Tsotsi

With a friend, I ventured to see Tsotsi, not quite knowing what to expect. The movie, based on a novel by Athol Fugard, won an Oscar, and I had heard good things about Fugard from my friend, who had recently seen a play of his.
What I saw was a textured film about a young man finding humanity within himself and within others.
Tsotsi means thug, and in the film, the name is tied to a young man growing up in South Africa.
He roams the streets with a group of young men. Their existence is bleak and their moral code is corrupt. Their mode of survival is from taking, often brutally, from others.
That fact is established quickly in the first few minutes of the movie as we witness a simple mugging turn violent and bloody.
Then in a later scene, we see Tsotsi shoot a woman and steal her car. At that point, I wasn't sure whether I would ever sympathize with Tsotsi. I feared him to be a monster.
But behind even monsters is a human being, and slowly, Tsotsi's past of abandonment becomes clear. No one truly cared about him so he learned not to care about anyone else.
His world is changed, however, when he discovers that the backseat of the car he stole is not empty. It contains an infant. He ends up taking the infant home, struggling to figure out how to take care of someone so small.
His burgeoning relationship with the child transforms him. He begins to care. He begins to see another way.
And before you know it, you become invested in Tsotsi. You start to root for him to do the right thing, to be the man he was never taught to be.
The ending is a mixture of hope and bleakness, as is the rest of the movie. You don't quite know what might happen to Tsotsi after this experience. All you know is that he is not the same person you met at the beginning, and maybe there's hope in that.

Tom Cruise: Mission Impossible Action Star

Tom Cruise isn't getting much love lately. He deserves it. From public spats with Matt Lauer and Brooke Shields to his overexposed love affair with Katie Holmes, Cruise has had a rocky ride with his fans the past year.
And the opening box-office take for Mission Impossible III doesn't bode well for his future movie star career.
So when I saw the movie recently, I had low expectations for how good the movie is. How pleased I was to find that during the course of the two-hour plus movie, I forgot about TomKat.
That is not necessarily due to Cruise. J.J. Abrams, creator of Alias and Lost, layers the non-stop action with some emotion. This movie felt more visceral and personal than the previous incarnations of Mission Impossible.
Granted, the story is a little cliched. Good guy's woman is in peril.
But, here's the thing. The set-up works.
With so many frenetic action sequences intermingled with lovey-dovey kiss-kiss scenes between Ethan Hunt and his beautiful girlfriend, you don't have much time to think about Tom Cruise and his troubled year.
Even more wonderful is the presence of Laurence Fishburne as the head guy. He's smart, menacing, the kind of guy you don't want to mess with. The dialogue is sharp and witty, and the pacing now slacks.
So, in a sense, the real mission impossible, forgetting Tom Cruise, ends up being accomplished in a very winning way.

United 93

9/11 was barely five years ago, but here we have United 93.
I haven't seen it. There are movies where you have to be in the right mood to see it.
Or maybe that's an excuse not to go through the emotions that will likely come from watching it.
United 93 is not going to be one of those romantic comedies where the two love birds kiss at the end.
In this movie, the heroes and the villains die at the end because that's what happened in real life when flight United 93 crashed in Pennsylvania.
I wonder how long you wait until you dramatize a tragic event such as 9/11 on the big screen. Is this too soon, or is it just the right time, if you approach everything with a seriousness and respect.
I feel I have to see this movie. I just wonder if I will get anything beyond the sadness organically comes from seeing the worst day in our country's history on the movie screen.

