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/

Get To Know: Martin Russell

When I coached high school basketball, I always looked around for the tallest kids on campus. Working at an inner city school in San Diego, that also happened to be the most multi-cultural/racial school in the city, presented problems. Our school, Crawford High School, had incredible soccer, wrestling, and badmiton teams because of the abundance of Africans, Latinos and Asians, but our traditional sports teams, the ones dominated traditionally by Blacks had to work really hard and it didn't help that there really weren't any tall kids running around the campus. There were a few, but they liked soccer, not basketball. I remember one kid, a tall light skinned Black kid, that I asked to play and he responded that he didn't play ball. I told him I could teach him and I basically wanted his size on the court. That kid never accepted and it was okay with me, because he was a funny kid. I remember him being this really quirky guy that didn't stand out, he simply blended into whatever crowd he was around. That's the way Crawford was, well most of the time. The students there were kind of their own rainbow coalition in the middle of a city where the poverty line is 70,000 dollars and most of the people in our area were no where close to making that kind of money.

This morning I ran across a post on Facebook, by that kid/man, Martin Russell. He is beginning work on a documentary and if this is any indication of what is to come... Get To Know Martin Russell. Watch this:

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.

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.

Video for Night Catches Us

Movie Review: Don't Let Me Drown (2009)

Most movie viewers are hedonistic in their approach to film. Unless the film satisfies some base connection most people only watch what looks like them. Often this leads to a skewed perception of what a great film is and can be. I find that to truly watch and care for film is to seek out cinema that can entertain, inspire, educate and generate discussion. Shameless Netflix plug.... now, Netflix is the perfect launching pad for young aspiring screenwriters and directors.  Netflix has so many titles available immediately that a lover of films can spend an entire weekend watching films from almost every culture in the world. Recently I've caught a couple of films that I highly recommend. One in particular resonates with my longing to see well developed characters with depth and complexities that can't be simply defined.

The film Don't Let Me Drown, directed by Cruz Angeles and co written by Maria Topete (2009), stars E.J. Bonilla and Gleendilys Inoa. These young actors form an unlikely couple in post September 11th New York. I guess the statement shouldn't be unlikely because they are both Latino. However, what many people fail to realize is that intraracism, or racism within the same groups, has a more harmful effect than basic racism. While race is only slightly shown in the film, which is set in New York in Brooklyn and Manhattan, for an African-American writer to witness the verbal attack from a Mexican mother on her son's Dominican girlfriend raises some interesting questions.

The main character Lalo (Bonilla) is the son of a janitor who has to clean up the debris at Gorund Zero. Lalo's mother is working hard to pay bills and is frustrated because her husband, a migrant, is not being paid on time. He is also progressively growing ill throughout the film from what he is inhaling on the job. However this subtle storyline is not developed in detail, but it does create texture and pathos for those watching. Lalo's love interest Stefanie (Inoa) is a young Dominican Girl beng raised in a household with an opressive father, who is genuinely the most attractive abusive character I've seen in film, which is an oxymoron obviously. His complexities derive from his oldest daughter dying in the collapse of the WTC. In him you find an opportunity to analyze abuse and control from a man attempting to understand how, and why his first daughter is gone. His emotional fragility in lieu of his wife's strength is compelling and makes for a character who in his attempt to control something becomes a destructive force. Tyler Perry should take note and learn to develop such complex characters.

Coming of age stories seem to be prevelant in the NYC film culture. Don't Let Me Drown follows suit with a perfectly paced narrative of the City and one of the many stories that are sure to be told for years. If you have a little time watch this film.

Not For Colored Men

After a long back and forth this weekend on facebook in regard to Tyler Perry's For Colored Girls, I felt compelled to write an article on my position on Tyler Perry's work. It's easy to sit in the bleachers and tell the coach how to run an offense, but when you take a seat on the bench and the game is moving at a completely different pace, you realize that coaching is a very difficult business. With this small cliche in mind, my feelings about Tyler Perry's work are basic: He lacks any ability thus far to create a film that represents the depth of character of the Black men that I know. Well that may be somewhat harsh. He is obviously a talented person business wise, not a talented writer, actor, or director, but a very talented business person.

I have not seen For Colored Girls, but as an English professor I have seen the original stageplay. Just as I have read Beloved, The Color Purple, Etta Mae (Women of Brewsters Place), and The Street. Obviously there are many other stories that I have read which fit into the genre of Black Feminist Literature, but I am simply listing the first things that have entered into my mind. I have not seen this new version. The original, was powerful and needed in helping Black women find their voice beyond the Civil Rights discourse that was generated and controlled by Black men. The original also helped with the post Civil Rights discourse that saw Black men attempting to gain status and also saw Black women seeking to be accepted as a counterpart to White women who had burned bras and sought equal rights and pay in a White male dominated society. The works of Toni Morrison and Alice Walker as well as Ntozake established the voice of Black women that led to the work of Gloria Naylor, and today's writers like Dawn Turner Trice and Diane McKinney Whetstone.

