Excellent .....................****
Very Good .....................***
Good ...............................**
Fair ..................................*
Poor ...................... No Stars
Scroll down or click on the movie title to see its review:
Ghosts Of Cite Soleil || Hairspray
Harry Potter And The Order of the Phoenix
Interview ||Sicko || Transformers || Anthony Anderson Interview
What Black Men Think || Your Mommy Kills Animals
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Ghosts Of Cite Soleil
****
Haitians Go Gangsta In Ghetto-Based Documentary
If you want to get an idea of how much gangsta rap has influenced cultures elsewhere around the world, check out Ghosts of Cite Soleil, a revealing documentary about a bloody turf war inside a notorious Haitian slum. What makes this movie compelling is that the leaders of the competing posses, Tupac and Bily, are also blood brothers. And on top of that they are both in love with the same girl, Lele, a French missionary with an incurable case of Jungle Fever for bad boys.
The film unfolds against the backdrop of the impending fall of the Jean-Bertrand Aristide regime, which is of considerable significance because the gangs are operating with the tacit approval of the outgoing president. In fact, these sadistic goons openly brag on camera that they’ve been armed by Aristide to intimidate and eliminate his political enemies, which might explain why the Marines later land to restore a little law and order.
The screen is filled with unoriginal wannabes sporting nicknames right out of rap videos, such as Tupac and 50 Cent. Where have I heard those before? And like the icons they adore, they dream of shooting their way out of the ghetto and leaving the life of crime behind to become famous hip-hop stars. Meanwhile, their behavior mimics that of their heroes, which means mostly murder, misogyny, weed, profanity and the N-word. At one point, Bily even says of his own sibling, “If Tupac weren’t my brother, I’d kill him already.” Charming.
The only person who seems perfectly safe is the two-timing white woman all the brothers are lusting after. She eventually gives her heart to Tupac and then puts all of her efforts into helping him escape the country. The plan is for them to settle down while he pursues his musical career. And although she succeeds in getting him out, Tupac soon misses the madness and makes the dubious decision to return to his ‘hood.
By the end, most of the people you’ve been emotionally investing in have either died or disappeared, except for gun moll Lele, of course, who had the sense to stay put in France. This gritty flick was produced with the help of the most famous Haitian hip-hop entertainer around, Wyclef Jean.
Fascinating stuff, but this portrait of these scary “altar boys” is probably the last thing that Haiti’s Board of Tourism wants to see in circulation.
Rating: Unrated
In Haitian, French and English with subtitles.
Running time: 86 minutes
Studio: ThinkFilm
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Hairspray
*
Socially-Conscious Cult Classic Revived As Watered-Down Musical
When first released in 1988, Hairspray was a socially-conscious satire which delivered a fairly potent political message about the evils and harm of culturally-codified ostracism and ethnic intolerance. Set against the backdrop of the simmering tensions of a strictly-segregated Baltimore during the early 60s, the campy cult classic followed the efforts of some idealistic teenagers to integrate a popular TV dance show.
That edgy original was directed by John Waters, an inveterate iconoclast who has never been afraid to tackle any controversial issue head-on, or in a manner which might cause his audience to squirm in their seats. His movie recreated an authentic ambience via a combo of period décor and retro choreography set to a catchy soundtrack featuring such hit songs as “Town Without Pity,” “You’ll Lose a Good Thing” and “It’s Madison Time.”
In 2002, Hairspray was overhauled and revived on Broadway, winning eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Now, Adam Shankman has adapted that play back to the big screen as a bouncy and bubbly, but emotionally eviscerated production which bears only a superficial resemblance to its source material. This should come as no surprise, since Shankman has previously directed such mass-appeal comedies as Cheaper by the Dozen 2, The Pacifier, Bringing Down the House and The Wedding Planner.
Hairspray stars Nikki Blonsky as Tracy Turnblad, a light-on-her-feet, plus-sized teen who has been dreaming of a chance to strut her stuff on The Corny Collins Show with cast regular Link (Zac Efron), a classmate she has a huge crush on. John Travolta (in drag) and Christopher Walken play her working-class parents, Edna and Wilbur, while Amanda Bynes appears as her best friend Penny Pingleton, and Brittany Snow as Link’s girlfriend, Amber von Tussle.
