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Red Tails: Another Tuskegee Experiment Gone Bad

23 Jan

I had had a long day, a very long and tiring day at work.  I felt like Mr. Clark in “Lean On Me” when he decided to go to the parent meeting after his first day at Eastside High.  I didn’t get home until about 10:15 that night after being at work for about 10 hours and I saw that “Red Tails,” the George Lucas movie about the Tuskegee Airmen had a 12:01 showing at the local theaters.  After the hype on Twitter and Facebook with blacks rallying around George Lucas who by all accounts was trying to mainstream an all black cast after not getting major backing from producers and distributors, I figured why the hell not.

At 12:05 the trailers began to roll and I endured the prospect of a “The Three Stooges” movie and the thought of a movie produced based on Steve Harvey’s god-awful concept of “Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man.”  My uneasiness was further compounded as I saw Blair Underwood playing yet another crazy and deranged black man in a T.D. Jakes production that sounded like it was already made for BET called “Woman Thou Art Loosed — on the Seventh Day.”

No seriously, that’s really the name of it.

Finally, Lucas’ name appears on the screen and without much fanfare, rather nondescript credits begin to roll and the movie opens with a fight scene some couple of thousand feet in the air.  The next thing you see is the scene set in Italy 1944.

When I saw that the movie took place in Italy, a growing knot began in my stomach.  I found myself asking why didn’t we start in Alabama and I was saying to myself, this movie is starting off with all kinds of wrong.  Unfortunately, for me, the movie never recovered.  However, to say that it never recovered is to somehow allow that the movie actually was going somewhere in the first place.

George Lucas, now famously, sat at Jon Stewart’s desk on “The Daily Show” and recounted with lucid interest about how Hollywood, the metonymical monster that it can be, refused to back a movie about the Tuskegee Airmen because they didn’t know to market a movie with a mostly black cast.  According to Lucas, this movie has been in the works since the early 1980s.  Be that as it may, Lucas’ comments stirred up enough sentiment in the black social networking community that there were endless tweets and status updates pushing the movie.  To the point that the people were equating the future of black actresses and actors getting top billing with the future of this movie; as if the success of future predominantly casted black movies hinged on the sole success of “Red Tails.”

After watching the movie, in the wee hours of this past Friday morning, I thought I had missed something — because I was so sleepy.  I refrained from making initial comments on my social networking venues because obviously everyone else was waiting until Friday night and Saturday to go see it and I didn’t want to ruin one’s viewing experience with my spoilers.  But after hearing friends’ commentary and talking to a few people, I was therefore liberated to make my social critique.

Primarily, I think why the movie fell flat was very basic: the movie didn’t live up to the hype.  This had nothing to do with a predominantly black cast or Lucas being the director.  Now I could write about how horrible Ne-Yo’s accent was and why was he dippping snuff or chewing tobacco the whole movie or I could ask why was Marcus T. Paulk (the actor who will always be known as Miles from the sitcom “Moesha”) and his “praise black Jesus” meme such a cheeseball character.  Why I think the movie fell bankrupt to some blacks who watched it was because the movie wasn’t socially attractive to how we, Black America, traditionally tell our story.

Let me be clear, I’m not faulting anyone for making this decision; I’m not holding Aaron McGruder who was a script writer or Lucas responsible for this movie possibly taking a massive nose dive.  Traditionally, however, when a story steeped in black culture is told, we tend to start from the beginning of some sorts and bring the story forward.  If you look at many classic stories that heavily focus on blacks (think “The Color Purple” or “Malcolm X” or even “Antwone Fisher” to “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pitman”) most times these movies show a clear progression from one stage of life to the current one in which the movie is set.  Some movies accomplish this task through flashback sequences.

Tuskegee Airmen - Circa May 1942 to Aug 1943 Location unknown, likely Southern Italy or North Africa

For me, and I’m sure for many others who had a basic working knowledge of the Tuskegee Airmen beyond just being an all black fighting air squadron and beyond the widely circulated idea that they never lost a bomber, this movie lacked the heavily historical context.  Granted Lucas said in his interview with Jon Stewart that given the success of this movie he would be interested in doing a sequel and even a prequel to this movie.  That sounded all well and good, but sequel and prequels only seem to work for works of fiction.  In the universe where people have wars amongst the stars, and in the land of Middle Earth and in nameless countrysides that house cities named Gotham and simply Metropolis, perhaps.  But in real life — just no.

To understand what the Tuskegee Airmen were fighting for, one must understand that blacks weren’t allowed to fly in World War 1 and had returned home to the segregation.  Specifically in the crucible that was Macon County, Alabama in the early 1940s would take one to know about the Tuskegee Experiment when untreated cases of syphillis were left to incubate in the the black male population so that studies could be done to see what were the effects of this STD on humans.  Where some men who were apart of the experiment [it could hardly be called a study] joined the military and were able to get the penicillin shot.  What did it mean for those men in the early 1940s to operate in an atmosphere stifled with such deep-seated hatred and bigotry.

"Keep us flying. Buy War Bonds." Color poster of a Tuskegee Airman (probably Lt. Robert W. Diez) by an unidentified artist. 1943

The fact that Eleanor Roosevelt made a trip to Alabama in 1941 as the First Lady, that Tuskegee Airmen were shown on war bonds posters nor the personhood of Gen. Benjamin O. Davis weren’t at all mentioned somewhat was a disappointment to me.

Perhaps, I had too lofty an expectation of this movie.

Does telling black history preclude it from ever being a part of socially accepted American history?  I think the answer, sadly, is still yes.  My 10th grade U.S. History professor did a very good job of teaching both.  He did such a good job one of my white friends, the son of Polish immigrants (he himself was born in Poland) opined to me freely one day that this was a U.S. history class and why did the teacher always talk about black history.  Lucas, apparently, was trying to put out an action film that happened to be told through the eyes of the Tuskegee Airmen, that’s it and that’s all.

Once I came to that revelation, I realized that I, myself, had brought far too many of my own prejudices to watching the movie.  I realized that the whole time I had been expecting this movie to mainstream a story rooted in black American culture–how foolish of me!  The movie, sad to say, just never captured my imagination enough to ever take off.  By the time I muddled past the failed mechanics of Ne-yo’s wretched accent, the cheeseball character of Deke, the abandoned character development of the new guy Maurice, the underwhelming performance of Terrance Howard (to the point where I was asking where is Denzel Washington when you need him–or Samuel L. Jackson for that matter), and the complete lack of background development of Easy’s character, I was far too fatigued in the mind to try and make a mediocre script and directing make up for the other lack.

Now this movie had four intricate fight scenes, including the opening sequence, that took place in the air–and they were a sight to behold!  Great, I say!  Even epic!  The movie had some great one-liners among my favorite being “…you can live your whole life as an Atlanta compromise if you want…” was my all-time favorite.  However, after all was said and done, this venture, this experiment Lucas decided to endeavor as a result of Hollywood not supporting an all black case was a failure in my book.

I call it an experiment because based on that interview with Jon Stewart, he didn’t sound too sure of what the outcome would be; as though he took some disperate parts, threw them together just to see what would happen.  I hope the participants in the experiement don’t come out worse for wear because of Lucas et. al. misjudging the market.  Hopefully this experiment will teach us that if you want to tell a story, anybody’s story, you just have to actually tell the story.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

Hollywood Social Commentary is just ‘In Time’

6 Nov

I frequent the movies often enough so I had probably seen trailers for the Justin Timberlake movie “In Time” before most people and the concept that time itself was a commodity had certainly piqued my interest.  It aroused my senses because being descendants of African slaves here in this country, time as we know it, is a wonder to behold.

