Malcolm X

Year 13, Day 128 - 5/8/21 - Movie #3,833

BEFORE: This is one of those movies, with such a large cast, that I think of as "time holes" - the name comes from the movie "Time Bandits", where the lead characters had a map of all the portals in the time/space continuum, showing where and when they would appear.  Late in the film, when our heroes are on the ropes, fighting Evil in the Time of Legends, they realize that the villain's castle contains one of the biggest time holes of all, leading anywhere - everywhere!  (Which leads to the question, why didn't the villain use it to take over the world?  Ah, but he didn't have the map, maybe he didn't know about it!)  This film is like that big time hole, from here I can probably go anywhere - but I just need it to get me to my Mother's Day film, as Michael Imperioli carries over from "One Night in Miami..."

This film is also over three hours long, close to three and a half.  So saving it for a Friday night/Saturday morning was definitely the right move.  Plus I'll also need to spend another two hours writing about it, and also figuring out where I've seen each actor or famous person last.  I mean, I do have a system that uses the advanced search functions of the IMDB, but that system isn't foolproof, it falls short on archive footage, so that's why I also have to keep good notes in a separate file.  The things I do to keep this blog running...

THE PLOT: Biographical epic of the controversial and influential Black Nationalist leader, from his early life and career as a small-time gangster to his ministry as a member of the Nation of Islam. 

AFTER: I know, after watching "Da 5 Bloods", which I mostly enjoyed, that I promised to catch up on the Spike Lee movies that I haven't seen, despite my personal feelings against his filmmaking style.  This film, though a very thorough biography of Malcolm X's life, proves my point.  Who's the first character we see?  Shorty, played by Spike Lee himself.  The film's SUPPOSED to focus on Malcolm X, yet it starts on Shorty - Spike can't resist putting himself into his own movie, and starting on him, and THAT'S what pisses me off.  It's not all about you, Spike, same goes for the Oscar that "Green Book" won - sometimes things are about people and things that are not Spike Lee!  The beginning of this film (and the ending, but more about that later) kind of ruined this for me.  

The in-between stuff was solid, assuming this story was accurate (and it should be, it's based on the autobiography that was co-written with acclaimed author Alex Haley.  So there's a lot of information here that I didn't know, like Malcolm X's criminal past, back when he was Malcolm Little, I didn't know he lived in Roxbury, MA between the ages of 14 and 21 - that's the part of Boston my father was born in - and after some time living in Flint, Michigan, he moved to Harlem and engaged in criminal activity there, but was arrested in Boston for burglary and served time in Charlestown State Prison, then was transferred to Norfolk Prison (now called MCI-Norfolk, and that's very close to where I was born.)

Malcolm got turned on to the teachings of Islam by a fellow inmate, and kicked drugs and straightened himself out (while also un-straightening his hair) in prison.  He kept up his education and stayed in contact with the Nation of Islam, and then joined the movement after his parole, moving to Chicago to work under Elijah Muhammed at the Nation of Islam's headquarters there. Gradually he became the spokesman for the organization, but when he found out that Elijah Muhammed had fathered several children out of wedlock, which was against the religion's teachings, that's when Malcolm began to question his role in the organization - ah, so THAT's the reason his character was having doubts in "One Night in Miami...", it's kind of all coming together now.  

In yesterday's film, he was also planning to take a pilgrimage to Mecca, and in this film, we see him do just that, though he was supposedly watched by U.S. government agents during his travels.  (I didn't quite understand why he said he was going to Mecca, then we see him visiting the Egyptian pyramids, which are in a totally different country.  But Wikipedia explains that after the Mecca visit, he took a side trip to arrange a future visit to Africa for Elijah Muhammed, and this took him to the United Arab Republic, which included Egypt)  Then, after meeting fellow Muslims of all different skin colors and from all walks of life, when he returned to the U.S. he left the Nation of Islam and founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity, teaching tolerance instead of racial separation.  But this also led to his house being fire-bombed, an event which was also depicted at the end of "One Night in Miami..."

I did appreciate seeing Malcolm X question the prison chaplain, dispelling the myth that Jesus had white skin and blue eyes, when that just wouldn't be logical at all.  But why stop there, with Jesus' race, and not continue to question whether he really rose from the dead, or turned water in to wine?  If you ask me, if one part of the religious dogma is obviously B.S., then there's a great likelihood that it's ALL B.S.  I guess this is where Malcolm X and I would have a difference of opinion, he chose to believe in certain parts of the Bible, the ones that fit his beliefs, and then the Koran, as well.  But once my brain started unraveling the threads of the fabric, I found that it all began to fall apart for me - substituting a new religion for the one that I no longer believed in didn't seem like a viable solution to me, but I guess that worked for him.  

Still, the film was very informative, and after three hours detailing nearly everything in his life, it inevitably had to cover his death, where three gunmen disrupted a speaking engagement at the Audubon ballroom in Manhattan.  The film closes with archive footage of Malcolm X, but then that's followed by Spike Lee being Spike again (I guess he can't help it) sticking in footage of his famous friends and heroes, like Michael Jordan, Janet Jackson and Willie Mays, when I'm not aware of any tangible connections between them and Malcolm X, except that they're all famous African-American's.  Bill Cosby's in there too, so any regrets about that, Spike?  Screw you, Spike Lee, for trying to somehow make this about you and your friends and how cool you are for knowing those people. 

