#28DaysofBlack Review: "A WRINKLE IN TIME" is Wonderfully Weird

 

[I imagine that The Walt Disney Company had to make “A Wrinkle in Time” an accounting write-off.  The film under-performed at the box office, which is a shame.  It is one of the most original science fiction and fantasy films of the 21st century.  I also honestly believe that this film is such a unique vision because it was directed by an African-American woman, Ava DuVernay.]

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 18 of 2021 (No. 1756) by Leroy Douresseaux

A Wrinkle in Time (2018)
Running time:  109 minutes (1 hour, 49 minutes)
MPAA – PG for thematic elements and some peril
DIRECTOR:  Ava DuVernay
WRITERS:  Jennifer Lee and Jeff Stockwell (based on the novel by Madeleine L'Engle)
PRODUCERS:  Catherine Hand and Jim Whitaker
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Tobias Schliessler (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Spencer Averick
COMPOSER:  Ramin Djawadi

SCI-FI/FANTASY/ADVENTURE/FAMILY/DRAMA

Starring:  Storm Reid, Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, Levi Miller, Deric McCabe, Chris Pine, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Zach Galifianakis, Michael Pena, Andre Holland, Rowan Blanchard, and David Oyelowo

A Wrinkle in Time is a 2018 science fiction and fantasy-adventure film directed by Ava DuVernay.  The film is based on Madeleine L'Engle's 1962, A Wrinkle in Time, the first book in her “Time Quintet” series.  A Wrinkle in Time the movie follows a young girl, her brother, and a school friend as they set off on a quest across the universe to find the girl's missing father.

A Wrinkle in Time introduces 13-year-old Meg Murry (Storm Reid).  She continues to struggle to adjust at school four years after the disappearance of her father, Alex Murry (Chris Pine), a renowned astrophysicist.  Meg and her gifted younger brother, Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe), have also been in trouble with their school's Principal Jenkins (Andre Holland).  Even their mother, Dr. Kate Murry (Gugu Mbatah-Raw), struggles in the wake of the disappearance of her husband.  However, Meg has made a new friend, her classmate, Calvin O'Keefe (Levi Miller).

Then, the Murrys and Calvin start to get unusual visitors.  They call themselves “the Misses.”  They are Mrs. Which (Oprah Winfrey), Mrs. Whatsit (Reese Witherspoon), and Mrs. Who (Mindy Kaling), a trio of astral beings who claim that the “tesseract,” a method of space travel that Alex Murry was studying, is real.  These astral travelers reveal that they have come to help find Alex, who has transported himself across the universe.  They need Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin's help, and they need them to be “warriors.”  However, Meg doubts her own abilities and really doesn't like herself all that much, and that will make her vulnerable to the powerful enemy that awaits them, “The IT.”

The cinematography by Tobias A. Schliessler, the costume design by Paco Delgado, and the production design by Naomi Shohan come together to create one of the most visually beautiful science fiction films that I have seen in a decade.  The film editing by Spencer Averick and the gorgeous score by Ramin Djawadi make that beauty move and feel vibrant, creating a film like no other.

Beyond the high production values, director Ava DuVernay has fashioned a big-hearted film that is one of the most ambitious science fiction and fantasy films in recent memory.  I have never read Madeleine L'Engle's now legendary novel, so I assume that screenwriters Jennifer Lee and Jeff Stockwell (and any other writers that contributed to the final product) condensed the character drama in order to focus on Meg Murry.  However, DuVernay and the writers, through Meg, tell a story in which love and imagination and determination and fortitude can send humans on a voyage that traverses not only our galaxy, but also the universe.

Young actress Storm Reid as Meg Murry is poignant and engaging as the young hero who must learn to both love and accept herself and to believe in herself.  Her teen (or 'tween) struggles seem honest and genuine.  In a movie full of offbeat performances of odd characters, Reid makes Meg seem solid and the driving force of this narrative.

Young Deric McCabe seems supernaturally self-assured as Charles Lawrence Murry, making the young brother an important counterpart to Meg.  Levi Miller is a pleasant addition as Calvin O'Keefe whose main role is to believe in Meg even when she doesn't believe in herself, but the story also gives Calvin his own poignant journey.

I get why adults, especially film critics, had mixed feelings about the film.  I think young viewers will get it, and this film adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time is important because Ava DuVernay, once again, reinvents what a black female can be on screen in a Hollywood film.  A Wrinkle in Time may be a fantasy film dressed in the many multi-colored robes of science fiction, but this film introduces new kinds of warriors in service of the universe.  And one of those new colors is a young black girl, and that makes A Wrinkle in Time an exceptional film for this time.

9 of 10
A+

Monday, February 22, 2021


2019  Black Reel Awards”  3 nominations: “Outstanding Cinematography” (Tobias A. Schliessler), “Outstanding Costume Design” (Paco Delgado), and “Outstanding Production Design” (Naomi Shohan)


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#28DaysofBlack Review: "I'M GONNA GIT YOU SUCKA" is Still Crazy Funny

[What can I say?  I'm Gonna Git You Sucka remains one of the funniest films that I have ever seen.  And I wish Keenen Ivory Wayans and his regulars were still giving us a regular serving of great African-American comedy … great American comedy.]

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 17 of 2021 (No. 1755) by Leroy Douresseaux

I'm Gonna Git You Sucka (1988)
Running time:  88 minutes
MPAA – R
WRITER/DIRECTOR:  Keenen Ivory Wayans
PRODUCERS:  Carl Craig and Peter McCarthy
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Tom Richmond
EDITOR:  Michael R. Miller   
COMPOSER:  David Michael Frank

COMEDY/ACTION

Starring:  Keenen Ivory Wayans, Bernie Casey, Ja'net Dubois, Isaac Hayes, Jim Brown, Antonio Fargas, Steve James, John Vernon, Dawnn Lewis, Kadeem Hardison, Damon Wayans, Clarence Williams III, Anne-Marie Johnson, Kim Wayans, Eve Plumb, Hawthorne James, David Alan Grier, Clu Gulager, and Chris Rock

I'm Gonna Git You Sucka is a 1988 comedy film written and directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans.  The film is a blaxploitation film (Black exploitation film) and also a parody of the blaxploitation films of the 1970s.  I'm Gonna Git You Sucka focuses on a Black wannabe hero who joins a former Black hero on a mission to stop a crime lord who is plaguing the Black community with vice.

I'm Gonna Git You Sucka introduces Jack Spade (Keenen Ivory Wayans), a soldier who returns home (“Any Ghetto, U.S.A.”) after ten years away.  He has learned that his brother, Junebug Spade, has died of "OG" – overdosing on gold chains (wearing too many gold chains).  Jack looks around his old neighborhood and sees the effect of gold chains on his community.  Jack wants revenge for his brother's death, but he also wants to stop the proliferation of gold chains in his community.  That means he has to stop “Mr. Big” (John Vernon), who rules the crime world and is responsible for the epidemic of gold chains that claimed Junebug's life.

Jack and Junebug's mother, Bell Spade (Ja'net Dubois), does not want her only remaining son engaging in something that could get him killed.  Junebug's widow, Cheryl Spade (Dawnn Lewis), who once loved Jack, does not want him killed now that he is back in her life.  Still, Jack is determined to be a Black hero, so he seeks the help of the retired hero, John Slade (Bernie Casey), once the community's biggest Black hero.  While Slade is initially wary, he eventually brings in other classic Black heroes from the past:  Hammer (Isaac Hayes), Slammer (Jim Brown), and Kung Fu Joe (Steve James), and also a once prominent pimp, Flyguy (Antonio Fargas), in on the mission.  But can this group really come together and “take it to the man?”

I saw I'm Gonna Git You Sucka in early 1989 in a movie theater at the Bon Marche Mall in Baton Rouge, Louisiana with a group of friends.  We laughed until we cried.  Although I did see parts of it again over the next few years, I have not watched I'm Gonna Git You Sucka in its entirety since that first time.  As a parody of a film genre, I'm Gonna Git You Sucka is more like the films of the former team, Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker (Airplane!, The Naked Gun series), than it is like the work of Mel Brooks (Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles).

Keenen Ivory Wayan's talents as a writer are underrated.  What I'm Gonna Git You Sucka and his later hit, Scary Movie (2000), reveal is that Wayans can pile on sight gags, comic references, riffs, funny sounds, replications of famous film moments into a movie, but none of that stops the movie cold.  Almost all of it fits seamlessly into the narrative, so the movie works as whatever genre it is parodying, and is not just a series of gags pretending to be a film narrative.  I'm Gonna Git You Sucka is not just a parody of blaxploitation films; it is a blaxploitation comedy film.  In fact, I'm Gonna Git You Sucka is also a loving send-up of blaxploitation films.  There is never a moment when it seems that Wayans holds the genre in disdain.