Any study of ancient African cultures birthed on the west coast would discover that time is not linear; it does not progress seamlessly on a continuum stretching in a straight line from one end to another, but rather it has creases and buckles and even at times becomes circular.  Please believe it was not circumstance that when Disney decided to do a movie set in the east African serengeti plains that the major theme of the movie was the “circle of life.”

Time within the context of the African American community has often times placed us at odds with dominant society.  Historically blacks were seen as shiftless and lazy because of a failure to be on time.  So much so that there’s a running theme across this country about “CP time.”  It could be an event and they tell people to be there at nine o’clock and without fail someone will murmur “is that CP time?”  No, not some weird concoction of “Central Pacific” but in fact, “Colored People’s time.”  No, this isn’t birthed out of an inherent laziness or some innate inability to be on time, but rather it is a sense of “when it happens, [whatever it is], it will happen at the right time.”  It’s almost a direct resignation and surrender to forces outside of human existence that are in control of earthly happenings; whatever time and under whatever circumstances it happens, is when it was supposed to happen.

While I had seen the trailer, I was unaware of the level of which time had become a commodity.  The movie was set in a typical dystopian near future I suppose and time was the only commodity.  To exchange goods and services one exchanged time.  With a glowing neon green counter on the left arm of every individual counting the years, months, days, minutes and seconds, if one had enough resources, one could virtually garner a level of immortality.

“For a few to be immortal, many must die,” was a quote uttered more than once in the movie as the main character, Will Salas, played by Justin Timberlake experienced his journey in time.  After living a day to day existence getting doled out mere minutes and hours from factory working, he forces his own destiny and winds up getting a century’s worth of time.  Living in general ghetto of Dayton (although obviously the movie was filmed in Los Angeles), he uses his new found wealth to travel between time zones to the place of New Greenwich where everyone can tell he’s not from around there–because he does things too quickly.

Without ruining too much of the movie, it was an interesting forward and liberal movie plot that saw the target of the concept of wealth redistribution and aimed for the bullseye.  I thought the movie couldn’t be more on time given the Occupy Wall Street movement and this concept of the 99% versus the 1%.  In a day an age where Youtube and other social networking has fueled much of the protest, to see the likes of “South Park” parody the police as overbearing and mindless, and to paint the media as clueless (as it was an “Occupy Red Robin” movement, not the intended target of the protest in the episode), this movie was certainly an eye opened.

Much of the plot discussed how in order for the few (read: the 1%) had the power and ability to stay immortal at the expense of the many, (read: the 99%).  In a society where persons genetically didn’t age past 25, years after that were spent trying to get as many years as possible.  This movie explored predatory lending practices of banks, and I daresay payday loan sharks in poor communities, the day-to-day grind of working class persons who have to struggle daily to make ends meet.  To see a dead person on the street wasn’t uncommon in this movie–people just “timed out.”

I think it’s safe to say that Hollywood has a decidedly liberal agenda.

And that’s fine by me of course.  But we all remember those “special episodes” of the family friendly and kid friendly sit-coms of the 1980s and 1990s that discussed everything from drug use, to bullying to divorce, teen pregnancy, gang violence and tolerance.  I’ll never forget the “Family Matters” episode when “nigger” was written on Laura’s locker, or even the “Moesha” episode when they dealt with a young man who was in the closet with his sexuality.  We don’t see a lot of movies and stories that laud the conservative point of view.  Most of the classic books that take the dystopian world view from Brave New World  to 1984 and movies such as “Soylent Greens” all take a liberal approach to politics and social matters–this movie is no different.

I think it is interesting that these movies, these books, these works of art get such wide acclaim.  In lieu of neo-conservatism running rampant thanks to the Tea Party movement and an ever increasing irresponsible batch of politicians who say and do whatever acting in sheer impunity I fail to see how does an electorate fail to connect the dots.  It wasn’t coincidence that the poor people in the ghettos were always “timing out” of life because they were always rushing to get more time, never enjoying the luxuries of time to sit back and relax.  For poor people, the “time is money” concept means that if they aren’t working, they aren’t making money.  For the rich, the few, the 1%, they’ve reached a level where their money works for them even when they’re our of time–so to speak.

I think in the next three to four centuries, this “experiment” of global capitalism will  have wound itself down.  At this current trajectory, the world market isn’t in the position to maintain such highly concentrated levels of wealth.  Am I arguing for wealth redistribution?  No, on the basis of impracticability.  I am, however, siding with the progressive idea that people should pay proportionately to their income.  The flat tax idea is laughable because it unfair taxes the poor, and the progressive tax structure we’re on right now still doesn’t appropriately take into account those at the opposite ends of the income spectrum leaving the majority of the tax burden on the middle income makers.  It’s absurd that we’ve elected politicians who think that taxing the rich, and imposing a “millionaires” tax will dissuade businesses from hiring.  The typical GOP talking point operates on the idea that everyone, based on hard work and a rugged individualist work ethic is going to be a millionaire flies in the face of the fundamental concept that “for a few to be immortal, many must die.”

Unfortunately, the white poor of conservative bastions such as Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, West Virginia and south central Pennsylvania that make up the Appalachians are just as disenfranchised as blacks and Latinos in the urban ghettos.  These poor people can’t afford to move across “time zones” as in the movie.  These people, these poor people, are locked into their geographical regions unable to afford basic transportation, unaware of a world going on outside of their immediate surrounding.  Where their lack of time is a constant stresser that leads to serious health problems.

Or maybe….

….this was a movie to let the 1% know that there will be a day when the proletariat will rise up and challenge the system of capitalism.  Forgive me if I sound a bit Marxist, but I think anyone with a brain can see that eventually one day, our exit to capitalism will come and it would make sense for us not to be in the left lane and have to cut across five lanes of traffic to exit and cause a pile up in the process!  I think when the history books are written they will have to point to the Occupy Wall Street movement and the severe financial problems facing many of these European countries–who are in the Eurozone mind you.  It’s barely been past one decade and these countries on the Euro as a monetary unit are facing these severe austerity measures.

Whatever the case is, let it be known that there are people who are awake.  I encourage all of us to stay vigilant.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

P.S.  On an unrelated trivial note, Wikipedia informed me that characters in the movie were named after real life watch brandnames.

The Romanticized Victimhood of Black Women and “The Help”

22 Aug

Emma Stone (left) and Viola Davis (right) star in "The Help"

I was able to see “The Help” back in July for a pre-screen and even after sitting on the front row and watching the grossly distorted images courtesy of looking up vertical to a 30 foot screen, I walked away surprised at what I saw.  I was happy to watch a movie that told the stories of black and white women, side-by-side and across generational lines–I haven’t seen a movie like that.  For each main character from Aibleen and Minnie to Skeeter and her mother; Hilly juxtaposed to Celia Foote’s character and even the story of Constantine–all characters showed development from the beginning to the end of the movie.   I was expecting a movie similar to that of the “Dangerous Minds” or “Freedom Writers” that portrays the liberal whites as making a difference in the lives of the poor black and Latino children and ends with a storybook ending and usually throws in the death, by a bullet, of one of the children.

However, black women across the blogosphere didn’t see it that way.

Blog upon blog of black women prior to the movie’s release had begun the rants against “The Help.”  Some were coherent and others not so much.  Famous bloggers said they weren’t going to read the book or see the movie and gave their reasons why. I was left reading whole articles about why someone wasn’t going to see it based on what I felt were bad assumptions–prejudices if you will.  Perhaps because I saw the movie already I knew that much of what people were allegedly having a problem with as far as the concept of the movie was somewhat incorrect.

I think the promotion of the story was a bit misleading, probably for the sake of a white American audience.  But let’s be honest, this movie wasn’t intended to be a movie specifically for black audiences or a movie that didn’t really care whether blacks attended or not.  Fact of the matter is, blacks as a demographic are not a driving force when it comes to box office sales.  That being said, I think some of the beauty of the movie was lost in the marketing and promotion of it.