The plot thickens after Tracy’s disastrous audition during which she is rejected not for her dancing but because she says she’d have no problem swimming in a pool with Black people. To add insult to injury, she ends up in trouble when she returns to school, because she had to cut class for the tryout.
Detention turns out to be a blessing in disguise, as it’s filled with cool African-American kids who share Tracy’s taste in music, mostly mediocre Broadway show tunes, judging by the score. So, she and Penny cross the color line to befriend them, especially Seaweed (Elijah Kelly) and his sister, Little Inez (Taylor Parks).
Everything comes to a head when WYZT’s steely station manager, Velma Von Tussle (Michelle Pfeiffer), cancels the once a month “Negro Day” dance program hosted Motormouth Maybelle (Queen Latifah). Of course, Tracy comes to the rescue by leading a conscious-raising march demanding integration at WYZT and just in time for Inez to enter the Miss Teenage Hairspray Contest.
This vapid edition of Hairspray is a safe, self-congratulatory fantasy which revisits the civil rights era, not for a valuable history lesson, but for an escapist, syrupy sweet, sing-a-long trip down memory lane to an unrecognizable, Hollywood utopia that never existed. Look for blink-and-you-missed-it cameos by John Waters as a flasher and Ricki Lake, who first introduced the role of Tracy, as a talent scout.
Rating: PG for teen smoking, mild epithets and suggestive content.
Running time: 107 minutes
Studio: New Line Cinema
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Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix
****
Harry Finds Himself Ostracized During His Fifth Year At Hogwarts
The task of adapting the fifth in the best selling series of children’s books was entrusted to David Yates, ostensibly on the strength of Sex Traffic, his made-for-TV movie about the global prostitution business which won eight BAFTA Awards in 2005. Here, the gifted British director has more than met the daunting challenge of distilling the essential elements of J.K. Rowling’s 870-page fantasy into a coherent and compelling, two-hour cinematic saga.
Furthermore, he’s figured out a way to remain faithful to the tenor and tone of the earlier episodes, thereby crafting a seamless addition onto the beloved Harry Potter franchise. Yet, Yates has also appropriately imbued his maturing boy wizard with a typical, post-pubescent teenager’s obsession with romance.
Thus, this go-round, we find Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) wrestling not only with his trademark demons but with his own raging hormones. The object of his affection is Cho Chang (Katie Leung), a cute classmate he has developed a crush on. But that budding love relationship remains merely a sidebar to the primary plot, which revolves around whether he lied about having an encounter with the late Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes).
At the picture’s point of departure, Harry’s winding down another uninspiring summer spent at the home of his unsupportive Uncle Vernon (Richard Griffiths) and Aunt Petunia (Fiona Shaw). The action starts with a distracting red herring, when he whips out his magic wand to survive a beating by a gang of bullies who’ve start teasing him on the street. Since it’s against Hogwart’s rules for anyone under 17 to practice witchcraft outside of school in front of muggles (ordinary humans), Harry is expelled for the infraction, only to be reinstated almost immediately thereafter.
Of far greater consequence is the fact that, upon his arrival back on campus in the fall, he learns that most of the students and faculty have come to believe a vicious rumor spread over vacation that he and Professor Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) had made up the story about the reincarnation of the evil Voldemort. As a result, Harry is ostracized, while the disgraced Dumbledore is deposed as head of Hogwarts.
The latter’s responsibilities are gradually assumed by the ambitious Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton), an imperious bureaucrat whose unreasonable rules serve to stifle the student body at every turn. Exhibiting the demeanor of a strict Catholic school nun, this no-nonsense disciplinarian orders a new defensive approach to magic likely to leave the young wizards vulnerable to an attack from the Dark Arts, especially if Voldemort has really somehow been revived and returned to power. Of course, this means that Harry, along with his best friends and loyal classmates, Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint), might just have to save the day by taking matters into their own wands.