It would take an incredibly long essay to talk about all the wonderful things in I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, so I'll point out a few.  I was happy to see actor Clarence Williams III as the aging revolutionary, Kalinga, show his comic talents.  I also enjoyed Ja'net Dubois' sense of humor and comic timing.  Kim Wayans, Keenen's sister, is always a welcomed sight, here giving her all as a wacky nightclub singer.  Of course, the distinguished Bernie Casey, with that wonderful voice and the way he carries himself, gives any movie in which he appears some credibility that it would have lacked without him.  He should have been a major movie star … alas …

Since Keenen Ivory Wayans co-wrote Hollywood Shuffle, it was often connected to I'm Gonna Git You Sucka.  However, each film had a different purpose, and I'm Gonna Git You Sucka revealed how quickly Wayans arrived as a major Hollywood comedy talent.  I hope new generations of movie audiences discover this thoroughly underrated cinematic comedy gem.

A+
9 out of 10

Wednesday, February 17, 2021


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#28DaysofBlack Review: "HOLLYWOOD SHUFFLE" Still Has Something to Say

[Upon its release, Hollywood Shuffle felt like something that needed to be said.  It was time to say enough to the way Black people were portrayed in Hollywood film and television productions.  And yes, maybe some Black actors should have said no to stereotypical roles, as long as they didn't have bills to pay …]

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 16 of 2021 (No. 1754) by Leroy Douresseaux

Hollywood Shuffle (1987)
Running time:  81 minutes (1hour, 21 minutes)
MPAA – R
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR:  Robert Townsend
WRITERS:  Robert Townsend and Keenen Ivory Wayans
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Peter Deming
EDITOR:  W.O. Garrett
COMPOSERS:  Udi Harpaz and Patrice Rushen

COMEDY

Starring:  Robert Townsend, Anne-Marie Johnson, Craigus R. Johnson, Helen Martin, Starletta DuPois, David McKnight, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Lou B. Washington, John Witherspoon, Eugene Robert Glazer, Lisa Mende, Dom Irrera, Brad Sanders, Conni Marie Brazelton, Sena Ayn Black, Jesse Aragon, Verda Bridges, Grand L. Bush, and Damon Wayans

Hollywood Shuffle is a 1987 American satirical comedy film from producer-director Robert Townsend.  The film focuses on the trials and tribulations of a Black actor limited to stereotypical roles who dreams of making it as a highly respected actor.

Hollywood Shuffle introduces Robert “Bobby” Taylor (Robert Townsend), a young black man aspiring to become an actor.  Bobby has been preparing for his audition for the lead role in Tinsel Town Pictures' new urban drama.  Entitled “Jivetime Jimmy's Revenge,” this movie about street gangs is full of stereotypes about African-Americans and Latinos.

Bobby's grandmother (Helen Martin) overhears the “jive talk” Bobby uses to practice his lines, and she vociferously expresses her disapproval, while Bobby's mother (Starletta DuPois) is more supportive.  Bobby wants to be a great actor so that he won't have to work at places like his current place of employment, “Winky Dinky Dog.”  Bobby's grandmother says that if he desires a respectable job, there is honest work at the post office.  Bobby believes that if he lands the role of Jimmy in Jivetime Jimmy's Revenge, everything will get better for his career and for his family.  But is that true?  As Bobby works towards his dream, the film also takes a satiric look at African-American actors in Hollywood and at Hollywood in general.

As far as I can tell, it has been over twenty years since I last saw Hollywood Shuffle.  Seeing it after such a long time, I find that it has actually aged well.  African-American actors have made great strides in the American film and television industry since Hollywood Shuffle's first release.  However, in some ways, African-American actors, indeed actors of color and non-white actors, continues to deal with stereotypes about who they are, what roles they should play, and in what kind of films and TV in which they should appear.

There are notions about the limited box office potential of films featuring African-American and non-white actors, especially when they have lead or major roles in films.  Because of that, Hollywood Shuffle's satire remains sharp, if for no other reason than that there are still Bobby Taylors and Bobbi Taylors dealing with casting directors that have concrete, incorrect ideas about the physicality of Black people and performers.

Meanwhile, Hollywood Shuffle is more than a satirical comedy about Hollywood.  It is also a comedy that is both a send-up of and tribute to Hollywood's most familiar genres.  Writers Robert Townsend, Keenen Ivory Wayans, and comedian Dom Irrera (who did not receive a screen credit as a writer) fashion numerous skits and sketches that fit well with the main story line, Bobby Taylor's quest.  “Sneaking into the Movies,” a send-up of the late film critics, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, is unforgettable and much-copied.  Sam Ace and “The Death of a Breakdancer,” a spoof of the detective movies of Hollywood's Golden Era, surprisingly works much better than one might think.  Having a villain like “Jerry Curl” (Keenen Ivory Wayans), with his curl activator addiction, helps.  “Black Acting School” is satire so savage that it is almost strident … almost.  And “ho cakes” is worth remembering.

I am still amazed at how much Townsend and his cast and crew got out of a one-hundred thousand dollar budget.  An exercise in guerrilla filmmaking, Hollywood Shuffle remains one of the top indie comedies and African-American films of the 1980s, showing that imagination, inventiveness, and working together for a common cause can overcome budget constraints … for the most part.

Yes, things are “better than they were.”  As long as white supremacy and white privilege reign in the United States, Hollywood Shuffle will always be relevant and also funny.

A-
7 out of 10

Tuesday, February 16, 2021


NOTES:
1987  Image Awards:  2 nominations:  “Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture” (Helen Martin) and “Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture” (Robert Townsend)


The text is copyright © 2021 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.

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#28DaysofBlack Review: Heroes Abound in "MARSHALL"

[The year after he first played Marvel Comics superhero, Black Panther, the late Chadwick Boseman played real-life hero, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, early in his career when he was a defense attorney defending oppressed African-Americans.  There is something about playing both Thurgood Marshall and the Black Panther that makes an actor special.  That is why some of us both mourn Boseman's passing and celebrate his work.]

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 15 of 2021 (No. 1753) by Leroy Douresseaux

Marshall (2017)
Running time: 118 minutes (1 hours, 58 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for mature thematic content, sexuality, violence and some strong language
DIRECTOR:  Reginald Hudlin
WRITERS:  Michael Koskoff and Jacob Koskoff
PRODUCERS:  Reginald Hudlin, Jonathan Sanger, and Paula Wagner
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Newton Thomas Sigel (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Tom McArdle
COMPOSER:  Marcus Miller
Academy Award nominee

BIOPIC/DRAMA/HISTORICAL/THRILLER

Starring:  Chadwick Boseman, Josh Gad, Kate Hudson, Dan Stevens, James Cromwell, Sterling K. Brown, Keesha Sharp, John Magaro, Roger Guenveur Smith, Ahna O'Reilly, Jeremy Bobb, Derrick Baskin, Jeffrey DeMunn, Andra Day, Sophia Bush, Jussie Smollett, and Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas

Marshall is a 2017 biographical film, period drama, and legal thriller directed by Reginald Hudlin.  The film's lead character is Thurgood Marshall (1908 to 1993), the first African-American to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States.  Marshall the film focuses on one of the first cases of his career, the State of Connecticut v. Joseph Spell, which concerns an African-American chauffeur accused of raping a white woman in 1940.

Marshall opens in 1941.  Thurgood Marshall (Chadwick Boseman) is an attorney for the “NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund,” which he founded.  Marshall travels the country defending people who are accused of crimes solely because of their race.  Upon his return to his New York office, Marshall finds more work waiting for him.  Walter Francis White (Roger Guenveur Smith), Executive Secretary of the NAACP, sends Marshall to Bridgeport, Connecticut.  There, he will defend Joseph Spell (Sterling K. Brown), a chauffeur accused of rape by his white employer, Eleanor Strubing (Kate Hudson), in a case that has gripped the newspapers.

In Bridgeport, insurance lawyer, Sam Friedman (Josh Gad), is assigned by his brother, Irwin Friedman (John Magaro), to get Marshall admitted to the local bar, against Sam's will.  At the hearing for Spell, Judge Carl Foster (James Cromwell), a friend of the father of prosecutor Lorin Willis (Dan Stevens), agrees to admit Marshall, but forbids Marshall from speaking during the trial, forcing Friedman to be Spell's lead counsel.  Now, Marshall must guide Friedman through the trial via notes, but is this case a lost cause when Thurgood and Sam discover that it is rife with lies – on both sides.

