Rabbit Hole: A review

Often when a stageplay is translated into a movie, there are certain nuances and quirks that can't be conveyed. The film has the ability to better explain small details through the use of various scene settings, lighting and production that a stage play doesn't capture. However, the character inflections, the capacity to interact with the stage and the ability for the theater to create a deeper cathartic moment tends to make stage plays more appealing. David Lindsay Abaire's Rabbit Hole won the Pulitzer in 2007. It was turned into a film, that he was able to write, in 2010 featuring Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart.

Welcome To The Rileys: A review

Hypothetically answering, what would you do if your spouse decided to put headstones on your cemetery plot with your names on them and you were still alive? Welcome to the Rileys is a film that manages to create questions through a slow paced, carefully crafted narrative using characters who don't require a complete understanding. It isn't often that a film can take stock characters, familiar everyday people and make them compelling without adding in elements of the absurd. I don't mean absurd in the style of Beckett... Then again maybe I do.

When I think about family narratives, they are generally poorly, melodramatic Lifetime movies that are driven by the visual depiction of drama. A person dies tragically, is injured, or abused and the viewer is shown these images and instead of being led into the disentagration of family, the viewer is thrown headfirst into the emotional baggage of the characters forcing an emotional response. The only movie that I can speak of in terms of Black film where the death of a child is the center of the rise in action is Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married and that was with the characters played by Malik Yoba and Janet Jackson. The story line there presented a unique opportunity to establish a movie that could have been very similar to Welcome to the Rileys, but Perry dealt with that complicated storyline like Blacks couldn't handle a slowly drawn narrative of discovery.

Night Catches Us: a review

On January 1st, I dropped a trailer for the film Night Catches Us. I didn't know a lot about the film but I knew that Kerry Washington and Anthony Mackie were the lead actors and to me this meant that it was a movie worth my time. I had generally forgotten about the film since then, until it showed up in our Instant Watch on Netflix.

Night Catches Us is the feature film debut of Tanya Hamilton who wrote and directed the movie. In the easiest description of the film Marcus (Anthony Mackie) returns to Philadelphia where he was a member of the Black Panther Party. Patricia (Kerry Washington) another former Panther still remains in the same neighborhood where a tragic situation has created in her the need to carry on the programs created by the Panthers, although the BPP is no longer in the position of influence it held.

Hamilton uses an artistic lens to capture Philadelphia and the film is more like a study of the neighborhood for photography and videography. The images of the Philly streets are often captured with the street signs in the background, or buildings or abandoned lots, trash strewn streets, in contrast to the images she captures of children playing and people walking from neighborhood stores. Every shot involves a character, in thought, standing face to face with someone or something that seems to be eroding. The score by the Roots recreates a seventies sound without sounding antiquated. Overall the movie is beautifully crafted and at 1hour and 30 minutes the scenes shift and move quickly, which isn't jarring, but does create questions.

Although the imagery and quality is incredible I could only give the film 3 out of 5 stars. It was not due to the acting, which held together a script that had more potential than follow through. The acting was powerful and Mackie and Washington lend credibility to their roles and depth to lines that lack the needed development to really grasp the time. The Black Panther Party has appeared in film often and there has yet to be a portrayal that has really defined what the Panthers did and how important they are to history. Hamilton does use actual footage of the Death of Fred Hampton and archival footage of the Panthers and their food programs and of course the shots of Bobby Seale and the chants are always there lingering at moments of confusion, but the story is rushed and some plot points are established but not given enough clarity. Black Thought (Tariq Trotter of the The Roots) plays Marcus' brother Bos, a Muslim who is only utilized in a few scenes, but his voice and the visual depiction of him in his all black clothing and his relationship with his brother could have been a stronger storyline.

What Night Catches Us does do very well is to capture the confusion of the 70s and this makes the film worth watching. The 70s saw the removal of certain political and social walls for Blacks. It seemed that the advancements of the Civil Rights movement had actually given Blacks some status, but the actual facts were that the Black neighborhood became more fractured and the Panthers' role in the neighborhood, became unstable due to government (national and local) forces that infiltrated and corrupted the organization. This destruction of the people from the inside out, left a whole generation with the ideals of the Panthers, but without the foundation. In other words the destruction of the Panthers created the current state in Black America: People who are unaware of the damage controlled media images and broken homes create in the community. This is given incredible power in one scene with the character Jimmy (Patricia's brother) who is a young man searching for an identity in a world that is not ready to accept him as a man and a world that does not want to explain to him the past.

While somewhat predictable, with stock characters, Night Catches Us is a solid film that should be watched because it is important and entertaining.

Here is the link to the trailer here on CB Publishing.

