Tagged With "New Tarantino Film"
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Re: King Kong, The Movie
I thought this movie was beyond silly... and I'm sorry, but I don't see the 'emasculated black man' thing. I understand the concept but I'm not sure I buy into it. We have to deal with far more overt manifestations of racism than those found in a movie. It's just a movie, folks.... Be that as it may, on with my review: The actors were fine -- I'm a fan of both Naomi Watts and Jack Black. But the film was wayyy over the top. The scene with the giant insects was totally unnecessary; the scenes...
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Re: Brokeback Mountain
hi, this has just opened here. I'm not a huge fan of Heath (people know him here for his role in Ned Kelly) but I'm curious about this role. I like when actors are brave enough to do something a bit risque or different. I did like Donnie Darko... it became a huge cult film over here. That bunny was scarey! .
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Re: King Kong, The Movie
The black character called "Hayes" was thrown in to the movie to "balance" the scences of so-called "the blood-thirsty savages".
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Re: King Kong, The Movie
I told you it was some mess. I don't know why, considering indigeous groups are becoming more "Americanized" than Americans, White film directors continue to portray them in this way. They are racist, that's why. You should have took your money and spent it on something to eat.
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Re: The name of our moon?
I just scanned through your list. I'm more interested in the non-fiction list, some classics, and some interesting new ones to follow up thanks. I had to buy a(nother) darn bookcase a few weeks back to fit all 2005's book purchases in and it's full already. I'm sure this will create protest but when it comes to sci-fi, I can't go past the film Existenz. .
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Re: The name of our moon?
I haven't seen ExistenZ so I don't know if it meets my qualifications for science fiction or suggested science fiction. Many people, myself included, do not consider STAR WARS to be science fiction. I call it space opera, being on the same level with Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. The Abyss: Special Edition is just about the best science fiction movie I know of The movie version falls kind of flat at the end. It is closely followed by 2001. The trouble with 2001 is the people aren't very warm...
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Re: Million Dollar Baby
I think there was another discussion thread about this film way back on this board. I really like Hilary Swank as an actor so i will see anything that she is in. I think the boxing chick was Jamaican, but anyhoo... I agree. More black hats vs white hats, ho-humm. Seems even Clint couldn't quite make the break from Hollywood stereotypical scriptwriting in places. A great film with Hilary Swank is INSOMNIA, with Robin Williams as Mr Evil himself. Excellent acting, excellent story, set in Alaska.
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Re: Some sobering statistics on poverty
Unfortunately, these numbers and what they mean have become "normalized", in the sense put forward by Edward Herman in his book "Triumph of the Market". It can only be so, as capitalism panders to the uncontrolled greed and self-interest of the few. These statistics have to be accepted, normalized or else people would realize something is wrong and this is a threat to capitalist culture. And there is a method to all this as well. One of the cornerstones is to promote the banality of evil.
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Re: Million Dollar Baby
If he hasn't already, Spike Lee should write a film FOR Morgan Freeman. Some kind of bio-story... not about anyone necessarily famous, but about one man's journey. A non-Hollywood type screen adaptation of the true story/novel Life Is Good immediately comes to mind. Just the right actor, just the right age. Do it, Spike!
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Re: The Greatness of Spike Lee
well my suggestion - noted elsewhere - is he should do a film adaptation of Life is So Good a story of George Dawson's life, starring Morgan Freeman. Not an idle suggestion... I think it would be massive. I'd like to see Morgan in a more solid narrative role. My boo criticises Spike for not doing a historical drama. Perhaps, Spike is a contemporary filmmaker. Perhaps it's a good idea to open up to the forum to discuss both the type of film people on this forum would LIKE and PAY to go and...
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Re: The Greatness of Spike Lee
"4 Little Girls" is great (and extremely difficult to watch at times). Another recent work by Spike is "A Huey P. Newton Story". This is fantastic! It stars Roger Guenveur Smith (Smiley from "Do the Right Thing") in a one man show. You can get info and purchase the DVD at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000EMYBQ/qid=1137806...07846&s=dvd&v=glance Editorial Reviews Product Description: A Huey P. Newton Story is an intimate portrait of Huey P. Newton, the late co-founder of the...
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Re: Black Unity: Moving Beyond The RHETORIC
NOW THIS IS KEY RIGHT HERE. I'm glad that you posted this, Nmag. Now these are things which harm Black Unity in America more than anything else (I would also add those who view quick monetary gain through illegal activity as "acceptable" to the dis-unity list). For Black Unity to be achieved, we also need more communal ethic with Black Businesses. Many Black Businesses operate just like White Businesses and just do business with whoever the highest bidder is (so in the end, it doesn't help...
