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Sundance Pick: 2 Days In New York

Latoya Peterson — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:00:20 +0000

“Madcap comedy” is the only phrase that really describes the absolute ridiculousness that is Julie Delpy’s 2 Days In New York. There really isn’t any other term that fits–the experience is akin to watching a circus unfold in your living room, which I assume is the point. Julie Delpy is Marion, a deeply eccentric Parisian-born artist based in New York who is trying to juggle the demands of a new and blended family with her art. When her French family is flying in to support her solo exhibition, her tranquil relationship with her radio host blipster husband Mingus (Chris Rock) is put to the test. Over 48 hours, the entire household is thrown into chaos.

A few things that happen in the film: a violation of sexual boundaries involving an electric toothbrush, wanton keying of limousines, smelly situations at customs, a French nudist captivates a bored American doctor, the children decide they want to be a dead princess and a dead bunny for Halloween, stoned shenanigans in the co-op elevator, and Marion sells her soul, which results in a minor brawl.

And did I mention a cardboard cutout of Barack Obama is a major character?

Delpy, who wrote and directed the film, makes the most out of the short screentime cramming in as much commentary on family life and the art world as she possibly can. A follow-up to 2 Days in Paris, Delpy balances the pace of her city subjects with the quiet calamity of modern life. The film spins so fast that in the middle of the madness, it takes more than half of the movie before I realize 2 Days in New York has managed to pull off an amazing depiction on an interracial relationship. Race is not the most important thing between Marion and Mingus, and it certainly isn’t their primary conflict throughout the film. Instead, where race intersects with their lives is subtle.

If race is blatantly brought up as part of the plot, it is often played for cringe-inducing laughs. Manu, Marion’s former flame who is currently dating her sister Rose, is a one-stop shop for racial ignorance posing as innocence. He tries to curry favor with Mingus’ sister Elizabeth (Malinda Williams) by saying she looks “just like Beyonce, only sexier.” Chagrined at finding out that Mingus doesn’t smoke weed, he off-handley remarks that Marion “found the only black guy in New York that doesn’t smoke.” And when Mingus’ friend from the Obama Administration comes to town, Mingus is mortified when Manu starts randomly calling him “Kumar.” (This friend was not played by Kal Penn.) Luckily, after a day or so, Manu is deported for lighting up in front of a police station.

2 Days in New York is a fun romp, with a strange, but satisfying ending that proves that love (mostly) conquers all.

Sundance Pick: An Oversimplification of Her Beauty

Latoya Peterson — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:00:06 +0000

An Oversimplification of Her Beauty • Teaser from Terence Nance • Terence Etc. on Vimeo.

An Oversimplification of Her Beauty defies categorization, in all the best ways possible.

The first thing to know is that the film isn’t a linear story. It’s a complex and complicated exploration of modern love, an intriguing dance between two characters circling the possibility of a relationship, born out of mutual infatuation. Avant-guarde storytelling in the key of noir, Oversimplification blends animation, live action, and narration to tell the tale of Terence falling in love with Namik. The characters are real people, based on their own lives. Nance earned his spot in the New Frontier section of Sundance – in addition to the innovative, movie-within-a-movie style of storytelling, animation also plays a key role. Exploring his inner emotions through stop-motion figure dolls and beautifully rendered scenes, Nance essentially uses this film as therapy, working out the complicated tangle of his messy romantic life.

Refreshingly, black women are Nance’s muses. Often in cinematic depictions of black love, the relationship is construed as adversarial. Here, as Nance documents the many loves that fit his archetype of “brown, maternal, well read, well traveled,” black women take center stage, his love for each of them palpable through the screen.

But is what he feels for them really love? Nance believes so, and spends most of the film trying to articulate what he loves about Namik, and how his past relationship history lead him to this point of nearly breathless anticipation. The film is ripe with themes for exploration but I will have to leave most of those paths untouched. Nance has created a work so complex, it is almost like recorded performance art. Thus, I agree with Tambay – it needs to be experienced. Hopefully, it finds a distributor because it deserves to be seen and experienced by as many people as possible. Nance’s story is both familiar and strange, and tends to provoke a lot of self-reflection in the audience. Who are we, when we are in love? I’m still mulling over my own answer.

Sundance Pick: Filly Brown

Latoya Peterson — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:00:07 +0000

Walking in, I thought I had Filly Brown pegged. The trailer gave me the impression it was like every other hip-hop movie I’d ever seen:

Young kid from the hood trying to make good? Check.
Prerequisite positive rap song that feels like it was pulled from Ghostwriter? Check.
Street pressures that are easily overcome? Check.
Mandatory plot for women, involving sexing up your image to get signed to the majors? Check.

But hey, I had just gone through three really depressing movies about the fall out of the drug war. I needed something to lift my spirits, and I will shamelessly admit that I enjoyed Brown Sugar. On the real, Filly Brown could have been a Lifetime produced version of the Somaya Reece story, and I still would have watched it!

Luckily, I was wrong.

Okay, on second thought, I wasn’t that wrong. Two and a half of the four I listed above were in the movie. But the team behind Filly Brown managed to add enough new elements to make the standard tropes feel fresh.

Maria Jose “Majo” Tonorio (Gina Rodriguez) is about her business. We meet her in the an LA studio, hungry and ready to get on the mic. Her moniker is “Filly Brown” and her onstage persona is aggressive. Her clothes are made for maximum comfort and street style, and she wasn’t taking any kind of mess. She meets a clownish (yet popular) rapper before one of her sets, and when he grabs her ass, she punches him in the face. (This film is not for pacifists–Majo is quick with her hands, and there is a lot of violence.) Raw and ready, she catches the attention of DJ Santa (Braxton Millz) who unites with her to create a new kind of sound. He believes in her talent, but Majo is under a lot of pressure. Not only is she helping to raise her boy-crazy younger sister and looking after her overworked father, her mother is in jail on drug charges. After being absent for a few years, her mother Maria (Jenn Rivera) reaches out to pressure Majo to finding the money to retry the case.

Her father and uncle will not help her with the money, wary of Maria’s past history, so Majo takes matters into her own hands, leaving the comfort of her close-knit circle and doing whatever it takes to get to the top.

The film flows in two directions–the first, more predictable track is Majo’s journey through hip-hop stardom. The second plot, however, is a bit more compelling. Majo is actually a generation removed from the streets–her father Jose (Lou Diamond Phillips) and her uncle used to live fast and hard, but gave up that life as they grew older. Now as a adults, they’ve struggled to carve out a legal existence. Her father owns a landscaping company with two of his friends from the streets, but they risk losing work when his largest contract believes that the burly, tattooed workers present an undesirable image to her clients. In addition to financial pressures, Jose doesn’t want to tell Majo the extent of her mother’s drug abuse, leading the family lawyer (Edward James Olmos) to threaten to reveal all the family secrets.

The scenes between Majo and her mother at the prison are beautifully acted and heartbreaking–as Majo begins to piece together the web of lies her mother told to further her habit in prison, she becomes angry and resentful. However, her final freestyle to her mother trapped behind the prison glass wrung tears from most of the audience.

Overall, Filly Brown was a hip hop movie with tons of heart and style. It passes the Bechdel test with flying colors, and while it may feel a bit predictable in some parts, Majo is a character worth cheering for.

Sundance Pick: Celeste and Jesse Forever

Latoya Peterson — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:00:50 +0000

Writing a good romantic comedy is tough.

Writing a good divorce comedy is tougher.

So the fact that Rashida Jones nailed both her performance and her part of the screenplay entire movie is something very special.

Celeste and Jesse Forever follows a long-term couple in the midst of a breakup. Having been best friends for the past twenty years, Celeste (Rashida Jones) and Jesse (Andy Samberg) find themselves divorcing–in spite of their continued chemistry. Celeste, a trends analyst and pop-culture commentator, is the epitome of a responsible business woman. Jesse is an unemployed artist, who spends more time scheming on surfing than actively planning out his life. They bond through some strange shared loves (like masturbating lip glosses, baby corn, and other things that look like tiny penises) but Celeste initiates the divorce since Jesse has failed to grow up.