The website for the film can be found by visiting http://www.nightcatchesus.com/

It's Kind of A Funny Story: A review

The nuances of life become ritual and in adulthood, the experiences of the past are forgotten. This is what makes the coming of age story an attractive tome. In watching the uncomfortable maturation of the teen, or a child, the reality of being an adult is challenged. Often the reading of a book that deals with the struggles of an adult and their social issues can make the reader jaded and unforgiving. Adults no longer reach, struggle, or learn; they simply live. In their lives the mundane existence of routine becomes so monotonous that the adult no longer believes in the power of the mind. They no longer trust that a thought can influence the world. Inspiration can only be found in religion or financial success. In the teen self awareness, realization, is important and makes their lives a lot more complicated than they seem.

It’s Kind of a Funny Story has made the list of my favorite films. I sometimes think about the things that mother misses because she is no longer here. I wrote a poem titled, You Would Have Loved Ray. That poem forced me to analyze my mortality. This film, based on a novel of the same name by Ned Vizzini, shows the five day journey of Craig. Craig is a sixteen year old living in New York City. The standard items of youth are in place and could be seen as nothing more than pawns in the manipulation of the viewer: the cool best friend, his hot girlfriend (who Craig is attracted to), parents, and a sibling. What makes this film work though is that they are immediately removed from the equation by the director’s focus on Craig’s eventually admitted selfishness after he checks into a mental institution after considering suicide.

It's Complicated...Kind of a review

Okay that title is pretty vague and I will be the first to say that this blog does not get a crazy amount of traffic, so being vague is not a good thing. I love the blog: http://www.shadowandact.com/ . Not because the title derived from my favorite author, but because the blog has the most information on cinema that caters to a diverse audience. In other words, if I want a Black movie, or I want to know about a movie filmed, written and produced by those not of European ancestry, then I can find the info there. I tend to think I have a pretty good ear, for books, and an okay eye for film. What I have been looking for though from S&A is an article, or a summary on why is it that Black people can't create a film like It's Complicated. I've made similar comments after watching films like The Fountain, or The Notebook, but I won't rehash those discussions here. I will, but in a different way.

For Colored Girls: A review

The For Colored Girls reinterpretation by Tyler Perry has seen countless analysis and criticisms. I even took the time to discuss the film after watching the original play. Click here to read that analysis. My original discussion was that this play should not have been recreated. I made this decision because after watching the original play, the level of frustration I encountered as a man watching a film obviously written for and by a Black woman at the height of the Black feminist literary movement, (Do not look up Black Literary Feminist Movement, this is something that I am working on to analyze the writing that was created in the late 60s to the early 80s by women like Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Toni Cade Bambara and obviously Ntozake Shange), was difficult to understand. In its original form the narrative has a clear, calm, powerful, poetic voice, that enhances the emotional attachment to the women who encounter different men who create their frustration and push them towards the thought of suicide. These women are also aware enough to understand that it is their own lack of power which generates the negative energy that promotes their inferiority and mistreatment. This duality existed in the original performance by an ensemble that included Alfre Woodard and Lynn Whitfield, due to their inspired performance. The actresses took a complex, jarring narrative and after watching the original, I knew I didn't have any desire to see Tyler Perry's film and my primary question was why this story, again, now?

Commentary and thoughts on the film Skin

Racism creates a vast array of emotions when presented in American society. It seems that the US has the need to own the divisive treatment that is created by people and their personal,social, and learned hatred of other cultures. The US however finds it difficult to actually analyze, and create narratives discussing race. People in America want to forget the past, move on without acknowledging the inherent conflicts that skin creates. Entertainment in America tends to make its stories and movies that deal with racism about popular individuals. While the stories that are beginning to fade away, with the passing of grandparents and elders, are becoming lost in time; other societies that have also progressed from segregation and racism are taking those stories and generating films that attempt to understand the psychology behind skin.

One such film that takes the challenge of bringing light to the absurd nature of superiority is the flim Skin. Released in 2008, Skin is the story of Sandra Laing a woman who was born into the apartheid era of South America. The immediate thought generated by this is in regard to Nelson Mandela, however this film does a very good job of focusing on the people who are affected in their day to day existence by apartheid. The film does not stray into a homage to Nelson Mandela and he is only shown in one scene, on a sheet of paper listing the people running in the first free election of 1994. This is important because the narrative created allows the viewer to feel a connection to the family of Sandra Laing, who is important because she is a black child born to white parents.

Waiting for Superman

While most people interested in education saw Waiting For Superman during its theatrical release, I often fail to catch any new release. I often wait for Netflix or the DVD release. I have made it a point to watch any film that deals with the shortcomings of, or the success of schools at the high school or collegiate level. Netflix is a great option for those seeking a wealth of information on education. Now that the advertisement is over let's get to this.