Marshall is technically a biographical film, focusing on a specific period in the life and career of future Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall.  Early in the film, however, it is obvious that director Reginald Hudlin has his mind on making Marshall a film that resembles a 1940s film noir with elements of a legal drama and a crime thriller.  The audience can hear that in Marcus Miller's lovely film score and in the way Hudlin stages the action, uses space, and places the actors.

In one of the film's early moments, when Marshall has his back to the camera and is ironing a shirt, I immediately thought of my favorite actor, Humphrey Bogart, and one of his most famous roles, that of Sam Space in director John Huston's The Maltese Falcon (1941).  From that point, there is hardly a setting in which Marshall's life does not seem to be in danger.  Hudlin races his audience through a movie that seems to be shorter than its almost two hours of run time.  Is Marshall a courtroom drama?  Yes, and it is also a courtroom thriller with a mystery at its center.

I do wish the father-son screenwriting team of Michael Koskoff and Jacob Koskoff had given the script  more depth, as the narrative is mostly style and genre.  There is also a lack of depth in the  characterization, and the characters are a bit shallow.  As hard as actor Sterling K. Brown tries, he can't seem to really draw anything from the well of defendant Joseph Spell's soul.  Spell comes across as more of a stand-in than an actual portrait of a man whose life is on the line.

The very talented Josh Gad is able to give a lot of color to Sam Friedman, playing as a subtly wily man who is able to navigate his way between conflicting sides.  Kate Hudson, mostly known for romantic comedies, shows some serious dramatic chops as the trapped suburban wife and alleged victim, Eleanor Strubing.  As usual, Roger Guenveur Smith is spry, this time as the real-life Walter Francis Wright.

Of course, in the wake of his 2020 death to complications of colon cancer, Chadwick Boseman as Thurgood Marshall will be the center of attention in the film, Marshall, going forward.  Despite a lack of characterization in the film's script, Boseman turns Marshall into a relentless paladin, traveling the countryside fighting the forces of white bigotry and racism.  His field of battle is the courtroom, and black men falsely accused because they are black are the people he defends.  Boseman makes me believe that he is a stubborn attorney and hero in an old-fashioned courtroom drama.  He also makes me believe that he is a superhero, almost a year before he became the beloved Black Panther of Disney/Marvel Studios' Oscar-winning film, Black Panther.

Marshall convinces me that Thurgood Marshall was both a heroic lawyer and a superhero.  The film also convinces me that Boseman was the best at bringing the most famous African-American men to life on the big screen.  Plus, Marshall is a really good movie.

8 of 10
A

Monday, February 15, 2021


NOTES:
2018 Academy Awards, USA:  1 nomination: “Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures-Original Song” (Common and Diane Warren for song “Stand Up for Something”)

2018 Black Reel Awards:  7 nominations: “Outstanding Motion Picture” (Jonathan Sanger, Paula Wagner, and Reginald Hudlin), “Outstanding Actor, Motion Picture” (Chadwick Boseman), “Outstanding Director, Motion Picture” (Reginald Hudlin), “Outstanding Ensemble” (Victoria Thomas-Casting Director), “Outstanding Score” (Marcus Miller-Composer), “Outstanding Original Song” (Andra Day-Performer, Common-Performer, Writer, and Diane Warren-Writer for the song “Stand Up for Something”), and “Outstanding Breakthrough Performance, Male” (Sterling K. Brown)

2018 Image Awards (NAACP):  5 nominations: “Outstanding Motion Picture,” “Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture” (Chadwick Boseman), “Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture” (Sterling K. Brown), “Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture” (Keesha Sharp), “and  “Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture” (Reginald Hudlin)

The text is copyright © 2021 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved.  Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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#28DaysofBlack Review: GET ON UP

[The late Chadwick Boseman portrayed four African-American historical figures, three of them as the lead actor.  His performance as James Brown in “Get on Up” is an example of why so many are devastated by his passing and also by the loss of what could have been.]

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 14 of 2021 (No. 1752) by Leroy Douresseaux

Get on Up (2014)
Running time:  139 minutes (2 hours, 19 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for sexual content, drug use, some strong language, and violent situations
DIRECTOR:  Tate Taylor
WRITERS:  Jez Butterworth & John-Henry Butterworth; from a story by Steven Baigelman and Jez Butterworth & John-Henry Butterworth
PRODUCERS:  Brian Grazer, Erica Huggins, Mick Jagger, Victoria Pearman, and Tate Taylor
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Stephen Goldblatt
EDITOR:  Michael McCusker
COMPOSER:  Thomas Newman

BIOPIC/MUSIC/DRAMA

Starring:  Chadwick Boseman, Nelsan Ellis, Dan Aykroyd, Jamarion and Jordan Scott, Viola Davis, Lennie James, Fred Melamed, Jamal Batiste, Craig Robinson, Jill Scott, Octavia Spencer, Josh Hopkins, Brandon Mychal Smith, Tika Sumpter, Aunjanue Ellis, Tariq Trotter as Pee Wee Ellis, John Benjamin Hickey, and Allison Janney

Get on Up is a 2014 biographical film and musical drama directed by Tate Taylor.  The film is a fictional depiction of the life of singer, songwriter, recording artist, and concert performer, James Brown (1933-2006).  Get on Up chronicles the rise from extreme poverty of one of the most influential musical performers in history.

Get on Up opens in Augusta, Georgia, the year 1988.  James Brown (Chadwick Boseman), one of the world's most famous recording artists and performers, gets high on mix of marijuana and PCP.   He visits one of his businesses and discovers that someone from a nearby seminar has used his private restroom.  Furious, Brown confronts the seminar attendees while carrying a shotgun, which he accidentally fires into the ceiling.

The film then uses a nonlinear narrative, following James Brown's stream of consciousness, as he recalls events from his life.  We meet young James Brown (Jamarion and Jordan Scott), living in poverty with his mother, Susie Brown (Viola Davis), and abusive father, Joseph “Joe” Brown (Lennie James).  Eventually abandoned by both his parents, young James lives in a brothel run by his Aunt Honey Washington (Octavia Spencer).

Later, James joins “The Flames,” a gospel singing group fronted by his new friend, Bobby Byrd (Nelsan Ellis).  Soon, they become “The Famous Flames” and sing R&B songs, but within a decade James Brown is ready to go solo.  It would not be the last time James is willing to go it alone on the way to becoming one of the most influential singer, songwriters, musicians, producers, dancers, bandleaders, and recording artists of all time.

Director Tate Taylor and screenwriters Jez Butterworth & John-Henry Butterworth have fashioned of a story that looks at two sides of James Brown:  his musical talent and performances and his personal and professional relationships.  This allows Get on Up to give audiences what they want – lots of James Brown on stage – and to also tell a behind-the-music-like story of a complicated man.

Get on Up takes its title from a chorus in James Brown's 1970 hit, “Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine.”  Brown does indeed “get on up” every time he experiences something personally or professionally that could have brought him down and kept him down.  The thing that I can respect about this film is that it does not only portray Brown as someone who overcomes, but also portrays him as someone who does not appreciate that he was never alone in creating his success.  Late in the film, Brown breaks the fourth wall (one of many times he does this) to tell the audience that he “paid the cost to be the boss.”  However, he did not pay the cost alone, to which wives, girlfriends, lovers, children, band mates, and employees can certainly testify.

Through the impressive work of Get on Up's film editor, Michael McCusker. Tate Taylor jumps around time to show the many faces of this artist who was, in a way, a chameleon as a performer.  We see moments from the years:  1939, 1949, 1955, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1968, 1971, 1988, and 1993.  This time-shifting of the film's narrative also reveals the many dark times of Brown's life.

Everyone's work would not mean much without a great performer giving a great performance as James Brown, and Chadwick Boseman certainly does that.  Boseman fashions a James Brown that is perfect for the story that Get on Up tells, creating a Brown that is an inspired genius and a dictatorial general.  Boseman nearly buries himself in the role, and I often found myself forgetting that Get on Up is not a documentary and that the James Brown on screen was a portrait not the real man.  However, Boseman's dynamic performance gives us both sides, the public persona known as James Brown, the musical revolution, and the private James Brown, unyielding to family, friends, collaborators, and partners and beset by demons.

There are other good performances.  Viola Davis packs her own power into every scene in which she appears as Brown's mother, and Octavia Spencer's displays the naturalism of her acting that charms her audiences as well as her fellow thespians.  Nelson Ellis offers a rich and layered performance as Brown's longtime collaborator, Bobby Byrd, and twins Jamarion and Jordan Scott damn near steal Get on Up with their performances as young James Brown.

Because of Chadwick Boseman's tragic passing in 2020, Get on Up will largely be remembered for his performance.  That's a shame because Get on Up is a really good film and is one of the best contemporary biographies of an African-American figure and of an icon figure in popular music in recent memory.  So, I'll take both.  Get on Up captures the music and the madness of James Brown, and the film captures a truly great performance by an actor who was becoming great and greater still before he died.