With this said, the voice of women was established and in Ntozake's poem/play the narrative was already created. What has not really been generated is the well rounded Black male character. Why is it neccesary for a Black man who has been in the industry for over 10 years to continuously promote the story of the Black woman who needs to overcome? In this society I know more than enough men who were raised by a single mom. I realize that Black men have fallen short and that we are not marrying or supporting women at a rate comparable to other cultures, but I also realize that Black men are trying.

I have made this argument in discussing the negative effects of Hip-Hop: If a person listens to music that denegrates on a daily basis, he or she will learn to be disrespectful and learn to be abusive and ignorant. How does a person learn? Through repetition. This can not be shut off at any time. We learn when we hear things over and over. So if this is how we learn it becomes reasonable to think and understand that if the same images of Black men are conveyed then this will become what all people think of these men, in particular when the images are created by Blacks. Tyler Perry is a Black man, telling women's stories. It works for him and it is profitable. However, in continuing to create images of Black men that are detrimental he is acting as a promoter of negative images and this has a harmful effect whether people want to recognize this or not. In our discussions this weekend we stated that Tyler creates some male characters that are positive, but the energy of the male characters that remains indelibly imprinted into our psyches are the male characters who are destructive forces. In Why Did I Get Married Too it wasn't the hard working, honest Tyler Perry character that we remember, it is the drunk Malik Yoba pouring alcohol on Janet Jackson. No one remembers that Malik Yoba had been fighting to save his marriage and wanted to remain with Janet although she had killed their child. No one realized that when he died that Janet had not only killed their child but had also killed Malik, but this is the crazy part after she has killed both men in her life, a symbolic cleansing she is rewarded with The Rock. What does this say to both men and women? We can go through every film and although women often find happiness in the end, we are basically introduced to flat, not very well rounded male characters. We are given very in shape, oiled up placeholders. Which in a way is making men into the items that men actually make women into on a daily basis, but when is enough, enuf?

After ten years, the two books/works of literature that Tyler Perry chose to create were both created by women and both dealt with abuse and dysfunctional relationships. My goal here is to explain why I can't support this film. I think you get why I feel this way. But I can't list problems without giving solutions. Most people don't realize that there are other books out there to tackle. Important works of fiction which could begin a process of shaping the way Blacks are perceived by everyone, especially us. The primary point of reference for most people who have been saying that Tyler Perry is doing work that is important all tend to say the same thing to offer a counter argument to the fact that he is creating negative images while attempting to create feel good or serious works of art. Everyone keeps saying that someone should write a book so he can turn that into a film. Well there are books out there in Black Literature that should be turned into film. These books are not about abuse or negative drama that stereotypes us. So here are my list of books that Tyler Perry can consider and they are all bestsellers, well almost all of them:

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man - A narrative about a man who becomes everyman which is really a commentary on how people actually see Black men in this society; without anonymity.

Michael Datcher's Raising Fences - A bio of a brother who overcomes adversity and struggle to become a successful writer.

Tanarive Due's The Living Blood, My Soul To Keep series - before Twilight became a big hit, Sister Due actually created a narrative about a group of Blacks who have lived for an eternity and it's a love story.

Octavia Butler's The Parable Series (Parable of the Sower and Talents) - People who read and enjoyed The Road, will love this. The Road was, as far as I'm concerned, was a straight jack of Butler's books about a not too distant future where a girl forms a new society/religion that helps to move society back to civilization. Well I guess The Road was not directly influenced, but let's say that The Parable Series is a mixture of The Road and The Book of Eli.

Christopher D. Burns' Archie's Psalm - What kind of writer would I be if I didn't recommend any of my work? A coming of age story that is basically Stand By Me meets The Sandlot. I could be more descriptive, but no favortism here.

The Pact - Three brothers from New Jersey become doctors, nuff said.

Jean Toomer's Cane - A disjointed narrative that allows a road weary traveler to analyze the various cultures in the South, while also maintaining a journal to a lover.

Amiri Baraka's Transbluesency - What better story is there than showing a Black man who was a part of the Beat Poets who becomes enlightened and begins a movement towards new Negritude and becomes an outspoken critic of society and actually lives.