Akeelah and the Bee

This movie, Akeelah and the Bee, is a must-see.
Not just because Laurence Fishburne and Angela Bassett are in the movie, though that could be reason enough.
It's because this simple tale of a young black girl competing in the National Spelling Bee is a wonderfully different slice of black life than what we are used to seeing on the screen.
Rare is the movie in which the protagonist is a smart black girl. Her struggle and what I would presume eventual triumph are the core of this picture.
I haven't seen this movie yet, but what makes it compelling for me is that it appears that the movie recognizes that black life is richly complex and full of nuance.
The problem with movies about the lives of black people is the frustrating narrowness in which Hollywood sees us. We're either good or bad, black or white (metaphorically speaking).
But the truth is that we are human, that we come against not only the subtle pressures of race but also the every day pains of living life.
We are more than what Hollywood says we are, more than what some of us say we are (i.e. Soul Plane).
Movies such as Akeelah and the Bee and Eve's Bayou reveal that black people aren't here just to make white people laugh. And the problem with movies such as Soul Plane is that there aren't enough movies like Akeelah and the Bee to balance things out, to show the full range of black life in all its different forms and features.
The truth is we are flesh, and I want to see more of that flesh on screen.

No Brokeback in Prison

This is like manna from heaven for comedians and late night talk show hosts. But seriously, if punishment is what is needed for these Massachussetts prisoners, show "Showgirls" by all means. Paul Verhoever sought to push the boundaries of how much sexual content you could throw on the screen and call it art. He ended up making a movie in which seeing Elizabeth Berkley naked became yawn-inducing. Who would have thunk?

Sharon Stone's Basic Instinct

Sharon Stone's most famous performance was as Catherine Trammell in 1992's Basic Instinct, where she played a sociopathic bisexual novelist who was handy with an icepick. And of course, there's that interrogation scene.
Now, maybe we can assume Sharon Stone's basic instinct is getting paid. Why else would she reprise her role in a trashy sequel of a movie that didn't have much going for it to begin with?
Basic Instinct 2 is better than I thought, given the low expectations I had for it.
The plot is just an excuse for Sharon Stone to romp her way through a movie. Catherine Trammell is a woman Sharon Stone was born to play: a highly intelligent woman who manipulates men through the not-so-subtle art of seduction. Her sexuality is her weapon, and she uses it with a boldness and confidence that leaves men weak and confounded.
Trammell knows her power, and she walks with a swagger that leaves men such as the psychiatrist played by David Morrissey spellbound.
Unfortunatley, long stretches of this movie drag. You wonder where the movie is going, and as much as Stone talked in interviews about how she has no problem with nudity, Stone stays clothed through much of the movie. It is as if director Michael Caton-Jones pulled back instead of diving head on into the sheer trashiness and absurdity of the material.
If there is a sequel that really didn't need to be made, it is this one. Basic Instinct was a movie for its time, and this one doesn't add anything new.
Well, there's one thing. You can say what you want about Sharon Stone but for someone who's 48, she still looks good.

Spike is Back

"Spike is back," my friend said as the credits to Inside Man came up.
Indeed, he was.
This is one of Lee's most commercial movies in years, one about a bank robbery heist in the spirit of Sidney Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon.
But it still retails that Spike Lee edge, those little touches that Lee sprinkles throughout his movie.
The movie draws you in from the beginning when we are introduced to Dalton Russell, played by Clive Owen. Russell introduces himself and says he is pulling off the perfect bank robbery.
And from there, you spend the rest of the movie figuring out how Russell does that. Denzel Washington plays a detective facing an Internal Affairs investigation and Jodie Foster is a powerful woman who specializes in "fixing" things, in this case the bank president played by Christopher Plummer who has a secret hiding in the bank vaults.
There's a lot of waiting around in this movie, but Lee never lets the pace slacken. Instead, he shows off multi-ethnic New York, and the dialogue is sharp and funny. Seeing Denzel Washington work is a treasure in itself.
And the payoff in the end is satisfying. Your face breaks into a smile as you discover the nice treats that Inside Man offers.
Is there a message? Isn't there always one in a Spike Lee Joint? But Lee doesn't let his need to make a point get in the way of telling a good story.
As my friend said, this film comes across as the work of a veteran director, as if all the lessons he has learned over his more than two decades of work came together on this movie.
Spike Lee is back. Thank God.