9 of 10
A+

Monday, February 15, 2021


NOTES:
2015 Black Reel Awards:  3 nominations: “Outstanding Actor, Motion Picture” (Chadwick Boseman), :Outstanding Supporting Actor, Motion Picture” (Nelsan Ellis), and “Outstanding Ensemble” (Kerry Barden and Paul Schnee)

2015 Image Awards (NAACP):  5 nomination: “Outstanding Motion Picture,” “Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture” (Chadwick Boseman), “Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture” (Jill Scott), “Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture” (Octavia Spencer), and “Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture” (Viola Davis)

The text is copyright © 2021 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved.  Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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#28DaysofBlack Review: "A Madea Family Funeral"

[I could not imagine committing to a focus on black films and not offer at least one film from media mogul, Tyler Perry.  Within a decade, Perry became a successful performer and producer of stage plays.  He entered the film business with his 2005 film, “Diary of a Mad Black Woman” and owned a film production studio, Tyler Perry Studios, by 2006.  Perry's signature character, Mabel "Madea" Earlene Simmons, has played a significant part in Perry's rags to riches story, and he apparently brought the film saga of Madea to an end with “A Madea Family Funeral.”]

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 13 of 2021 (No. 1751) by Leroy Douresseaux

A Madea Family Funeral (2019)
Running time:  109 minutes (1 hour, 49 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for crude sexual content, language, and drug references throughout
WRITER/DIRECTOR:  Tyler Perry
PRODUCERS:  Ozzie Areu, Will Areu, Tyler Perry, and Mark E. Swinton
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Richard Vialet (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Larry Sexton
COMPOSER:  Philip White

COMEDY

Starring:  Tyler Perry, Cassi Davis, Patrice Lovely, Jen Harper, Courtney Burrell, Ciera Payton, Rome Flynn, KJ Smith, Aeriél Miranda, David Otunga, Quin Walters, Ary Katz, and Derek Morgan

A Madea Family Funeral is a 2019 comedy-drama from writer-director Tyler Perry.  It is the eleventh and (supposedly) final film in the Madea film series.  A Madea Family Funeral focuses on an anniversary celebration that unexpectedly turns into a funeral that unveils unsavory family secrets.

A Madea Family Funeral opens in the home of Vianne (Jen Harper) and Anthony Thompson (Derek Morgan).  Their children are planning a surprise party to celebrate their parents' 40th wedding anniversary.  Sylvia (Ciera Payton) is with her husband, Will (David Otunga).  Carol (KJ Smith), who is married to older brother, A.J. (Courtney Burrell), is awaiting his arrival.  Younger brother, Jesse (Rome Flynn), is awaiting the arrival of his fiancé, Gia (Aeriél Miranda).

Meanwhile Mabel “Madea” Simmons (Tyler Perry), Uncle Joe (Tyler Perry), Betty Ann Murphy a.k.a. “Aunt Bam” (Cassi Davis), Hattie (Patrice Lovely), and Joe's son, Brian Simmons (Tyler Perry), are also traveling to the reunion.  Vianne and Anthony's family is also the family of Madea and Joe's brother, Heathrow (Tyler Perry), a lecherous, wheelchair bound Vietnam veteran.

Not long after Madea and company arrive at their hotel, they discover that A.J. is also there with Gia, with whom he is having an affair.  Even more shocking is that they discover that Anthony is in a room next to A.J. and Gia's and is engaged in kinky sex with Renee (Quin Walters), a friend of both Vianne and Anthony's.  Anthony suffers a heart attack from the sexual activity and is taken to a hospital where he dies.

Now, Madea is charged with planning Anthony's funeral, which Vianne wants to occur in two days.  In the meantime, Anthony's secret life and the secrets of his two sons threaten to spill over.

A Madea Family Funeral qualifies as a dramatic film because of the secrets and lies and melodrama that apparently have long been a part of Vianne and Anthony's family.  Writer-director Tyler Perry deals with this the way he normally does – with soap opera, gospel theatrics, and Christian philosophizing.  Still, this family drama is pretty dark, and I do credit Perry for once again telling a story about mothers who make tough choices in order to provide for, to protect, and to keep their families together.  What might seem like weakness and stupidity might actually be strength and practicality.

A Madea Family Funeral is a comedy because of … well, because of Madea, Joe, Aunt Bam, and Hattie.  I have to be honest; I think much of the humor in this film as being an inappropriate match for the dramatic side of this film.  Still, I found myself vigorously laughing through more than half this film.  In a way, Anthony's funeral becomes a hilarious nightmare, both because of the unsavory family secrets and because of Madea and company.  But, hell, sometimes laughter helps a family get through a funeral, especially a hot mess of a death and funeral like Anthony's.

If A Madea Family Funeral is indeed the final Madea film, I can say that it went out on a relatively high note.  Perry gives us his trademark Christian moralizing, and Madea gives us the shameless, shameful comedy.  Truthfully, only Tyler Perry could be Madea, so there can be no other true Madea films unless he makes them.  So I hope A Madea Family Funeral doesn't put the Madea film franchise to rest.

7 of 10
B+

Wednesday, February 10, 2021


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#28DaysofBlack Review: Pam Grier Does It for Herself in "COFFY"

[African-American actress Pam Grier has had a long career, one that few Black women of her generation have had.  Some of her most memorable work came in a period during the 1970s when she usually played what was basically a “one-chick hit-squad.”  That character type first came to life in writer-director Jack Hill's Coffy.]

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 10 of 2021 (No. 1748) by Leroy Douresseaux

Coffy (1973)
Running time: 90 minutes (1 hour, 30 minutes)
MPAA – R
WRITER/DIRECTOR: Jack Hill
PRODUCER:  Robert A. Papazian
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Paul Lohmann (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Charles McClelland
COMPOSER:  Roy Ayers

ACTION/CRIME

Starring:  Pam Grier, Booker Bradshaw, Robert DoQui, William Elliott, Allan Arbus, Sid Haig, Barry Cahill, Lee de Broux, Ruben Moreno, Carol Locatell, Linda Haynes, John Perak, Mwako Cumbuka, Morris Buchanan, Karen Williams, and Bob Minor

Coffy is a 1973 action and crime film written and directed by Jack Hill.  A blaxploitation film (black exploitation film), Coffy focuses on an African-American nurse who turns vigilante against a ring of heroin dealers.

Coffy introduces sexy Black nurse, Flower Child Coffin, better known by the nickname, “Coffy.”  She is distressed that her 16-year-old sister, LuBelle (Karen Williams), is staying at a juvenile rehabilitation center because she is addicted to heroin.  As the story begins, Coffy kills “Sugarman” (Morris Buchanan), the pusher who sold heroin to LuBelle.

After speaking with a her long time friend, Carter Brown (William Elliot), a police officer, Coffy decides that if she wants to stop people from getting heroin, she will have to go to the source.  That means the drug pusher and pimp, King George (Robert DoQui), and his supplier, Arturo Vitroni (Allan Arbus).  Going undercover as a Jamaican prostitute looking to work for a big player, Coffy quickly infiltrates the supply chain.  However, someone close to her is also close to the drug dealers.

Exploitation films are generally low-budget films (but not always), and are generally considered “B-movies” with stories belonging to certain genres (action, crime, horror).  They feature lurid content of a violent and/or sexual nature, and they may even exploit current trends in pop culture or in the wider culture.  Black exploitation films, now known as “blaxploitation films,” were exploitation films aimed at African-American audiences and emerged in the early 1970s.  The heroes or protagonists of blaxploitation films were generally anti-heroes, vigilantes, and criminals.  Sometimes, the heroes of such films were ordinary citizens who became vigilantes and used criminal methods to fights criminals and corrupt public officials and law enforcement.

Coffy is a pure exploitation film and is quintessential blaxploitation.  It is lurid, and it exploits the social, political, and racial states of affair of its time.  I could not help but notice how often the actresses in this film, white and black, had their breasts exposed.  Clearly this is sexual exploitation, but in the spirit of being non-hypocritical, I have to admit that I am a big fan of the breast-types exposed in Coffy.  So, yeah, I enjoyed seeing the breasts … even knowing that some or all of the actresses were forced to expose themselves.

It is easy to call Coffy trash, but I won't.  I am in love with Pam Grier the movie star.  Coffy is conceptually interesting, but the plot and narrative are executed for efficiency and speed more so than for storytelling.  The production values are low, although the costumes are … interesting.  Without Grier, this would be a D-list movie.