Nevertheless, black people–not just black women–as the opening weekend drew nigh became more and more critical of a movie that hadn’t even been seen and by most people who hadn’t read the book.

From the likes of Melissa Harris-Perry to other black female bloggers nationwide, this was still an incorrect image in which to portray black women.  This was still the same image of black women as subservient and unempowered that got many people bringing up the image of “mammy” and decrying the fact that Minny went on about fried chicken through the entire movie.   Some even found the pie-eating story unrealistic.  Harris-Perry tweeted that she thought the violence meted upon one of the other minor characters was the only realistic part of the movie.  Which left me asking So black women only identify with violence?

For the sake of this blog, I’m talking about black women, but I think at times this is true of blacks in general. [Yes, I'm aware I'm stepping into some murky territory here.]  I don’t say this often, but I do think there is a romanticized view of violence and victimhood that blacks collectively suffer from.  Collective suffering comes from systematic and collective oppression; we were uniformly oppressed in this country therefore we uniformly have some amount of suffering as a result.  What results is a “my oppression was worse than your oppression” matrix that groups contextually operate.

The tenor of the conversation that I’m reading about and hearing about surrounding “The Help” is that it doesn’t paint a realistic image of black women domestics in the South.  For Harris-Perry to identify with the violent part the most was highly disturbing to me.  Seriously, it got my attention; it was a tweet that stood out from the crowd amongst her others.  This leaves me wondering what is the view of historical black women or even historical blackness at that time.  The subtext that I read is that experiencing lynchings were an everyday occurrence in any given community, that everyone suffered from Night Riders from the KKK, that every black domestic faced sexual threats from the patriarchal white males in their households and that it was all really just that bad. News flash:

Black folks eat fried chicken.

Black folks are fat and eat fried chicken.

And watermelon.

Oh, and we clap our hands on the 2 and 4 beat in church as well.

I am not at all trying to minimize the historical oppression and struggle of blacks in a Jim Crow South, but I think far too many of us are succumbing to looking at history through too contemporary of a lens.  Based on just the stories out of my own family, the level of unempowerment that blacks faced on a day-to-day basis was serious and social conditioning was real.  It’s as though we’re ashamed of the image of black women that doesn’t show them being a triumphant and metaphorical Celie from “The Color Purple.”  The silent struggle of Aibleen resonated with me much more than the towering images of black womanhood such as Fannie Lou Hamer.   Hamer went to bat and was an outlier amongst thousands of unnamed black women who never mustered the courage to speak up, and on behalf those that had sacrificed their lives and their womanhood when they did.

And….if it wasn’t for some courageous white people, the modern Civil Rights movement wouldn’t have been what it was: a revolutionary movement.  A revolution happens in slow, incremental changes, not all at once.  Yes, there are watershed moments that make it in the history books, but the annals of history tell of countless stories full of unnamed men and women who used their own smaller acts of resistance against a system that they were unaware was unjust in the future hope of generations yet to come.  The Civil Rights movement in this country began when the African slave woman decided to pee in massa’s morning coffee back in 1621, it did not start with Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat in 1955 and end one decade later with the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Ella Baker

Is this a story worth telling by a black woman?  I answer with a resounding yes.  Would I pay money to go see it?  Yes I would, and I’d buy and support the book.  Am I entitled to my opinion of how black men are portrayed in the book?  Of course.  That’s one of the issues in the movie, the only image of a black man in the movie was a totally faceless one and that of an abusive one.  But, I resolved that in my mind because the movie made men in general take a back seat–this was a story about what it meant to be a woman–white or black–in the Jim Crow era South.

Seeing as how this was historical fiction, there was some basis for truth in this story.  I think this was the case of William Styron’sThe Confessions of Nat Turner revisted: black folks, particularly black women, were just incensed that this wasn’t a story told by a black woman.  While I discount people’s opinions of the book or the movie who have neither read nor seen it, I think many of those that read it or saw it had unrealistic expectations of the movie.  It seemed as though the likes of Harris-Perry were expecting this movie to be “The Color Purple Redux” with heavy elements of “Eyes on the Prize” documentary infused into it.

I think even if the bloggers who had issue with movie went to go see it, they’d be so jaded and be able to offer an opinion without severe bias attached to the judging process.

That’s it.  I just wanted to join the chorus of rants on this topic as well.  It’s officially dead and buried for me.  #ontothenextone

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

The ‘Inception’ of Reality into your Dream

28 Jul

SPOILER ALERT!!!!

I wouldn’t consider myself a movie buff, but certainly I appreciate movies that are thoughtful that include a well written script, directed with some expertise and actors that don’t come off as placed there merely for their namesake or their well chiseled face and abs or voluptuous chest and sensual lips.  I’m even more endeared to the movie that even remotely attempts to critique metaculture. And Inception certainly falls in that category.

Inception has become one of those defining moment movies–for me at least.  Why?  Because it brought to the fore some of the foundational Freudian notions we have about our psyche like a sewer bubbling up with raw excess from the last storm.  Perhaps, however, this movie just happened for me at a critical juncture of having overheard a documentary my mother was watching about how Freudian knowledge so handily dominated the socio-economic and political thought process of the 20th century.  That is to say it is second nature engage in thoughts about the unconscious mind and to talk about repression. And certainly this untamed nature of the Id versus the super-ego with the ego in the middle acting as a buffer between the two.

Certainly, in the levels required in the movie of which the need to perform inception drew upon the nature of the subconscious mind and the Id at play.  The warning being that the deeper you go (“a dream within a dream within a dream”) the more unpredictable it becomes and that one risks getting caught in a state of limbo because of the sheer time elapsed while there (eg. Three minutes while sleep could effectively translate into a 50 year time span depending on how deep one had been in the subconscious of the mind).  We saw Cobb’s wife Mal as the supreme example of repression and the unique ability to keep memories stored on top of one another with the deepest ones stored in the basement of our minds.

As far as the conscious versus subconscious (or unconscious if you will) mind, I felt that the movie took the opportunity to address the idea of placing ideas in ones mind and the level of embeddedness needed to do so.  Perhaps its a stretch to see it as such, but I definitely feel that it is something that we see everyday. We know for a fact that propaganda works.  Due to the infamous Joseph Goebbels from Nazi Germany the word “propaganda” is almost a dirty word.  Nonetheless the blitz campaign style of getting out information is a type of propaganda that embeds  itself in the subconscious and ultimately makes one think that a certain idea is there own.  Cobb’s main goal in the movie was to go deep enough in the mind of Robert Fischer so that he in turn would think that dissolving his father’s company was his idea and not a implanted one.

However, the most intriguing part of the movie to me was this notion of the “totem.”  The “totem” acted as an object, apparently a hand held one that allowed the owner to tell whether they were in a dream or reality.  Seriously, watching the movie that blew my mind.  Had we really gotten to a part in our life where one could no longer distinguish the difference between dream, or fantasy and reality?  Particularly given the last frame of the movie right before the credits, I think this was certainly a major drive of the movie.

This division between that which is real and that which is unreal was pushed when in the scene with the introduction of the chemist.  The assembling team went downstairs where there were several people were heavily sedated all having uninterrupted dreams.  To which Eames said “Who would do this to themselves?” or something to that effect, questioning the rationale behind someone purposely inducing the dream state and questioning what he perceived to be their reality.  To which the older and sage black man replied “Who are you to say what reality is?”  That’s nothing more than the age old statement “Perception is reality.”

This movie isn’t the first that brings up the idea of a real world versus an alternate one, but certainly in the technological age this concept of virtual reality hits closer and closer to home.  Preeminent among these movies is still The Matrix trilogy, however the Matrix goes through great lengths to show how starkly different the real world is from some virtual reality. But, I think Inception does a good job of displaying just how easily it is to vacillate between what is real and what is not.  Or rather, how easy it has become to replace the real with the fantasy.