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Re: Cathy Freeman goes bush...
I found this story about the making of the series. Freeman and Mailman go bush Issue 95 By Erin McWhirter, TV Writer NATIONAL, Jan 19, 2005: It takes a lot to make Olympic gold medallist Catherine Freeman cry. Throughout her life the sports star has been through the devastation of losing big races and other personal dramas, but she rarely cries. However, a recent road trip with actress and pal Deborah Mailman changed all that. In an instant, the city slickers who spent seven weeks travelling...
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Re: PBS: African American Lives
PBS TO OFFER SPECIAL PROGRAMMING FOR BLACK HISTORY MONTH February 1 – February 28, 2006 Alexandria, VA - January 25, 2006 - From history to culture to drama to independent film, PBS features year-round programming both created by and about African Americans. In honor of Black History Month, PBS will broadcast a variety of new and encore presentations that celebrate the rich history of African Americans. The centerpiece for this month of special programs is a four-hour series by Henry Louis...
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Re: Good night, and Good Luck
Im going to go see this movie today. I would think Clooney made the film to comment about what is going on now with the "war on terrorism" and the Bush administration, because of his past political statements. Any one who has seen this film feel that is what he is doing? If so how does it affect the film as a whole?
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Re: Good night, and Good Luck
Look forward to hearing your review work4rymes Yes the film is an obvious parallel to what is happening today, but it is set firmly and convincingly in the 1950's. Rather than 'hitting everyone over the head' with his message, Clooney chooses to tell his story via the newsteam at CBS and in particular on air broadcaster Edward Murrow. I think the film was made more for those of us who weren't around in the McCarthy era, to prompt discussion and further reading. I don't think there was time...
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Re: Good night, and Good Luck
I must mention the music - again. I think it's divine . "Dianne Reeves's cool contralto, fronted by a quicksilver combo featuring saxophonist Matt Catingub and pianist Peter Martin, provides the flowing jazz soundtrack to George Clooney's 1950s, film." .
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Re: A film suggesting African Americans' embracing slavery - Manderlay
Nayo, have you seen any of von Trier's previous films? "Breaking Waves", "Dancer In The Dark", but especially "Dogville"? They're ALL - in different ways - very troubling. I really enjoyed Dogville. No I haven't heard about the new film but I'd love to see it now that I have.
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Re: A film suggesting African Americans' embracing slavery - Manderlay
Yes, I have seen Dogville, Nicole Kidman was very good in this. Von triers attempt to twist the hegelian 'slave-master; dynamic is weirdly entertaining. His use of 'rape' as the methodology for the transformation of an independent consciousness, into a(n) dependent/interdependent consciousness is, different, But is'nt that what happened to the African, the rape of one people, powerfully and completely by another?
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Re: Teacher suspended for ten days, after calling student Nigga!
Okay, let's see you do some street-corner comedy doing the same thing. But, as I have to tell people coming from lame angles like yours pretty often... you SELF-FUCKED (i.e. CONTRADICTED yourself). Here you are betraying what you said before in order for your CIRCULAR REASONING to work. You said: Put simply... whatever the two parties involved in conversation perceive the meaning of a word to be, that's what the word means in that conversation. To which I countered: Obviously, the meaning...
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Re: A MUST SEE MOVIE
This looks really interesting. What's the story, are they looking for a distributor? I hope it makes it to Australia. Is the whole film sub-titled? I've started learning Portugese - but not enough to have understood any of the film trailer, lol. It looks pretty interesting though, and the music sounds great! I've seen Fernando Meirelles' City of God and his other film The Constant Gardener . Each were very different styles. .
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Re: Conservatism and African America
Funny how you wouldn't answer the very question that I put forth with regard to left-wing progressivism in our community AMONG BLACK PEOPLE. Here is my shot: The Black community has traditionally been bound by CULTURAL PRECEDENT. For the longest you had a mother and grandmother who warned against "Shacking" and who could read the character of a "date" that you brought home the very first time they met them. Economically, prior to our forefathers moving North we worked the land. There was a...
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Re: Heather Headley or India Arie?
India.Arie. However,'He Is', is awesome! I first heard it in the film, 'Breaking All The Rules'. The movie was goofie, ,but love that song. However, India.Arie, is special to me.
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Re: Terrence Howard's "Pimp or Be Pimped" Moment
He took the role in the film..... It shows that black actors should be careful in choosing the roles that they accept.