However, as the proceedings continue, and they actually start experiencing life outside of their bond, both Celeste and Jesse begin to question their initial perceptions of their marriage. The conversations between Jesse and Celeste flow easily, in that goofy style of intimate speech that’s really hard to capture on film. The film shines when it uses Celeste’s job as an endless source of pop culture commentary, from her book Shitgeist to working with manufactured pop princess Riley Banks. There’s even a cameo from internet darling Sarah Haskins. The film is smart and funny – unfortunately, like most comedies with a relationship at the core, it fails the Bechdel Test.

The Hollywood Reporter interviewed Jones about the writing process:

THR: How much is the film autobiographical for the two of you?

Jones: It’s definitely a pastiche for both of us. We talk all the time about relationships and love and what it means and how it changes — what it means to grow up and how that affects the way you love people. We’re kind of obsessed with it! The film is for sure emblematic of a couple relationships I’ve had; some of them romantic and some of them friendships. It definitely reflects my relationship with Will and other guy friends I’ve had from the time I was 15. Definitely a mashup all around.
THR: Relationships that don’t work out offer up a lot of great material to work with as a writer, don’t they?
Jones: Definitely! There’s no better way to process pain than to write. I’ve not had that experience with acting. I mean, you can momentarily get these glimpses of real pain, but it’s nice to really, really process it and get into it and figure out why it hurts so bad; be really honest about it without having it be you talking to the person you want to talk to.

Honesty is a hallmark of the film–while lots of scenes (and Elijah Wood’s entire character) are pushed over the top for comedic effect, the characters get emotionally naked as the divorce proceedings continue. Samberg does a wonderful job in exploring the vulnerability involved with divorce, but Jones manages to capture the essence of a woman without forcing her into stereotype. Celeste isn’t a bitchy, perpetually single career woman–she has her moments, but they don’t define her. The movie never undermines her character to teach her a lesson, and it doesn’t rely on the Hollywood idea of a happy ending to drive the plot home. It isn’t a coming-of-age film–it’s more about surviving adulthood.

From a Racialicious standpoint, I went into the film with no racial expectations. From the trailer, Jones’ character Celeste is in a majority white world, and that’s basically what you get. However, there are racial references that were puzzling. Celeste attends a Halloween party with a white hefty bag secured around her midsection. When people ask, she explains she’s going as “white trash.” But later, after her date plays something like “Zuleisha” in scrabble, she crows “That’s not a word, that’s like my hootchie cousin’s name!” Make of that what you will, readers.

Ultimately, the movie is enjoyable. It isn’t quite first-date fodder due to the subject explored, but would be fun in most other scenarios. And if you want to see it, you’re in luck–the movie is being distributed by Sony, and will hit theaters in summer 2012.

Sundance Pick: 5 Broken Cameras

Latoya Peterson — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 13:00:20 +0000

Trailer “5 Broken Cameras” from Guy Davidi on Vimeo.

“By healing, you resist oppression. – Emad Burnat”

5 Broken Cameras is a story of living in the shadow of oppression, a moving portrait of vibrant resistance through the unapologetic embrace of life itself. Set in the small Palestinian village of Bil’in, the story and narrative belongs to Emad Burnat, who became the eye of the village and ultimately chronicled over five years of activism. The people of Bil’in found their lands being encroached on by the building of a new settlement, and the wall to protect that settlement. They protest peacefully, marching up to the wall each Friday and thinking of new actions and demonstrations to stop the advancement of the settlement.

During this time, Emad also had a son, Gibreel, which brought his total brood to four. Emad mentions that each of the boys knows a slightly different world. The eldest was born during the Olso Accords which meant that he grew up with more freedom and mobility. Gibreel, on the other hand, mixes his first words of “mommy” and “daddy” with “army,” “cartridge” and “run! run!” If it weren’t for the ever present undercurrent of violence, Emad’s life would almost be seen as idyllic: a loving family; a large, involved village; numerous dances and celebrations are cornerstones of the life they create. Their marches are also full of hope and some humor. At one point, tired of the late night raids on the village, a group of children march up to the wall, chanting “We want to sleep! We want to sleep!” The situation in Bil’in gained international attention, and groups of Israeli, German, and other activists come at various points to show their support and solidarity. However, violence is never far enough away, and the promise of more hangs over Bil’in like a cloud.

The documentary is brutal to watch–at various points in the film, I wished it would end, not because I was bored, but because I wanted to stop watching the endless cycle of violence. Outside of the usual tear-gassing and violent treatment of the protestors, other army actions loomed just as large. At one point in the film, the peace activists discover that Israeli special forces have disguised themselves as Palestinians and began creating chaos at a demonstration before hauling people away to be arrested by their comrades at the top of the hill. Another scene shows one of the most outspoken activists, Daba, being isolated by a group of police officers who then calmly and deliberately shoot him in the leg.

Still, through it all, Emad continues filming, even as his cameras are damaged by human hands, stun grenades, and bullets. He questions his role as an impartial journalist the day his brother is arrested, watching his mother and father throw themselves in front of the Army van to try to prevent him from being taken. His work makes him a target, and he is aware of that. But the most devastating part of the document was watching the impact of the events and the violence on Emad’s children.

Gibreel is a happy, sunny child who grows more and more serious after witnessing many of the events in the village and at large. He witnesses the protests, watches as older boys are seized in the middle of night by the Israeli army, see countless arrests, and kicks around spent catridges as if they are toys. As a baby, Gibreel toddles over to an Israeli soldier and hands him an olive branch with a sweet smile on his face. A couple of years later, Gibreel asks his father why he can’t just kill the soldiers with a knife, after he realizes that one of his dear friends was shot down during a protest. Emad pays careful attention to the children trying to contextualize their lives, asking “How will they be able to bear their anger?” Gibreel’s innocence is lost before he turns five–while it pains Emad to acknowledge this, he also realizes that in order for Gibreel to survive, he will have to be exposed to reality.

“Dreaming can be dangerous,” notes Emad. “The only protection I can offer him is letting him see everything.”

(Note: I interviewed Guy & Emad – that interview will be posted later today.)

Sundance Pick: Mosquita y Mari

Latoya Peterson — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:00:57 +0000

“Though we tremble before uncertain futures/ may we meet illness, death and adversity with strength/ may we dance in the face of our fears.”
― Gloria E. Anzaldúa

Mosquita y Mari is a slow paced exploration of being a teenager peering over the brink of adulthood. Set in a Mexican-American neighborhood in Los Angeles, Mosquita y Mari follows the lives of two very different Chicana teenagers. Yolanda (Fenessa Pineda) is a studious high-achiever, a dutiful daughter from a loving home. Mari (Venecia Troncoso) is rebellious and volatile, with a chip on her shoulder that crowds out most of the world. Circumstances toss them together again and again, and they embark on a deep and intense friendship.

In her press kit, writer/director Aurora Guerrero writes:

The inspiration behind my debut feature-film, Mosquita y Mari, was my own adolescence. Initially, when I decided I wanted to write a feature-length script I kept coming back to a series of complex, same-sex friendships I had while growing up. When looking back, long before I identified as queer, I realized my first love was one of my best friends. It was the type of friendship that was really tender and sweet but also sexually charged. Despite the fact that we had the makings of a beautiful teen romance we never crossed that line. The beginnings of Mosquita y Mari was reflecting back on that time and asking myself the questions, why didn’t we cross that line and what kept us in “our place”? I didn’t grow up in a household where my parents forewarned me that if I turned out to be gay they would disown me. They didn’t wave the Bible in my face saying it was wrong. Instead the message was subtle. It was hidden in the silences around sex and desire; it was implied in society’s expectations, you know, like you only experience those feelings of love and desire with the opposite sex. I think all of us are subject to society’s rules so I think many people can relate to this story of censored friendship. That was the initial inspiration. [...]
This process of self exploration that I embarked on while writing this script led me to position this budding love story within the immigrant world. The core conflict in the story of Mosquita y Mari isn’t a homophobic parent getting in the way of their experience but rather the pressures that come with surviving as an immigrant or coming from a legacy of self-sacrifice for the sake of family and status in society. In the end, what I ended up writing was a coming of age story where both my protagonists find themselves paving a new path for themselves and their families.

And you know it’s serious when the credits include a thank you to Cherríe L. Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa.