Is it technology?

Flat out, the answer for me is yes.

Prior to everyone having an internet connection, in order to obtain research information one had to schlep down to a library or a university, obtain privilege to access the books and actually thumb through the stacks and read information, copy it down in bibliographic form and then submit it.  The printed word meant that someone had verified the information enough to publish it!  Now, any yahoo with an internet connection and a notion can publish God-knows-what about any subject, any time, any place about any person without general recourse.

It’s easy to replace the real with fantasy.

Pornography went through the roof with internet porn sites.  Back in the day you had to go down to an adult book store and actually buy something to fulfill your fantasy.  And the actual physical requirement of getting up and going down to the adult bookstore was enough of a deterrent to many persons to not do it.  But with the untold number of sex sites and even the free site of Xtube, you can have free porn at your finger tips.  Seeing pornography for the first time was almost a rites of passage for pre-teens even as late as the 90s because you could count on your hand the number of times that you had seen someone’s Playboy or Penthouse magazine.  But even for me, by the time I got to 8th grade, our schools had computers and sometime in high school we got an internet connection and I lost count.  And it was a substitution of real for some virtual encounter that at the end of the day didn’t exist.  In fact it never existed.

It’s easy to replace the real with fantasy.

To my bloggers and readers of blogs, we both know that at times comment sections can get entirely out of hand, but its easy to say, or rather type, stuff while sitting behind the relative comfort of a computer screen.  Often times we say things that we would never say in person.  This issue has gotten so out of hand with teens on various networking sites that it’s known as cyberbullying now and we see PSA about it on TV now.  But, this is where the one’s sitting behind computer screens saying mean and nasty comments on people’s FB walls, or Twitter timelines or nasty comments in the comment sections of blogs have allowed themselves to construct a reality where only they can live in and exist.

This was what Cobb understood in the movie, but his wife did not.

What a sad day it is for humanity if we can no longer tell the difference between a dream and fantasy world that we created just for us and no longer can determine what reality is.  Personally, I think that humans have an innate sense of what reality is.  We don’t need a “totem” to help us tell the difference between a dream state and the real living world.  Reality is continuous; it does not have the herky-jerky moments that dreams do.  Dreams are disjointed and they have a fuzzy beginning, a surer middle and they definitely have an end when you decide to wake up.

Dreams differ from reality because you decide to wake up from the dream.  Yes, the dream/fantasy state is probably the result of repressed issues that you have yet to fully deal with mixed with some unrestricted emotions (the Id) that all swirl together in the midnight hour like ships caught in a maelstrom at sea, but it’s all not real.  No matter how real it feels, that said reality is only a reality in which you, the dreamer can exist.

It is the task of the dreamer to make their dream a reality.  Fie upon those who decide to draw others into their fantasy world however.  I personally think it is the despicable person who has no qualms about encouraging others in their delusions.  Ultimately, reality will still set in and the moral right will prevail.  Or so we hope.  It’s a hard task of humanity determine this course.  Being one who is generally against metanarratives dominating the conventional wisdom of the day (just think Tea Baggers and this neo-Conservative movement), I don’t want to squash those who dare to dream of a brighter and better future for humanity.  It is from these deep-seated motivations that one can shift and make the dream a reality–if only we decide to wake up.  And sometimes we need a kick from an outside source just to do that not unless the sedative in which we have ingested is so strong that it overpowers our innate ability to keep from falling.

The last scene before the credits requires us to ask the true existential question about us.  Is this really real or is it just a dream.  As far as the movie is concerned, I do believe that it is reality, but still we’re left pondering that question in the audiences mind: is it all dream?

But then again, perception is indeed reality.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

Oh How ‘Precious’

14 Nov

Precious 1There are only two movies in my lifetime that I ever cried on–or rather allowed myself to cry on.  The reuniting scene of Celie and Nettie in “The Color Purple” was the first one at age ten when I snuck and finished watching the movie and was careful to keep my back turned so my parents wouldn’t know I cried over it, and last night the movie “Precious” prompted me to shed a tear.

In short, “Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire” is the story of 1987 Harlem with an overweight, daresay obese, black, dark-skinned, teenage girl who has been impregnated twice by her father and lives in an apartment with here extremely abusive mother, named Mary, who not only hurls vehement verbal assaults against her, but indeed commits extreme physical violence against her own daughter.  This is the basic story line of a tranche de vie movie that doesn’t have a simple plot line per se, but seeks to tell a story.  The movie was adopted from the novel Push by the author Sapphire.

I had heard the hype about the movie and how it got rave reviews at the Sundance Movie Festival, and I heard two interviews on NPR from the director Lee Daniels and from the author Sapphire herself.  But much more I hadn’t heard prior to the opening weekend one week ago from the date of this blog post.  That being said, I had seen the trailers, and had heard that it shattered box office expectations last week with its limited release, and last night it was a sold out crowd in the movie house.

What has surfaced was a chorus of harsh criticism that at the base is alleging exploitation of the stereotypical “big, black and ugly” black woman.  Leading the pack has been Armond White with his online review or just as harshly Anthony Smith with his title “‘Precious’ Fails the Black Community” and of course some others throughout the online world have touted this as nothing more than “poverty porn.”  I think what this highlights above nothing else is the vast class differences amongst our own community.

Oprah and Tyler PerryAside from the run-of-the-mill hating that most blacks heap upon Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry for various and sundry reasons, what I noticed was that largely the black community doesn’t know how to handle a “Precious” motif.  Smith wrote

Yet in marketing the motion picture “Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphired, the producer and director, Lee Daniels boldy affirms that, “I know this chick.  You know her.  But we just choose not to know her.” Rather by choice or circumstance, let me be the first to say that I do not know Precious, and I have a hunch that most other black Americans don’t know her, either.”

For those that “don’t know Precious” I must ask the questions why don’t you know her, and what’s so wrong with getting to know her?  In the grand scheme of things, why many (I won’t say most) black Americans don’t know “Precious” is because of the vast class differences in which many of exist.

Now the movie had interesting cinematography which made it borderline documentary to some sort of Disney channel show; showing the various mental breaks with reality that Precious had when she had her various low moments such as her raping her.  The movie went from the stark reality of life to her being some glizty and glamorous showstopper on the red carpet or dancing in a ball room–all accompanied by her light skinned boyfriend.  But, I think that’s reality.  Too many in the theaters actually laughed at those scenes because of the perceived idiocy of the idea of a big, dark skinned female being able to walk a red carpet, or to even have a light skinned boyfriend.  There was the ballroom scene and the imaginary boyfriend was licking her in the ear, and the audience responded with an “ewwww” especially the two young women sitting next to me.  I couldn’t help but wonder if a Shemar Moore was licking the ear of a Nicole Ari Parker if the “ewwwws” would have turned into sensual “ooooohs.”

What I’m saying is that society has made “Precious” a caricature and exploitative, not the director Lee Daniels and certainly not executive producers Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey.  And in Oprah’s defense, we all know her story, she was told as a youngster that she was “too big” and “too black” so why would anyone be shocked at her support of this movie.  I think this movie offends the sensibilities of too many middle class blacks.  It automatically makes them thankful for their current situation which really sets up a judgmental ideal of really saying “I’m glad I’m not the ‘other.’”  Moreover, middle class blacks in order to remain in relative comfort must view “Precious” as a caricature in order to maintain their own sanity and not be consumed by guilt.

