The National Conversation (Raw)

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The Future Begins

Great fun! The franchise has been renewed!

The Dark Knight gets trumped

Just got back from the midnight showing of the new "Joker movie." That's what it should be called because Heath Ledger's Joker is all you want to see.

Wow! Ledger stole the show. The movie was long, but many stayed till after the credits rolled in hopes of one more glimpse of this man's talent. Didn't happen, but... Wow! Great movie.

Leave the young children at home for this one. This is not your father's Batman!!!

In The Name Of Obama

This is amazing. Clint Eastwood and Spike Lee have been involved in a war of words. Spike fired first. He criticized Eastwood for his omission of Americans of African Descent from his two award winning films, "Flag of Our Fathers" and "Letters from Iwo Jima." Then Clint fired back telling Spike Lee to basically shut his face.

Rarely do I agree with Spike Lee (whose beautiful wife was my best friend's prom date!), but this time he's right. It was an oversight in "Letters from Iwo Jima" and it shouldn't have happened. Americans of African descent played a role in World War II and it is a real shame that they have been scrubbed from history by America's best film directors.

But that's not what's interesting about this story.

Spike has said his piece. After the last round of words, he said he is drawing the line... no more angry words...he's changing his tune out of deference to . . . Barack Obama!

In the name of Obama!

P.S. Spike is an unofficial advisor of Barack Obama. On their very first date, Barack took Michelle to see Spike Lee's "Do The Right Thing."  Holy "Fight the Power," Batman!

Are You My Daddy?

Hollywood goes too far. First Superman, now Indiana Jones. What is it with Hollywood and its disdain for the family, for fatherhood?

In Superman Returns, the man of steel returns after a sabbatical to discover that Lois is a mother, and she has a son. His son...nice.

Now with the latest edition of the Indy saga, we find out our hero, the professor, the action archeologist, ran out on his pregnant girlfriend . . . left her at the altar. This time, the sidekick is his son.

Life is already messy. Why must our movie heroes reflect the culture? 

Hmmm.

I guess it’s the Culture, Stupid!

Yes! I Am A Geek!

I just saw the greatest movie of all time. Not because it was a great movie (actually, it was average) but because it made me feel great, so I guess that makes it great. Speed Racer was my first hero and the Mach 5 was the first and only car that I have ever truly wanted.

The Wachowski brothers produced eye popping candy with this, their latest outing. It's not getting the greatest reviews but I could not care less. Even though I took my little ones with me, for two plus fantastical hours I was an eight year old kid again... sitting behind the wheel of the powerful Mach 5, a car that I have driven in my imagination for almost forty years.

Wow!

After the last credit rolled (yes, I made them stay to the bloody end) my son asked me if there will be another Speed Racer movie...  that brought me out of the trance.  "Probably not," I said. The real rub is, if the movie doesn't do well and DVD sales are small, there's no profit in it.

Economics... Hollywood.

But, one can always hope!

So... Go, Speed Racer, Go!

What’s Wrong With This Picture?

“Hollywood goes too far!” In a famous skit on The Dave Chapelle Show, comedian/writer, Paul Mooney, took on Hollywood by illustrating how absurd and unwittingly racist the industry can be. In the style of the movie review show, Siskel and Ebert, Mooney (who is black) set himself as the third wheel. . . the black movie reviewer whose job it was to set the record straight

The movie being reviewed that week was The Last Samurai, starring Tom Cruise. The other reviewers (who happened to be two white females) praised the scenery, beauty and passion of the movie as well as the moving story and exceptional acting.

When it was Mooney’s turn to comment, he simply shook his head.  With a slow deliberate voice he said something like this: Hollywood goes too far. They do. They go too far. Tom Cruise as the last Samurai? Please…Recently we had Brad Pitt in The Mexican, Daniel Day-Lewis in The Last of the Mohicans, What’s next? Tom Hanks as the last N-word in Hollywood?

Now that’s be funny. But what’s going on in Hollywood right now is not funny. In fact, it’s down right insidious in the most racist way.

Angelina Jolie is playing a real-life black woman in the movie, A Mighty Heart. It is the true story of slain journalist Daniel Pearl and his widow, Mariane Pearl, who is bi-racial.

What? Is there a shortage of black actresses? What? Halle Berry and Alicia Keys are too busy to play the role of a competent black wife of a Jewish reporter? Before you think that I am over reacting, there is a lot of this “race-switching” going on in Hollywood right now and Jesse and Al are nowhere to be found.

In the movie World Trade Center starring Nicolas Cage, the hero who pulled Cage’s character out a pile of rubble in the movie was white. In reality, the man was Jason Thomas, a black ex-marine and proud of his accomplishments. Why the race switch? Denzel wasn’t available?

A Mighty Heart and World Trade Center depict two positive stories of Americans of African descent that have been whitewashed by Hollywood.

But the problem is worldwide.

Remember Joran van der Sloot? The guy who was accused of killing Natalee Holloway in Aruba? In a movie that aired in the Netherlands, a black actor played his part even though Joran van der Sloot is white and is still a murder suspect. 

What is going on and why aren’t people talking about this?

Is there a media assault on the image of black women in general and a specific attack on the positive images of Americans of African descent in the media today?

(A blogger by the name of Pearl Jr.contacted me on this issue. I'm trying to find a way to make her piece available to you.)

Join me from noon to 2:00 pm today on News Radio 620 WTMJ as we illuminate this topic.

Speed Racer: Update

Speed & Trixie

Emile Hirsch & Cristina Ricci

Chim Chim will be played by a real chimpanzee. (He hates being called a monkey.)

Am I a geek?

As a child, I used to run home from school to watch every episode. On long family vacations, this is the car I drove in my mind's eye as we lumbered across the flat boring plains of Illinois.

Before Spider Man, before the famous Millennium Falcon and X-Wing star fighter, before Star Trek and the USS Enterprise (well almost), there was the powerful Mach 5!

I love Speed Racer! I am a Speed Racer geek! There I said it.  Now you know, and on May 9, 2008, I know where I will be -- watching the film version of the T.V. show, Speed Racer: Demon on Wheels!


Wow!

The brothers Wachowski, who produced V for Vendetta and the Matrix trilogy, are returning to the big screen to bring back Speed and the family (Pops, Spritle, Chim Chim and Trixie). If Racer X and his car Morning Star are in the movie, I.. will… die.

Why should Boomers have all the fun? Gen X had its cultural icons, too!

Go Speed Racer, Go!

Update: The picture of the Mach 5 is not a toy model, it the real deal!!!

Diversity in 2-D

The Walt Disney Co. finally went and did it! They are coming out with a movie that will feature their first black princess. The movie is slated to come out in 2009, and I am predicting that it will lay a royal bomb.

“The Frog Princess” is set in New Orleans (strike one) and is written by John Lasseter (strike two) who is the chief creative officer for Disney and Pixar. The movie will be scored by the very talented Randy Newman (strike three).

In an era that worships diversity, this move by Disney is basically scripted. Maybe I am jumping the gun, but so far the only thing black in the project is the picture of the black princess. Token. Perfunctory.

Where is Quincy Jones? Are there no black writers at Disney? Will these very white guys (who have crazy talent) be able to capture the imagination of Americans of African Descent?

Please don’t misunderstand. I am not calling for affirmative action at Disney. I’m just asking: In 2007, is it enough to just have a black face and a black voice? How about some black talent behind the project?

I hope that I am wrong, but so far “The Frog Princess” looks like a toad.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Movies/03/15/disney.newprincess.ap/index.html