The movie is in Spanglish, almost as if Guerrero hung this quote on her wall while she was writing:

“Until I am free to write bilingually and to switch codes without having always to translate, while I still have to speak English or Spanish when I would rather speak Spanglish, and as long as I have to accommodate the English speakers rather than having them accommodate me, my tongue will be illegitimate. I will no longer be made to feel ashamed of existing. I will have my voice: Indian, Spanish, white. I will have my serpent’s tongue – my woman’s voice, my sexual voice, my poet’s voice. I will overcome the tradition of silence.”
― Gloria E. Anzaldúa

Interestingly, much of the scenes in MyM are specifically constructed to rely on a teen’s body language to convey how they are feeling. The film is constructed with care – showing the struggles between the two girls to grow into who they will become. For Yolanda (semi-affectionately termed mosquita by Mari), her relentless quest for good grades was becoming less and less satisfying, yet the world of drinking, getting high, and boys offered by her old friends doesn’t appeal to her. She finds a third way in Mari’s “live in the moment style” and soon finds herself navigating that difficult boundary between a passionate friendship and romantic love.

Mari, on the other hand, already has one foot into the adult world. After her father dies, her mother has problems making ends meet. Mari routinely blows off school to try to raise money for the household. Her mother is caught between wanting Mari to focus on school and to make a better life for herself, but the money Mari provides is too important to go without. Mari, bright but full of rage at her impossible circumstances, finds solace in Yolanda’s simplicity and steadfastness but doesn’t always know how to balance their idyllic relationship with the demands of the real world.

Interweaving themes of family, duty, love, and belonging, MyM succeeds in revealing the inner lives of teenage girls. The most devastating parts of the film revolve around the petty betrayals that anyone who has been through adolescence will remember – the betrayals by others, desperately trying to assert their identities, and the scarring betrayals of the self, knowing you are trying to be someone you are not. While the heavy emphasis on hazy, lingering shots may have some viewers wishing to hit fast forward, Guerrero nails the messy inner lives of teenagers for what they are. And unlike 2005′s Wassup Rockers, MyM places the burden of the story squarely on the teenagers telling the tale. As it should be.

Mosquita y Mari Trailer from Augie Robles on Vimeo.

Attack the Block Proves You Don’t Have to be Epic to Be a Hero

Latoya Peterson — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 17:30:37 +0000

Movie theaters used to hold a special kind of magic.

Lined up with my friends, clutching the occasional purchase of popcorn and a soft drink, or sneaking smuggled in snacks, we would watch in awe and horror as teenagers paraded around on screen, seemingly oblivious to the threat of violence lurking around the corner. When I was about thirteen years old, I sat through the original Scream. The rules of horror movies, as articulated by the character Randy, were clear and concise:

Randy: There are certain RULES that one must abide by in order to successfully survive a horror movie. For instance, number one: you can never have sex.
[crowd boos]
Randy: BIG NO NO! BIG NO NO! Sex equals death, okay? Number two: you can never drink or do drugs.
[crowd cheers and raises their bottles]
Randy: The sin factor! It’s a sin. It’s an extension of number one. And number three: never, ever, ever under any circumstances say, “I’ll be right back.” Because you won’t be back.

But there were some rules that we knew that never were articulated.

Tales from the Hood

I Still Know What You Did Last Summer.

2. Upper middle class white kids are the stars of these things. In general, no matter how big and bad the villain is, they are still hanging out in pastoral campgrounds or tony neighborhoods, waiting for their victims to sun themselves on their cabanas. The only exception I can think of was Candyman who was black and haunted the Cabrini-Green housing projects. And later, came a few other things we need not name. But in general, horror film villains and heroes alike were in the providence of “not us.”

So when Moses and his crew took to the screen, defending their tower block from alien invasion, my inner fourteen year old wanted to jump up and start yelling.

Unfortunately, my 28 year old self knows we don’t do those things at the Museum of Modern Art, even if we really, really, want to.

[Some light spoilers ahead.]

We’ve already posted Emma’s review of Attack the Block (see here) and Kartina’s analysis of the race in the film (see here) so I won’t rehash already covered territory. Instead, we will talk about the interesting racial subtext director Joe Cornish inserted into the film.

I was fortunate enough to catch the film with a special treat: Joe Cornish was there, along with Luke Treadaway, to discuss the film after the screening. If you didn’t play the trailer above, watch for the first title screen, which reads: “The deadliest species in the galaxy” before cutting to a shot of the kids. Cornish created the film specifically as a reaction to other films that showed those people and that environment on a pessimistic way. Cornish grew up near tower blocks, noting that they were erected after London was bombed (commonly referred to as The Blitz) in World War II. This appears to have influenced his perception of events as he reserves no sympathy for the press, who often demonize the people living in the tower blocks.

The opening scene, which establishes Moses (amazingly played by John Boyega) as an anti-hero, shows the crew robbing a young white woman. Cornish said he pulled the scenario straight out of real life: he was mugged by a group of teens. But, he explained, “Instead of being frightened, it fascinated me.” So from the start, Cornish aims to reverse the viewers thinking – to start with that act of robbery, allow all the attendant thoughts, emotions, and stereotypes to creep in, and then peel back the layers to expose the teens humanity.

Delectably low-budget feeling, Cornish pointed out that the film was influenced by older American cult classics like The Warriors, The Outsiders, Gremlins, The Goonies, Over the Edge, Predator, and ET. (“I see it as a complete flip of ET,” Cornish emphasized.)

Cornish continued, explaining “You can watch horror as genre movies or as political movies.” He give a nod to Romero’s Night of the Living Dead for the craftily included racial subtext and reveals one of his own: The idea for the design of the alien forms was to take what the press wrote about lower-class kids – feral, dark, unthinking – and physically embody it as the monsters they fight.

It was a joy to listen to Cornish – he explained everything from the awesome soundtrack (by one of my favorite groups, Basement Jaxx, and with overall director by Steven Price, who last scored Scott Pilgrim) to the symbolism behind the names. In response to an audience question, Cornish explains Moses and the theme of redemption. “Subtle, wasn’t it,” he starts, also noting that he liked the extra flourish of the idea of the naming, and thinking of the hopes that the parent had for the child they would name after such a strong religious figure. “It might be a bit heavy with the biblical stuff, but fuck it, I liked it,” he concludes.

He also dropped another Easter egg, explaining that many times, cost plays a major role in what is shown in the film. He indicated he had “an amazing, Errol Flynn style fight with Moses climbing up the balcony and fighting the aliens,” but it was too costly. He notes that sometimes, though, innovation comes from brokeness, pointing to George Lucas’ iconic Death Star as something amazing that resulted from a budget issue.

At one point, I wanted to ask a question – after being so amazingly frank on issues of race and stereotypes, how was Cornish going from a project like Attack the Block to a reboot of Tintin? After I identify myself, Cornish reveals he’s actually read some of our commentary (!) and explains that Tintin is a complex character. He notes Tintin was written from 1929 to the 1980s. Hergé later regretted some of what he wrote; Cornish points out the most controversial title (Tintin in the Congo) is still popular in Africa. He also explains that Tintin as a character has evolved; Tintin is a pacifist by the final book, so evolution is built into the text. The movie is based on the 9th book.

As I departed, a reader named Keisha caught up to me in the hallway. We talked a bit about the film and she asked a question that I had wished I’d thought of – since the film was well-received in the UK, did the riots change that perception? It’s a question we will have to find the answer to, perhaps another time. Cornish has hinted at a possible sequel (with ideas supplied by Boyega), but the jury is still out.

Since we’ve all become huge fans of the film on Racialicious, some of the folks involved in the promotion have offered us a giveaway – one lucky reader will win a free DVD copy of the film, and one runner up will win the theatrical poster. To win, give us your best idea for what should happen in the sequel OR what they should do (or should not do) with an American remake. 300 words max, in the comments to this post, winner selected Friday. If you are not selected, don’t worry – Attack the Block is out on DVD today!

The Warrior’s Way Finally Gives the Asian Guy the Girl

Latoya Peterson — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 17:00:37 +0000

by Latoya Peterson

Randomly watching TV, I was shocked to see this ad for The Warrior’s Way:

Wait a minute – that was an Asian male lead. Who has a love interest. That he kisses. And she’s white!

There are a couple different reasons why this is remarkable.

One, in many American made films, the Asian guy is supposed to be the sidekick – even if they happen to be in the lead role. Therefore, no need for a love interest, much less one that reciprocates his feelings.