And let’s be clear about the caricature status because it’s essentially declaring “Precious” as not real.  If middle class blacks can somehow see the “Precious” motif as not real, then the rest of the movie and the rest of life is viewed as mere hyperbole and unrealistic and really not worthy of our time and effort.  This is an easy jump for many middle class blacks who had to drive into the inner cities to movie theaters that actually were showing the movies because many of them were driving back to the suburban and ex-urban homes never to think about this movie again.  This idea is supported by Smith who writes:

This film is as dangerous as it is offensive, and it is not representative of any community, past or present. The narrative about a young, unloved victim is intellectually and socially dishonest. Daniels relies on overly objectionable imagery and perverse cinematic devices to provoke emotion from the audience, all the while offering no true explanation of events, no link between cause and effect, no solution and no opportunity to deliberate, just action — vile, disgusting, and inhumane acts of violence, apathy, abuse and rape. [emphasis added]

I think what’s at issue is that blacks are still struggling for a unified identity that always pits a “The PJs” versus “The Cosby Show” dichotomy.  While this movie highlights stereotypes such as Precious stealing a bucket of fried chicken–because her mother didn’t have food in the refrigerator–middle class blacks seems to forget that indeed this is a lived reality for many people.  We can get too caught up in trying to portray the Cosby’s not just for the sake of white sensibilities, but also for our own appeasement.  I’m of the school of thought that we must continue to hold the mirror up to ourselves and use it not just as a reflecting tool, but as a correcting tool.

If we would believe those of the Smith and White camps, they would have you believe that “Precious” is a machination of Perry, Winfrey and Daniels for the sake of capitalizing on black stereotypes just to make an easy buck and shift our collective concerns away from real issues.  Neither of them suggest indeed what the real issues are and come off as two individuals so secluded in the ivory tower that if “Precious” walked up to them, they’d dismiss her as a figment of their imagination.

Precious 2 - Mo'NiqueOn the other hand,I chalked up the roles of Ms. Rain, the welfare social worker and the obstetric nurse played by Paula Patton, Mariah Carey and Lenny Kravitz respectively as yet again real life.  All of the nice people in this movie were played by comparatively light skinned individuals.  Some took issue with casting as such, but first, I was so rocked by the performances of Mo’Nique as Mary, the mother of Precious and of Gabourey Sibide as Precious, that I didn’t even really notice skin color until I saw a tweet from Thembi who made note of it.  In real life, light skinned people tend to be in the upper ranks of the society.

Seriously, drive through the local hood of your city, town or hamlet and tell me how many light skinned people do you see standing on the street corner?

Granted this movie might have been cinematically schizophrenic from the relative high comedic moments of the other girls in the remedial reading class at the alternative school from both Joanna (who I might add with her dress looked more circa 2009 than 1987) and from the Jamaican student named Rhonda, to the low moments when you could clearly see Mary having had a break with reality and how Precious was forced to navigate the waters of living with a mentally insane, it was indeed, reality.  Some took issue that this movie had no ending and was very open ended, to those I simply ask, is that not life?  Life never truly answers questions, we want it to, we at times need it to, but just like Precious, we take what we have and we walk off into the unknown unaware of what the future holds, just desperately hoping and praying that we know the One who holds the future.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

From The Uppity Negro Network, Living In Liminality, The Typewriter Series Presents: “Horror Movie Husbands”

7 Sep

typewriter and coffeeI’m doing a series, just about three or four, might be five, can’t remember, blog posts that I had actually typewritten on a Royal Typewriter Futura.  These are my thoughts during that fateful period this past summer while I was on my internship and was without my laptop for about three FULL weeks.  I had to endure crappy cable that only went up to channel 30 and essentially no internet for that period of time.  Here are my my thoughts from that time period. JLL

Anyone who actually pays attention to me and my little quirks would know that I like horror movies—well good horror movies.  For instance, at this point in the game, I’m only going to see the “Saw” movie series out of an October tradition, not at all because they are good movies.  Seriously, I was starting to laugh through Saw VI.  And as I got older the whole teen slasher movie like the “Scream” trilogy or even the “I Know What You Did Last Summer” was starting to wear on me.  Even though I was still making sure I rented “Urban Legends” with Loretta Devine as the security guard fashioning herself after Foxy Brown and with Anthony Anderson and Joseph Lawrence, formely Joey “Whoa!” Lawrence of NBC’s “Blossom” fame.

No I like a good horror movie like Stephen King’s “1408” or even the jumpy “Cloverfield.”  Or even much like “Needful Things,” or “Misery” and to get away from my clear Stephen King affinity before I name a whole bunch of his movies, I rather enjoyed “The Ring” series and the first “Grudge”

“Well, Uppity, those movies are stupid!” you may say.  “No self-respecting movie buff would ever appreciate those!”

This is how I see it, the mark of a decent, and I stress decent, horror movie is one that introduces a novel idea.  All of those did that.  “1408” was most certainly a new idea and I’ve heard mixed reviews about it, and “Cloverfield” just took a gamble by making a whole movie from a handheld camera perspective and it would either sink or float also.  But see movies like “The Hills Have Eyes” or even “The Descent” (as scared as I really was watching that movie) they all were more or less predictable and generally that alone kills some of the movie for me.  I may jump or get scared as I did with all of the “Final Destination” series, but it would never rank to me as a good movie.

However, what always gets an audience is a good child killer movie.  The one’s where the child-like innocence is played against some unspeakable horror.  I mean all of us remember just how utterly creeped out we were watching little Gage back from the dead as a walking and talking killer three year old in Stephen King’s “Pet Sematary” going after America’s favorite Munster.  Or even watching homegirl in “The Exorcist” and most certainly watching “The Omen” and even the remake.  Of course, Stephen King took to the next level and scared us shitless with a whole bunch of deranged and possessed children with “Children of the Corn.”

In the vain of “The Omen” and this little known movie simply entitled “Joshua” the child seems to have this Stewie from “Family Guy” inane hatred for the mother—the child seems to have it out for the mother and the mother knows it, enter stage left, the horror movie husband.

Orphan movie posterCentral for this blog is the movie “Orphan.”

I’m sure it has been out for at least three weeks by the time this posts drops and if you haven’t seen it and plan on seeing it, well, SPOILER ALERT.

I had seen trailers for this movie “Orphan” a ways out before it dropped at the movie theatre as early as the spring and they had done a good job of hyping it up for me, so I figured I might as well go see it even thought I knew none of the actors.  The movie, more or less, is decent enough writing—I’ve watched much worse.  I think one of the appreciable aspects of the movie was that if it had not been advertised as a horror/slasher movie, no one would know until halfway the movie when the final adoption papers of little Esther are processed that “this child is just not right.”  Perhaps one could tell from her Little Bo’ Peep outfit, but that just went with the general nature of the movie.  Of course this movie has the typical pitfalls of adult stupidity and ineptitude.  You the kind where adults just for some reason don’t ever have the intelligence to connect the dots or even have the actual brute strength to overpower the little one.  But this movie is totally centered on the hapless, aloof, blind and complete boob of a husband.

To use “The Omen,” “Joshua” and now “Orphan” even with different sexes, the child is able to capitalize on the undying and blind affection from the father and the growing hatred that the mother’s develop for the child.  So I sat in the movie theatre tonight, as dozens of people watched the screen in disbelief at the husband’s inability to connect the dots, protect even his own biological children and actually fall for this adopted she-devil.  Of course by the end of the movie as little Esther actually came for the husband in the evening gown, a good movie goer would have figured out the plot, but even for me and most of the young crowd we were left going WTF?  But by this time, the wife had hauled off and slapped the mess out of Esther in the hospital after the attempted murder of the couple’s oldest adopted son, and the husband had threatened to leave the wife.  So I said to myself, “Self, I don’t ever want to get into a situation like this!” Reason being was that this premise was based in reality—no supernatural occurrences took place in this movie.

