Finding Forrester (2000)

Fondly remembered, I went looking for it. Watched. Liked it; watched it twice. Ebert gave it three stars.
Ebert: The movie contains at least two insights into writing that are right on target. The first is William's advice to Jamal that he give up waiting for inspiration and just start writing. My own way of phrasing this rule is: The Muse visits during composition, not before. The other accurate insight is a subtle one. An early shot pans across the books next to Jamal's bed, and we see that his reading tastes are wide, good and various. All of the books are battered, except one, the paperback of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, which looks brand new and has no creases on its spine. That's the book everyone buys but nobody reads.

Both Connery and Brown are superb in their acting. 

Devil in a blue dress (1995)

Early Denzel smokes the role of Easy Rawlins.
The film begins in noir fashion when Easy Rawlins (Denzel Washington) says "A man once told me that when you step out of your door in the morning, you're already in trouble. The only question is, are you on top of that trouble or not?"

The Great Debaters (2007)

Denzel in an excellent performance as the coach of a debateteam from Wiley College, a small East Texas school. The team slays the dragons of competition and racism.

Based on a true story, the plot revolves around the efforts of debate coach Melvin B. Tolson (Denzel Washington) at historically black Wiley College to place his team on equal footing with whites in the American South during the 1930s, when Jim Crow laws were common and lynch mobs were a pervasive fear for blacks. In the movie, the Wiley team eventually succeeds to the point where they are able to debate Harvard University. This was their 47th annual debate team.
The movie also explores the social constructs in Texas during the Great Depression including not only the day-to-day insults and slights African Americans endured, but also a lynching. Also depicted is James L. Farmer, Jr. (Denzel Whitaker), who, at 14 years old, was on Wiley's debate team after completing high school (and who later went on to co-found C.O.R.E., the Congress of Racial Equality). According to the Houston Chronicle, another character depicted on the team, Samantha Booke, is based on the real individual Henrietta Bell Wells, the only female member of the 1930 debate team from Wiley College who participated in the first collegiate interracial debate in the United States. Wells also happened to be a minor African American poet whose papers are housed at the Library of Congress.
The key line of dialogue, used several times, is a famous paraphrase of Augustine of Hippo: "An unjust law is no law at all."
Another major line, repeated in slightly different versions according to context, concerns doing what you "have to do" in order that we "can do" what we "want to do." In all instances, these vital lines are spoken by the James L. Farmer Sr. and James L. Farmer, Jr. characters.

The major characters are very well acted. Denzel delivers a soliloquy about Negroes and racism that is a perfect example of the excellence of his acting. Wonderful film.

Saturday Night Fever (1977)

Again coming out of my writing, this time considering Bruce Weiss and Nora Ortiz, and dancing, this film popped into my consciousness. Still a great dela of fun. Travolta was magnificent.

Thurgood

Excellent. Laurence Fishburne embodies Justice Marshall, and the role fits him perfectly.


Video Librarian Reviews Laurence Fishburne might have bombed on C.S.I., but he's at the top of his game in George Stevens Jr.'s play about Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. In this performance filmed at Washington's Kennedy Center by Stevens's son Michael, Fishburne is literally the whole show, framed as a one-man journey of recollection spoken before an audience of Howard University students. Ambling with a cane onto a stage that's bare except for a long conference table and occasional back projections, the aged jurist greets his listeners directly before launching into a chronological survey of his life. The actor dispenses with the cane as he recounts stories of Marshall's boyhood and unlikely academic career and then adopts a swagger as he continues with the young lawyer's entrance into the embryonic—and often dangerous—Civil Rights movement. Stevens's script is filled with wry observations and rousing anecdotes about key individuals Marshall worked with (such as Martin Luther King, Jr.) and accounts of the landmark legal cases in which Marshall played a prominent role (most notably Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, which ended segregation in public schools), culminating in his appointment to the federal bench and then being named the first African-American Supreme Court Justice by Lyndon Johnson. Fishburne captures Marshall's gregarious personality beautifully, even as he departs from the script momentarily to welcome a couple of latecomers trying to squeeze unnoticed into their front row seats. Highly recommended.

Another interesting detail is that Marshall and Langston Hughes were classmates. And once, perhaps twice, he quotes Hughes. This is acting as art, and Fishburne is magnificent.

White Wedding

Fun film. Started out strong and funny, weakened at the end, especially in its use of predictable and wooden stereotypes. Nonetheless, even in its use of two-dimensional white supremacists, the film makes good points

To kill a mockingbird

After reading The Help, I thought if this work. I did not recall reading it, and, if I had, did not remember it. I decided to read the book, and finish it, before watching the film (which I did recall, dimly).

The book is considered a modern American classic. It is taught in high school. It is the story of the Finch family, Atticus and his son Jem and daughter Scout. Atticus is a lawyer in a small Alabam town, and is appointed by the local judge to defend a black man who stands accussed of raping a local white woman. Jem and Scout are inquisitive children who are treated kindly and somehwat indulgently by their father, whom they call Atticus. Their maid, or housekeeper, Calpurnia, is also involved in their upbringing: she is not afraid or reluctant to discipline them, including administering a swat in the leg when she feels it is appropriate.

Atticus is well respected in town. He is tolerant, sociable, and widowed. In the book his sister considers him too indulgent of his children, and pushes herself into their lives to improve what she considers some shortcomings. Primary among these are Scout's behavior; Jean Louise is a tomboy who never wears dresses, always wears overalls, fights, and otherwise does not behave as a proper girl should.