Take The Lead, or Just Follow

Take The Lead, which made its premiere Friday night at the RiverRun International Film Festival, is an entertaining piece of crap.
Sounds harsh for a movie that was such a crowd pleaser. But Hollywood trots this treacle every few years, the often-told tale of an idealistic teacher who goes to the inner-city school determined to inspire the students and change things for the better.
Well, I saw that movie. It was called Lean on Me, starring Morgan Freeman. And there was that other movie of whose title I can't remember that starred Michelle Pfieffer and featured that Coolio song.
What bothers me is there's a condescending "oh, those poor ghetto kids" white liberal sentiment that runs through those movies. And unfortunately, this movie suffers from it.
The characters are flat, and you never understand the motivations of Antonio Banderas' ballroom dance teacher Pierre Dulane. You just assume he decided one day he wanted to teach the waltz and the tango to a bunch of inner-city kids.
I know, this is based on a true story, and I'm sure the true story is much more interesting and complex than what's portrayed in this movie.
And that's the problem. You could figure everything out before the first credits to the movie end.
There aren't any surprises, and you hardly learn anything about Banderas' character, just that his wife died five years ago and he may possibly have had a rough life.
As for the kids, well, you have the tough but sensitive girl (played convincingly enough by YaYa, who some may remember for America's Next Top Model) and the hard-headed punk who really is trying to do the right thing.
Oh, there's also the white guy who wants to be black, and the awkward white girl from the suburb who feels more comfortable with the ghetto kids than the stuck up rich kids from her ballroom dancing class.
Now, I know this movie will make money. There's dancing. There's Antonio Banderas. But Take The Lead is simplistic and lacks soul.

Pimping Ain't Easy

For the past week, the Oscar win of rap group Three 6 Mafia for its song "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" has been praised and panned. Praised because the win was a historic moment for hip-hop, the first all-black rap group to perform at the usually unhip Academy Awards and to win the golden statue.
Panned because some were embarrased that a song about pimping (i.e. the sexual exploitation of women by men) was rewarded.
Part of me did cringe when the winner was announced. Too much of mainstream rap music glorifies pimping; the music videos are filled with booty flesh and the lyrics are full of sexual boasting at the expense of women.
But another part of me was thrilled. It was a genuine surprise and an indication that hip-hop has truly entered the mainstream. The culture cannot be dismissed or ignored anymore.
That says to me a couple of things. Hip-hop has been and continues to be a powerful force in the world. And hip-hop artists have a responsibility to bring balance to the music.
See, I don't expect every song that comes out to be self-righteous and consciousness-raising. Not every rock-and-roll song is that all the time. Never has been.
What I do demand is that rap music doesn't become bogged down in monotony. Spoken-word artist Saul Williams said it best when he said he simply wants to hear something different. Enough with the ice and the women and the guns and the beef.
Rap about something real. Rap about you, not what the corporate suits think is you or what they think the public will buy.
But in the end, what Three 6 Mafia won is an award. That's all it is. Cuba Gooding Jr. won one of those golden statues for his performance in Jerry Maguire. What the hell happened to his career?
Adrien Brody won for The Pianist. You see he didn't get any nominations for his recent turn in King Kong.
Awards don't change anything. People do.
And one final thought. The song, "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp," fit the movie, Hustle & Flow. The movie is predictable, your basic Rocky formula, except that Rocky is a pimp. But Terrence Howard's performance elevated the movie a bit, made DJay human, complex and real when he could have easily turned that role into caricature.
Howard may not be a pimp in real life, but let's just say he really pimped that role, and it wasn't easy.