Should I be shocked that CCH Pounder’s character, the black nun, was the first casualty of the movie?  No, I expect the coloreds to go first, it’s just a running joke with everyone so why change it now.  Or should I be concerned that this movie was still about an evil child, symbolic of some sort of evil?  No, I knew that even before I paid for my ticket.  For me, I just was stunned at how clueless the father was portrayed.

Now it was established that the mother had been battling severe depression following a stillborn birth that resulted in a stint with alcoholism that took her to a treatment center for some time.  During this time her youngest daughter became deaf after falling in a frozen pond behind the house due to the mother’s neglect.  So the movie was taking place in her recovery days, and my oh my, what a recovery it was.  So the slip-ups and the weird occurrences the mother was able to pinpoint as little Esther, but even the therapist and the father seemed completely clueless—even after a proposed psychological problem was discovered from Esther’s past.  Nonetheless, the father was painted as one who seemed to have no connection to the well-being of his biological children—and I find that hard to believe.  If he had stayed with his wife for that long, and through the stillborn death, the depression, the alcoholism.  It was apparent that the two had something going for them, and to throw it away like he did elicited the worst responses from the audience—and we did have a live audience that night.

It was more evident that the orphan had clearly changed the behavior of the two other kids in a drastic and scary manner, but the father was unable to tell the difference, or refused to see the difference.  Moreover, this movie yet again proved to be the dangerously subjective nature of psychology.  The father and the therapist were in collusion with each other against what the mother was saying—everything she said was digging her deeper into a hole, just like Angelina Jolie’s character in “Changeling.” Those two were focusing on the wife and her alcohol problems while little Esther was positioning herself to be the next wife.

Like I said, I pray to God that my love for my wife runs so deep that if a situation like this were to even remotely occur that I would undoubtedly and without reservation choose my wife over anything else.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

Good and Bad, See If I Care, Good and Bad Hair

8 Aug

“Any hair is good hair as long it covers my head.”
Mama Uppity

That’s a scene from the cult classic Spike Lee Joint “School Daze” as Lee grapples with the issues of young, at the time Afro-Americans who were in college.  The movie was set at the fictional Mission College in some remote Alabama or Georgia town filmed on location at the newly created Atlanta University Center where Clark University got it’s new namesake along with other historically black colleges of Morris Brown, Morehouse and Spelman.  And let the record show, the topic of light skinned vs. dark skinned and straight hair vs. nappy hair is age old and of course is still a big topic amongst our people.

Frankly, I blame Madame C.J. Walker.

Yeah, I said it.  I blame her!

No, she didn’t “invent the perm” as we know it, nor did she invent the hot comb either, but she most certainly popularized it.  She used the straightening comb in conjunction with her hair care products.  Some sources say she even faced criticism at the time, and she most certainly does from me today.

Let me say right now, I’m neither for or against natural hair on women or for or against processed hair on women.  What I am against is the polarization that occurs as a result of it.  Some women truly have forgotten their hair texture and what it really looks like underneath all that weave, sew-ins, wigs and all manner of colors and flips and highlights and plaits and whatever else.  While I understand it’s a business in our community and we sorely need every kind we can get our hands on, but isn’t it interesting how much money a woman drops at a beauty salon that could go to something else?  I mean, a man is giving away no more than $20 a week on a haircut.  A woman has to get her toes, her hands, her hair and not to mention how much some makeup may cost.

For what?

To prove to men that they look good?

If nothing else natural hair takes as much time and energy to make it look well, or else you end up looking like Rasputia without her wig on.

I say that to say, I hope Chris Rock’s new mockumentary does the black community well.  He’s releasing this movie called “Good Hair” that’s, well, all about black hair and doing some on the street interviews–namely barber and beautyshop banter.  And from the trailer below, he’s having some bombshell celebs that are going to be doing some interviews concerning their hair.

Even in the clip, there’s always this need for us to have the “wet out of the pool look.”  Our good friend Yung Berg made it quite plain for us last year  with the “pool test.”  He was under the belief that

…I don’t really like dark butts too much… It’s rare that I do dark butts. Like really rare… It’s like, no darker than me. No darker than me. I love the pool test…. If you can be like ‘Yo, baby. I met you in the club. Let’s go back to my house. Jump in the pool exactly like you are.’–And you don’t come looking better wet than you were before you got in the pool then that’s not a good look.”

And fact of the matter, for the rest of us darker blacks and the ones with the less than straight hair, it’s rather easy to develop a sense of jealousy for the others.  It’s a color/hair complex.  I went through it myself when I was about in 6th grade through about 9th grade and high school and just grew out of it.  But, when you flip on the television and you see the number of darker men and women models, anchoring the news or what not, you kinda put two and two together and figure out what the deal is.

And the same goes for men.

We can get away with it differently, but still, women just fawn over the light-skinned pretty boy with the curly hair or with the green eyes and the rest of us are just like “Damn! What the hell’s wrong with me.”  And then I remember my days when I had my long hair (yes, I had corn rows people) that some girls were like “ooooh, you got good hair” and I was saying to myself, “This is what they call good hair?”  And I realized that anything that wasn’t tight and nappy was considered “good hair.”  Usually when the girls said something I’d respond with the quote from Mama Uppity.

So, when I was randomly perusing Youtube last night and came across the following clip, you have to understand how far my heart sank when I heard a preacher actually say what he said from the pulpit.  Fast forward to minute 3:40

Should I excuse him because he’s COGIC?

Whatever the case is, that’s just a hot mess on all levels.

Press out the kinks?  Straighten out the kitchen.  Chemical press–known as a process.  Have a super process for the hair that was real kinky.

I’m done.

And them folks was going in offa that.

Whatever.

I just hope we can get past this.  Like, I’m not convinced that this is a hard issue to deal with.  I mean tackling parents not raising their kids properly or teenage pregnancy seems a bit tougher for me, but this one, this shoulda been done and over with in the 1960s.  But clearly it’s not.

Oh well, see if I care, good and bad hair.

What are your reactions to Chris Rock’s mockumentary?   Similarly, what are your reactions to the pastors sermon where he used nappy hair as a negative to illustrate a point?

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

UNN Movie Review: Changeling

22 Feb

changeling-poster1Okay, one down–one more to go.  

I was on the Academy Award’s list of nominees and I saw another movie I had seen last summer was up for nomination and I was like “Aw nuts!  I have to do a third review” and then I realised I just don’t feel like it.  But all I have is one word concerning the absolute GREATNESS of that film.

“Ski-doosh!”

Now on to Changeling!

**Harsh language used ahead, BE AWARE!!!**

Actually just saw this movie last night.  The Critical Cleric/Soul Jonz had done a very good job of talking up this movie to me.  I had seen the ads for it, and it had mildly piqued my interest, but Angeline Jolie just has never done much for my, um, shon-doh, shall we say…But she pulled on something when she did this movie because I really thought it was a good movie.  Juxtaposed to “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” this movie was based on actual events, so I’m quite sure it was much easier for me to believe it.

Whereas the blunders of a bad thought process, ultimately a bad script in my opinion concerning “Benjamin Button” overshadowed good acting making Henson’s character seem almost campy, Angelina Jolie’s character of Christine Collins singularly drove the movie.  We were all there when she was forced to grin and bear the fact that the little boy that got off the train wasn’t her son, and all movie goers had the gut wrenching terror, evoking a possessed child from a horror movie when the little boy turned around and called her “Mommy” for the first time.

I didn’t have those moments in “Benjamin Button.”

The acting in this movie included that of Jeffrey Donovan (most recently famous for his starring role in USA channel’s “Burn Notice” but formerly famous as Vince Munson the a-hole candidate who got his head stuck up the bull’s behind in Will Smith’s “Hitch”) as Captain Jones. What I also appreciated about this movie was that it really did reveal the plight of white women in the 1920s and it sucked for them.  They were being treated like Negroes.

