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Two words: Hype kills. Although Marvel's Black Panther is already estimated to pull in gargantuan numbers at the box office this opening weekend, I'm afraid the overblown hype surrounding the film will outshine any of the film's actual achievements. It's better than Marvel's last outing, Thor: Ragnarok -- but that's not really saying much. Still, Ryan Coogler 's ( Fruitvale Station )  Black Panther offers an agreeable serving of impressive special effects, beautiful art direction and most importantly, a sense of optimism. And these days, we need that more than ever. Chadwick Boseman  reprises his role as T'Challa (a.k.a. Black Panther ), Prince of Wakanda, a fictional country in Africa as envisioned by the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We first met Black Panther in 2016's Captain America: Civil War , where we also witnessed the death of his father King T'Chaka ( John Kani ) after a bombing of an international conference in Vienna. The openi...

On the morning of Tuesday January 23, 2018, cinematographer Rachel Morrison made Oscar history by becoming the first female director of photography to be nominated for the Best Cinematography Academy Award . Morrison's exceptional photography work in Mudbound  ( read my review ) was rightfully acknowledged but it's crazy to think that in nearly a century's time, a woman has not been honored in the cinematography category. Now that Morrison has made history, we can hope that going forward having a female nominee won't be such a rarity. To help commemorate such a watershed moment, I went back through Morrison's filmography to showcase her beautiful and sharply unique cinematography over the years. Her body of work boasts television and documentary credits but for the purposes of my video essay, I focused on her feature film work starting with 2007's indie comedy Palo Alto, CA . The canvas of her resume ranges from small independent films to singular works lik...