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Re: Terrence Howard's "Pimp or Be Pimped" Moment
What??? Just because Jamie Foxx played Ray Charles and won doesn't mean... I'm glad Terrence didn't do it either. He's under no obligation to do so. That's like asking Richard Roundtree to sing the "Theme from 'Shaft'".
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Re: Terrence Howard's "Pimp or Be Pimped" Moment
How many times did Jamie Foxx sing "Georgia" outside of the film role he played?? I'm not saying he should sing the song, I'm saying if you play the role of a pimp, you can expect BS like that to come your way. And frankly I'm tired of roles like this being nominated as outstanding by the Academy. I recall Denzel, after many playing outstanding roles, getting an Oscar for "Training Day" where he plays a crooked cop who commits all sorts of crimes. I'll just say we'll agree to disagree on...
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Re: Terrence Howard's "Pimp or Be Pimped" Moment
It was a role after all ... I think he played it well... it was very nuanced... But he's not obligated to continue this role at the Oscars... The movie was so good that there is a danger it will contribute to normalizing the pimp "lifestyle" (i.e., making it appear acceptable)... So I think the decision not to perform this song at the Oscars is a way to say "No ... it was enough to play this role in a movie - as art - but I'm not going to live it beyond the screen or promote the idea that...
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Re: Terrence Howard's "Pimp or Be Pimped" Moment
I personally don't believe it's the roles themselves that win awards. Denzel had many stunning preformances, but Training Day was definately one of his best, IMO, because he absolutely nailed it. It also has to do with how broad an audience the film reaches. Denzel's preformance in Malcolm X was also one of his best, but how many people saw it outside of the Black community?
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Re: Tsotsi
So now it's a film as well...Cool! You might be interested in this review of the Tsotsi , the book written by Anthol Fugard , I read 2 days ago. I don't think reading this appraisal of the book story line will necessarily ruin the film by 'spelling it out' - in fact I think it makes it even more spell-binding. Review by Malcolm Knox, the Herald's literary editor. Tsotsi South African Athol Fugard, now 73, has always regarded himself as a dramatist rather than a novelist and it was due to his...
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Re: One Man Battling the Democratic Party
http://adeebafolami.com/archives/2006/perryman2.html
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Re: 16 Blocks
I haven't seen much of Mosh Def the actor, only in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy which bombed in America - he was a good choice for the role. I'll add 16 Blocks to my list - I don't usually bother seeing any film with Bruce Willis in it.
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Re: Ogou's Iron or Jesus' Irony
Melesi, Perhaps the method that the Pentecostal preacher was using communicated a message that HE did not understand.... The method - the style of the black preacher - being a gift of the ancestors that we've retained but whose purpose - for Divine communication - * we * fail to understand because of our cultural alienation from Africa... I'm reminded of the film The Gods Must Be Crazy - where the cultures are now reversed: we're the 'primitives' making sounds we do not understand... Message...
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Re: Ogou's Iron or Jesus' Irony
HB, That is exactly the authors point. Western culture tends to be logocentric, but that is not universal. That is just one dimension of communication and transmission of information. As I said, I came across this article some time ago in my research. One of the things that people who study religion are doing more of are analysing not just words (doctrine, dogma, theology) but practice, space, and the body. Thus, while the preacher was saying one thing, his body (voice, movement, etc)...
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Re: What About Amistad?
A damn wretching film: the slave-ship scene was harrowing along the with legal runarounds they had to go through to obtain release.
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Re: What About Amistad?
I hadn't heard of this film before so I went and hired it DVD. Here are my thoughts on the story telling and its impact. I found it a very compelling and well-crafted film and insight into the living, breathing hell of human captives and their being seen in terms of 'cargo' with disputed 'ownership'. It reminds me of one of the central ideas of Jarrod Diamond's 'Guns, Germs and Steel' - where would the whites have been without their guns? I don't think anyone - white or black - can fully...
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Re: What About Amistad?
The final scene when John Adams addresses the Supreme Court.---Black Viking The academy award for that sequence? I didn't see the caliber of performance there. I think Hopkins' nomination was a deference gesture to the significance of the movie. He was the only actor nominated. I don't think his was the best performance in the film. In supporting roles: I thought Hounsu's was better. I thought Freeman's was comparable, but no 'big scene'. PEACE Jim Chester
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Re: What About Amistad?