That's going to wrap up my transposed Black History Month - just in time for Mother's Day.  I realize how presumptuous it was of me to move this event, I had no right to do so.  But still, I learned a lot and I think that this was better than not commemorating the event at all, which is the road I've taken in previous Movie Years.  Anyway, they're always saying that Black History doesn't end when Black History Month is over, so I hope I'm in the clear. (also, February has 28 days most years, but May has 31, just saying...and Malcolm X was born in May...)  I covered Ma Rainey, Bobby Seale, black soldiers in Vietnam, jazz, racially motivated voter suppression, John Lewis, Barack & Michelle Obama, the post-slavery south seen in "Beloved" and "The Color Purple", Harriet Tubman, Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X.  That seems fairly thorough in retrospect, but there's probably still enough material for me to do this again next year, if the linking allows. 

Also starring Denzel Washington (last seen in "The Equalizer 2"), Angela Bassett (last heard in "Soul"), Albert Hall (last seen in "Beloved"), Al Freeman Jr. (last seen in "Finian's Rainbow"), Delroy Lindo (last seen in "Da 5 Bloods"), Spike Lee (last seen in "Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall"), Theresa Randle (last seen in "Bad Boys for Life"), Kate Vernon (last seen in "Pretty in Pink"), Lonette McKee (last seen in "Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic"), Tommy Hollis, James McDaniel, Ernest Lee Thomas, Jean-Claude La Marre, O.L. Duke, Larry McCoy, Maurice Sneed, Debi Mazar (last seen in "She's Funny That Way"), Phyllis Yvonne Stickney, Scot Anthony Robinson, Sonny Jim Gaines, Joe Seneca, LaTanya Richardson (last seen in "Freedomland"), Leonard L. Thomas (ditto), Wendell Pierce (last seen in "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2"), Michael Guess, Leland Gantt, Giancarlo Esposito (last seen in "Okja"), Roger Guenveur Smith (last seen in "The Clapper"), Graham Brown, Gerica Cox, Shirley Stoler (last seen in "Desperately Seeking Susan"), Oran “Juice” Jones, Ricky Gordon, Veronica Webb (last seen in "Someone Like You"), Steve White, Mary Alice, Ed Herlihy, Karen Duffy (last seen in "Reality Bites"), Walter Emanuel Jones, Beatrice Winde (last seen in "It Could Happen to You"), Billy J. Mitchell (last seen in "Never Say Never Again"), Martin Donovan (last seen in "The Portrait of a Lady"), James Murtaugh (last seen in "Everybody's Fine"), Tim Kelleher (last seen in "Matchstick Men"), Michael Cullen (last seen in "The Place Beyond the Pines"), Miki Howard,

with cameos from Karen Allen (last seen in "Starman"), Peter Boyle (last seen in "The Candidate"), David Patrick Kelly (last seen in "John Wick: Chapter 2"), William Kunstler, Nelson Mandela (last seen in "Whitney"), Christopher Plummer (last seen in "Knives Out"), John Sayles, Richard Schiff (last seen in "The Gambler"), Bobby Seale (last seen in "Da 5 Bloods"), Al Sharpton (last seen in "Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown"), Nicholas Turturro (last seen in "BlacKkKlansman"), John David Washington (ditto), Craig Wasson (last seen in "Ghost Story"), Ashanti, with narration by Ossie Davis (last seen in "No Direction Home: Bob Dylan")

and archive footage of Muhammad Ali (last seen in Da 5 Bloods"), Angela Davis (ditto), Tracy Chapman, Bill Cosby, Vincent D'Onofrio (last seen in "Steal This Movie"), Janet Jackson, Jesse Jackson (last seen in "John Lewis: Good Trouble"), Martin Luther King (ditto), Malcolm X (ditto), Andrew Young (ditto), Magic Johnson (last seen in "Fyre"), Michael Jordan, John F. Kennedy (last seen in "Matinee"), Rodney King (last seen in "Straight Outta Compton"), Joe Louis, Willie Mays, Jackie Robinson, Betty Shabazz, George Wallace (last seen in "Muscle Shoals"). 

RATING: 6 out of 10 foster homes

One Night in Miami...

Year 13, Day 127 - 5/7/21 - Movie #3,832

BEFORE: I dropped this one into the chain just a couple weeks before the Oscars, just in case it was likely to win something - umm, it didn't, despite three nominations.  Then since I'd made room for it (by doubling up on Samuel L. Jackson films), I figured I might as well keep it in, or else then I'd have a hole in the schedule.  Tomorrow's film has such a large cast, there were probably at least a dozen ways to get there - I could have linked there from "Freedomland", for example, if I'd wanted to skip "Harriet" and this one.  But, I'm all about packing the schedule with more films rather than sitting out for a couple days, so the schedule stands. 

Leslie Odom Jr. carries over from "Harriet". 

THE PLOT: A fictional account of one incredible night where icons Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown gathered, discussing their roles in the Civil Rights movement and cultural upheaval of the 1960s. 