Two, we have an interracial couple kissing on screen in the promotional marketing material . This should not be a rare sight in 2010. Yet, here we are.

Not sure how I feel about the East meets West plot construction – this could be a really awesome, somewhat subversive way to acknowledge that there were more people in the American West than just outlaw settlers. Or it could play right into the stranger from a far away land cliche. The flying ninjas invasion scene makes me lean toward the latter, unfortunately.

REEL INJUN: Film about portrayals of American Indians in movies

Guest Contributor — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 15:00:56 +0000

by Guest Contributor Debbie Reese, originally published at American Indians in Children’s Literature

There’s been a lot of buzz amongst friends and colleagues about the film Reel Injun. The title itself says a lot. “Reel” —a reel of film—and “Injun”—a derogatory word for Indian—but the title also points to what is missing from film and from children’s and young adult literature: real Indians.

Saying the phrase, “real Indians”, makes me cringe. First, it is the year 2010, and we—people who are American Indian—encounter people who think we were all wiped out by enemy tribes, disease, or war. Or, people who think that in order to be “real Indians” we have to live our lives the same ways our ancestors did. Course, they don’t expect their own identities and lives to look like those of their own ancestors… In principle, we are a lot like anyone else. We have ways of thinking about the world and ways of being in that world (spiritually and materially) that were–and are—handed down from one generation to the next. Though we wear jeans and athletic shoes (or business suits and dress shoes), we also maintain clothing we sometimes wear for spiritual and religious purposes. Just like any cultural group, anywhere.

Second reason “real Indians” makes me cringe is the word “Indians”. We use it. In fact, I use it in the title of this blog. But I know it references all the indigenous nations and tribes and bands and communities and pueblos in the United States, all with unique ways of doing things.

That said, I want to talk more specifically about the trailer.

Watch Clint Eastwood say he wanted real Indians but couldn’t find one. I wonder where he looked?

Watch Cheyenne/Arapaho filmmaker Chris Eyre say it is funny to watch white people playing Native roles. The trailer shows a series of them: Anthony Quinn, Burt Lancaster, Charles Bronson, Daniel Day Lewis, Chuck Connors, Burt Reynolds, Boris Karloff, Sylvester Stallone, and, William Shatner… All of them playing tough, savage, or tragic Indians. Watching them do it, as someone who is Native, can be hilarious, but only if you know more about who we are.

Filmmaker Jim Marmusch Jarmusch notes that John Wayne signals a moral standard of what it means to be American. His remark is followed by a clip from one of John Wayne’s movies, where he is shown kicking someone. That clip may be from The Searchers, a film hailed by many as a critique of racism.

Then there’s a critique of Dances With Wolves….

Though I’ve not had the opportunity to see the film, I love what I see in the trailer, and I think anyone who works with children’s literature ought to see it! I think it holds great promise for helping critique portrayals of American Indians in the books we give to children.

Visit the website for Reel Injun and find out when and where you can see it.

9500 Liberty Opens This Friday In the Bay Area

Guest Contributor — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 16:00:43 +0000

by Guest Contributor Angry Asian Man, originally published at Angry Asian Man

For all my friends in the Bay Area, don’t miss the theatrical premiere of Eric Byler and Annabel Park’s 9500 Liberty, a documentary on how Prince William County, Virginia became ground zero in America’s explosive battle over immigration policy. Here’s the synopsis:

Prince William County, Virginia becomes ground zero in America’s explosive battle over immigration policy when elected officials adopt a law requiring police officers to question anyone they have “probable cause” to suspect is an undocumented immigrant.
9500 Liberty reveals the startling vulnerability of a local government, targeted by national anti-immigration networks using the Internet to frighten and intimidate lawmakers and citizens. Alarmed by a climate of fear and racial division, residents form a resistance using YouTube videos and virtual townhalls, setting up a real-life showdown in the seat of county government.
The devastating social and economic impact of the “Immigration Resolution” is felt in the lives of real people in homes and in local businesses. But the ferocious fight to adopt and then reverse this policy unfolds inside government chambers, on the streets, and on the Internet. 9500 Liberty provides a front row seat to all three battlegrounds.

Here’s the trailer:

It’s a powerful film, telling a very real story about one community’s culture war over immigration — a struggle more relevant than ever with what’s happening now in Arizona. Here’s a scene from the film:

The film opens this Friday, June 11 at Rialto Cinemas Elmwood and Landmark Lumiere in San Francisco. Some details:

“9500 LIBERTY” Bay Area Theatrial Premiere
Berkeley, CA
Starts Friday, June 11
Rialto Cinemas Elmwood
Daily Showtimes TBA
2966 College Avenue at Ashby
Berkeley, CA 94705
(707) 539-9771
Co-director Eric Byler in person at Friday, June 11 evening shows.
Co-director Annabel Park in person at Saturday, June 12 evening shows.
San Francisco, CA
Starts Friday, June 11
Landmark Lumiere
Daily Showtimes TBA
1572 California St. (at Polk)
San Francisco, CA 94109-4708
(415) 267-4893
Co-director Annabel Park in person Friday, June 11 evening shows
Co-director Eric Byler in person Saturday, June 12 evening shows and Sunday, June 13 afternoon shows.

Think what’s going down in Arizona is crazy and insane? Guess what? It already happened in Prince William County, and it tore apart an entire community. For more information about the film, go to the 9500 Liberty website here. Also read this piece by Eric in the Huffington Post: Arizona, Immigration, and the Coming Shake-Up.

The Racialicious Review For My Name Is Khan

Arturo — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 17:00:57 +0000

by Special Correspondent Arturo R. García

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

The die is cast early in My Name Is Khan, when the titular lead, Rizwan Khan (Shah Rukh Khan), having already been identified as autistic, is snarkily asked by a TSA agent what he has to tell the President.

“My name is Khan,” he answers. “And I am not a terrorist.” Then the camera zooms in on the baffled agent and the score swells as if to kick him in the throat and yell PWNED!

The punchline is doubly appropriate, given the real-life Khan’s own run-ins with airport security, and a signal that, though it lacks the musical stylings of more familiar Bollywood fare, Rizwan’s story will not skimp on the melodrama on the way to making its point. But at least it does so effectively.

As he learns after moving to America, Rizwan lives with Asperger’s syndrome. Still, during the first half of the movie, Rizwan’s condition makes him a wiz at repairs, and doesn’t deter him from working as a salesman for his brother (Jimmy Shergill) – or from pursuing a relationship with Mandira (Kajol), a hair stylist he meets during his rounds. The early scenes between Rizwan and Mandira are so bubble-gummy they threaten to make Slumdog Millionaire look cynical, but there’s enough of a contrast between theirs and other rom-com couples to keep the schmaltz from completely overwhelming the viewer.

It’s possible that in another movie, the fact that Rizwan, a Muslim, is romancing a Hindu, Mandira, might have been addressed in a song or two. But here it comes into play as part of the aftermath of 9/11 (viewer advisory here: the imagery used for the WTC attack is vivid), when the couple splits up in the wake of a personal tragedy. The film’s second half traces their respective journeys: Mandira’s search for justice is identified as coming from a place of hate, while Rizwan’s – no accident here – revisits the travels of both Forrest Gump and The Hurricane, but in a sign-of-the-times fashion.

Not unlike Gump, Rizwan becomes an accidental media sensation. But first, not unlike Rubin Carter, he’s wrongly imprisoned and tortured, an ordeal which is intercut with a wider wave of anti-Muslim prejudice. And it’s interesting to note that, though the Khans befriend a white couple early on, nearly all of the prejudice directed toward Muslims in this film comes from white Americans.

There’s a schoolteacher who apparently read from Michael Savage’s History Of The Americas; a beefy dude-bro who insists on harassing a Muslim store-owner; and an ill-defined “government official” who went to the Jack Bauer school of interviewing, among others. And none of these scenes are played for “laughs,” either. Neither is a scene later in the movie when Rizwan stumbles into a mosque meeting, set up to more pointedly illustrate what separates Islamic philosophy from terrorist thoughts. These images are meant to make the viewer uncomfortable – and they succeed.