Imelda Staunton’s scene-stealing performance as the overbearing Umbridge overshadows a plethora of other excellent outings, most notably, Richard Griffiths as Uncle Vernon, Alan Rickman as Severus Snape, Gary Oldman as Sirius Black, and Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange. The impressive supporting cast also includes Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane, Brendan Gleeson, Julie Walters and Emma Thompson.
The Order of the Phoenix ought to prove to be the most palatable of the Harry Potter screen versions because it is designed to deliver a riveting cinematic experience capable of being appreciated by audiences unfamiliar with the source material’s multi-layered, elliptical tale or often confounding jargon. Basically, it’s the Little Rascals to the rescue in a flick dressed up as a mystical fable replete with medieval mumbo jumbo and some cool, state-of-the-art special effects.
Otay!
Rating: PG-13 for frightening images and fantasy violence.
Running time: 138 minutes
Studio: Warner Brothers
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Interview
****
Journalist And Movie Star Match Wits In Sex-Charged Drama
Pierre Peders (Steve Buscemi), a war correspondent for a leading publication called News World, has recently been demoted by his boss for basing some stories on non-existent sources. Now he lives in New York City with his shell-shocked brother, Robert (Michael Buscemi), a former photojournalist left totally traumatized after covering a bloody conflict.
Katya (Sienna Miller), by contrast, is on top of the world. This much-pursued blonde-of-the-moment is not only the hottest movie star, but also the constant subject of sensational speculation in the tabloids.
When Pierre is assigned a puff entertainment piece, namely, to interview this shallow, self-absorbed diva, he feels like he’s hit rock bottom, since he’d prefer to be posing probing questions to a powerful political figure. Feeling as though the task is beneath him, he doesn’t bother to prepare for the tête-à-tête and even flaunts that fact in the face of the actress.
“I haven’t seen any of your films,” he admits in the restaurant when they start to converse, further ticking her off by presuming to know her by her tawdry reputation in the gossip columns. Insulted, Katya storms out of the restaurant only to have their paths cross again minutes later when the taxi he’s riding in is in an accident right in front of her home.
She takes compassion on the shaken Pierre and invites him up to her loft. There, the pair share a glass of wine and proceed to engage in a very frank exchange about men and women and relationships. Crossing a line, he asks her what makes a man attractive and whether she’s good at seduction. And she turns the table on him, inquiring whether he’s gay and if he’s interested in her.
Matters only intensify exponentially from this juncture forward, both emotionally and physically, as the two become hopelessly enmeshed in a dangerous cat-and-mouse game of both their making. They flirt, kiss, role play, smoke, drink, do drugs, agree, deceive, despair, disagree, play truth or dare, and preserve each of their deepest secrets on videotape, all over the course of one unusually intimate evening, given that they were total strangers only hours ago.
This is the compelling trajectory of Interview, a character-driven drama directed by Steve Buscemi. The picture is a remake of a movie by Theo van Gogh, the Dutch director murdered by Muslim extremists in 2004 for having made a documentary depicting the mistreatment of females in the name of Islam.
Far afield from that controversial flick, Interview unfolds more like a cross between Sleuth (1972) and Swept Away (1974). Exuding an erotic edginess and raw sensuality which is almost palpable, Steve Buscemi and Sienna Miller generate enough chemistry here to keep one transfixed for the duration of this daring mindbender.
Who’d ever expect to hear the words “Steve Buscemi” and “raw sensuality” in the same sentence?
Rating: R for profanity, sexual references, and drug use.
Running time: 84 minutes
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
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Sicko
****
Michael Moore Takes Aim At America’s Healthcare System In Eye-Opening Expose’
Michael Moore has made a career of exposing hypocrisy in the ranks of corporate and political bureaucracies. His first film, Roger and Me (1989), delineated the economic blight visited upon Flint, Michigan in the wake of General Motors’ business decision to close down its factories in his hometown and to outsource those jobs to Mexico.
The controversial gadfly’s next target was the gun lobby in Bowling for Columbine (2002), a picture for which he won the Academy Award for Best Documentary. Next, with Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), he questioned whether President Bush might have had a hidden agenda in declaring war on Iraq.