With Pam Grier, Coffy seems like something special.  In the past, film critics have criticized the Jamaican accent she uses in this film; one called her delivery of her lines stiff.  When Pam Grier speaks out loud in one of her classic blaxploitation films – and they are indeed classics – she probably makes some men experience a certain kind of stiffness.  Grier is not just a movie star; she is a radiant movie star.  Every moment that she is on screen, Pam Grier lifts mere elements of exploitation into riveting, two-fisted, crime fiction cinema.  I could have watched at least a half hour more of this film … as long as Pam Grier was in it.

Writer-director Quentin Tarantino, who wrote a film for Pam Grier (1997's Jackie Brown), called her the first female action movie star.  This may be true, and Grier made Coffy her first calling card, her notice of arrival as the leading lady of blaxploitation action films.  Now, I need a cigarette.

8 of 10
A

Monday, February 8, 2021


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#28DaysofBlack Review: "BlacKkKlansman" is Bold and Brilliant

[Spike Lee finally earned his long-sought after competitive Academy Award, having won an “Honorary Academy Award” in 2015 at the age of 58, the youngest ever to achieve that award.  BlacKkKlansman is not so much a biopic as it is a black comedy, police procedural, crime comedy, and semi-espionage film.  Yet, this film retains Lee's fierce cinematic voice with its trademark campaign against American white supremacy/racism/privilege.  Thank the Lord.]

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 9 of 2021 (No. 1747) by Leroy Douresseaux

BlacKkKlansman (2018)

Running time: 135 minutes (2 hours, 15 minutes)

MPAA – R for language throughout, including racial epithets, and for disturbing/violent material and some sexual references

DIRECTOR:  Spike Lee
WRITERS:  Spike Lee and Kevin Willmott and Charlie Wachtel and David Rabinowitz (based on the book, Black Klansman, by Ron Stallworth)
PRODUCER:  Spike Lee, Jason Blum, Raymond Mansfield, Sean McKittrick, Jordan Peele, and Shaun Redick
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Chayse Irvin (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Barry Alexander Brown
COMPOSER:  Terence Blanchard
Academy Award winner

DRAMA with some elements of comedy

Starring:  John David Washington, Adam Driver, Laura Harrier, Topher Grace, Jasper Pääkkönen, Ryan Eggold, Paul Walter Hauser, Ashlie Atkinson, Corey Hawkins, Michael Buscemi, Ken Garito, Robert John Burke, Fred Weller, Nicholas Turturro, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Damaris Lewis, and Alec Baldwin and Harry Belafonte

BlacKkKlansman is 2018 historical film drama and black comedy from director Spike Lee.  The film is based on the 2014 memoir, Black Klansman, by Ron Stallworth.  The film focuses on an African American police officer who successfully manages to infiltrate the local Ku Klux Klan branch with the help of a Jewish surrogate.

BlacKkKlansman opens in 1972.  Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) is hired as the first black officer in the Colorado Springs Police Department.  Although he starts in the record room, he soon works his way into the position of undercover cop.  His superior, Chief Bridges (Robert John Burke), assigns him to infiltrate a local rally where national civil rights leader, Kwame Ture (Corey Hawkins), formerly known as Stokely Carmichael, is giving a speech.  At the rally, Stallworth meets Patrice Dumas (Laura Harrier), president of the Black Student Union at Colorado College, and he becomes attracted to her.

After being reassigned to the intelligence division under Sergeant Trapp (Ken Garito), Ron discovers the local division of the Ku Klux Klan in a newspaper ad.  Taking the initiative, Ron, posing as a white man, calls the division and speaks to Walter Breachway (Ryan Eggold), the president of the Colorado Springs, Colorado chapter.   Since he mistakenly used his real name during the call, Ron realizes that he needs help after Walter invites him to a Klan meet-and-greet.

Sgt. Trapp brings Ron together with two detectives, Jimmy Creek (Michael Buscemi) and Phillip “Flip” Zimmerman (Adam Driver), who is Jewish.  Ron continues to talk to the Klan on the phone, but Flip pretends to be Ron, acting as Ron's surrogate when he actually has to meet up with the Klan members.  Flip gradually begins to infiltrate deeper into the local Klan organization, but some members grow suspicious of him.  The stakes grow higher after Ron starts a phone relationship with infamous Klan leader, David Duke (Topher Grace), who is coming to meet the Colorado Klan.

BlacKkKlansman is a police procedural, a racial drama, a historical film, a period drama, a biographical film, and a true crime story, or at least, a true story.  However, there is one thing that BlacKkKlansman certainly is, and that is a Spike Lee movie.

Lee's collaborators and actors certainly do some of their best work.  Chayse Irvin's cinematography is beautiful, and Barry Alexander Brown's editing creates a hypnotic rhythm that drew me ever deeper into the film so that by the midpoint, I believed that I was part of the story.  In fact, Irvin and Brown shine as a duo in the sequence that depicts Kwame Ture's speech in a sweeping interval of Black faces that captures the broad spectrum of Blackness in America.  Everything sways and flows to Terence Blanchard's (of course) outstanding, Oscar-nominated score.

I can see how Adam Driver's performance as Flip captured the attention of Oscar voters.  I also get why John David Washington and Laura Harrier's strong and beguiling performances did not capture the same attention from Academy Award voters.  All the performances are good, as the actors took character types and did something different with them.  Two short but important speaker roles, Corey Hawkins' Kwame Ture and Harry Belafonte's Jerome Turner, are the heartbeat of BlacKkKlansman.

But, as I said, this is Spike Lee's film; this is a Spike Lee film.  Spike is a visionary, a contrary cinematic artist stubbornly making his films his own and making other people's stories his own.  Spike has never been shy about putting the racism of white people on display.  He condemns white racism and white supremacy, revealing its brutal violence, banal evil, and systematic oppression in stark and often blunt cinematic language – regardless of what of criticisms that may come his way because of the way he tells stories.

BlacKkKlansman is Lee's most savage take and rigorous excavation of white racism and white supremacy in America since his seminal classic, Do The Right Thing (1989).  BlacKkKlansman is Lee's best film since Do The Right Thing, and it earned him his long overdue Oscar (for “Best Adapted Screenplay” that he shared with three other writers).  [No, I'm not overlooking Chi-Raq.]

Do The Right Thing was a bomb that angered more white people than it impressed, but BlacKkKlansman is the work of a veteran filmmaker, a mature artist, so to speak.  This time, Spike Lee acknowledged Black people's prejudices and bigotries, and many of the White characters in this film are sympathetic, are allies, and are even heroes.  Still, BlacKkKlansman makes clear that whatever Black racism that exists, it is White racism that has wielded the power in American.

With allusions and outright references to the present struggle for equality and civil rights, BlacKkKlansman makes it clear that we still have to fight the power and the White devil.  Three decades later, however, Spike Lee is willing to portray White allies, but he can still get under … honky skin.  That is why so many Oscar voters chose Green Book's sentimentality over BlacKkKlansman's black-is-beautiful power in the “Best Picture” Oscar race … when BlacKkKlansman may be the best American film of 2018.

10 of 10

Saturday, February 6, 2021


NOTES:
2019 Academy Awards, USA:  1 win for “Best Adapted Screenplay” (Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott, and Spike Lee); 5 nominations: “Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures-Original Score” (Terence Blanchard), “Best Motion Picture of the Year” (Sean McKittrick, Jason Blum, Raymond Mansfield, Jordan Peele, and Spike Lee), “Best Achievement in Directing” (Spike Lee), “Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role” (Adam Driver), and “Best Achievement in Film Editing” (Barry Alexander Brown)

2019 BAFTA Awards:  1 win for “Best Screenplay-Adapted” (Spike Lee, David Rabinowitz, Charlie Wachtel, and Kevin Willmott); 4 nominations: “Best Supporting Actor” (Adam Driver), “Best Film” (Jason Blum, Spike Lee, Raymond Mansfield, Sean McKittrick, and Jordan Peele), “Original Music” (Terence Blanchard), and “David Lean Award for Direction” (Spike Lee)

2019 Golden Globes, USA:  4 nominations: “Best Motion Picture – Drama,” “Best Director - Motion Picture” (Spike Lee), “Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama” (John David Washington), and “Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture” (Adam Driver)

2019 Black Reel Awards:  11 nominations: “Outstanding Motion Picture,” “Outstanding Actor” (John David Washington), “Outstanding Director” (Spike Lee), “Outstanding Screenplay” (Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott, and Spike Lee), “Outstanding Ensemble,” “Outstanding Score” (Terence Blanchard), “Outstanding Breakthrough Performance, Male” (John David Washington), “Outstanding Breakthrough Performance, Female” (Laura Harrier), “Outstanding Cinematography” (Chayse Irvin), “Outstanding Costume Design” (Marci Rodgers), and “Outstanding Production Design” (Curt Beech)

2019 Image Awards:  5 nominations:  “Outstanding Independent Motion Picture,” “Outstanding Motion Picture,” “Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture” (John David Washington), “Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture-Film” (Spike Lee), and “Outstanding Breakthrough Role in a Motion Picture” (John David Washington)

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#28DaysofBlack Review: DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST

[A landmark film in Black cinema, Daughters of the Dust is what the Library of Congress says about it: “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”  I would change the word “or” to “and.”  However, its unconventional form means that it hasn't been on television the way African-American film fare that appeal to conventional tastes have.  Still, Daughters of the Dust remains vibrant, ready to be discovered by new viewers who will pass it on to the next generation.]