Capote and Freedomland

Philip Seymour Hoffman deserves an Oscar. That was evident after seeing Capote recently.
The movie follows Truman Capote as he insinuates himself into the lives of people in a small town in Kansas to report on the brutal murder of a family of four in 1959.
Capote has a whiny voice but a big ego, and he sees his literary breakthrough in telling this sordid tale.
Hoffman shows a man who ever so slowly builds a trust between him and one of the convicted murderers over a number of years and who grows to care about him. But he never lets that get in the way of his ultimate ambition. He's using this man as a way to catapult himself into the success he has always pursued.
It's this tension between ambition and compassion that drives the movie as Hoffman peels away the layers of Capote, making you cringe in one instance and sad in another.
The performance also make Freedomland, a searing mediation on race based on the critically-acclaimed novel by Richard Price.
The book is better but the movie does a good job of getting the book's message across.
Julianne Moore plays Brenda, a mother who stumbles into a hospital with bloody hands. She says she has been carjacked. Det. Lorenzo Council, played by Samuel Jackson, waltzes in to interview her.
Only then does she allow that her 4-year-old son is in the backseat of that car.
Brenda is white. The neighborhood she says her son was kidnapped in is black.
Those facts set off a chain reaction, as the largely white police force of Gannon, a neighboring town, descends onto the predominantly black neighborhood of Armstrong.
Residents there are mistreated. Anger grows. And Council becomes increasingly doubtful about Brenda's story.
The script could have been better, but the chemistry between Jackson and Moore is palpable, and Edie Falco, as a parent of a missing child, gives a solid performance.
And the final few scenes with Moore are amazing. It's a performance that keeps your allegiances at bay, for you don't know whether to care for her or to hate her. But you always feel her. What better compliment is there?

Something New

Today I, a 33-year-old black man, walked into a movie theater full of black women who had come to watch Sanaa Lathan fall in love with a white guy in the new movie, Something New.
Considering what a wonder Sanaa Lathan is to behold, it was tough watching her and a white guy get it on. I can say this: Simon Baker is much more handsome than Billy Bob Thorton, with whom the luscious Halle Berry got it on in "Monster's Ball."
But going beyond that superficial stuff, I found Sanaa Hamri's debut a delight to watch, a movie that celebrated love but also took into account the challenges of an interracial romance.
There's a nicely done scene in the middle of the movie in which Lathan's Kenya lashes into Baker's Brian. Brian had a hard day and he doesn't want to hear Kenya complain about the white client who cannot take her seriously because she's black.
Kenya counters that she can't take a break from being black. It's a heart-wrenching and uncomfortable scene but one that feels real.
Also real is the struggle that some single black women have in finding the so-called IBM (Ideal Black Man). One startling statistic that starts off the movie is that 42.4 percent of black women have never been married.
It is a reality that Kenya, as a successful black woman, is acutely aware of, and the introduction of Brian into her life forces her to examine her deeply-held dreams and beliefs (such as her preference for black men).
What happens when what we want in life is changed and challenged by our circumstances. What if what we want limits what we could have, ostensibly love.
The weakness in the movie, however, comes in the late introduction of the Ideal Black Man, as portrayed by Blair Underwood. It's the movie's attempt at a fair balance to show that Kenya does have viable options. But it's clear from the get-go that Blair's character is not the right man for her; Brian is.
Near the end is when the movie devolves into the predictability of romance comedies, where our hero or heroine realizes that he or she has made a horrible mistake. Kenya finally realizes that Brian is her man.
And everyone lives happily ever after.
But the journey to that cliched moment is worth taking. Chemistry, smart dialogue and an often funny and intelligent script.
Yeah, it's something new.

Climbing Brokeback Mountain

Finally, I trudged up Brokeback Mountain and found I enjoyed the view.
The movie lives up to the hype. This is a film of small moments that build to emotional payoffs sprinkled throughout.
Ang Lee takes his time so you can invest in Ennis and Jack, watch as their relationship evolves over quiet mornings and cold nights in Brokeback Mountain, herding sheep.
And we see how one night of unexpected passion matures into a steel-like bond that endures their need to hide the truth of their love.
You see Ennis bowed down by pain the first time Jack leaves him, and you see his wife, played by Michelle Williams, whose bottled-up rage boils as she realizes that her husband's true love is not her.
The lush scenes of the two cowboys in Brokeback Mountain is laid out against the harsh confines of their lives with their wives and children.
And you see how their existence, where they can only steal a few weeks a year together, crushes them.
Brokeback Mountain, as critics have noted, is not self-righteous; it simply tells a story, one about two men who try to love each other in a world that does not accept them together.
This is a good movie, and to just call it a gay love story does no justice to it.