Now, he takes aim at America’s healthcare system by contrasting the horror stories of patients mistreated by insurance companies domestically with the relatively-utopian benefits of socialized medicine as enjoyed by citizens of such countries as Canada, France, England and Cuba. Only closed-minded arch-conservatives are likely to reject the case Moore makes for universal healthcare out of hand, for Sicko is undoubtedly the iconoclastic filmmaker’s least divisive documentary to date.
Wisely, he has opted to rely less on his trademark self-aggrandizing and showboating in favor of simply giving his victimized interviewees the limelight, and every one has a very telling and compelling nightmare to relate. This couple goes bankrupt and moves in with their daughter due to medical bills. That widow tearfully recounts how her late husband had died of kidney cancer after being denied coverage for a potentially life-saving bone marrow transplant, despite the fact that he had a willing donor in a brother who was an exact match.
A father talks about how his insurance company approved cochlear implant surgery in only one of his totally deaf daughter’s ears. A guy who accidentally sawed off two fingers recalls having to choose which one he wanted reattached. And a woman knocked unconscious in a car accident is forced to pay her ambulance bill because the ride had not been pre-approved by her HMO. And so forth.
It doesn’t take long to figure out that the tail is currently wagging the dog, and that the powerful insurance industry is dictating to doctors how to conduct their practices. Service has become secondary to making money and more than one physician guiltily confesses on camera to having relied on the flimsiest of excuses to turn away patients, to refuse reimbursement for a valid claim or to drop a seriously ill patient altogether.
Moore shows how frustrated Americans have begun looking elsewhere for affordable healthcare, and how foreigners are content with socialized medicine. Towards the end, he finally has a little fun when he leads a flotilla of some of the fed-up folks we’ve just watched to Cuba for free treatment of maladies not covered by their insurance in the States.
Making it abundantly clear that the U.S. is a very dangerous place to be any combination of poor, sick and old, this flick ostensibly suggests that the American Medical Association ought to consider changing its Hippocratic oath from “First, do no harm,” to “First, maximize profits.”
Rating: PG-13 for brief strong profanity
Running time: 113 minutes
Studio: The Weinstein Company
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Transformers
*** ½
Morphing Robots Square-Off In CGI-Driven Adventure
First introduced by Hasbro in 1984, Transformers are toy robots in disguise which masquerade as everyday items, such as cars, planes and animals. The morphing action figures proved to be so popular that they were soon spun-off into an animated TV series and Marvel comic books. And Hasbro has continued to introduce new additions to the product line every year since.
Transformers were first brought to the big screen in 1986, but that version was a cartoon that did little more than cash in on the television show’s appeal by serving as a bridge between second and third season. The 2007 edition, by contrast, is a live-action Michael Bay spectacular, and arrives considerably augmented by an array of rather impressive, computer-generated special effects.
The film is likely to be appreciated most by fans already familiar with the franchise, since the picture features far too many automatons for the uninitiated to bother to keep track of. Plus, the screen is cluttered with an abundance of human characters, too, each of whom the script, to its credit, takes the time to imbue with a little personality, for better or worse.
Fortunately, a simplistic, good-versus-evil plotline makes it easy to keep score, even if you’d need a notepad to keep the players straight in your head. In 25 words or less, the action-oriented adventure reads like this: two competing races of robots, the virtuous Autobots and the evil Decepticons, have arrived on Earth from the planet Cybertron in search of the Allspark, a powerful cube critical which can unlock the secrets of the universe. One side is bent on world domination, the other on preserving the planet.
Unwittingly enlisted to assist the latter in that endeavor is Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf), a teenager who has purchased his first car, a classic Camaro, which happens to be an Autobot. Sam is a geek with a new girlfriend, Mikaela (Megan Fox), who he somehow stole from a boy-most-likely.
The big name cast also includes Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson as soldiers who survive a Decepticon attack while stationed in Qatar, Jon Voight as the U.S. Secretary of Defense, John Turturro as Agent Simmons, Anthony Anderson as computer hacker Glen Whitmann and Bernie Mac as used car salesman Bobby Bolivia.