When the movie took place, mostly in 1928 means that it wasn’t a full 10 years since the 19th Amendment had been passed granting women the right to vote, but that it was still a man’s world.  In fact it still is man’s world.  What struck me was while Christine Collins was locked up in LA County’s Psychopathic (not Psychiatric) Hosptial and she ran into a woman who “worked the night shift” who was trying to give her advice on how to make it through there, such as eating all of your food because “it appears normal.”  But it was her next lines that struck a chord with me: she laid out a damned if you do, damned if you don’t scenario that if they smiled too much, they were considered to be covering up their feelings and ultimately maniacal, or if they frowned to much, they were depressed and possibly suicidal, but if they even kept a plain face, they were void of emotion and pre-catatonic.

Woooooow….so, she freed Christine Collins to tell the head doctor and the powers that be “Fuck you and the horse you rode in on!”

It reminded me of a conversation that I had had with some friends earlier about female preachers and pastors in a male dominated field that in some instances these women have to “put on a ministry dick” so to speak just to have their voices heard in the midst of egotistical men who get together just to whip out their own ministries (dicks) and measure them up with each other–who has the biggest church? who has the baddest choir? who can hoop or squall the best?

Aside from all of that, what got me was the complacency of the women in the movies.  Simply stated, many of the staff in this psychopathic hospital were women, portrayed as unaware souls of the women that they helped incarcerate.  It also made me thankful that science and technology has progressed because watching the electroshock therapy was a bit much for my stomach and for my head.  Also, hopefully, we’ve progressed in our treatment of children in the police departments’ juvenile divisions, or rather the Department of Children and Family Services (yes, DCFS, I’m from Chicago so insert whatever appropriate regional acronym) has gone lengths into making children in fact be children.

I’d also be remiss to not give a good kudos to the acting of Jason Butler Harner who played Gordon Northcott, the convicted serial killer and kidnapper of up to 20 little boys, one of which had been thought to be Christine Collins missing boy Walter Collins over which the whole movie was premised.  Harner acted the hell out of that part, especially in the jailhouse scene between he and Jolie and of course the director decided to take this apologist tone when he was walking up the steps of the gallows and fighting each and every step of the way, and Harner was definitely doing his part in acting.  So when the trap door was dropped and his body fell–I was there.

Again, never had a moment like that in “Benjamin Button.”

The movie had wonderful period touches.  I really felt like 1928 Los Angeles, just on the verge of the Great Depression.  I was a fan of the clothing, the cars, the technology of it all as Collins was a manager at the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph company on the switchboards.  What struck me odd was that a single mother was able to afford such a decent lifestyle in that house on her salary in 1928 and forward.  But nonetheless, that was the only issue I seemed to really have with the movie aside from the obvious.

Oh, unrelated to the movie review:

A) Am I the only black person who’s mildly curious about the size of Angelina Jolie’s lips and yet another subtle example of the negrification of our world and B) Why is it that this lady Wendy Worthington, who’s been on the acting scene for quite some time, always ends up playing some sourpuss woman? 

This is a movie I’d recommend.  Such is up to you whether you’d want to make the purchase to buy it on DVD or not, but for those who actually read this as soon as they drop–have fun at the Oscars!

Feel free to leave your thoughts concerning this movie down below, I’d look forward to hearing them.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

UNN Movie Review: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

22 Feb

benjamin-button-poster-brad-pitt

Okay, the Academy Awards are in two hours and some odd change, let’s see if I can knock out these movie reviews quick fast and in a hurry.

Up on the docket first is “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”

Honest opinion, this past fall, especially this winter fell short on decent movies I wanted to go see. This was a movie that uppity Negress had somewhat dragged me to see over Christmas break (and yes, I’ve been meaning to do a blog since then).  We sat in the movie theater and I was secretly wishing that she hadn’t gone to see the Adam Sandler movie  ”Bedtime Stories” because that’s what I would have liked to have gone to see given the dearth of decent Christmas movies.

taraji-p-henson6Let me preface this review by saying that I was more than excited to hear all of the buzz surrounding the movie because of 2009 Academy Award Nominee Taraji P. Henson, who I’m nominating for a 2009 Uppity Award.  It was nice to see her move from being a “black actor” to somewhat move into the more mainstream eyes of the rest of the country’s movie goers.  You see, most of us had already been more than familiar with her in the black cult classics of “Baby Boy” opposite Tyrese Gibson and from being in “Hustle and Flow” (a movie I still haven’t seen) opposite Terrence Howard.  However, for me personally, she had placed another jewel in her feature film crown when she starred as Pam, the wife of Tyler Perry’s character in “A Family That Preys.”  Granted that was a “black film,” but for me, I was quite clear that she had moved passed the roles of the ghetto girl in the movies.

So, because of my following Ms. Henson, I had actually read a review on “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”  I’m not even sure who wrote the review and how long it was, and what paper it was or what online source it was, all I remember reading was that the movement of the film was dependent upon Brad Pitt’s character, Benjamin Button, being born old and getting younger as life went along–and that motif didn’t work.

It was with that aforementioned thought in my head that I sat down for this 166 minute film.  And it is a list of problems as to how I’ll describe this film.

Problem #1: I just don’t do well with historical fiction.  Perhaps I’ve been jaded ever since I was doing a senior African American history paper on Nat Turner and I stumbled upon William Styron’s The Confessions of Nat Turner which was written by a white guy and published in 1967 and just how much uproar was started as a result of a white guy telling black history.  So, once I got past the mother’s try-to-be Creole accent laying up in the bed, with the specter of Hurricane Katrina and tried to figure out what was going on and realized the movie opened up in 1925 (?) New Orleans.  Now I’m not an expert on New Orleans culture, but seeing as how I did live there for three years, my dad is from Louisiana and I do read a lot and soak in a lot, I figured I was miles ahead of the folk who still can’t properly pronounce this words like Atchafalaya and Tchoupitoulous.

I was mildly concerned as to how they were going to portray the black lady raising the white boy, particularly in the South.  It really wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.  I guess the writers and what not got away with that simply because they were in a senior home.  I felt that the early actor of Button, Peter Badalamenti II, did a good job of portraying Button figuring out his body and trying make everything work.  But then again, I had problems with the historicity of the movie when the Pygmy, played by Rampai Mohadi befriends Button and the two hop on a street car together–and sit at the front.

Um, we all know they would have been at the back of the car.  

Moreover, this was easy historical fact to get easy.  This wasn’t small fudging, perhaps stuff like this really isn’t general knowledge like I thought.

Problem #2: The movie just flat out had parts that didn’t make sense.  One of the criticisms I’ve had of Tyler Perry movies was that I wasn’t sure if I was watching comedy’s or dramas.  ”A Family That Preys” was a movie that seemed to nail it on that aspect.  By in large a Tyler Perry movie would have you high and lifted up with great comedy in one seen, and then gripping drama in the next.  As a result of that, the drama comes off as melodrama worthy of Tom Joyner’s “It’s Your World” where all you need is the funky drawbar organ music playing in the background.

I felt this was the case with homeboy who had been struck by lightning seven times.  This was particularly in the light of gripping dramatic scenes such as where Daisy’s daughter, Caroline discovers by reading this journal, on her mother’s deathbed, with Katrina coming on shore, that this crazy old man was her father, or the various vignette that lead to Daisy’s life-altering injury, we could always count on homeboy getting struck by lightning and it definitely being a non-sequitur to the movie.

Also, the biggest glaring error was the opening scene with the clockmaker.  Not ONE shred of evidence connected the clock to Benjamin Button throughout the entire movie.  The opening scene is that of a clockmaker who’s lost his son in World War I and he designs a clock for New Orleans’ Union Station (which has not existed in some years) and when it was revealed even with Teddy Roosevelt present, it was designed to run backwards, in hopes of turning back time so he could see his son again.  Then there’s a cut to the birth of Benjamin Button.  The closing scenes of the movie show the clock has been replaced by a digital forward moving clock and that the old clock itself was sitting on the floor of some storage room that was quickly filling with water as the levees broke.