AFTER: I'm pretty underwhelmed by this one, now I'm wondering what all the fuss was about.  At least the film is very clear that the events depicted are fictional, that there probably was never a night such as this, when THESE four men gathered in THIS manner and had THOSE discussions. Which is a bit of a shame, really, I mean I know this is based on a play, but if these four men's lives were so colorful and interesting, then why not pick a real event where we know they were all in attendance?  And if there was no time they were together, then why put them together, and why in THIS particular fashion?  I don't quite know, I'm scratching my head.  

So I kind of have to read between the lines here, and extrapolate from the fictional conversations that were placed in these characters' mouths, and determine in reverse what, exactly, the playwright felt was important.  I've never seen this other play (and film) called "Insignificance", but it similarly put four famous characters together in a hotel room - Joe DiMaggio, Marilyn Monroe, Albert Einstein and Sen. Joseph McCarthy - and then wrote what could have happened.  You can do this with any four people, or it's like asking someone "What three famous people, living or dead, would you like to have dinner with?"  (I'd choose the living people, they tend to have livelier conversations, though the dead don't eat as much, and you can probably stick them with the bill.)

The film opens with a montage of each of the characters at a low point in their lives - Ali almost loses a fight in the U.K., Sam Cooke bombs in front of a white crowd at the Copa, Jim Brown visits an old football friend who'll sit with him on the porch but doesn't allow black people into his house, and Malcolm X questions whether he should leave the Nation of Islam in a discussion with his wife. 

The night in question takes place on February 25, 1964, right after Cassius Clay wins a boxing match against Sonny Liston to become heavyweight champion.  NFL player Jim Brown is a ringside commentator, and Sam Cooke and Malcolm X were in the crowd. (Supposedly.)  And the night becomes one of great personal change for all of the men - Cassius Clay decides to commit to being a Muslim (or Moo-slim, as he says) and change his name to Muhammed Ali, Jim Brown reveals he's leaving the NFL to pursue more acting roles, and Sam Cooke decides to stop writing songs he thinks white people will enjoy and write something meaningful about civil rights. Malcolm X still struggles with his future plans, but perhaps I'll get some more understanding about him in tomorrow's movie. 

There are a few things here that don't really add up, like they don't really make sense - I just sort of noticed the contradictions inherent to Cassius Clay/Muhammed Ali.  He wants to be a Muslim and practice non-violence, which is why he refused to serve in Vietnam, but isn't his whole boxing career based on hitting other men?  How did he resolve those two things?  He was always bragging about himself and saying he could beat this guy or whup that fighter's ass, and that all seems pretty violent, right?  It's a bit like a librarian who doesn't like to read, or a NASCAR driver who doesn't own a car, it's just a bit weird.  And why would the Nation of Islam want a boxer in their ranks, anyway, somebody who beats up other men for a living, if they claim to practice non-violence?  

The big NITPICK POINT for me, though, was Sam Cooke talking about song royalties, how he wanted somebody big, like the Rolling Stones, to cover one of his songs, because his friend Bobby Womack wrote the song "It's All Over Now", which the Rolling Stones covered and then had a Number 1 hit with.  Umm, OK, except I couldn't find any Stones covers of Cooke's songs except "Good Times", and that wasn't released as a single AND they recorded it after Sam Cooke died.  It's true that the Stones hit #1 on the charts with that Bobby Womack song, but not until July of 1964, and this film takes place in February 1964 - so Sam Cooke couldn't possibly have known about the Stones' success with that song, it hadn't happened yet.  

Now the song that Sam Cooke DID write, the big inspirational anthem about civil rights, was "A Change Is Gonna Come" - and sure, it was a modest hit, and it maybe inspired a ton of people about the kind of change they wanted to see in the world, but then again - that's it?  A song? That's the big payoff here, the men meet in a hotel room and talk about their hopes and dreams and enacting change in the world, and all we get from that is one song?  Harriet Tubman freed hundreds of slaves from the South and brought them to safety in the North, to me THAT'S social change, not a 45 single on the RCA label.  Maybe it's just me, and maybe it's the fact that I watched "Harriet" right before this one, but I'm left saying, "That's it?"

Maybe that is the point, I don't know, that people have to act quickly when they see injustice in the world, because we've all got such a very short window to make a difference, however we see that.  Sam Cooke died in December 1964 and Malcolm X was assassinated in February 1965 - so (sorry, SPOILER ALERT) two of this film's main characters were dead about a year after the night depicted.  You gotta get together with your friends whenever you can, I guess, because we're here for a good time, not a long time.  

Sam Cooke, by the way, died in a hotel in Los Angeles - and forgive me for thinking that THAT story might have been a whole lot more interesting.  Weirder and sadder, sure, but way more interesting.  He was shot by the hotel manager, in what was ruled a "justifiable homicide" - he burst into her room wearing only a sport jacket and one shoe, and he was disoriented and screaming, "Where's the girl?" so she shot him in self-defense.  There are a number of possible scenarios to explain this, he'd been seen with a woman at the hotel, one who claimed he had tied her up and molested her, until she was able to grab her clothes and escape.  It's also possible that this woman robbed HIM, took his clothes and money and left the hotel.  Some people have claimed the whole thing was a giant conspiracy, arranged by his manager, Allen Klein, to have Cooke killed so he'd lose all the rights to his recordings.  You can read the whole story on Wikipedia, it's quite fascinating and mysterious.  Weird and sad, sure, but fascinating and mysterious.  