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 7 of 2021 (No. 1745) by Leroy Douresseaux

Daughters of the Dust (1991)
Running time:  112 minutes (1 hour, 52 minutes)
Not rated by the MPAA
WRITER/DIRECTOR:  Julie Dash
PRODUCERS:  Julie Dash, Arthur J. Fielder, and Steven Jones
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Arthur Jafa (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Joseph Burton and Amy Carey
COMPOSER:  John Barnes

DRAMA/HISTORY

Starring:  Cora Lee Day, Alva Rogers, Barbara-O, Trula Hoosier, Umar Abdurrahamn, Cheryl Lynn Bruce, Tommy Redmond Hicks, Adisa Anderson, Eartha Robinson, Bahni Turpin, Cornell Royal, Kaycee Moore, M. Cochise Anderson, and Kai-Lynn Warren

Daughters of the Dust is a 1991 independent drama and historical film written, directed and produced by Julie Dash.  Daughters of the Dust was the first feature film directed by an African-American woman that was distributed theatrically in the United States.  In 2004, it was inducted into the “National Film Registry.”  Daughters of the Dust, set largely over one day in 1902, focuses on three generations of Gullah Geechee women as their family prepares to migrate off the Sea Islands of the South to the North.

Daughters of the Dust is partly narrated by the “Unborn Child” (Kai-Lynn Warren) and is set among members of the Peazant family.  The film opens on August 18, 1902 near Ibo Landing on Dahtaw Island (St. Simons Island) off the coast of the state of Georgia.  This is the home of the Gullah or Geechee people, who live a relatively isolated life away from the mainland.  This isolation allows the Gullah to develop a creole culture and language that retains much of their African culture and linguistic heritages.

Arriving at Ibo Landing by canoe is Peazant family outcast, Mary Peazant (Barbara-O), also known as “Yellow Mary” and her companion, Trula (Trula Hoosier).  Awaiting Mary is her cousin, Viola Peazant (Cheryl Lynn Bruce), a devout Christian who has already moved away from the island.  With Viola is the man she plans to marry, Mr. Snead (Tommy Hicks), a photographer who has come to document the Peazants' life on Dahtaw before they leave.

The majority of the Peazant family is ready to embark for the mainland and move to the northern United States in order to live a modern way of life.  August 18, 1902 is the day of a grand family get together and feast in which members of the family celebrate their last day on Dahtaw Island before they leave on the morning of August 19, 1902.  The Peazant matriarch, Nana Peazant (Cora Lee Day), who practices African spiritual rituals and maintains the history of the family, plans on staying on the island.  She wants those who are leaving to remember and to honor their ancestors as they leave for new homes.  Nana wants them to take a part of her with them, much to the chagrin of some.

Haagar Peazant (Kaycee Moore), who married into the family, is leading the migration north.  She is determined to take her daughters, Iona (Bahni Turpin) and Myown (Eartha Robinson), with her, and she wants to leave the old ways and also the ancestors behind on the island.  However, Haagar does not know that Iona wants to stay on the island and marry her secret lover, St. Julian Last Child (M. Cochise Anderson), a young Cherokee Native American man who lives on the island.

At the top of the family drama is Eula Peazant (Alva Rogers), who is pregnant from being raped (apparently by a white man from the mainland).  Her husband, Eli (Adisa Anderson), is Nana's grandson, and he grieves for the situation in which he finds himself.  Eli is torn between traveling north and staying on the island, and he also believes that his dreams have ended because his wife Eula is carrying the child of the man that raped her.  Meanwhile, the Unborn Child, Eula and Eli's future daughter, finds her voice influenced by the stories of her ancestors.

After decades of putting it off, I finally watched Daughters of the Dust in its entirety, on my own.  I previously watched much of it in a college class, which isn't necessarily conducive to gaining an understanding of the film.  Watching Daughters of the Dust is an intimate experience, something to be done by oneself, giving total focus to the film.

Daughters of the Dust feels like a living thing, a story that lives even when no one is watching it.  I think that is because of one of the film's dominant themes – the importance of the past and the future.  That is exemplified when Nana Peazant says that the two most important things are the old souls (the past) and the children (the future).  Whatever the Peazant family may have now, they must take the ancestors and their history with them to their new home – the future.

Nana emphasizes keeping the family together; celebrating the old ways, and carrying memories with us.  We exist in the present because of the past (our parents, grandparents, ancestors, etc.), and we will be lost in the future if we don't know from where we came.  I think Daughters of the Dust feels so alive to me because I understand the idea of the present as being a vehicle by which we travel from the past to the future.  Time flows in the film, which has a non-linear narrative, sprinkled with stories of Peazants past and with stories of slaves and Africans.  In a way, writer-director Julie Dash makes August 18 her film narrative, a fluid and living and expanding thing, like a story with a beginning far in the past and continuing into the future.  August 18th is not chopped off and frozen, which fits in with two of the film's other themes – reunion and connection.

Daughters of the Dust, with its lush visuals and Arthur Jafa inquisitive cinematography, is one of the most beautifully photographed films that I have ever seen.  The performances are outstanding, and it is difficult for me to pick out particular ones for praise.  However, I am drawn to Cora Lee Day as Nana, Aval Rogers as Eula, and Barbara-O as Yellow Mary.

Released to film festivals and theaters mostly in 1991, Daughters of the Dust is as much a work of cinematic high art as the most honored films of that year and of 1992, including such films as Silence of the Lambs, Bugsy, Unforgiven, and Howard's End, to name a few.  Julie Dash's film, however, goes beyond its subject matter.  The viewer does not need to be Gullah or a descendant of African slaves to feel Daughters of the Dust's pull.  If you have ancestors and a future, then, you are alive and Daughters of the Dust is telling you a familiar and universal story.

10 of 10

Wednesday, February 3, 2021


NOTES:
1993 Image Awards (NAACP):  1 nomination: “Outstanding Motion Picture”

2004 National Film Preservation Board:  National Film Registry


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#28DaysofBlack Review: "IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK"

[One of the emerging film talents of the last decade is writer-director Barry Jenkins.  His incredible adaptation of James Baldwin's 1974 novel, If Beale Street Could Talk, proves that Moonlight, which won the “Best Picture” Oscar, was and is not a fluke.]

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 6 of 2021 (No. 1744) by Leroy Douresseaux

If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)

Running time:  119 minutes (1 hour, 59 minutes)

MPAA – R for language and some sexual content

DIRECTOR:  Barry Jenkins

WRITER:  Barry Jenkins (based on the novel by James Baldwin)

PRODUCERS:  Dede Gardner, Barry Jenkins, Jeremy Kleiner, Sara Murphy, and Adele Romanski

CINEMATOGRAPHER:  James Laxton

EDITORS:  Joi McMillon and Nat Sanders

COMPOSER:  Nicholas Britell

Academy Award winner

DRAMA/ROMANCE

Starring:  KiKi Layne, Stephan James, Regina King, Teyonah Parris, Colman Domingo, Ethan Barrett, Melanni Mines, Ebony Obsidian, Dominique Thorne, Michael Beach, Aunjanue Ellis, Diego Luna, Emily Rios, Ed Skrein, Finn Wittrock, Brian Tyree Henry, Dave Franco, and Kaden Byrd

If Beale Street Could Talk is a 2018 American drama and romance film written and directed by Barry Jenkins.  The film is based on James Baldwin's 1974 novel, If Beale Street Could Talk.  The film follows the efforts of a young woman and her family as they try to prove the innocence of her lover after he is charged with a serious crime.

If Beale Street Could Talk introduces “Tish” Rivers (KiKi Layne) and Alonzo “Fonny” Hunt (Stephan James).  They have been friends their entire lives, and begin a romantic relationship when Tish is 19 and Fonny is 22.  They struggle to find a place to live because it is the early 1970s, and most New York City landlords refuse to rent apartments to black people.  Fonny, a young artist and sculptor, is later arrested and accused of raping a woman in an unlikely scenario.

