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WHOSE STREETS? — Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis Interview

August 10, 2017 By Leave a Comment

WHOSE STREETS? — Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis Interview

When I spoke with Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis on April 14, 2017, a certain soft drink commercial featuring a certain member of a family famous for being famous had just been pulled for being offensive.  It’s emblematic of the culture that WHOSE STREETS?, their searing documentary about the aftermath of the Michael Brown shooting… Read More »

Tagged With: barber shop, chemical warfare, Civil Rights Movement, Damon Davis, documentary, education, fake news, Ferguson, Martin Luther King, Michael Brown, modern blackface, Muhammed Ali, police militarization, race relations, Sabaah Folayan, Shooting

I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO — Raoul Peck Interview

December 9, 2016 By Leave a Comment

I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO — Raoul Peck Interview

As we were settling down to talk, Raoul Peck asked me about the name of my web site, KillerMovieReviews.com. When I told him it was a nod to the fact that I take no prisoners when it comes to bad movies, he laughed and said that was exactly the resolve with which he went into… Read More »

Tagged With: Black Panthers, Civil Rights Movement, Ferguson, Gloria Karefa-Smart, James Baldwin, John Wayne, Jr., Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Medger Evers, NAACP, race relations, racism, Remember This House

HOLLYWOOD BEFORE THE CODE: SEX! CRIME! HORROR! with Elliot Lavine, Tourguide

February 23, 2016 By Leave a Comment

HOLLYWOOD BEFORE THE CODE: SEX! CRIME! HORROR! with Elliot Lavine, Tourguide

If you had to sum up what it’s like to talk with Elliot Lavine, cinema programmer extraordinaire, scholar of film history and engaging raconteur, it might be the moment when an emergency vehicle went by the room where I was interviewing him on February 17, 2106. While ruminating on studio policies about film restoration, he… Read More »

Tagged With: African-American, Al Capone, Barbara Stanwyck, Cecil B. DeMille, censorship, cinema history, cultural upheaval, DOWNSTAIRS, economic upheaval, Edward G. Robinson, film history, FREAKS, gambling addiction, GONE WITH THE WIND, Great Depression, Greta Garbo, Howard Hawks, Howard Hughes, Irving Pichel, Joan Blondell, John Gilbert, Lee Garmes, licentiousness, Louis B. Meyer, miscegenation, Paul Muni, pre-code Hollywood, race relations, SAFE IN HELL, SCARFACE, Sessue Hayakawa, sex addiction, Tallulah Bankhead, THE BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN, THE CHEAT, THREE ON A MATCH, Todd Browning, TWO SECONDS, WILD BOYS OF THE ROAD, WIlliam Wellman

DOPE is Genius

July 3, 2015 By 2 Comments

DOPE is Genius

DOPE is a provocative blend of gritty realism, gentle compassion, and piercing social satire that is so unlike anything that has come before that its maker, Rick Famuyima, may have just invented a new cinematic sub-genre in the spirit, and brilliance, of the Coen Brothers’ FARGO.  Boldly venturing into issues of identity, class, gender, sexuality,… Read More »

Tagged With: cinema, class issues, DOPE, film, geek culture, gender issue, hip-hop, movie, narrative, race relations, Rick Famuyima, social satire, The Bottoms

A Choppy CHAPPIE

March 6, 2015 By Leave a Comment

A Choppy CHAPPIE

CHAPPIE is a cross between Pinicchio and ROBOCOP with a dash of DISTRICT 9.  That last is unsurprising because CHAPPIE is the brainchild of Neill Blomkamp, and many of the elements at work in that earlier film about the meaning of humanity are at work in this one. The battleground is still South Africa, Blomkamp’s… Read More »

Tagged With: class system, corporate politics, engineering, fantasy, gangsters, race relations, robots, science fiction, social commentary, South Africa

Going Beyond BLACK OR WHITE

January 30, 2015 By Leave a Comment

Going Beyond BLACK OR WHITE

Mike Binder has a particular genius for showing people brimming with good intentions, but flawed, stumbling through life without the operating instructions that would help them negotiate the bumps along the way. He has the gift of showing humor and pathos as elements that are not so much disparate, as entwined, manifesting at oddest moments… Read More »

Tagged With: African-Amerian, Andre Holland, Anthony Mackie, based on a true story, biracial, cinema, courtroom, custody battle, drug addiction, film, Gillian Jacobs, Keving Costner, lawyers, Mike Binder, movie narrative, Octavia Spencer, Paula Newsome, race relations

DEAR WHITE PEOPLE says Justin Simien

January 15, 2015 By Leave a Comment

DEAR WHITE PEOPLE says Justin Simien

To say that talking with Justin Simien was a master’s class in film and culture theory is understating it.  Simien believes that film is the culmination of everything we do as a culture. This is why he invoked Spike Lee, Paddy Chayefsky, George Orwell, and Moliere in our conversation about DEAR WHITE PEOPLE, his bracing look… Read More »

Tagged With: Brandon P. Bell, cinema, college, comedy, Dennis Haysbert, film, George Orwell, Justin Simien, Kyle Gallner, LGBT, Moliere, movie, Paddy Chayefsky, race relations, satire, Spike Lee, Tessa Thompson, Teyonah Parris, Tyler James Williams

TSOTSI

October 21, 2014 By Leave a Comment

TSOTSI

With TSOTSI, Gavin Hood has taken the liberty of updating the timeframe of South African writer Athol Fugard’s only novel. In doing so, the politics of apartheid that spurred the story in the book has given way to the tragedy of AIDS. Changing the circumstances of its title character’s orphaning, though, doesn’t affect the nature of… Read More »

Tagged With: Academy Award Winner, Africa, African Cinema, Athol Fugard, Best Foreign Film, cinema, director, drama, Gavin Hood, Johannesburg, lawyer, movie drama, narrative, Oscar-winner, race relations, screenwriter, South Africa, TSOTSI

TALK TO ME

October 21, 2014 By Leave a Comment

TALK TO ME

“Wake up, God damn it!” is how TALK TO ME begins and that’s exactly what is going to happen to its lead characters, the people in their orbit, and the entire city of Washington D.C. The story may be formulaic, albeit based on actual events, but stars Don Cheadle and Chiwetel Ejiofor take charge of… Read More »

Tagged With: 1960s, African-American, based on a true story, Chiwitel Ejiofor, Don Cheadle, drama, history, Kasi Lemmons, keeping it real, music budget, narrative, Petey Green, protest, race relations, revolution, talk radio, Washington D.C.

THE HELP

October 21, 2014 By Leave a Comment

THE HELP, based on the novel of the same name by Kathryn Stockett, gently but firmly peels away they dry rot of racism that festered beneath the gracious, etiquette obsessed façade of southern gentility before the civil rights movement. What is remarkable, and a remarkably difficult line to walk, is that it does so while… Read More »

Tagged With: Allison Janney, books to film, Bryce Dallas Howard, Cicely Tyson., director, domestic servants, Emma Stone, Jackson, Jessica Chastain, Jim Crow, Kathryn Stockett, Mary Steenburgen, Mississippi, Octavia Spencer, race relations, racial discrimination, racial prejudice, Sissy Spacek, Tate Taylor, THE HELP, Viola Davis, writer

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