Instead, I have to judge this film based on four guys talking in a hotel room.  They eat a bit, drink a bit, but there are no women present so they don't even do what most people go to a hotel room to do. OK, they go out on the roof and watch some fireworks, big freaking deal - you've seen one fireworks show, you've seen them all.  Sorry, but this was mostly boring, and a terrific example of why a director's motto should be "Show, don't just tell."  It's not really much of a "legendary night" when the after-party is so dullsville. 

Also starring Kingsley Ben-Adir (last seen in "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword"), Eli Goree, Aldis Hodge (last seen in "Straight Outta Compton"), Lance Reddick (last seen in "John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum"), Christian Magby, Joaquina Kalukango, Nicolette Robinson, Michael Imperioli (last seen in "I Shot Andy Warhol"), Lawrence Gilliard Jr. (last seen in "Cecil B. Demented"), Beau Bridges (last seen in "The Mountain Between Us"), Emily Bridges, Jeremy Pope, Christopher Gorham (last seen in "A Life Less Ordinary"), Jerome A. Wilson, Amondre D. Jackson, Aaron D. Alexander, Randall Newsome (last seen in "Love Happens"), Alan Wells, Sean Monaghan, Derek Roberts (last seen in "The 5th Wave"), Hunter Burke, Robert Stevens Wayne, Matt Fowler, Dustin Lewis (last seen in "First Man"), Lucretia Johnson with archive footage of Mike Wallace. 

RATING: 5 out of 10 bodyguards

Harriet

Year 13, Day 126 - 5/6/21 - Movie #3,831

BEFORE: I'm back on the Black History beat, and by no means did I intend to offend when I "moved" my acknowledgement of Black History Month on my calendar, it's just that I never get to pay respect to the occasion, because I'm always covering the topic of romance in February.  Every year for a while now, I kept saying, "If the romances run out..." but they never do.  So for me, focusing on Black History in April and May just made more sense, I don't expect anyone's else's observance to move, I'm just following the linking, and I saw a way to tie a bunch of films together on this topic.  We'll cover Harriet Tubman today, and Malcolm X for the next two days, and then it will be Mother's Day. OK?

Clarke Peters carries over from "Freedomland". And here are my acting links for the rest of the month: Leslie Odom Jr., Michael Imperioli, Angela Bassett, Damian Young, Peter Dinklage, Andy Nyman, Jessie Buckley, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Yuri Kolokolnikov, Ben Hardy, Rami Malek, Charlie Hunnam, Odessa Young, Johnny Depp, Aaron Eckhart, Woody Harrelson.  Yes, I know that's only 17 people and there are 25 days left in May, but some of those people are in 3 or 4-film chains. That's how I roll.

THE PLOT: The extraordinary tale of Harriet Tubman's escape from slavery and transformation into one of America's greatest heroes, whose courage, ingenuity and tenacity freed hundreds of slaves and changed the course of history. 

AFTER: There's a new series on Amazon called "The Underground Railroad", which of course is the name for the network of safe havens, secret paths and friendly local residents who helped slaves escape from the pre-Civil War southern U.S. and the name was, of course, metaphorical.  But the new series (based on a prize-winning book, apparently), depicts an ACTUAL railroad operating below ground, which of course you can do in a fantasy novel, write about something that didn't really exist in that way.  But as far as history goes, "No, no, no, NO!" - this is not what should be depicted in film or TV, because our students are currently dumb enough already, and if this leads even a small percentage of people to think that there were somehow underground trains operating in the 19th Century southern states, then maybe somebody should re-think this. We're trying to FIGHT mis-information right now, concerning things like election fraud and the safety of vaccines, and anything that distorts history or causes more confusion could be like throwing gasoline on to a burning fire, it's making things worse, plus that gas can could blow up in your hands.  

As things already stand, I bet if you asked high-school students who invented the subway system and you made Harriet Tubman one of the choices, a substantial percentage would pick her - because the subway's just an underground railroad, right?  Let's ignore for a minute all the obvious problems with that, like who dug the space for the train, how did they do that in secret, and where would all the smoke from the locomotive engine go?  Now on top of everything else, in a few years we'll have to dispel another urban myth about how slaves were smuggled to safety.  OK, so one author misunderstood what the name of the "underground railroad" implied, but once he figured out what reality was, why did he have to infect others with this bad idea by writing a fantasy novel about it?  This is, instead, a perfect opportunity to teach your kids what a metaphor is, and how symbolism was used in this case for the purposes of subterfuge.  

Everybody back then knew what a railroad was, a network of stations and what conductors did on rail lines, so it really was just verbal shorthand.  It still required maps, quick thinking and probably an enormous amount of luck to travel on this "railroad", plus it all happened at night, before there was electricity or phones or GPS systems - and maybe we don't even know about all the missions that took place that didn't succeed, because those who failed were either killed or put back into the plantation system, never to emerge again.  