Oprah flogs James Frey

Don't make Oprah mad. James Frey didn't heed the advice. Today, he looked rather sheepish.
He should. He lied. And Oprah has every reason to be angry, embarrassed, whatever.
Like I said, don't make Oprah mad. I sure wouldn't.

The Downfall of Flavor Flav

Flavor Flav's clock-wearing mug, his gold-encrusted teeth blaring, saved Public Enemy from being too self-righteous. He was the fun that balanced Chuck D's baritone protestations against political corruption and racism.
That was then; this is now. Flavor Flav, desperate for money, stars in The Flavor of Love, a pathetic, low-down piece of crapola reality television show that features a dozen women vying for the hype man's attention.
This is his third show, after making his debut on The Surreal Life a couple of years back.
We see women cry, actually cry, because they might not have the chance to be the one for our man, Flavor Flav, a has-been who is far from handsome and who certainly doesn't have much money. Ah, the things people do for money.
Chuck D, your friend needs help, like now.

Why Straight Guys Don't Want to See Brokeback Mountain

No, I have not ventured to see Brokeback Mountain. I like to think of myself as enlightened and so I've said to myself that I won't see Brokeback Mountain because the movie has gotten too much hype. But maybe the reason is really this.
Guess I should just man up and see the movie, imagining Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger are really Jessica Alba and Halle Berry. Yep, I'm such a guy.

A Million Little "Fake" Pieces

The extent of James Frey's lies in his best-selling memoir, A Million Little Pieces, is astounding.
And the response from his publisher is, well, sad and predictable.
Then again, Random House is making money so why should the higher-ups care about the truth.
But I deal with truth every day as part of my profession. And while it might be hard to get to an objective truth in a memoir, I do expect that the central facts an author lays out in his memoir are substantially accurate.
Frey, by his own admission, made up most of what's in his book. He didn't embellish.
He lied. And he's being awarded by selling more books and having the chance to see his life story told on the big screen.
Thanks to Oprah, Frey has gotten national exposure, selling his fiction as testimony designed to inspire people struggling with their own alcohol and drug addictions.
I haven't read his book, and the latest revelations make it highly unlikely that I ever will. But from what I heard, Frey spins a great story.
Too bad it's not truth.

Hostel

The movie "Hostel" is gross. Not just gross but the squirm-in-your-seat gross, the kind of gross that has you either looking away or putting your hands over your eyes.
And I loved it.
This is what a good horror/slasher movie is supposed to do.
"Hostel" starts off as a "Porky's in Amsterdam" kind of movie. We have three guys backpacking in Europe, all looking to get smashed and laid.
And when a nerdy looking guy shows them pictures of beautiful naked women who can only be found in Slovakia, they hop a train and head for what they think will be nights of debauchery.
They do. For awhile, fun is had by all.
Then, as in movies like this, something goes horribly wrong. Toes are chopped off. Heads become detached from bodies. Drills go into flesh.
Nasty stuff.
Helming this is Eli Roth, who made the cult classic Cabin Fever a few years ago. I never thought much of "Cabin Fever," but Roth blesses this movie with gorgeous cinemotography, believable acting and teeth-clenching suspense.
"Hostel" is simply put an adrenaline rush. This is a good gory mess.