Robert Hayden Those Winter Sundays - is actually a poem, but it speaks to the core of how Black men struggle with learning to love their fathers.

Saul Williams Dead Emcee Scrolls - Also poetry, but I'd like to see the story of how the rules of Hip-Hop were discovered in a subway system in NYC. I guess this is a guilty favorite but hell it would allow another Saul Williams movie and he killed it in SLAM.

I think you get the picture here. There are a number of amazing short stories by both men and women that could have been tackled and should be. Is it Tyler Perry's responsibility to do this? Yes it is. Why? Because we all realize by now that in Hollywood only one Black person is allowed to be prominent at a time. Tyler Perry has the ear of Hollywood due to his ability to generate sales, he now has a duty to create a new narrative that promotes the whole spectrum of our culture, not just the damaged women, church going folk, well oiled men and healed souls. I know we all like to think that a person should be able to do what they want, but Black people don't have the wiggle room of other cultures. We are seen in a particular way by everyone and if our most successful people don't generate media that allows for the promotion of well rounded characters then it's just not going to happen. I'll end with this: I have been waiting on the next Love Jones, The Wood, The Best Man, type film for over ten years, so Tyler listen to me and get me a movie that makes me feel like I felt when I watched PS I Love You with my wife. Can you do that?

Inception? Not Yet, but Nolan... Indeed

I've taught film study courses for about two years. In this process I have to admit I have forced my opinion and film choices on students. While I think I have great taste in films, my students didn't seem to agree, but I can't get enough of Slingblade, Ghost Dog, Eraserhead, which a few of my students yacked when they saw (you know the scene) and Ichi the Killer (Ichi was off the record and was not required viewing since I could have really gotten in trouble for the violence in that film.)

But when I got to my modern masters series and introduced Chris Nolan and Batman, we didn't watch Batman, but it was the only way to get the students interested initially, I didn't have to work hard at all to get the interaction level up. Above is the movie photo for Following. A very short Nolan film that I highly recommend. I was going to get all introspective and longwinded in this review but I thought that since everybody is now a bigger Nolan fan due to Inception, which I admittedly have not seen... yet, I think I just need to make the recommendation and get it over with. Following may one of the slickest films created, but while it has its own endearing qualities it is this film that I think makes Nolan one of the greatest storytellers of our generation:


Memento made me forget that Trinity, from the Matrix, was actually an actress and not just the really cool karate kicking chick in black spandex. Carrie Anne Moss, played Trinity by the way. Memento is a film that requires you to actually quit talking, quit eating popcorn and pay attention. But it is the film that I would guess led to Inception and while I haven't seen the movie yet, Guy Pearce probably would have been more engaging in the film than the perpetually young Leo Cap. But like I said I am making this a short entry and recommending for anyone who loves film to hit up Netflix and watch these two Nolan films and then tell me what you think.

Invest 2 hours and 19 minutes: Pyaar Impossible

Alright, I'm sure you're wondering what the hell is Pyaar? Pyaar means Love. This film is a Bollywood creation and has all of the characteristics associated with the genre: Outbursts of music, corny acting and length of the story, but I'm assuming that you have watched a Bollywood film before. To create clarity I will give you an allusion: Slumdog Millionaire. Slumdog does not really stay as true to the genre since the viewer really is not exposed to the dancing and singing until the credits. Pyaar Impossible however has several extremely catchy tunes blended seamlessly into the film.

What is the story about? I'm asking you to give 2 hours and 19 minutes to a film. Typically this amount of time when watching film is only given to serious films such as Schindler's List, Titanic, Avatar, you get the picture. How can I ask you to invest your time? Because plain and simple this was one of the cutest (Yeah I'm a dude) stories I've seen in a long time. Often American love stories that are playful are either too sexual or basically underwritten and star studded to keep your attention. This film lacks any big names (Well big by American standards), although the main character Abhay (Uday Chopra) looks suspiciously like Michael Jackson. Alisha (Priyanka Chopra) is actually very big in India while Abhay is also popular by Bollywood standards. Enough of that...

Why should you give this movie your time? It is not the acting first off, it is the way the story is presented. Initially the singing catches you off guard but once you get past that the story plays out like the typical nerd desires beauty story with one small catch, the beauty ends up a single mom, which would never happen in an American film. The nerd does win the day but it is the final scene where the daughter acts in a school presentation that makes this film work. Rather than go into a lot of detail and spoil the film I am suggesting that if you are hanging out with your girl and you want a cute film to pass the time, hit up your Netflix account, get the popcorn out and snuggle up to Pyaar Impossible. You'll like it, I promise.