In light of the Don Imus dismissal, the dialogue between Black male and Black female characters is very disturbing and distracting. For instance, when Bobby refers to his mother as “Mammy,” she gives him the finger, whereupon he says, “If I had a rock, I’d bust your head, bitch.” Glen isn’t much better, shown berating his grandmother unprovoked, a scene ostensibly included for nothing more than comic relief.
I’m willing to give the movie a pass in this regard only because it was undoubtedly completed well before the “nappy-headed hos” brouhaha that brought down the aforementioned shock jock. So, I trust that the seasoned comedians, who probably improvised their offensive lines, here, are inclined to look for laughs elsewhere in the future.
Otherwise, Transformers gets this critic’s seal of approval as another overblown Michael Bay extravaganza, for it succeeds in bringing a cornucopia of beloved robots to life for a concatenation of epic battles worthy of a bombastic summer blockbuster. But best to check your I.Q. and political correctness at the refreshment counter to enjoy this mindless macho exercise in misogyny that promotes “Bros before hos!”
Rating: PG-13 for profanity, brief sexual humor, and intense sci-fi violence
Running time: 144 minutes
Studio: Paramount Pictures
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Anthony Anderson Expounds On Everything
The Transformers Interview With Kam Williams
Anthony Anderson was born in Compton, California on August 15, 1970, and attended the High School for the Performing Arts in L.A. He returned to his hometown after graduating from Howard University to take a shot at showbiz in Hollywood. Since his breakout role opposite the late Aaliyah in Romeo Must Die in 2000, he’s enjoyed a meteoric rise courtesy of a string of successful outings which has included such hits as Big Momma’s House, Me, Myself & Irene, Barbershop, Two Can Play That Game, Scary Movie 3 & 4, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, and The Departed, which won the Oscar for Best Picture earlier this year.
 On TV, he starred in All About The Andersons, a short-lived, eponymous sitcom on the WB network, and he has also enjoyed recurring roles on The Shield, Bernie Mac, Ally McBeal, and ‘Til Death. And he’s recently agreed to do a cop series for Fox, to be set and shot in New Orleans, called K-Ville.
Anthony is married to his college sweetheart, Alvina, and the couple lives in L.A. with their two kids, Kyra and Nathan. Here, the gifted, gap-toothed funnyman talks about his latest work in Transformers, where he plays computer geek Glen Whitmann.
KW: Were you familiar with Transformers before taking this role?
AA: I was completely familiar with Transformers. I grew up watching the cartoon, playing with the action figures myself, Optimus Prime and Megatron and all these guys. That’s my era. And to play with these same toys that I played with, 25 years later, with my son, and not only to play with them, but to have a chance to take my son to the movie and have him watch me in it, that’s why I had to be a part of it. So, when I heard that they were making this film, and that there was the possibility of a character I could play in it, I was like, “I have to be in this.” And I’m such a fan of Transformers that even if I wasn’t on board, I’d be saying “They better not mess it up.”
KW: Tell me a little about your character, Glen.
AA: I’m brought in to help decipher this computer language that the Autobots and Decepticons are speaking. It’s a computer language that no one can seem to decipher. So, they come to the smart guy. I have a computer hacking problem. I’ve actually hacked into the Pentagon a few times. I do things that I shouldn’t do with my computer. I’ve escaped being caught, yet for some reason, I’m just drawn to it. It excites me, even though I know what the ramifications could be. I’ve actually been warned. They could never prove anything, per se, but I’ve been given stern warnings from the government and our local authorities about the activities that I do. But they can’t prove anything, because I’m just a tad bit smarter than them.
KW: What did you think of the movie’s sets?
AA: The first time I walked onto the Megatron set, I said “Wow!” I did. I had my son with me that day, and his jaw dropped. He was just as excited as I was. So, I really have to tip my hat to our set decorators and designers on this film. Everyone, actually, across the board, but in particular, them, for how they’re able to recreate these rooms and bring these cubbyholes, these soundstages, to life the way they have. It really gives us something to work with as actors, as opposed to when it’s like, “Okay, let’s go pretend like we’re in the Pentagon. Let’s pretend that we’re in the catacombs of the library.” Or, let’s pretend we’re here or there. They’ve actually recreated that feeling for us, and it’s just amazing.
KW: What would you do if you encountered a transformer in real life?