But in a world where Jeff Dunham is considered funny, it’s tough to imagine that more people don’t need to be shaken by them, or to see the characters of Khan and Mandira so unabashedly in love with San Francisco, or the POC allies they pick up along the way. So, even if the film threatens to veer completely off the rails in the third act, when we see stand-ins for both Hurricane Katrina and Barack Obama, the feel-good ending at least legitimately feels good. And judging by the film’s box-office success so far, at least people seem to be open to it.

The Life of Films: Black People Watched “Traitor”! Sophisticated Urbanites Heart “Milk”!

Guest Contributor — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 12:00:24 +0000

By Guest Contributor AJ Christian, originally published at Televisual

The New York Times has an interesting interactive feature out that maps the top 50 rentals for 2009 based on the Netflix queues from a dozen US cities: New York, Boston, Chicago, Washington, Milwaukee, Dallas, Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Altanta, Seattle and Denver. The list is a bit skewed because these are all fairly cosmopolitan areas — Benjamin Button and Changeling are at the top of the list — though that probably reflects what I assume is Netflix’s popularity in urban and suburban communities to begin with.

The list reminds us films have long lives. The press focuses almost solely on opening weekend box office returns and forgets films go to the rental market, DVD sales, pay-cable and OnDemand. Often these venues are great for films that couldn’t get people in theaters but are nevertheless intriguing or enjoyable. Movies by and about minorities sometimes can find audiences unwilling to shell out $6-$12+ for ticket (the gay film market has operated for years on this assumption).

I was surprised to see Traitor on the list — in the middle, but still before many popular Hollywood films. Traitor, a Don Cheadle-starrer about an alleged terrorist who may or may not secretly be working for the United States, made a paltry $27 million in theaters, just $23M in the U.S. Don Cheadle doesn’t have the Box Office pull of a Will Smith or Denzel Washington, despite his role in the Ocean’s Eleven films. Yet in the rental market, it seems black communities have taken a small liking to the film. The New York Times‘ map has it markedly popular in Atlanta — with a strong presence in the middle class/Morehouse area inside the perimeter — in D.C. and in neighborhoods like Bed-Stuy in New York.

I was surprised how clearly along cultural lines some films feel. Lakeview Terrace, which got little love from critics while doing okay in theaters, was similarly popular in the same neighborhoods as Traitor (slightly more popular). In these areas, Tyler Perry films The Family That Preys and Madea Goes to Jail as well as Not Easily Broken, Obsessed, Cadillac Records The Soloist were disproportionately popular in black neighborhoods.

Films like Milk, on the other hand, had wider audiences in these urban areas. Milk made a respectable but hardly amazing $54 million at the box office (Brokeback Mountain made nearly $200 million). Predictably, neighborhoods like Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan and Midtown in Atlanta took to Milk, but these liberal cities liked it overall: it’s 13th on the list.

Take a look at the Times feature. Some things will surprise, some won’t. Renee Zellweger’s mediocre New in Town played well in Minneapolis! For good reason: the film is about an east coast city gal who has to move to rural Minnesota. Westerns like Appaloosa hit a niche in the parts of Los Angeles several hours outside the city (I’ve been there; it feels like the Wild West) and in Dallas. Bourgeois areas like Berkeley, Manhattan and its suburbs ate up art-house gems like I’ve Loved You For So Long and Rachel Getting Married.

As a researcher, I love it when people act against stereotype or try to formulate interesting, resistant identities. But sometimes it’s very clear we act exactly as Hollywood predicts, gay people watch gay movies and urban intellectuals flock to gritty art-house realism. C’est la vie.

Quoted: Annalee Newitz on Race Fantasies in Sci-Fi

Latoya Peterson — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 12:00:48 +0000

Whether Avatar is racist is a matter for debate. Regardless of where you come down on that question, it’s undeniable that the film – like alien apartheid flick District 9, released earlier this year – is emphatically a fantasy about race. Specifically, it’s a fantasy about race told from the point of view of white people. Avatar and scifi films like it give us the opportunity to answer the question: What do white people fantasize about when they fantasize about racial identity? [...]
These are movies about white guilt. Our main white characters realize that they are complicit in a system which is destroying aliens, AKA people of color – their cultures, their habitats, and their populations. The whites realize this when they begin to assimilate into the “alien” cultures and see things from a new perspective. To purge their overwhelming sense of guilt, they switch sides, become “race traitors,” and fight against their old comrades. But then they go beyond assimilation and become leaders of the people they once oppressed. This is the essence of the white guilt fantasy, laid bare. It’s not just a wish to be absolved of the crimes whites have committed against people of color; it’s not just a wish to join the side of moral justice in battle. It’s a wish to lead people of color from the inside rather than from the (oppressive, white) outside.
Think of it this way. Avatar is a fantasy about ceasing to be white, giving up the old human meatsack to join the blue people, but never losing white privilege. Jake never really knows what it’s like to be a Na’vi because he always has the option to switch back into human mode. Interestingly, Wikus in District 9 learns a very different lesson. He’s becoming alien and he can’t go back. He has no other choice but to live in the slums and eat catfood. And guess what? He really hates it. He helps his alien buddy to escape Earth solely because he’s hoping the guy will come back in a few years with a “cure” for his alienness. When whites fantasize about becoming other races, it’s only fun if they can blithely ignore the fundamental experience of being an oppressed racial group. Which is that you are oppressed, and nobody will let you be a leader of anything.

—From “When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like Avatar?” Annalee Newitz, io9.

Read the whole piece at io9.com

Scattered Thoughts on Tyler Perry

Latoya Peterson — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:00:55 +0000

by Latoya Peterson

Bringing up Tyler Perry tends to complicate conversations. He is a polarizing figure, represented by his work, an entrepreneur who provides work for black actors often passed over by the Hollywood machine, yet who trades in what some would call limiting representations of blackness and/or stereotypes. He is often touted as proof that blacks can achieve success outside of the mainstream, and yet speaking with those who have worked for him in below the line positions casts doubt that Perry is dedicated to anything outside of making (and keeping) money.

Still, as Tyler Perry keeps making headlines, we continue to wade through these conversations, which involve his work but are really conversations about race, class, and gender.

A couple of weeks ago, while guesting over at Jezebel, I was asked to write a piece on Tyler Perry being tapped to write, direct, and produce a film based on Ntozake Shange’s choreopoem “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow is Enuf.”

I was immediately skeptical.

As I wrote on Jezebel,

It’s a complex, nuanced piece, and seeing Tyler Perry getting a writing credit gives me serious pause.
Directing? Fine.
Producing? Cool.
But writing and adapting it? From someone who writes flat, two-dimensional woman characters in all of his work? Even under the best of circumstances, I would be skeptical of a black man tackling a project like this. To bring Shange’s vision to light would take an understanding of why this work of art is so deeply intertwined with black women’s articulation of their own struggles under racist, patriarchal oppression – something that unfortunately, many still deny to this day. Black women’s voices are often lost in discussions of race (because all the blacks are men) and discussions of gender (because all women are white) and Ntozake Shange was beyond brave to put down all of these ideas and present them for public consumption even in the face of heavy criticism from black men when the play was released:
[T]his is the second round of a debate sparked in 1976 by the blockbuster success of Ntozake Shange’s choreopoem for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf. It spread with the publication of Michelle Wallace’s Black Macho and Myth of the Superwoman (1980). These two works were the subject of widespread and acrimonious debate from many sectors of the black community. Vernon Jarret of the Chicago Defender likened for colored girls to the pro-Ku Klux Klan film Birth of a Nation, and dismissed it as “a degrading treatment of the black male” and “a mockery of the black family.” Perhaps the most controversial statement about Shange and Wallace, however, was an article by Robert Staples, “The Myth of the Black Macho: A Response to Angry Black Feminists,” published in The Black Scholar in March/April 1979. Identified significantly as “the noted sociologist on black sex roles,” Staples reflects in his essay a tendency in the current debate (as in most discussions of Afro-American literature) to read literature in terms that are overwhelmingly sociological.
Staples argues that Shange and Wallace were rewarded for “their diatribes against black men,” charging for colored girls with whetting black women’s “collective appetite for black male blood.” He attributes their rage, which “happily married women” lack, to “pent up frustrations which need release.” And he sympathizes with the black male need for power in the only two institutions left to black control: the church and the family. During the 1960s, Staples continues, “there was a general consensus – among men and women – that black men would hold the leadership positions in the movement.” Because “black women held up their men for far too long, it was time for the men to take charge.” But those like Shange and Wallace came under the powerful sway of the white feminist movement, he argues, they unleashed the anger that black women had always borne silently. For witnessing this anger, he concludes, they were promoted and rewarded by the white media.
This choreopoem is serious business, and it is not to be treated lightly, by those who do not live the story it tells.