It was under this system that escaped slave Harriet Tubman (formerly Araminta "Minty" Ross, I did not know that...), returned to the South, again and again, sometimes dressed as a man, to rescue members of her family and then other slaves, at least 13 times, to rescue over 70 slaves.  And then after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, the task became even more difficult, getting escaped slaves not just into the Northern states, but all the way to Canada.  Later Tubman served as a spy for the Union during the Civil War, and also led a brigade of soldiers during the raid at Combahee Ferry, which freed over 750 slaves.  I don't think that any film, not even this one, could possibly capture the difference that this one woman made in the world.  To date, she's one of the few women to ever lead a U.S. military assault. 

But, here's the thing, she was apparently never paid for her services - not by the military, not by abolitionists, not by whoever sponsored the Underground Railroad.  She lived for most of her life in poverty, though she worked various jobs and friends and family sometimes raised money to support her.  The U.S. government, not so much - even if they put her image on the $20 bill in the future as some have planned to, that hardly counts as compensation.  Sales of her published biography in 1869 brought her about $1,200 (not adjusted for inflation), but that's also how much Senator William Seward charged her for a house and small parcel of land in Auburn, NY.  She'd come back to the U.S. from Canada after the 1857 Dred Scott Decision - that's when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Constitution was never meant to include citizenship for black people, despite the fact that black men voted in 5 out of 13 states in 1789.  (This ruling caused the Panic of 1857 and, you know, that whole Civil War thing.)

But that's a bit outside the scope of this film, which starts with "Minty" as a slave, living on a plantation in Maryland.  The middle child out of nine, she was struck in the head by a weight thrown by an overseer and was unconscious for days.  After the incident she had terrible headaches and seizures, but also experienced visions and vivid dreams, which she believed were premontions from God.  Though she couldn't read, she was familiar with Bible stories and followed the Old Testament teachings - naturally the ones about slaves rising up and escaping to freedom.  

Harriet's parents were released from slavery at the age of 45, and the agreement was supposed to also extend to their children, however the plantation owners who owned them refused to honor this agreement - because what slave would have the recourse to hire a lawyer and dispute them?  Somehow, in 1844 Harriet married a free black man, John Tubman.  But the plantation owners argued that her slave status would apply to her children, so she and John never had children.  This type of marriage wasn't uncommon, it's possible that the free husbands would be able to work toward eventually buying the freedom of their wives.  And as this film shows, Harriet's owner was trying to sell her, once she got to a certain age or became ill, he wasn't interested in selling her to her own husband, so this is the type of complicated situation that led her to escape alone, without her husband or other family.  

(EDIT: For brevity's sake, the film omits an earlier escape attempt Harriet made with her two brothers, while they'd been loaned out to another plantation.  This could explain why they almost succeeded, their owners were less likely to notice their absence, since they escaped from another location. But one of her brothers had recently become a father for the first time, so the brothers turned back and convinced Harriet to return, also.)

Other than that, the film seems quite accurate in its portrayal of Tubman's forays back into the South as "Moses" to rescue other slaves.  Upon returning to Dorchester County, Maryland to rescue her husband, she learned that after her escape, John Tubman thought she was dead and married another woman.  Instead of making more trouble, Harriet decided he wasn't worth it and rescued other slaves instead while she was in the neighborhood.  

It's true that she carried a revolver, for protection from slave-catchers, but also to threaten any of her charges who had second thoughts and tried to return to the plantations.  Thankfully this story is powerful enough already, and the filmmakers rightfully chose not to turn Harriet Tubman into someone who fought either vampires or zombies.  Again, you have to wonder about fantasy films - if you polled high-school students today, how many of them seriously believe this about Abraham Lincoln, thanks to cheezy movies?  It's enough here that Tubman's episodes were treated as divine premonitions, because there's obviously no real proof of that. 

Also starring Cynthia Erivo (last seen in "Bad Times at the El Royale"), Leslie Odom Jr. (last seen in "Murder on the Orient Express"), Joe Alwyn (last seen in "The Sense of an Ending"), Vanessa Bell Calloway (last seen in "Lakeview Terrace"), Vondie Curtis-Hall, Jennifer Nettles, Janelle Monae (last heard in "Lady and the Tramp" (2019), Omar Dorsey (last seen in "Selma"), Tim Guinee (last seen in "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee"), Zackary Momoh (last seen in "Doctor Sleep"), Deborah Ayorinde (last seen in "The Wizard of Lies"), Henry Hunter Hall, Rakeem Laws, Nick Basta, Tory Kittles (last seen in "Olympus Has Fallen"), William L. Thomas (last seen in "The Perks of Being a Wallflower"), Joseph Lee Anderson (last seen in "The Ballad of Lefty Brown"), Antonio J. Bell, CJ McBath, Alexis Louder, Aria Brooks, Daphne Reid, Michael Marunde, Mitchell Hoog, Thomas Keegan, Jaben Early, Don Hartman, William Flaman (last seen in "Tammy"), Laureen E. Smith, Brian K. Landis, Willie Raysor. 

RATING: 6 out of 10 NAACP Image Award nominations

Freedomland

Year 13, Day 125 - 5/5/21 - Movie #3,830

BEFORE: It feels like Samuel L. Jackson week just started, but it's already over after today.  I guess that's what I get for doubling up, it makes time seem to go by faster. 

