Reviews

Today, I awoke to news that Tamir Rice, the 12 year old who was shot and killed by Cleveland Police, had his hands in his pockets at the time of the shooting. He was shot so quickly that he did not have time to take his hands out of his pockets. I felt outraged. Hoodwinked. Bamboozled. Again. I was already feeling some kind of way about Laquan McDonald who was shot 16 times by a Chicago police officer in 2014, a shooting that was captured on dash cam video. I had planned on seeing Spike Lee's Chi-Raq film but after reading about Tamir Rice I knew I needed to see it sooner than later.

The film begins with a graphic of the United States divided in red, white and blue colors and the country formed by images of guns. We hear the title song, rapped by Nick Cannon, with animated lyrics. Samuel L. Jackson greets us as Dolmedes, a cross between Dolemite and an ancient Greek narrator, who appears on occasion to summarize events for the audience. Dolmedes provides comic relief in a film that deals with heavy subject matter. That is not to say that his appearance is the only time we experience comedy in the film. In fact, I went in knowing that the Greek play Lysistrata was the inspiration for the film.

Aristophanes, the author of Lysistrata, was known for a genre of comic drama known as Old Comedy, whose works, with their pungent political satire and abundance of sexual and scatological innuendo, effectively define popular culture even today (think Dr. Strangelove and in the televised buffoonery of Monty Python and Saturday Night Live).

After the murder of a child named Patti by a stray bullet, a group of women led by Lysistrata organize against the on-going violence in Chicago's Southside creating a movement that challenges the nature of race, sex and violence in America and around the world. Lysistrata is instructed to research Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee who was responsible for leading a women's peace movement that included a sex strike. Of the strike, Gbowee says, "The (sex) strike lasted, on and off, for a few months." In real life, the strike had little or no practical effect. However, in the film the strike leads to a showdown at a National Guard armory.

While it is true that many of the scenes in Chi-Raq were over the top and some reminded me of School Daze (not among my favorite of Lee's movies), there were others scenes that showed the seriousness of what is going on in Chicago, around the country and the world. The film showed the seriousness of oppression or the New Jim Crow: police brutality, racial profiling, concentrated poverty, historical marginalization and mass incarceration. It conveyed the urgency of the situation, as well. There's an appearance by Dolmedes at the armory and he is joined by a gang member and police man (two sides of a coin).

Overall, I enjoyed Chi-Raq. Some parts made me cry and other parts made me give Spike Lee a side-eye. However, I think the film was brilliantly made, gutsy and important. For that I give it a B+/A

Matt Zoller Seitz is one of the few critics who got it right: "After Earth" is a story about overcoming trauma and facing one's fears. I read that Will Smith, who plays Cypher Raige in the film, read a magazine piece article a father and son surviving after a plane crash and re-imagined it as a space fantasy. He hired M. Night Shyamalan to direct it.

Like Kitai Raige, I, too, am a post-trauma survivor but I did not have a father like Cypher Raige who was able to funnel his aggression to kill Ursas (alien human hunters). My father's anger was directed at his loved ones. I can personally relate to Kitai Raige's feeling alone in the wild, having to face adversity and danger at every turn. When disconnected from Cypher he is able to tap into his inner resources and memories to save himself and his father. It's a coming-of-age tale wrapped in a futuristic fantasy. My gaze was riveted to the screen during the entire film.

Reading some of the other critics' reviews I get the feeling that some have it out for Will Smith but I am suspicious of their intentions. That was one of the reasons I went to see it on opening weekend. The strong Black male family figure is so rare in Hollywood that I'm sure it makes many uncomfortable. IMO Will Smith is committed to breaking down stereotypes while imagining a diverse world in the future that has room for a strong, stable Black commander and his Black family.

Great job Will and M. Night. I will definitely see After Earth again, especially to hear the passion in Cypher Raige's voice: Danger is real. Fear is a choice.

Django Unchained is about a hero who saves a damsel-in-distress. The 'damsel-in- distress' is a classic theme in literature, art and film. The damsel is usually a beautiful woman placed in a dire predicament by a villain, who requires a hero to achieve her rescue. In Tarantino's film, Dr. King Schultz, a German bounty hunter, takes great pains to compare Django to Sigurðr and Broomhilda to Brynhildr (the latter characters from the Norse Völsunga mythology). Broomhilda/Brynhildr is a stock character of fiction, particularly of melodrama. However, never in recent memory has an African American chattel slave from the 1800s been cast as a damsel-in-distress... deemed worth saving. This alone was worth seeing the movie.