I was not surprised by those who jumped into the fray to defend Tyler Perry. If they feel his work has artistic merit, they are welcome to do so. But I noticed a lot of the defenses weren’t “he’ll do a good job with this film and we need to have more faith.” They were more along the lines of “okay, well, he kind of sucks, but he’s the best we have and we need to support black film.”

After I finished the post, the perfect analogy came to mind:

09/04/09
When I was writing the post, I was focusing on making sure why people understood why this is a complicated issue.
But now I’ve thought of a better example. This is like Judd Apatow signing on to write and direct a film adaptation of the Vagina Monologues.
Could he do it? Possibly.
Does he show a past history of being good at conveying women’s stories? No.
Is he a successful filmmaker? Yes. Can he draw bigger crowd and more resources? Yes.
Does that mean he’s automatically the best person for the project just because he has some money? No.
Could Tyler Perry have read for colored girls and been deeply impacted? Of course, that’s a possibility.
But he isn’t just directing. He isn’t just producing. He’s writing the words for women to say and will be able to cut things add things and change things around. I’ve watched the majority of TP’s work (including the stage plays before he hit Hollywood). And his characters are improving, though they are still decidedly one note. But this is a big, big deal and a tough project. And I would feel much better if this were a situation like Push, where the film was written, done, and in the can when he decided to pick it up and distribute.
So, as I’ve said before, I’m torn.
But I would love to see Jilly from Philly in this, so there may be one silver lining.

A few days after I wrote that post, I stumbled across another piece on Tyler Perry on Esquire. The piece, titled “Why Tyler Perry Is the New Obama,” S.T. VanAirsdale argues:

All told, Tyler Perry is doing some profoundly next-level theorizing about race in the United States. The films are also funny, well-acted and entertaining; a little earnest, sure, and kind of cornball, but no worse than Love Happens or whatever Hollywood-establishment rom-com you’re dutifully tolerating this week. Ultimately, they boast a wide and, most importantly, multi-ethnic appeal well beyond the African-American audience that has made No. 1 openers out of four Perry films to date. In a real post-racial America, white viewers wouldn’t think twice about checking out I Can Do Bad, which should rather easily clinch the top spot at the box office on the eighth anniversary of 9/11.
But what specifically are black moviegoers buying into, and why does it so uniquely (if cautiously) yield the promise of a better America? You can start with Mabel “Madea” Simmons, the towering, muumuu-ed matriarch played by Perry himself. Routinely subject to critics’ outraged accusations of minstrelsy, Madea is guilty of nothing more than depoliticizing black rage. Madea Goes to Jail provides the quintessential example of this, offering Madea up as a career criminal (attempted murder, identity theft, insurance fraud, among other charges) whose chief motivation has always been little more than a sort of moral rectitude. No excuses, no apologies — but not in the glamorously transgressive hip-hop mold, nor the entitled, autonomous Dirty Harry style. Rather, she practices a funny, color-blind sense of justice advocating direct action and personal responsibility at any cost.

I’m interested in your thoughts, readers. I recently attended a wedding where Why Did I Get Married? was shown as part of the entertainment, and it damn near turned into a call and response session with both men and women yelling at the screen and advising or dissing the characters. I personally find it easier to analyze Perry through the lens of his work, and my analysis often heavily favors gender politics – which makes for interesting conversation (to say the least) as much of Tyler Perry’s base is composed of black women who agree with his messages.

Based on a True Story…Again?

Guest Contributor — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:00:30 +0000

By Guest Contributor slb, originally published at PostBourgie

We’ve made no secret of our belief that Hollywood is producing just a few too many paint-by-numbers Black biopics, and this week’s announcement of a whopping four black-themed biopics was just a case in point. According to Rotten Tomatoes’ Weekly Ketchup, all systems are go for an “official” biographical drama on Martin Luther King Jr., with Steven Spielberg at the helm; Will and Jada’s Overbrook Entertainment (in concert with Sony Pictures) has acquired the rights to John Keller’s life story (an ex-Marine who oversaw the rescue of 244 fellow Katrina victims); and Denzel is mulling his third directorial project, a little pet project called Brother in Arms, about “the only tank unit in the European theater of World War II that was manned by all African Americans”–based on a book co-authored by Kareem Abdul Jabbar.

We should note that the latter project has no shooting date–and the Weekly Ketchup writers slyly suggest that, perhaps, this is because there’s already a black WWII flick in the works—a Tuskegee Airmen project, currently filming in Europe.

Here’s the thing: we love heralding Black accomplishments as much as the next guy–and far be it from us to stand in the way of Our Own Stories Being Told. But aren’t most of these films rather indistinguishable from one another? If you’ve seen Remember the Titans, you’ve seen Glory Road. If you’ve seen Ray, you seen Cadillac Records (or parts of it, anyway). If you’ve seen The Rosa Parks story, you’ve seen Boycott. If you’ve seen Ali, you’ve seen… Will Smith in one too many of these vanity projects.***

It isn’t that we don’t endorse Black films being greenlighted; we do. It isn’t that we don’t love our history; we do. It’s that biopics, as a genre, are largely rote oversimplifications of incredibly complex lives. And no matter how nuanced an actor’s performance (or, as in the case of Denzel as Melvin Tolson, how phoned in), the formulaic storytelling impedes any real understanding of the person’s struggles and, more importantly, the accomplishment(s) that warranted a film in the first place. They all sort of bleed together untill you’re like, “You remember that flick where Cuba Gooding’s in the submarine and he’s a cook who manned a gatling gun?”

The best way to know your history is to research it for yourself. All the swelling music and single-teared male stars in the world aren’t going to provide you comprehensive—or even accurate—knowledge of actual events. So these “First Black ___ to Do _____” biopics work best when you go into them with your facts about the film’s subject straight. That way, you’re just watching for entertainment value and voluntary emotional manipulation.

All that said, we have to admit, we’re more than a little bit amped about Josh Brolin’s genius plan to both produce and star in a John Brown biopic. You can never have enough films about bloody, if ill-fated slave revolts.

Kinatay

Guest Contributor — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:00:23 +0000

by Guest Contributor Tanglad, originally published at Tanglad

Let me get this out of the way first. This is not a movie review. It is a review of movie reviews about Brillante Mendoza’s Kinatay. Spoilers follow, though the title pretty much tells you what you’re gonna get.

Last weekend, Filipino director Brillante Mendoza won the best director award at the Cannes Festival for the movie Kinatay (”Slaughtered“). Mendoza’s win was a surprise, considering how Kinatay is probably, as Prometheus Brown puts it, the most hated film at Cannes.

Exerpts from Maggie Lee’s synopsis and review at The Hollywood Reporter:

Newly married Peping, who attends the police academy, receives an offer via text message to make a fast buck with a shady friend. By nightfall, he is in a van with a group of vicious gangsters who have kidnapped a bar hostess to demand a loan repayment under orders from an elusive general…
The real time pacing, feels like being stuck in a traffic jam, but the dramatic thrust is relentless as one hears through the muffled darkness, the woman being gagged and beaten mercilessly. The horror escalates to rape, murder and dismemberment. None of this is left to the imagination, with the men’s verbal sexism being equally distasteful.

That was a positive review. (See here to view Kinatay excerpts, and here for a round-up of reviews and more background on the film.)

Roger Ebert’s review, charmingly titled “What were they thinking of?”, is typical of how critics who hated Kinatay approached the movie. There is hardly any discussion of the merits of the movie itself, and instead a whole lot of indignation over the unpleasantness that viewers were subjected to:

It is Mendoza’s conceit that it his Idea will make a statement, or evoke a sensation, or demonstrate something–if only he makes the rest of the film as unpleasant to the eyes, the ears, the mind and the story itself as possible…
No drama is developed. No story purpose is revealed…

Ebert adds that:

the sad thing is, the opening scenes in his film give promise of being absorbing and even entertaining.