Time also feels like it's moving faster in general, now that there are positive results from many people getting vaccinated, and as a result more restaurants and entertainment venues are starting to open up again, or making plans to open up.  There's a target date for Broadway shows to re-open, and maybe about half of the movie theaters in NYC are open, while the rest are making plans to do so, and then increase capacity.  I've been applying for jobs at movie theaters, but I've been getting no response - here I hoped I could get caught up in a wave of hiring and maybe make a little money from another part-time job, plus get out of the house more, and it just hasn't been happening.  BUT I had an interview today at a movie theater downtown, so we'll see what happens - it's only the second job interview I've been on since I started looking for work during the Christmas season.  The first interview was at the m&m's Store near Times Square a few weeks ago, but I wasn't offered a job - eh, who wants to work selling candy, anyway?  

THE PLOT: A black police detective must solve the strange case of a kidnapped boy and also deal with a big racial protest. 

AFTER: This movie is adapted from a novel written by Richard Price, who also wrote "Clockers" and "The Wanderers" and the screenplays for "The Color of Money", "Mad Dog and Glory" and "Ransom", plus the 2000 edition of "Shaft".  Later he wrote episodes of the TV show "The Deuce", which I've watched, and "The Wire", which I have not. But there's a, I don't know, a common grittiness to all those stories, or something like it.  

This story is mainly about a disoriented woman who claims that her son was kidnapped by a carjacker, and the detective who's investigating her claims with the help of an organization that helps to track down missing children, but as time goes by, certain elements of her story don't seem to add up, and both he and the members of that organization work to gain her trust, while also weighing the possibility that she might have killed her own son and concocted the carjacking story to cover it up.  This is told against the backdrop of racial unrest in a New Jersey housing project, a place that the police focus on as perhaps being the key to the investigation.  

It's a little unclear to me WHY the police officers chose to focus on the housing project - sure, maybe it's because she said a black man stole her car, and that's where many black people live, but was there any evidence that pointed in that direction?  Black people could live anywhere, and the housing project is just one location.  If not, then it feels like a shameless attempt to tie all the story elements together, the kidnapping with all the other drama and unrest taking place in the other part of town.  The mother's flashbacks make it seem like her car got stolen out in the woods, and that could be pretty far from the city's housing developments.  But perhaps it's just where all of that town's police start their investigations, I don't know - but thinking that all the criminals live there, or that somebody there must know something about every crime, that's some really racist thinking. Perhaps that's the point?  

Meanwhile, the volunteer group has found a way to narrow the search - I didn't quite follow their train of thought, either - and they suggest searching the woods, plus also an abandoned hospital nearby, called Freedomland.  This part of the story was clearly meant to be important to somebody, but I'm not sure it served any purpose other than to waste time.  The search really just serves as a framework for the head of the missing children's organization to spend more time with the mother and get inside her head.  When all the pieces of the puzzle are revealed, do they come together coherently?  I'm not so sure.  

It also feels like a huge piece of Oscar-bait to have Julianne Moore really overdoing it as the anguished mother.  Her ability to self-harm and then act out physically under interrogation goes way over the top, sure, we feel her pain but do we have to feel so MUCH of it?  Meanwhile, the police presence at the housing project ultimately does more harm than good, and by the end of the film there's a full-blown riot.  This makes the film accidentally timely and relevent, only I'm still not sure how things in this narrative escalated from there to here.  

Also starring Julianne Moore (last seen in "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee"), Edie Falco (last seen in "I Love You, Daddy"), Ron Eldard (last seen in "Just a Kiss"), William Forsythe (last seen in "Cold Pursuit"), Aunjanue Ellis (last seen in "Motherhood"), Anthony Mackie (last seen in "What's Your Number?"), LaTanya Richardson (last seen in "When a Man Loves a Woman"), Clarke Peters (last seen in "Da 5 Bloods"), Peter Friedman (last seen in "I Shot Andy Warhol"), Domenick Lombardozzi (last seen in "The King of Staten Island"), Aasif Mandvi (last seen in "Rigged: The Voter Suppression Playbook"), Philip Bosco (last seen in "Shaft" (2000)), Dorian Missick (last seen in "The Bounty Hunter"), Joe Forbrich (last seen in "Bridge of Spies"), Genevieve Hudson-Price, Marlon Sherman, with a cameo from Colman Domingo (last seen in "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom")

RATING: 4 out of 10 missed court appearances

Lakeview Terrace

Year 13, Day 124 - 5/4/21 - Movie #3,829

BEFORE: Happy Star Wars Day!  There's no film from the franchise I haven't seen, so I can't really mark the occasion with a movie, but at least there's a new Disney Plus Clone Wars spin-off, "The Bad Batch", that starts today.  And I'm deep into this chain starring Samuel L. Jackson, who carries over from "The Samaritan", and who played Jedi Mace Windu in three prequel films.  That's something, I suppose. 

THE PLOT: A troubled and racist African-American L.A.P.D. officer will stop at nothing to force out a friendly interracial couple who just moved in next door to him. 