It is afterwards that Tish announces to her parents, Sharon (Regina King) and Joseph Rivers (Colman Domingo), and to her sister, Ernestine (Teyonah Parris), that she is pregnant.  Not everyone in Fonny's family, however, is happy about the impending birth of a grandchild.  As the months drag on, Tish, Sharon, and the rest of the family realize that they will have to give an all-out effort in order to help Fonny's lawyer, Hayward (Finn Wittrock), free Fonny from a criminal justice system that will do anything to keep him behind bars.

I love the beautiful cinematography in If Beale Street Could Talk.  I think it does so much to sell the exquisite love story at the heart of this film, and If Beale Street Could Talk is a romantic movie.  It imagines love in the ruins of a society shackled by white racism and white supremacy.  In that way, director Barry Jenkins' film can literally talk to his audience about racism and oppression of black people while telling a poetic and expressionistic story of two young black people in love.

If Beale Street Could Talk is shaped by a number of excellent performances, with Regina King's Sharon Rivers as the port-in-the-storm for the tossed and turned ships in her immediate family and circle.  King is the sun queen, and in her warmth, KiKi Layne and Stephan James can grow and build their characters and their characters' love story into something that is so strong that it overcomes everything working against it.

In his Oscar-winning Moonlight, Jenkins told the story of gay boy growing into a man by taking the ordinary coming-of-age story and making it something extraordinary for the ages.  In If Beale Street Could Talk, Jenkins' racial drama is told as a timeless love story.  Perhaps, making a film set in the 1970s be timeless is most important, as the racism and oppression of then are not only symptoms of that time, but rather are also the breaths that this nation takes.

In the end, I am amazed by Barry Jenkins.  His film is about love and shows us love and is love.  Love, love, love:  I am overwhelmed.  If Beale Street Could Talk holds to the truths that Dr. Martin Luther King spoke on love (love's transforming powers).  Normally, I would feel anger after seeing a film like this, but in the end, Jenkins' fascinating aesthetic of love and Black Consciousness wins out.  This is why I am still trying to figure out which is the best film of 2018 – BlacKkKlansman or If Beale Street Could Talk?

10 out of 10

Tuesday, February 2, 2021


2019 Academy Awards, USA”  1 win for “Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role: (Regina King); 2 nominations: “Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures-Original Score” (Nicholas Britell) and “Best Adapted Screenplay” (Barry Jenkins)

2019 Golden Globes, USA:  1 win for “Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture” (Regina King); 2 nominations: “Best Motion Picture – Drama” and “Best Screenplay - Motion Picture” (Barry Jenkins)

BAFTA Awards:  2 nominations: “Best Screenplay-Adapted” (Barry Jenkins) and “Original Music” (Nicholas Britell)

The text is copyright © 2021 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved.  Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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#28DaysofBlack Review: All Black Cast is Glorious in "CARMEN JONES"

[For her performance as the title character in Carmen Jones, Dorothy Dandridge became the first African-American actress to be nominated for the “Academy Award for Best Actress.” Dandridge was also the first Black actor nominated for an Oscar in a leading role category, besting by four years Sidney Poitier, the first Black man nominated for “Best Actor in a Leading Role” (for 1958's The Defiant Ones). Dandridge was dead a little under 11 years after the release of Carmen Jones.]

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 5 of 2021 (No. 1743) by Leroy Douresseaux

Carmen Jones (1954)
Running time:  105 minutes (1 hour, 45 minutes)
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR:  Otto Preminger    
WRITERS: Harry Kleiner (screenplay); Oscar Hammerstein 2nd (lyrics and book); (based on the opera by Georges Bizet)
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Sam Leavitt (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Louis R. Loeffler    
COMPOSERS:  Herschel Burke Gilbert (musical director); Georges Bizet (original music)
Academy Award nominee

MUSICAL/DRAMA/ROMANCE

Starring:  Harry Belafonte, Dorothy Dandridge, Pearl Bailey, Olga James, Joe Adams, Brock Peters, Roy Daniels, Nick Stewart, and Diahann Carroll

Carmen Jones is a 1954 American musical film produced and directed by Otto Preminger.  It is a film version of Oscar Hammerstein II's 1943 stage musical, Carmen Jones.  Hammerstein wrote the book (story) and lyrics to Carmen Jones and set them to the music of Georges Bizet's 1875 opera, Carmen.  However, Carmen Jones is a contemporary version of the Bizet opera, with new lyrics, and it features a lead cast of all African-American and black actors.

Carmen Jones is set during World War II.  The story opens as a young woman, Cindy Lou (Olga James), arrives at the “Parachute Division” of A.J. Gardner Manufacturing Corp. (apparently located in North Carolina), where U.S. Army soldiers provide security.  Cindy Lou is there to meet her betrothed, Corporal Joe (Harry Belafonte), a young soldier who is about to enter flight officers training school.  But Cindy Lou isn't the only young woman with her eye on Joe.

Carmen Jones (Dorothy Dandridge) is an employee at the parachute factory.  One of her fellow employees describes Carmen as a “hip-swinging floozie.”  She arrives late to work wearing a loud red skirt, and she shamelessly declares that he wants Joe – mainly because she is attracted to men who play hard to get with her.  Joe seems bound and determined to focus only on Cindy Lou, and, in fact, he wants to marry her right away.

However, after Carmen gets in a fight with another female employee, scheming Sgt. Brown (Brock Peters) orders Joe to take Carmen to a civilian jail in the town of Masonville, which is over fifty miles away from the parachute plant.  Fate and circumstance seemed bound and determined to bring Carmen Jones and Corporal Joe together, but the cards and the spirits seem to say they are bound for tragedy.

When it comes to Carmen Jones the musical film, I can take it or leave it.  Oh, I enjoyed it enough, and some of the songs actually tickles my senses.  For me, the joy of Carmen Jones is its magnificent cast.  It is a shame how things were for African-American actors and performers in film back in those days.  This cast includes actors who should have dominated their craft and profession.

When Dorothy Dandridge first appears as Carmen Jones, she cuts through this film like a red hot knife through butter, and it is not only because of the hot red skirt she wears, which could launch a thousand ships.  Her presence is glorious, and director Otto Preminger clearly makes her the center of the film – as if he had a choice.  Because Dandridge, who was a singer, did not sing opera, she does not sing in the film; her singing voice is dubbed by Marilyn Horne, but Dandrige's lip-syncing is so convincing that it is hard to believe that she is actually not singing.  I can see why she captured the imaginations of enough voters in the Academy Awards to earn a “Best Actress” Oscar nomination as Carmen.

That is saying something considering that Harry Belafonte as Joe throws off quite a bit of energy himself.  When he wants to, Belafonte moves about like a panther, all power and lightning.  Belafonte's name appears first onscreen among the performers, and he acquits himself very, very well.  Belafonte's singing voice is also dubbed (by LeVern Hutcherson), but he also does some powerful lip-syncing, probably because he is also a singer.

If there is another actress in Carmen Jones packing as much dynamite as Dandridge, it is Pearl Bailey as Frankie, one of Carmen's friends.  Wow!  I am almost without words to describe how mesmerizing Bailey is the moment.  When she sings “Beat Out Dat Rhythm on a Drum (Gypsy Song),” Bailey pumps so much sexual heat into the film that I am surprised that scene did not get cut out by censors.

So I recommend Carmen Jones to anyone ready to see that an all-black cast can be magnetic on the screen.  They can be sexy and alluring and make you want to follow them on any adventure.  They can transport you to another world, and … they make Carmen Jones much more than it could have been.

8 of 10
A

Tuesday, February 2, 2021


NOTES:
1955 Academy Awards, USA: 2 nominations: “Best Actress in a Leading Role” (Dorothy Dandridge) and “Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture” (Herschel Burke Gilbert)

1955 Golden Globes, USA:  2 wins: “Best Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical” and “Most Promising Newcomer – Male” (Joe Adams)

1956 BAFTA Awards:  2 nominations: “Best Film from any Source” (USA) and “Best Foreign Actress” (Dorothy Dandridge-USA)


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Movie Review: "Bloodshot" Surprises

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 23 (of 2020) by Leroy Douresseaux

Bloodshot (2020)

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

Running time:  109 minutes (1 hour, 49 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for intense sequences of violence, some suggestive material and language
DIRECTOR:  David S.F. Wilson
WRITERS: Jeff Wadlow and Eric Heisserer; from a story by Jeff Wadlow (based on the Valiant Comics character)
PRODUCERS:  Vin Diesel, Toby Jaffe, Neal H. Moritz, and Dinesh Shamdasani
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Jacques Jouffret (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Jim May
COMPOSER:  Steve Jablonsky

SUPERHERO/FANTASY/SCI-FI/ACTION

Starring:  Vin Diesel, Guy Pearce, Eiza González, Sam Heughan, Lamorne Morris, Alex Hernandez, Toby Kebbell, Talulah Riley, Siddharth Dhananjay, and Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson

Bloodshot is a 2020 superhero and science fiction film directed by David S.F. Wilson.  The film features the Valiant Comics' character, Bloodshot, that was created by Kevin VanHook, Don Perlin, and Bob Layton.  Blooshot focuses on a slain Marine brought back to life as a super-powered weapon.