How dare a film expose its audience to a woman’s violent murder and dismemberment? A form of violence against women that, by the way, happens not infrequently in the Philippines?

And how dare the film depict this violence in a way that is unpleasant, rather than entertaining?

I wonder what “story purpose” would Ebert have found acceptable. It’s quite telling that he ends his review with a plug for the movie Precious, which in other accounts is a story of an illiterate teen’s suffering through horrific sexual, physical, and emotional abuse. In Ebert’s summary, however, Precious is

the story of a physically and mentally abused poor black girl from the ghetto, who summons the inner strength to fight back for her future.

Precious is a trope of triumph via individual hard work and determination (at least according to Ebert), whereas Kinatay depicts a violence that is banal, wherein police officers rape and dismember a woman at the behest of a crime lord. Like Peping, the audience is forced to witness the woman’s murder, and is forced to deal with their silence and complicity in her killing. How unpleasant that must have been.

The problem then is not so much the violence of Kinatay, but how it was depicted, as Ebert states in a response to a commenter:

What is important is not whether it protrays reality in the Philippines, but how it does so. My comments were more about the style than the content.

Commenter Marie Haws agrees:

it’s not because “Kinatay” fails to accurately portray a level of violence to found in your country, it’s not because it misrepresents corruption or fails to show the underlying patriarchal nature of it – but rather, that you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar…You can use a hammer to drive a point home, or you can use a heart.

Oh look, they’re making the tone argument.

Haws goes on to contrast Kinatay with The Killing Fields. I guess that like Precious, The Killing Fields‘ cinematic depictions of the Khmer Rouge genocide is mediated and made palatable by the triumph of the human spirit and democratic values.

How about a more recent and more well-received depiction of violence and poverty from the Third World? There’s that outhouse scene from Slumdog Millionaire, where the little boy literally dives into shit to get a movie star’s autograph.

Never mind that even in the most squalid slums, residents take efforts to maintain personal hygiene and cleanliness. The scene negates that humanity, and is instead played for laughs. Because the boy is eventually set-up to triumphantly get out of the slums through his sheer determination, the violence and poverty in this very shitty scene is made palatable and acceptable. Almost a pleasant experience.

Those who strive to communicate Third World truths via art are called to do so in specific ways — to entertain, to valorize ideals like determination, hard work, individualism. The merits of Kinatay aside, I’m glad that there are artists like Brillante Mendoza, who refuse the ways we are called and choose to respond on their own terms.

The Fall of the I-Hotel (Curtis Choy, 1983)

Guest Contributor — Wed, 06 May 2009 14:00:27 +0000

by Guest Contributor Geo, originally published at Prometheus Brown

A little over a decade ago, this documentary changed my life.

It was the first time I had seen or heard about Manong Al Robles, longtime community organizer, activist, writer — a pillar in the Fil-Am and API community in San Francisco. He not only narrates this documentary, but is featured in it. He is shown interacting with the elderly Filipino tenants who face eviction from the only home they know: the International Hotel in what was then Manilatown, SF. He is the glue that holds director Curtis Choy’s amazing footage together, in one scene doing a voice-over with his own poetry, in the next scene he’s marching in protest alongside organizers, confronting city officials, blockading police from entering the building on eviction day. Even as the story unfolds toward the inevitable tragedy of the building’s demolition, Manong Al’s presence gave one an impression of hope. Not that idealistic hope that, perhaps, the fight against the city’s “development” plans might somehow prevail.

No, this hope was and still is something greater. Some fights that aren’t won are still victories — as evidenced by the outpouring of community support and internationalist solidarity for the I-Hotel. Though the building was lost, Manong Al and them laid the groundwork for all of us who continue their tireless work to stand up for our communities. The Fall of the I-Hotel, more than a story about a building, more than a story about its tenants or even the fight to save, is a rally cry still heard loud and clear nearly 30 years later.

News that Manong Al had passed away reached me last night as we sat in anticipation for the Pacquiao/Hatton fight to begin. Suddenly, I had realized that, in all my trips to San Francisco, even performing once at Kearny Street Workshop where he was a resident poet, I never got a chance to meet Manong Al, which made the subsequent celebration bittersweet. But as I looked around a room full of cheering Filipinos, I thought of his poetry in his book Rappin’ With Ten Thousand Carabao in the Dark, where he described nights of kickin it, drinkin, celebrating with the Manongs. I thought about the Manongs who were evicted from the I-Hotel, whose sad faces, captured on film, I can never shake. And I thought about how, no matter what bullshit comes our way, or perhaps because of all the bullshit that comes our way, we live for nights like these.

Rest in Power, Manong Al Robles!

Online Tributes to Al Robles:

Hyphen Magazine: R.I.P. Al Robles
Philippine American Writers and Artists, Inc.: Al Robles, RIP

Quoted: Reggie Rock Bythewood on Writing Notorious

Latoya Peterson — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:00:12 +0000

Excerpted by Latoya Peterson

I was not enthused about the project. There seemed to be little humanity in Christopher Wallace. He sold drugs, used the “N” word as a noun, verb, and adjective, then became a famous rapper. My initial thought, “So what?” Instinctively, though, I knew if I could find a way to connect to him, the film would be entertaining. I liked some of his music. I also knew a film about this icon could be a platform to challenge some of the “cancers” plaguing the inner city. There’s an expression: “You have to enter somebody’s world before you lead them out.” That’s what I would try to do. [...]
I interviewed the important players in Biggie’s life – Faith Evans, Lil’ Kim, Lil’ Cease, Wayne Barrow. Even P. Diddy came to the crib. The peripheral characters began to take shape. However, I still had not uncovered Biggie. I had to go “method acting” on this bad boy. Instead of looking outside of myself for the main character, I looked inside. I never sold drugs, but as a teenager growing up in the hood, money was important to me. I got a gig acting on a soap opera when I was 16. I wasn’t making Donald Trump loot but I was making as much paper as the drug dealers. I defined my manhood in in a materialistic, superficial way. As I reflected on all this, it struck me. This movie is not about a rapper. It is not about a drug dealer. It is about someone navigating his way to manhood.
Through my research, I learned Biggie was a work in progress. He began to redefine his manhood as he got older. I hoped that, maybe, I (or Biggie) could inspire some of the audience to redefine their manhood as well. Adding this theme was a dangerous game to play. The last thing the studio wanted was some political-statement movie. Still, I had to go where my passion lay. I would try and change the world, or at least a mind. I think using the “N” word as much as some folks do is ignorant. I pulled up Richard Pryor’s Live on the Sunset Strip on YouTube. Pyror talked about his trip to Africa and the revelation he had from being over there. He said he would never call another black man the “N” word. Well, there was no way to be authentic in Biggie’s world without using that word. However, I hoped to at least get a few people thinking about the way they were talking. I decided I would find a way to put the Richard Pryor clip in the script.
Secondly, I wanted to hold the mirror up to this world and reflect its beauty and its ugliness. Could I get into Biggie’s head? Could I reveal why he sold drugs without judging him? The only way to be successful here is to remember he is actually not an icon. He is a human being with weaknesses and strengths. [...]
Notorious kept my hands full for a year and a half. There were changes George and the studio asked for along the way. However, there are some things I never wavered on. Richard Pryor was never taken out. At the end of the movie, Voletta still talks about her son. Most of all, the film is about a boy navigating his way to manhood. The movie I set out to make is the movie that was shot (big sigh of relief). Fortunately, Cheo [Hodari Coker, the original screenwriter] feels the same way.
—”Everyday Struggle: Creating Notorious,” published in Script Magazine, March/April 2009

Losing My Religion

Fatemeh — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 12:00:06 +0000

by Racialicious Special Correspondent Fatemeh Fakhraie. A longer version of this article appears on altmuslimah.

I finally got around to watching AmericanEast this weekend. Full disclosure: I had originally read Tariq Nelson’s review, which was a pretty good rundown.

AmericanEast is an attempt at mainstreaming American Muslims and attempts to portray the struggles Muslims face in the United States. In my opinion, they overdid it and never established a coherent plot. And on top of that, I found that the characters had no depth and some were cartoonish caricatures.