In Alex Haley's Roots (book and television mini-series) Kizzy is a would-be Broomhilda, a beautiful young slave woman who is savagely and repeatedly raped by slave master Tom Moore, producing a son. Kizzy becomes resigned to her fate (as Master Moore's comfort woman). Kizzy is never saved, unlike Broomhilda in Django. Another reason I mention Roots is because of the excessive use of the n-word. BET recently re-aired the mini-series as part of a holiday marathon, perhaps as a lead-in to the Dhango Unchained opening. The n-word was used in Roots about as much as it is used in Django Unchained. The n- word was what slaves were called during that time period and it was (and still should be) a term of hate. Thus, the use of the n-word in Django is more historically correct than in prior Tarantino films.

Tarantino's research of chattel slavery in the U.S., during the 1800s is highlighted in the film and he addressed issues such as phrenology (measurement of the skull) and drapetomania, a supposed mental illness described by U.S. physician Samuel A. Cartwright that caused black slaves to flee captivity. At one time science was used to justify the enslavement and brutalization of African slaves in the Americas. Django is just the tip of the iceberg. The knee jerk reactions of some critics regarding the excessive use of the n-word and it being a "slave revenge" film was not helpful. I ignored these criticisms and saw the movie for myself.

I applauded the performances by Christoph Waltz, Samuel Jackson and Leonardo DiCaprio, among the others. Samuel Jackson channeled the Boondock's Uncle Ruckus to an extreme degree. If anything, I felt Jackson had too much screen time. Also, there were a few pauses in action and dialog that seemed out of sync with the flow of the film. However, there were also quite a few humorous moments that kept me in the narrative. Towards the end of the film Tarantino pays homage to a beginning sequence from Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the West," when a Native woman is told to flee the scene. A long time Ennio Morricone fan, Tarantino often makes extensive use of several Morricone pieces from several 1960s film scores. The 2009 film Inglourious Basterds also uses many Morricone pieces, as well as sharing "Il Mercenario (Ripresa)" with Kill Bill.

To conclude, rather than label Django Unchained as a 'slave revenge' film (bringing to mind the historical fear of revolt) I find it more helpful to think of what the film attempts to do for African Americans: offer us a fictional, historical revisionist retelling of Roots with substantial alterations in the characters, to revise views shown in earlier work. The goal, here, is not to bring or keep African Americans down but to insert new mythology into a classic narrative to elevate us and maybe even unite us.

*A Few Spoilers Below... You may want to see the movie first.*

It's nearly 3am and I just got home from the 12:01am IMAX 3D showing of Ridley Scott's film, Prometheus. If you're looking for tons of action and gratuitous violence then watch something else. This is an Alien prequel/side story and if you've seen Alien (as I have several times) you know there's a lot of shadows and silence, leading up to the scary stuff. Roger Ebert says the movie raises questions about the origin of human life and doesn't have the answers. I think it's a BIG mistake to compare the new film to Alien. It helps to have some knowledge of mythology and sociology: this is an intellectual's movie!

In Greek mythology Prometheus was a Titan who created man from clay which enabled civilization. He was known as a champion of mankind. In the Western canon, Prometheus represented human striving – i.e. the quest for scientific knowledge and the risk of overreaching or unintended consequences. In particular, he was regarded as a lone genius whose efforts to improve human existence also resulted in tragedy. Author Mary Shelley gave The Modern Prometheus as the subtitle to her novel Frankenstein in 1818.

Also look to The Republic of Plato:

"Behold! Human beings living in a sort of underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all across the den; they have been here from their childhood and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and only see before them; for the chains are arranged in such a manner to prevent them from turning round their heads."