That's a very good point, Art. I've often wondered what would have become of America if not for the slaves. I'm leaning toward the idea that the Native Americans would have eventually over ran them, had they not had the endless resources cultivated by slavery. There is a note about this on the inside of the DVD flyer. It reads... "Part of what the African cast would be dealing with was reenacting the Middle Passage, the torturous journey from Africa, when chained Africans endured weeks and...
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Re: What About Amistad?
Clearly, the outstanding supporting performance in this film was delivered by Djimon Hounsou. In continuing to consider this film, it becomes apparent to me that American institutions do not know how to recognize artistry in people who are not European. They often see artistic performance as savant behavior. Alternatively, they cannot recognize acting by non-European as acting; rather it is 'just who they are'. Both emphatically true for actors of African ancestry. PEACE Jim Chester
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Re: What About Amistad?
I'm with you JWC. A powerful, compelling, engaging performance. let's start a fan club?
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Re: Octavia Butler: An Appreciation
"In the novel Kindred, we find a similarly conflicted character whose concerns are less alien: A time-traveling black writer from the 1970s must ensure her existence by encouraging her female ancestor, a slave in the antebellum South, to bear the child of her white master." Octavia Butler, was 'the truth' I tell ya. I loved/love her writing. I could'nt believe it when I first discovered 'Kindred'. Than 'Wild Seed' and 'Anyanwu'!!!! 'Doro. A truly frightening, yet strangely literary 'sexy'...
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Re: African American Suicide
Texas Star and LYNN , my brother killed himself March 28, 2000. It always feels like just yesterday. I've been through the lygin about the cause of death and avoiding the topic and all that. I had a similar experience with the movie "The Sixth Sense." Shortly into the movie a man shoots himself in the head (which is how my brother died). I never made it past that point in the film. I was in college when it happened and when I returned to school I was in a support group led by a chaplain. The...
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Re: Ain't Just Whistling Dixie
Firt of all... I've got to see this film! IMO, that extrapolation doesn't go deep enough. That's why it's confusing. It wasn't agriculture vs. industiral. It was about money. Slavery was causing economic porblems for the North, and at the same time they weren't making much money off of it. The South, on the other hand, was totally dependant. For them, it was like choosing between being a multi-millionaire and being homeless. There really was no middle ground. It was about money. Great book!
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Re: Uncle Tom's Cabin
Good one. I found this really bad film version of 'Uncle Tom's cabin; and watched it through it's entirety, and we discovered that it was in fact 'sambo' who was the jerk. I'm also reading 'Slavery Defended', by McKitrick (1963) which presents many of the 'top minds' during slavery who vociferously defended African inferiority and the 'need' and good of slavery. :websource:http://www.ysursa.com/history/Reference%20pages/civil%20war/proslavery_defense.htm Topic: The Proslavery Defense > Q:...
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Re: Jack and Jill of America, Inc.
Virtue, You are so right, we don't discuss the hurtful things we have done to ourselves. We are quick to point out what the white man has done to us but we very seldom discuss what we do to ourselves. I am ashamed to say that I have heard of the paper bag test. Not only with the J&J but with other black organizations. For example my church, I heard it said by someone I respect that a presbyterian is a baptist that has made it. In addition, my presbyterian church has a history of only...
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Re: Black Like GOP
You can call it tripe if want to....but, what I gave you is documented historical facts-And like I said it doesn't matter to me whether you believe it or not....you can get the facts right on your computer-just google it! Here is something else written by another Black man: TRUTH ABOUT THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY From Toogood Reports The Long, Sad, Violent History of Democrats' Racial Hatred for Blacks BY: Perry Drake May 2003 It has always seemed unnatural and unwise to me whenever I hear someone...
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Re: Tsotsi
Tsotsi finally opened here and I went to see it this evening. A really moving film - beautiful and heart-melting. And a testiment to how vital love is... and how desperate - and destitute a man is without it. No dry eyes for me. Highly recommended - don't miss it. .
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Re: Something in my eye!
Normally, the eye automatically flushes it out via producing more tears, rapid blinking, or it may even get pushed out with the sleep when you rub your eyes in the morning. Your best bet if you have something suck in your eyes is to have a small canister (size of those old 35mm film canisters) and fill it with water, then put ot right to your eye and flush the eye until the object dislodges. Failing that, a public water fountain ain't too bad, if the stream reaches high enough. Another...
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Re: Who is the BEST African American Actor?
Are you penalizing the actor for what happens to his character and role in the film?
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Re: Who is the BEST African American Actor?
Yes; the pattern is annoying. If Halle Berry does any more movies where she is asking some [white] man to make her 'feel good', 'no more soup for her lol!