AA: [Bleep] on myself. Excuse, can I say that? You can bleep that out. I’d be petrified. But I tell you this: I’d get in the car. That’s my personality. Because, if they’re rolling up on me like that, whatever’s going to happen is going to happen anyway. And I’d want to be a part of it.
KW: Are you happy with the film?
AA: All I know is that we have a great film that is going to go through the roof and knock people’s socks off. And possibly convert the naysayers, if there are any out there. But trust me, when they see this, it’s going to be unlike anything they’ve ever seen before.
KW: Tell me a little about the plotline of your new TV series, K-Ville.
AA: I don’t know where it’s going. They just finally assembled the writing staff. We start shooting July 17th in New Orleans, and I’m looking forward to it. I don’t know what direction it’s headed, or what’s going to happen. All I know is that at the end of the pilot episode, you’re sitting there watching it, and you want more. As I watched it, and the credits started to roll, I went “Wow! I want to see what’s going to happen with these guys next week.” But I don’t know where the scripts are going.
KW: How is the recovery coming along in New Orleans?
AA: While shooting the pilot there, the Lower Ninth Ward was still completely decimated and destroyed, 19 months later. Just a barren wasteland… And not only that community, but the surrounding communities and parishes, too. I think that’s indicative of what our government will do or won’t do, and of its lack of a war on poverty. It was a shame to sit in a community with people who lived through this and to see the lack of help they’re receiving to this day. That’s why I applaud Fox for having our show there, for bringing jobs back to the community, and for lending a helping hand in rebuilding the region. I don’t think we can rest on our laurels and think that our government will do what we want it to do. We have to do it ourselves. And I’m going to do everything that I can to help rebuild that community, because it’s now going to be my community. I’m going to be living there, God willing, for the next six, seven, eight or nine years. So, that will become my family and my place.
KW: Are the people coming back?
AA: Yes, people are coming back. People are there, but they need something to come back to. If your whole life was washed away in a storm, what is there for you to come back to, if you have nothing but the clothes on your back? They’re making their way back, but they need some place to come back to. You can’t come back to dirt.
KW: While making this movie in Hollywood, did you ever reflect on the fact that you grew up on the other side of the tracks before making it to the heights of showbiz?
AA: All the time. I was actually born in Watts on 114th in the Nickerson Gardens. And Tyrese [co-star Tyrese Gibson] was from the Jordan Downs Projects right up the block. So, we would always sit down and joke and talk about that. We did reflect not only on where we came from and where we are now, but on what we’re doing to bring the next generation of Tyrese Gibsons and Anthony Andersons and Venus and Serena Williams from those communities, and to bring them hope and to let everybody know that if you have a dream, you can achieve it, if you believe in it, and stand fast, and hold on to it, because we’re living testaments to that. That’s mainly what we talked about, about how both of our charities could come together and give back to those communities that we’re from, and let them know that anything is possible.
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What Black Men Think
****
Thought-Provoking Documentary Examines “What Black Men Think”
Harriet Tubman once reflected wistfully, “If I could have convinced more slaves that they were slaves, I could have freed thousands more.“ Now, that telling quote has been resurrected by Janks Morton, ostensibly with the hope of shaking another generation of African-Americans out of the doldrums.
Morton employs the sage adage during his prefatory remarks to What Black Men Think, a thought-provoking documentary that he not only produced and directed, but also appears in it periodically as narrator, commentator and interviewer. The picture paints an enlightening and empathetic portrait of African-American males by employing some rather surprising raw statistics to suggest that we all reconsider some commonly held beliefs about brothers.
Merely relying on data readily available from government agencies, Morton, pointer in hand, uses graphs, charts and a chalkboard to debunk a litany of popular stereotypes like the idea that there are more black men in prison than in college, that most don’t graduate from high school and that most don’t pay child support. Not only does director Morton expose all these widely disseminated notions as fallacious, but he suggests that, left unchallenged, they have the ability to do an incalculable amount of damage to impressionable young minds.