Seriously, this was a theme that completely didn’t work at all.  No one dealt with the theme of the clockmaker designing some master clock to run backwards and the significance of this clock.  This particular blunder made the motif of Button going through life aging backwards not work well.

Problem #3: The main catalyst of the movie didn’t work.  Had this been a simple love story, I guess on the level of “The Notebook” people would have said this was done before and no one would have given this movie a second look.  So the writers and producers decided to throw a twist into it, and there you have “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”  See, I just don’t buyt the feasibility of it all.  The movie never gave me right mixture of fact and fiction that made me want to make the leap of faith of this being reality that this man went through life as simply a novelty.  I’m just convinced that he would have been locked up somewhere where doctors were running tests on him constantly.  I just never got the impression that he would have went through life unscathed by the medical community as such or that no one that he came in contact with wouldn’t have told someone!

Then after the movie had done a good job with the love interest Daisy, Cate Blanchett, it still dropped the ball on the later scenes of the movie as Benjamin regressed back into a baby.  Yes, as unimaginable as it sounds, think about an old baby being born and a new baby dying.

The time line of Benjamin Button had him being born with arthritis and all kinds of octogenarian health problems–at the size of newborn.  Then growing bigger, but growing progressively better as he got older–but yet younger.  So, apparently in the 1960s when he had cut out on his wife–and daughter–he reappeared as an 18 year old (kudos to the makeup team for making 40 year old Brad Pitt look half his age almost) and from then on, not only got older, but got younger–and smaller.  I mean we essentially watched a 90 second vignette toward the end of the movie watching a 70 year old man trapped in a seven year old body–but with the comprehension of a seven year old.  It was as if he were living his life backwards–again.

I was done with the movie by that point.

If you like love stories, perhaps you’ll do okay with it, but clearly I wasn’t a big fan.  This is definitely not a movie I’d recommend to be in one’s DVD collection, perhaps rent if you’re a female and you just like Brad Pitt that much, or if you want to support Taraji P. Henson, otherwise this movie was a bust to me.

Any user comments and quick reviews from others who happened to see the movie?

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

Sunday Morning Coffee Break: ‘Religulous’ Movie Review

19 Oct

I treated myself on Friday night to go see Bill Maher’s new movie “Religulous.”  I joked, half serious that I was renouncing Christianity and assuming a belief system based on love.  As far as I’m concerned Maher did a pretty accurate depiction of everyday, borderline evangelical Christianity in this country.

The opening venue is a truckside chapel with some real Joe Six-packs who perhaps are married to some hockey moms in the chapel listening to Maher and a) I thought it was interesting that he had notecards the entire time.  I’m not sure if it was because he just wanted to stay on task, or was it really because he didn’t know some of the stuff.

Meh, who knows.

Of course he went in there and began questioning EVERYTHING.  And one of the truckers got up and walked out because he said “I don’t know what kind of documentary this is, but you aint gon’ be tearing apart my God.”  And he walked out.  At least the others, as Bill noted acted Christ-like in engaging in his dialogue, and not like Christians.

the intrinisically unhappy gay folk at a parade celebrating their sexuality

He proceeded to discuss theology with a man who considers himself reformed from homosexuality because clearly he doesn’t accept that as in the will of God. This despite the fact that as Bill proclaimed, there are many, many happy gay folk who don’t think twice about what religion thinks, let alone God.  The man went on to say that these were intrinsically unhappy people.

Maher also went to a number of other places, one of which was the Vatican where he got kicked out rather quickly and ran into a priest who sounded American, prolly somewhere on the East Coast who was old and balding, and essentially had adopted my new motto towards religion “It’s all vanities.”  Bill couldn’t help but laugh because essentially, the old guy was agreeing with everything Bill said. 

Later they showed Bill at the Holy Land Theme Park in Orlando, sponsored by TBN (which immediately turned me off) and the certain re-enactments of the crucifixion story.  It was about as hokey as when the Simpson’s went to Praiseland.  He even talked with “Jesus” who kept giving all of these platitudes about why Christians believe what they do. 

By about this point in the movie, it was wearing thin on me what the whole point of this movie was.  I somewhat started texting on my phone when he got to the interviews with the Muslims, but not before I watched the BUFFOONERY that was the Orthodox Jew who adhered strictly to the 39 rules in Leviticus about what one could not do on the Sabbath.  I mean, this guy felt that he couldn’t push a button because it was punishable by DEATH in the Torah.

Whoever said works are needed to get into heaven needs to give this man a golden star.

He also took the time out to ask a few scientists what their take on it was, and of course we got the standard scientific answers.  But what I thought was the best interview because it was just so candid was his interview with Arkansas U.S. Senator Mark Pryor who, po’ thang, came off as not just a religious fruitcake but a general nut in the first place.  After not having an answer to Bill’s sardonic remark that “I have a problem with the people running my country who believe in a talking snake” making a reference to Gen. 3 and po’ Marky responds “Well, you don’t have to pass an IQ test to get in the Senate.”  And Bill Maher totally deadpanned the comment in wonderful Maher fashion.  And then they cut back to Marky who had an “Oh Sh!t” look on his face like a deer caught in the headlights.

It was wonderful.

Now, I’m not sure just what level of intrigue did he do with certain segments of religious life because I thought that he left out a lot of the redeeming factors of liberal Christianity.  What he suceeded at was interviewing the nutcases who don’t know anything.  People like Jeremiah Cummings (yes, the one from Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes), who looks like a Louis Farrakhan reject, who insisted on being called “Doctor” in the interview even though he has NO degree whatsoever, or the Rabbi who was anti-Zionist who was clearly as much of a one-sided fanatic as Bill himself can be.  But even though these people are certified in my opinion, these are the people who have far and wide-reaching appeal to the masses.

These people know nothing more than their parishoners.  I thought it was an accurate claim in some cases in Maher’s closing pronouncement of doom against religion that the preachers, pastors, imams and rabbis are doing nothing more than providing an opiate for the masses–not his exact words, but these borrowed words from Karl Marx I think drive his point home.  Although if I remember, Maher pushed it a bit further and said that various clergy from the three major religions are in fact instrumental to the destruction of humanity causing blindness to world issues by placing religion first.

Meh, for the most part I agree with him.  I’m not sure opiate for the masses is necessarily the intent of many clergy; I’m quite convinced that the clergy believe just as strongly as the laity in many cases.  However, for someone to watch this movie, it should make one slightly more uncomfortable sitting on the pew on Sunday morning.

To bring home my ultimate criticism, he didn’t interview one single seminary trained clergy or professor of religion.  No one with a Ph.D. in the field of religion of the Christian persuasion was interviewed.  I suspect because of what I saw that perhaps he’d be shocked at the level of liberalism that exists amongst trained and educated clergy.  Those with real Ph.D’s behind their name.  Of course those with degrees run the gamut as far as liberal and conservative.  Of course someone graduating from New Orleans Baptist Seminary, or Dallas Theological Seminary is not  going to think the same way as someone who graduated from Vanderbilt or Princeton Theological Seminary.

But of course Bill was going for the shock and comedic value of the movie.  I mean, there was to be a real documentary done on this topic, do you think they would have let Bill Maher be the moderator.

Well, I didn’t mean to write all of that, but I’m glad I did.

I welcome your comments.  Have you gone to see the movie?  Would you pay money to go see Bill Maher ack a fool?  Why would you or why wouldn’t you?  For those die hards out there, if you feel your faith is being challenged or mocked, I ask is it really a faith at all if it can’t stand up to the likes of Bill Maher.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

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