AFTER: What year was this film released? 2008?  Things seem to have done a complete 180-turn since then, assuming that this IS the way things were in 2008, which isn't necessarily the case. When you think of "racist cop", you think of a white man, right?  Perhaps this film was playing a bit with those expectations, because it features a black racist cop, as if that's a thing.  Is it, though?  The other expectation you might have if you think of a conservative character, living in a very nice house in a very nice L.A. neighborhood, and that man had a problem with an interracial couple living next door, that would also suggest a white man, right?  Again, not the case.  

This makes me wonder when this little racial wrinkle was added - was this movie always written with this as part of the plan, or was it written with a white racist cop, and then somebody realized a whole new dimension of storytelling could open up if they flipped the race thing.  It seems like it could be possible, a proud African-American person might wonder why another black person might date a white person, or marry a white person, or plan an interracial family.  Unlikely, but it could happen.  And there are black Republicans (Repu-black-ans?) because I know at least one.  Maybe there were more in the before-times and fewer now, but they do exist.  

I was willing to apply the Scaramucci theory here - in that scenario this character isn't racist, he just hates everybody, regardless of color.  Better to be an asshole than a racist asshole, I guess - and this character has been mad at the world since his wife died, and takes it out on his kids by being very strict, but then as time goes along we realize that yes, he judges people by their color, and after a few times poking fun at a white guy for listening to rap music (again, it could happen...) and being pissed off about his neighbor throwing cigarette butts into his yard (this is not cool, no matter what your skin color is) it does surface that this cop has a definite problem with the mixed-race couple next door.  

They're also young, friendly and have been known to get it on in their backyard pool, so there are plenty of reasons to hate them, without making it about race.  But hey, free sex education for the neighbor's kids, and now he maybe doesn't have to have that awkward talk with them that he's been putting off.  No, no, it isn't cool to have sex where your neighbor's kids can see you - that's enough to get you on a list somewhere.  Surprisingly, this film is sort of based on a true story, a black police officer in Altadena, CA that was harassing the couple who lived next door, and after a series of newspaper articles, that cop was eventually fired.  

Another, perhaps quicker solution here would have been to sell their house, but the couple JUST bought it.  They'd have to take a loss on the selling price, probably, plus there were all those costs involved like broker fees, legal fees, deed fees, mortgage points, and other wonderful things that you find out about when you buy a house.  Then to sell the house and buy another one, they'd have all those costs AGAIN, it's probably not worth it.  A better idea would have been to rent out the house and just live in a hotel for a while, until things change or settle down - but then, of course, we wouldn't have a movie.  

The movie eventually gives a reason why Officer Turner has a problem with interracial marriage, but was this necessary?  Explaining it comes maybe just a bit too close to justifying it.  All this takes place against the backdrop of the annual Los Angeles fires (one of the four seasons - fires, floods, droughts and riots) and the fires don't care whose houses are in their way, or what the racial or political leanings of those people are.  A good reminder that there are things bigger than our petty human differences and grievances, and you can bet that a few dozen films that are going to use COVID-19 as a similar metaphor are in the works.  By this time next year I predict we're going to be buried in films similar to "Contagion", "World War Z", "I Am Legend", "28 Days Later", etc. even though everyone will be too sick of hearing about the actual pandemic to go watch a movie about a fictional one.  But it's probably going to happen.

Here in NYC, it's a constant battle against our neighbors - last summer was the worst fireworks season we ever had, every neighborhood sounded like Fallujah on a bad day.  Yeah, sure, I get it, people were pent-up under lockdown with nothing to do, but that's no reason to stock up on explosive devices to celebrate during the entire month of June.  Front-line workers were occupied elsewhere, and some entities were importing fireworks by the vanload, which didn't help and created a "perfect storm" of firework activity.  I'm praying this doesn't happen again this year.  We've also got people who souped up their cars during lockdown who race wildly through the streets of Queens, and a rooftop party space that opened up down the block, with late-night wedding receptions that go on until 2 am on the weekends. Somehow the unique acoustics on our block bring all that sound right to our bedroom window, so we can hear everything the DJ is saying over the P.A. system.  Great. 

Also starring Patrick Wilson (last seen in "Morning Glory"), Kerry Washington (last seen in "I Think I Love My Wife"), Jaishon Fisher, Regine Nehy (last seen in "Death at a Funeral"), Ron Glass (ditto), Jay Hernandez (last heard in "Toy Story 4"), Keith Loneker (last seen in "The Vault"), Caleeb Pinkett, Justin Chambers (last seen in "The Wedding Planner"), Lynn Chen, Dale Godboldo (last seen in "Thor"), Robert Pine (last seen in "Mother's Day"), Bitsie Tulloch (last seen in "Concussion"), Eva LaRue, Vanessa Bell Calloway (last seen in "Coming 2 America"), Robert Dahey, Cocoa Brown (last seen in "Ted 2"), Ho-Jung. 

RATING: 5 out of 10 floodlights

The Samaritan

Year 13, Day 123 - 5/3/21 - Movie #3,828

BEFORE: Samuel L. Jackson carries over from "Cleaner", and I forgot that I programmed five of his films here, plus he already made cameos in three films this year, so he's another contender for most appearances this year, he could easily tie Barack Obama and/or Oprah Winfrey.  Still, there's a lot of year left that hasn't been programmed yet, so anything could happen...