The movie centers on Mustafa, an Egyptian immigrant who owns a café in a heavily Middle Eastern part of Los Angeles. His life, and the lives of several close to him, is one problem or tragedy after another: at one point during the movie, I asked myself whether anything good was ever going to happen to anyone.

Mustafa has a sister, Salwah. Tariq outlines her character:

Salwah Marzouke, Mustafa’s sister, was a nurse that styled hair in the back of her brother’s restaurant and was arranged to marry her cousin Sabir. However she did not like him and they did not get married. But the cousin was never informed (at least not on camera) and the story was dropped. Salwah was also interested in a doctor at her hospital who was not Muslim.

The movie stresses over and over that marrying Salwah off is Mustafa’s duty (or so he believes). Sabir comes from Egypt to marry Salwah and take him back home with her, although she is less than excited (that’s an understatement) about this arrangement. Even though she often fights with her brother, she gives off major submissive, dutiful vibes that plague many female Muslim characters in the form of wide-eyed, helpless stares contrasted with humbly averted eyes and lowered chin.

She is attracted to a white, non-Muslim doctor who works with her at the hospital, and after the arranged marriage “thing” magically goes away, she agrees to let him cook Japanese food for her at his house. They start getting hot and heavy, but Salwah asks him to stop suddenly. She nervously apologizes, stammering that she thought she could “do this” but she can’t, and gives him the whole “it’s not you, it’s me, you wouldn’t understand” before rushing out.

Because Salwah’s character isn’t developed enough for us to know what she’s thinking (did she realize that she’s just not that into him? Did she decide that he was going too fast for her, and maybe she’d like to begin again under different circumstances? Did she think that maybe she should give Sabir a chance? Or maybe she realized she was on her period?), the viewer must fall back on the dutiful vibes and assume that she’s backing out of sex or maybe a relationship with this doctor out of an obligation to culture or religion or tradition, despite the fact that one of her friends stated that Salwah is “no Virgin Mary” earlier in the movie.

Salwah’s inclusion in the movie symbolizes The Great (and imaginary) Conflict between America and the “Muslim World” or a clash between tradition and modernity. The movie sets up these false dichotomies through Salwah, having her arranged marriage illustrate tradition (which is often synonymous with religion) and her career and brief date illustrate “modernity.” The burden of “marrying her off” is a traditional one her brother feels he must carry, although she is not interested in being such a burden. In fact, because Salwah has two jobs and supports Mustafa and his rapidly failing café, it is he who is the burden.

Mustafa also has a daughter. Tariq explains her role in the movie:

Leila Marzouke, was Mustafa’s dope smoking/dawah giving daughter. She had a scene that was like an infomercial in which she is talking about Islam and Middle Eastern history with her friend while smoking marijuana. That seemed to be her only purpose in the movie. Came off as very forced and as if the movie was preaching to the audience.

I definitely agree with Tariq’s analysis of her character, and have serious issues with the cartoony “history/philosophy” lesson about Islam and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. First, having all the Arabs in the movie be portrayed as brown dudes with turbans and huge noses was incredibly off-putting.

Second, condensing an entire region’s millennia of history into a cartoon is mistake enough, but so is leaving out everyone but American, Israeli and Arab players, as if Kurdish Saladin was the only non-Arab/non-Israeli/non-American to make a significant difference in the area’s politics. Whatev.

What irked me the most, however, was when the Crusades were over, and supposedly everyone was cool. The cartoon showed Christian and Muslim man alike at a huge party, complete with camels and I Dream of Jeannie-inspired women ornaments. Camels and bellydancers. Really? Perhaps here’s where I should remind you that this movie is intended to break down stereotypes. I guess that doesn’t extend to racial or sexist ones.

But, as Tariq says, this is the largest reason for Leila’s inclusion in the movie. The other main reason is to get ordered around by her father (“Leila, see what the customer wants”) or serve as a catalyst for escalating troubles for her father (like when she irritates a consistently rude café regular, who then yells at her father).

In fact, women in general seem to be nothing more than props or catalysts in this movie. Murad, an anti-Jewish café regular, uses women to establish a connection with Jewish Sam as they smoke a hookah pipe: “The best sex I ever had was with a Jewish girl and a Muslim girl at the same time. You know how people fight over Jerusalem? That’s how they fought over my dick.”

Classy. And it also helps break down the stereotype that Arabs and Muslims are sexist pigs who have little regard for women. Oh, wait…

Despite the fact that this movie really did bother me long after I saw it, the aim of Hesham Izzawy, the director, was a noble one. The movie, however exaggerated and exclusive of women, does highlight issues and problems that Middle Eastern Americans and Muslim Americans often face in a country whose mainstream gives us “War on Terror” products like 24 and Obsession, which vilify Muslims and Middle Eastern people through flat characterizations of “angry bearded terrorist #1” or “captive veiled woman #5”.

The movie does so while addressing uniquely American issues. Fikri, a café regular, states that all this hatred toward Muslims and Middle Eastern people is because of our newness: “This happened to the Italians, the Irish, the Jewish when they were new here. Now we’re the new ones.” A definitely interesting and relevant historic observation that hints at a brighter future.

Ray Hanania might be a little more rosy on his assessment of the movie and it’s impact than I (the film wasn’t picked up by theaters), but I believe that this movie, written and directed by Arabs and Muslims, and featuring a large Middle Eastern American cast, is part of a larger media movement by Middle Eastern Americans and Muslims designed to mainstream themselves into America’s culture. Television shows, movies, books, and comedy tours featuring Middle Eastern Americans and Muslim Americans are actively working to get their voices heard and represented. Though the waves of immigrants from Ireland and Italy had to wait for generations to be accepted into the mainstream, Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans like Izzawy are refusing to play the same waiting game.

Race, Class and One-Night Stands

Guest Contributor — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 16:00:45 +0000

by Guest Contributor G.D., originally published at PostBourgie

For all its considerable charm and sharpness, there’s a patina of sadness that hangs over Medicine for Melancholy, a new film written and directed by Barry Jenkins that just entered limited theatrical release. The story focuses tightly on a man and a woman (Wyatt Cenac and Tracey Heggins) in the wake of their one-night stand at a party. The initial awkwardness gives way to a tenuous connection, as the two quasi-bohos realize that they share many of the same cultural affinities (which Cenac’s character, Micah, refers to by the shorthand, “indie”). The stuff they like, Micah notes at one point, is decidedly about not being black.

This could all be cute and earnest in the way a lot of mumblecore is — quirky boy meets quirky girl in hip, scenester-ish town — but Melancholy has much bigger questions to ask.

Micah is a preternaturally chill native San Franciscan who feels increasingly alienated as the city rapidly gentrifies. “Imagine the Lower Haight filled with nothing but black folk and white artists,” he tells Jo, his would-be lover, about his long-gone San Fran. (It’s become the least black of America’s major cities.) Jo, wary at first but charming over time, is a transplant who doesn’t see the world in Micah’s specifically racialized terms, and it’s implied by the relative sizes of their living spaces that she occupies a higher position in the economic food chain. Both though, are black people partaking in a social milieu where Negroes are rarities. None of this tension is anywhere near as didactic as it may sound; these issues come up intermittently in the course of the pair walking and biking around, making each other laugh and generally feeling each other out.

The film is almost relentlessly plausible, and there are plenty of long silences between the two; they’ve had sex, but they don’t know each other. As well as they begin to connect, there’s enough difference in their respective outlooks for those things to become real fissures in the future — a future, which given the circumstances under which they’ve met, is far from assured. There are as many reasons for their dyad to work as there are for it not to. And so they (mostly) avoid discussing it.

The two leads are in just about every shot in the movie, and Cenac, best known for his work on The Daily Show, is a particular surprise. Tracey Heggins is the right mix of opaque and warm as Jo, and it’s obvious why Micah is so taken with her. Jenkins imbues Melancholy (which is shot almost completely in sepia tones) with an excellent sense of pace and place; San Francisco is as much a character as Jo or Micah. It’s Jenkins’s first film, and it’s an assured debut. Even the scene in which Micah and Jo listen in on a community meeting on the city’s rent control laws doesn’t seem forced, though by all rights it should have.

I saw Melancholy two days ago, and I’ve been trying to get it out of my head since then. No dice. It’s the rare film that gets everything right about city life: random connection, anonymity, loneliness, class tensions, and most importantly — possibility.