Aunt Alexandra does not appear in the film. In fact, the film dispenses with much detail, as films have to, in the interest of brevity. Her absence changes the story, yet the film is a wonderful representzation of the film. The relationships between Atticus and his kids, the trial, and relationships between Atticus and some townspeople come through. Of course, in the film there are many more relationships, and much richer detail. But a 2-hour film can only include so much detail.

Gregory Peck does a beautiful job of acting. Deservedly, he won an Oscar for his portrayal of Atticus Finch. He happens to be one of my favorite actors of all time, so I can not quibble much with his role. One weakness is that he has no Southern accent, made all the more glaring bu the rather thick accents of the kids (Jem, Scout and their friend Dill). But the basic character of Atticus Finch comes through Peck's acting: tolerant, reflective, decent.

A key scene, in which Atticus is seated in front of the jailhouse where Tom Robinson is awaiting trail, is depicted quite nicely in the film. Heck Tate, the local sheriff, warns Atticus that a group of local men is headed for the jail, looking to take Tom out and lynch him. Atticus prevents them from taking Tom, but the situation is diffused when Scout talks to Mister Cunningham about his son, her schoolmate.

The word nigger is used in the book, as it was, surely, in 1935 Alabama. At one juncture Scout tells Atticus that she has fought in school, something he has forbidden her to do, because a classmate call her father a nigger lover. She tells Atticus so, and he tells Scout to not use the word, then explains to her why he is defending a Negro.

I found the lack of use of the word nigger to be a detriment in The Help. Surely the word was used in 1962 Mississppi, even by genteel white folks. Its absence, it seemed to me, spoke more to the political correctness of our current day, than to the character of 1962 Jackson. Nonetheless, both books address a similar social milieu: the role of black servants in white families. Of course, Mockingbird delves into a deeper topic, racism, and Help does not go quite as deep. It, too, considers racism, of course.

Mockingbird is not an easy read. At first, I found it difficult to approach. Yet I did get into it, and now, having ended it, and having seen the film, I am astounded by its radicalism. It was published in 1960.

Radical

In a nation that abhors the word liberal, what a refreshing look at an old-style activist.

When Barack Obama came to prominence as a presidential candidate, his Chicago background—in particular, his efforts as a "community organizer"—reignited an interest in Saul Alinsky (1909-72), the hard-charging activist whose 1971 book, "Rules for Radicals," was said to have had a formative influence on Mr. Obama's thinking. Some critics worry that Alinsky's ideas guide Mr. Obama even today, in the White House. About such matters Nicholas von Hoffman cares little. But about Alinsky himself Mr. von Hoffman cares a great deal. He knew Alinsky, worked with him for 10 years in Chicago community groups and now offers a portrait of him in "Radical."

Von Hoffman, Nicholas. (2010). Radical: a portrait of Saul Alinsky. New York : Nation Books.

Alinsky's activism began when he left his studies and joined in labor-union agitation on Chicago's South and West sides. Before long he was organizing community groups in rent strikes and store boycotts, arranging safe passage for blacks on their way to jobs in bigoted neighborhoods, and conducting negotiations among feuding ethnic groups. He could be daring with his tactics, but he drew the line at jail: "Saul had an absolute prohibition," says Mr. von Hoffman. "He would explain that a staff person cannot operate behind bars." In this respect Alinsky's methods differed from those of his contemporaries in the civil-rights movement.

Emphasis added, for these are important points. Nincompoops on the right, even on the left, dismiss radicals far too easy with cartoonish looks and superficial characterizations.

Luminarias

Rated R, for language and sexuality. When a spicy Latin divorce attorney finds herself guilty of falling for her white and Jewish opposing council, her three single friends choose sides in the ongoing and often hilarious debate over race and sex.

Well, it isn't council, but counsel, as in attorney. A review in Imdb has the same error in a synopsis attributed to Echo Bridge Home Entertainment.

4 successful Chicanas meet to drink and chat about men, sex, being Mexican, and their problems arising from the combination of men, sex, being Mexican and having problems. One of them gives up sex as a sacrifice for Lent, and beseeches La Virgen de Guadalupe for strength to remain celibate all 40 days. An attorney defends a young Latina in court against her abusive husband, who wants joint custody of their son, and soon catches her husband kissing (of all things) a white woman. A therapist striving to be white, or accepted by whites, does not visit her mother in East LA and can't speak Spanish, yet brandishes a Chicana accent when she calls herself a Chicana. The fourth of the band can't find a decent man, has unresolved issues (having being called fea as a child among them), but soon falls for a Korean man.

The movie tries to explore racial pride, emotional ambiguity, and uncertainty in the face of 40th birthdays. It is in turns funny, touching, even insightful, but it does not work completely. There are too many cliches and stereotypes (the wise Latino man who happens to be a professor at UCLA, played by Cheech Marin with a wisp of beard under his lower lip that looks less Dizzy Gillespie than, what? Mandarin? and the uninhibited Latina aunts who don't watch their mouths but do watch male asses).

Yet, there are some nice performances and good points made. Evelina Fernandez plays the main character, Andrea, the attorney who prides herself on being a Latina, excoriates whites, and defends women against machismo. She falls for a white Jewish attorney, resists her husband returning after having announced he would marry a white woman, and lectures her son on not letting rage (sloppily defined as a legacvy of colonial oppression, or some such thing) overwhelm his Latino passion. In a nice twist, at the end the son, Joey, announces he has a girlfriend named Laura Johnson; his mother assumes she's white, and is surprised, when she meets her, to see she's black.

Still, a good film. 3 stars, of 5.

April 4, 1968

April 4, 1968 : Martin Luther King, Jr.'s death and how it changed America (2008)
Dyson, Michael Eric. New York: Basic Civitas Books.



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