The Ho in Hip-Hop

Sexism in hip-hop is nothing new, but as this article makes clear, some rap artists have taken misogyny to rauchier and degrading lows.
Some question whether hip-hop, a cultural movement that began in the South Bronx more than three decades ago, should take the full blame for the depiction of women, black women in particular.
After all, take a quick look at the cultural landscape. Sex sells, and exploiting women has been refined into a sick kind of art. Witness Paris Hilton splaying her half-naked wet body to sell hamburgers.
Watch Jessica Simpson in a skimpy two-piece bathing suit prancing around in a country music video to promote that Dukes of Hazzard movie.
It ain't just hip-hop. But in many ways, it is. And as a black man, I wince when I watch the images of black women in too many rap videos and songs.
And I struggle to see black women as human beings when all I see in mainstream hip-hop are parts of women, a breast here, a butt cheek there. None of those parts speak.
And for me, that speaks volumes.

King Kong

King Kong is just a big, cuddly gorilla who might rip apart a dinosaur or two if you mess with his lady. Plus, he likes to slide around on ice and watch a sunset with his blonde-haired beauty.
At least that's the impression you get from watching Peter Jackson's three-hour epic.
The movie starts slow, but Jackson picks up speed once we get to the jungle and the dinosaurs and the big-footed hairy star of the show.
Jack Black, Naomi Watts and Adrien Brody all manage to shine in a movie that's much more concerned about a gorilla roaring and smashing and swinging his way around the jungle and later tossing cars and climing the Empire State Building in Manhattan.
For the most part, it's your all-too-typical Hollywood blockbuster with eye-popping special effects.
But as my English professor friend, who accompanied me, pointed out, there's more beneath the surface, and what you find is not pretty.
The 1933 version was chock-full of racial stereotyping, and though much has improved in this 2005 update, you can still find plenty to object to.
Let's start with the depiction of the natives. Eyes wide, chanting, dancing wildly, bearing misshapen teeth, they almost seem like apes, and for dark-skinned people, that's never a good thing.
That was the top of the list for my friend. It probably wasn't Jackson's intention but nevertheless my friend and I came away from that offended.
My friend also reminded me of the other racial implication when I asked her quite pointedly "Why the brotha have to die?" She wondered whether I meant the big brotha or the little brotha.
Yep, King Kong, when he first came out, was the black man-as-beast savaging the pure white woman. Jackson, thankfully, moves away from that and tries to imbue Kong with some complexity. So we have the scenes of him saving Ann Darrow, played here by Naomi Watts, numerous times and then of Darrow doing pratfalls and juggling balls in front of Kong, who sits there pounding his chest. And then we have scenes of him throwing violent temper tantrums. You wouldn't like Kong when he's angry. He might just chomp your head off.
And we have one character who's always seen reading Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, an interesting choice for such a movie given that book's own controversy over what some call its racist depiction of Africa.
Still, we end up caring about the big guy. We're sad when we see him chained up on Broadway, and we're happy when he breaks free.
But we all know how the story ends. He's atop the Empire State Building, swiping at planes as they pump bullets into him. And then he falls to his death as tears stream from Darrow's eyes. He sure did love that white girl.

Richard Pryor

Richard Pryor, who died Saturday, was profane. But he was profound, an artist who bared his life in all of its pain and found it rich with material.
He lived without apology, no matter that he freebased on cocaine and, in the process, set himself on fire, no matter he went through six wives, no matter that the latter part of his career bore little resemblance to his earlier genius.
The beauty of his comedy came not from his endless obscenities. Anybody can curse. What distinguished Pryor, what has influenced almost every person who considers himself or herself a comedian now, is that he surrounded those profanities with textured stories of his experiences, revealing a deeply flawed yet ultimately humane man, a black man struggling with a racist society, a man who from the very beginning had a problematic relationship with women.
These experiences all made Richard Pryor who he was. They informed his comedy, and Pryor's greatness came from his ability to translate his life into art and his unwillingness to compromise his voice.
To see that voice quietly silenced by the ravages of multiple sclerosis was hard; it seemed unfair.
But a legion of comedians such as Eddie Murphy, Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock was birthed into being by Pryor. His legacy lies in them.
And though Pryor has slipped into a more peaceful existence, his comedy remains, just as rich now as it was then.
Richard Pryor, your life is calling.