Bloodshot introduces U.S. Marine Ray Garrison (Vin Diesel).  After leading a successful rescue operation in Mombasa, Ray and his wife, Gina (Talulah Riley), travel to a beachside town on Italy's Amalfi Coast for a holiday.  However, a notorious terrorist, Martin Axe (Toby Kebbell), kidnaps Ray and Gina and demands that Ray reveal the source of the information the Marines used for the Mombasa hostage operation.  Then, things turn ugly.

Ray awakens in a lab at the headquarters of RST (Rising Spirit Tech), a company that specializes in developing cybernetic enhancements for disabled United States' military personnel.  The company's CEO, Dr. Emil Harting (Guy Pearce), tells Ray that he is the first successful candidate that they have resurrected using a special “nanite technology.”  As he embarks on his first kill-mission, Ray does not realize that very little of what he believes is true.

While watching Bloodshot, I realized that Vin Diesel has starred in a lot of science fiction and fantasy films.  They are an odd lot of high concepts and box office misfires – for the most part.  Bloodshot is one of those films that had its release truncated by the closure of most movie theaters in North America by the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown.  I am not sure if Bloodshot would have been much of a box office hit if it had had a full release...

...But it is a surprisingly enjoyable movie.  The truth is that this is something I would enjoy watching on DVD (which is how I saw the film via DVD Netflix), but, because it is based on a comic book, there is a good chance that I would have made a trip to the movie theater to see it.  Now, that I have seen it, I want to recommend it to fans of movies based on comic books and also to Vin Diesel fans.  Bloodshot is not a “Fast & Furious” film, but its action is... fast and furious... coincidentally.

Bloodshot's revenge-fantasy-within-a-revenge-tale plot delivers a lot of good action sequences.  This narrative's themes, built around the ideas of freedom, choice, control, and reality actually resonate.  While watching this movie, I often found myself asking questions like, “How free am I really?” and “How much freedom of choice is actually of my choosing?”  Bloodshot is like a story by the late author, Philip K. Dick, in which the lead character faces the truth that the reality in which he thinks he lives... is not real... or at least, it is not in his control.

Bloodshot is not a mindless action movie, and it is certainly a stronger take on the story of a military-type discovering that his body or part of it has been stolen than the 2019 Will Smith vehicle, Gemini Man.  However, Bloodshot would be a much stronger film if Vin Diesel were a better actor.  Diesel's acting range mostly runs from smooth guy to menacing guy to enraged guy.  This film's script certainly gives him plenty of scenes when Diesel has to be angry or at least to seethe.  Whenever Diesel's Ray Garrison has to be thoughtful, the film quickly moves on.

As for the supporting characters, the film's writing also doesn't offer anything more than familiar character types.  Still, actor Lamorne Morris manages to make his character, the coding rebel-genius, Wilfred Wigans, excellent comic relief.  Both actor and character are worth seeing again.

So I can honestly say that director David S.F. Wilson delivers a film that is more (at least, a little more) than it seems on the surface.  Bloodshot does not have any of those awful dry moments that make me want to fall asleep when watching an alleged action movie (which happens a lot... the aforementioned Gemini Man).  It is pretty much a fast-moving, highly-entertaining thrill machine.  Bloodshot has an excellent last act featuring a eye-spinning epic battle in and around an elevator shaft, and remember: the writing is smart enough to take its themes and ideas seriously.  In fact, Bloodshot is good enough to warrant a sequel – even if the box office... reality might keep that from happening.

6 of 10
B

Monday, September 28, 2020


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Review: "The Last Black Man in San Francisco" is a Stunning Film

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 19 (of 2020) by Leroy Douresseaux

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019)

Running time:  121 minutes (2 hours, 1 minute)

MPAA – R for language, brief nudity and drug use

DIRECTOR:  Joe Talbot.

WRITER:  Joe Talbot and Rob Richert; from a story by Joe Talbot and Jimmy Fails

PRODUCERS:  Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Khaliah Neal, Christina Oh, and Joe Talbot

CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Adam Newport-Berra

EDITOR:  David Marks

COMPOSER:  Emile Mosseri

DRAMA

Starring:  Jimmie Fails, Jonathan Majors, Rob Morgan, Tichina Arnold, Mike Epps, Finn Wittrock, Danny Glover, Willie Hen, Jamal Trulove, Antoine “Mile” Redus, Jordan Gomes, Maxamilliene Ewalt, Michael O'Brien, and Daewon Song

The Last Black Man in San Francisco is a 2019 American drama film and is the debut film of director Joe Talbot.  Oscar-winner Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) contributed to the film's Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign, and two-time Oscar-winner Brad Pitt (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) is one of the film's executive producers.  The Last Black Man in San Francisco centers on a young Black man's efforts to reclaim his childhood home, which is now an expensive Victorian house in a gentrified neighborhood.

The Last Black Man in San Francisco introduces Jimmie Fails IV (Jimmie Fails).  He is a young man living in Bayview-Hunters Point, San Francisco, and he spends his time wandering around town with his best friend Montgomery “Mont” Allen (Jonathan Majors).  Jimmie lives with Mont and Mont's grandfather, “Grandpa Allen” (Danny Glover), in the old man's house.

One day, Jimmie takes Mont to San Francisco's Fillmore District, which is where Jimmie grew up.  He shows Mont a Victorian house that Jimmie claims his grandfather, James Fails II, built in 1946.  An older white couple are the house's current occupants, and Jimmie laments that the couple does not take care of the house.  Jimmie surreptitiously attempts to maintain the house by doing minor repairs and upgrade work (like painting).  When the couple can no longer keep the house, it is put up for sale by Manifest Realtors.

Jimmie and Mont visit Clayton Newsom (Finn Wittrock), the real estate agent charged with selling the house, and learn that because of an “estate situation” the house could remain unsold for years.  Jimmie decides to move into the house, becoming a squatter on an empty property that he sees as his birthright.  But is everything that Jimmie knows about the house, the whole and true story?

I would have a hard time explaining The Last Black Man in San Francisco in detail.  On one hand, the film certainly has themes related to gentrification, but on that other hand, the film speaks to the dangers of holding onto things too long.  The story's ultimate point seems to be that people should be more than just one thing to everyone and that each of us must break free of the boxes in which we have put ourselves or in which others have put us.  The Last Black Man in San Francisco is a hugely thoughtful and layered film, surprisingly so from a first time director like Joe Talbot.

The Last Black Man in San Francisco also has outstanding production values.  I usually think of great cinematography as coming from epic films about the past – war movies and historical and costume dramas.  The photography of Adam Newport-Berra is some of the best cinematography that I have ever seen in a film with a contemporary setting.  Combined with the sets and locals, the cinematography makes The Last Black Man in San Francisco one of the most beautiful films in recent years.  The soundtrack, a mix of songs about San Francisco and Emile Mosseri's lovely score, actually enhances the beauty of this film.

Jimmie Fails, playing a character named after him, and Jonathan Majors as Montgomery are breakout stars in this film, and it is a pity that Majors did not get Academy Award notice for his idiosyncratic character and layered performance.  Lack of mainstream award wins, however, does not change the fact that The Last Black Man in San Francisco is a unique and terrifically grand film.  It is a love letter to the city of San Francisco that shows its love not by depicting the entire city and its hot tech sector.  It loves San Francisco by depicting the heart of the city – the forgotten people and places that gave the city its flavor and atmosphere... which made it a target for gentrification.

A+
9 of 10

Sunday, August 16, 2020


NOTES:
2020 Black Reel Awards:  1 win: “Outstanding Independent Feature” (Joe Talbot, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Christina Oh, and Khaliah Neal); 7 nominations: “Outstanding Actor, Motion Picture” (Jimmie Fails), “Outstanding Supporting Actor, Motion Picture” (Jonathan Majors), “Outstanding Score” (Emile Mosseri), “Outstanding Breakthrough Performance, Male” (Jimmie Fails), “Outstanding Breakthrough Performance, Male” (Jonathan Majors), “Outstanding Cinematography” (Adam Newport-Berra), and “Outstanding Ensemble: (Julia Kim)


The text is copyright © 2020 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site or blog for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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