When not busy busting such misleading myths, he devotes his time to a series of compelling tête-à-têtes with an array of leading public intellectuals. Among the many luminaries who appear on screen are Dr. Shelby Steele, Dr. Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, publisher/author/filmmaker Darryl James, Dr. John McWhorter, actor-turned-author and commentator Joseph C. Phillips, Fox News contributor Juan Williams, author and high school principal Steve Perry, Dr. Alvin Poussaint, syndicated columnist Armstrong Williams, Dr Kellina Craig-Henderson, former Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele (R-MD) and outspoken political pundit Mychal Massie.
All it takes is a cursory glance at the above list to notice that most of the individuals involved are known for being conservative. So excuse me for bracing myself to hear a lot of that blaming the victim nonsense that tends to come from their lips when they’re guests of right-wing TV talk show hosts.
However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that in this format they have been offered an opportunity to expound fully on their hopes and aspirations for Black men, rather than being restricted to addressing only hot-button issues in 10-second sound bites. Consequently, each and every one of these elders has some worthwhile advice to share, here, as they cover timely topics ranging from Don Imus to the AIDS epidemic to the use of N-word to Black-on-Black crime to conspicuous consumption to academic underachievement to “acting white” to brothers on the down-low to the legitimacy of Bill Cosby’s comments.
In sum, What Black Men Think is highly recommended as an excellent alternative to the mainstream propaganda that would have us internalize the worst beliefs about an unfairly maligned segment of society. Perhaps more importantly, this groundbreaking documentary ought to serve as an overdue wake-up call for young African-American males to take Harriet Tubman’s words to heart, and to assume the responsibility of reprogramming their own minds in a positive manner instead of voluntarily internalizing a self-defeating mentality, which amounts to little more than the 21st Century’s equivalent of slavery.
Three cheers to Janks Morton for making a film that constructively employs a marginalized segment of the Black intelligentsia as a valuable resource. Though often scorned as traitors by their more liberal colleagues, in this instance they are presented as well-meaning role models with viable proposals for their people, as opposed to being the unwitting pawns of a power structure only interested in maintaining the status quo.
Guaranteed to generate quality conversation about the direction of African-Americana.
Rating: Unrated
Running time: 84 minutes
Studio: iYAGO Entertainment Group
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Your Mommy Kills Animals
****
In-Your-Face Documentary Makes Case For Animal Rights
Did you know that PETA puts more pets to sleep than it finds homes for? Or that the Humane Society doesn’t maintain a single animal pound or shelter, yet does fund lobbyists who raise hundreds of millions on its behalf by preying on the emotions of people who think their donations are being spent for the benefit of animals?
If you want to educate yourself about the internal workings of the non-profit, prevention of cruelty to animals racket, might I suggest Your Mommy Kills Animals, an in-your-face documentary directed by Curt Johnson, who definitely designed this call to arms with provocation in mind. Be forewarned, this is not a flick which allows you to sit on the fence, but prompts you to pick a side by graphically depicting a variety of ways in which animals are being mistreated in America, often with the tacit approval of societies supposed to be watching out for the critters’ best interests.
As a result, don’t be surprised to find yourself rooting for the radical Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and other more confrontational elements of the movement who employ civil disobedience as tactics. Early on, the film devotes considerable time to illustrating how corporations slaughter and exploit animals for their fur, for their flesh, for amusement, and for cosmetic and medical research.
This makes the outrageous antics of the animal liberation activists understandable, such as when they arouse a sleeping corporate executive at home in the middle of the night with cries of “Wake up, puppy killer!” or when they call a wealthy woman walking down the street wrapped in a full-length mink “Filthy pervert!” It’s just a shame that in response to picketing, rather than rethink their use of animals in research, big business has simply begun to outsource the work to China, Ghana, Pakistan and South Korea, countries where such protest is not tolerated.
Your Mommy Kills Animals couldn’t have arrived at a more timely moment, given the recent arrest of Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick on federal charges for hanging, drowning, electrocuting and beating dogs to death. The notoriety of that indictment ought to generate interest in this flick along with empathy for the plight of all living creatures currently being subjugated in any fashion at the whim of heartless humans.
Rating: R for profanity and scenes of animal abuse and suffering
Running time: 106 minutes
Studio: Indie Genius Productions
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