: ‘Excuse me, this is private property!’ Ah, the good old days.”

• “Don’t get me wrong—I like many of today’s films (well, not ‘A Star Is Born’). But when they fade to black I’m left with a bad feeling, sensing that I’ve been manipulated into a social-justice guilt trip... When I want preaching, I’ll go to a house of worship or read the New York Times.”

Nailed it!

So, what does Kessler see as positives in today’s movie industry? Well, to be honest, not a heck of a lot. His best case is the following on superhero movies: “The plots are similar and shallow: Outsmart villains, save the world, fight a giant monster, and resolve somebody’s daddy issues. But they entertain. Movies are supposed to transport you somewhere else for 110 minutes, then drop you back into your mundane existence. You want to see something you’ve never seen before—hence the success of watery ‘Aquaman’ and vapid ‘Venom.’ Audiences want faraway galaxies, explosions and a little humor. And when that gets old, just have the superheroes fight each other.”

The entertainment business used to be about entertainment. But so many in Hollywood are just looking to, as Kessler highlights, preach. 

Listen, I write novels. My first objective is entertaining the reader. That’s what Shakespeare was out to do, so if it was good enough for the Bard, it’s certainly works for this lowly novelist. Down on the list, I sometimes make a point in the story. Hopefully, it’s not preaching and it doesn’t overwhelm. My books aren’t all about the message. I simply try to make my point – when I look to make one – a natural part of the story.

Hollywood today would do well to recall what Walt Disney once said, “I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained.” Of course, Walt’s use of the word “educate” is very different from the agendas being driven in Hollywood today, but you get the point.

Ray Keating is the editor, publisher and economist for DisneyBizJournal.com, and author of the Pastor Stephen Grant novels, with the three latest books being Reagan Country: A Pastor Stephen Grant Novel, Heroes and Villains: A Pastor Stephen Grant Short Storyand Shifting Sands: A Pastor Stephen Grant Short Story. He can be contacted at raykeating@keatingreports.com.