*Major spoiler here. You've been warned!*

In the first scene a pale humanoid is abandoned on a Earth-like planet. He opens and swallows a writhing fluid that destroys him and as he falls into a large body of water the organism transmutes through his tissues, into his DNA and further. The particles of destruction (a virus?) infests the water. After seeing the film I began to wonder if it might be possible that we (human beings) are the viruses in an evolved state. The humanoids (in my view they would look different), as possible gods of humankind were our creators and they also attempt to destroy us by sending a spaceship with a viral cargo to Earth. This mission was thwarted by handsome Idris Elba as Captain Janek of the ship Prometheus. :) Anyway...

In the new film, we get some of the shadow but little silence. It pays homage to earlier science fiction films: 2001: A Space Odyssey and, of course, the original Alien with H.R. Giger's most famous creation. The 3D was amazing. At some point I forgot about the 3D and was able to focus on the movie that was pretty awe inspiring. The 3D alien star chart was beautiful, as were the sets. I loved that Captain Janek died for a purpose and was basically a hero. I love that the cast was diverse and the women were strong... this is a 21st century space movie, not Starship Troopers. My only issues were pacing in a few major scenes and some of the key dialog was hard to catch. I guess that means I'll need to see it again!

The Book of Eli is part dystopian re: Mad Max and part futuristic horror re: I Am Legend. Perhaps this is my biggest criticism but it mostly works (there are no new stories in Hollywood). An avid fan of Japanese samurai-type films I made the leap from Eli to Takeshi Kitano's Zatoichi, a story about a fictional, popular Japanese blind swordmaster who fights to protect the innocent from oppressive or warring yakuza gangs, and fights to stop injustice. His fighting skill is incredible, his keen ear and sense of smell and proprioception, renders him virtually unstoppable.

As Eli, the journeyman/protagonist/hero, traveled West over a barren, bleached, and burned landscape the musical score brought to my mind a few Sergio Leone's films, i.e. the ones with Ennio Morricone at the music composing helm. Not once but twice did Redridge whistle Morricone's theme for Once Upon a Time in America (my favorite film of all time), making clear the Hughes' brothers' homage to Sergio Leone's spaghetti western. I did a comparison between the stills from Once Upon a Time in the West and The Book of Eli. The influence of Leone on the Hughes brothers is undeniable.

I have several production stills from Leone's OUTIW (Once Upon a Time in the West), so I decided to compare/contrast those with the ones I easily found online from The Book of Eli. Of course I saw the similarities immediately, with some important differences that I won't get into so as not to spoil it for those who have yet to see the movie and shouldn't even be reading this far down.

I was reminded of Denzel Washington's craft as an actor while watching The Book of Eli. Some say Washington was miscast but I beg to differ (see Zatoichi). Casting a younger actor like Will Smith wouldn't have been right. I also thought several of the other actors' performances were well acted. Gary Oldman is still Gary Oldman. The intensity of his performance was low-key but deadly. It seems like Jennifer Beals gets better with age and Mila Kunis was okay. Redridge (Ray Stephenson) was a surprisingly compelling character.

All-in-all the Hughes brothers made another film worth watching a few times (I liked From Hell). Well done! I give it an A-/B+ for the inspiration alone.

Note: Please don't respond to this unless you have seen the film.

There is always an unfortunate tendency that when ever something terrible happens to try to pin the blame on someone or something. When the terrible hurricane hit the Gulf Coast it did not take long for people to start trying to find someone to blame. This is not very helpful and often those involved in the blaming have little understanding of the problems and possible solutions.

In When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, Lee does not play the blame game. He made a film that emphasizes and expresses things as (arguably) perceived without distortion of his personal feelings, or interpretation. That is what a documentary filmmaker does and ever since Four Little Girls I have had faith in Lee's ability to do just that: show the tension between propaganda and objective truth.

Another unfortunate part of the blame game is the politicization of tragedies by individuals, groups, or organizations to gain influence, power, or take a stab at those people or groups that already opposed. Sadly it seems to have happened with New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco. I think Spike Lee adeptly told this part of the tragedy, as well.

One last thing: the worst thing about the blame game is that while it sometimes makes some people feel better for a short period of time it often does more harm than good. In previous posts people have made jokes to mask their fear, or ignorance and tried to isolate various individuals or groups associated with the tragedy in New Orleans. Thankfully, Spike Lee does not do that. He keeps the film focused on the people suffering who need real help right now not blaming, joking, or grandstanding.

I give this film an A.