THE PLOT: After twenty years in prison, Foley is finished with the grifter's life. When he meets an elusive young woman named Iris, the possibility of a new start looks real, but his past proves to be a stubborn companion. 

AFTER: I'm not sure yet, but I think in 4 out of this week's 5 Samuel L. Jackson films, he plays either a cop or an ex-cop.  This one's the exception, he plays a former con artist who gets released from jail after over two decades on a murder rap.  Midway through the film (which isn't even all that long, just about 90 minutes) we learn that after a con job went wrong, he was forced at gunpoint to kill his best friend and partner.  There should be some allowance for that in the court system, no?  If you're forced to kill somebody, then there was no intent, he was killing someone to save his own life, and you'd think a jury might take that into account. 

Regardless, there's something very meta going on here, because the film seems very aware of its own little tricks and turns, as a con artist who's just been released falls victim to a con himself.  Every con has the bait, an attractive woman who the mark feels that he has to save, and in this case, it's Iris.  Iris gets roughed up by a thug who works for Ethan, who's the son of Foley's dead partner, the one he killed.  I felt like Iris wasn't really ever in danger, but it sure seems like Foley fell for it, and then fell for her.  Even after he figured out that Iris was in debt to Ethan, by that time he was so into her that the relationship was essentially real to him, even if it started with a deception.  

Actually, several, because there are wheels within wheels here, plans within plans, and even though Ethan needs Foley's expertise to complete the con, you may start to wonder if the con is even real, or just a way for Ethan to get back at Foley for his father's death.  Sure, this wouldn't make that much sense, because there are easier ways to hurt somebody than to hire them - but we don't really know Ethan, or how his mind works, or how far he'll go. (It turns out, pretty far...)

No spoilers here, but Foley is forced to break up with Iris, for two reasons - one is for her own safety, so she doesn't get dragged into this dangerous scheme, and the other one is probably the WORST reason you can imagine for having to end a relationship.  But Iris is dragged back into the scheme anyway, because the bait Ethan was going to use became no longer available, plus Ethan seemed to enjoy putting somebody that Foley cared about in danger.  

All of this while Foley's still technically out on parole, so he's at risk of being sent back to prison just for hanging out with these people, participating in a con game is no doubt way against the rules, also - but by this time he's too far in, and the only way out is through it.  As with "The Good Liar", once the parties started using keypads and transferring money between accounts I was pretty lost, but I'll bet that neither banking or con games really works the way that screenwriters think they do - I could be wrong, I suppose. 

There's a similar NITPICK POINT about blood transfusions - they don't necessarily work this way, like a screenwriter wants them to.  But I can't say any more about that without giving something away, so I won't.  The "Goofs" section on the IMDB backs me up, though. Still, I'm going to be kind with my rating today because I did see some things in this film that I haven't seen in other films - and I've seen so many by now, that's really saying something. 

Also starring Luke Kirby (last seen in "The Greatest Game Ever Played"), Ruth Negga (last seen in "Ad Astra"), Deborah Kara Unger (last seen in "Thirteen"), Martha Burns, A.C. Peterson (last seen in "Molly's Game"), Aaron Poole (last seen in "The Captive"), Tom McCamus (last seen in "The Sweet Hereafter"), Tom Wilkinson (last seen in "RockRolla"), Gil Bellows (last seen in "The Weather Man"), Rob Archer (last seen in "Ant-Man and the Wasp"), Frank Moore (last seen in "Owning Mahowny"), Diana Leblanc.

RATING: 6 out of 10 construction workers

Cleaner

Year 13, Day 122 - 5/2/21 - Movie #3,827

BEFORE: Starting the week with a double-feature for Samuel L. Jackson, two relatively short films today will help me get to all of his films on my list and still make Mother's Day on time.  

THE PLOT: A former cop who now works as a crime scene cleaner unknowingly participates in a cover-up. 

AFTER: This one's got a pretty good hook, after a professional cleaner finishes work on a crime scene, the paperwork disappears at the police station, there's a man missing and his wife seems to have no idea that anything ever happened in her house.  Tom Cutler is THAT good at his job, there's no trace left of the blood that was all over the couch, and the walls, and the floor - and his ex-cop mind immediately tips him off that something's not right, he got tricked in to cleaning up another cop's personal business as if it were the end of an investigation, not the erasure of one.  The problem then becomes, even though there's no trace of bodily fluids, there's going to be traces of cleaning fluids, and each cleaner uses a different mixture. So unless he figures out what's going on, he could become a suspect.  Ha, but that would only happen if police were interested in solving crimes, what are the chances of that happening?  

This all then becomes about the WHY somebody wanted this man, and his bloodstains, to disappear.  There's also a great demonstration on how to do a deep-clean on a leather couch, but if cleaning up blood on this level is important to you, you've probably got bigger concerns.  Anyway, it's not really about the cleaning, thanks to movie magic, they probably just shot the clean scenes first before spreading around the fake blood, and just edited that footage into the later parts of the film.  Could you ever be comfortable in your living room again, after a crime scene got cleaned up there?  And how do you patch up a 2-foot by 4-foot square hole in the carpet? 

The WHO is important, sure, but there aren't that many characters in this film, so very few places for the culprit to hide.  Forget the artifice, it's probably going to turn out to be the guy you think it's going to be, but WHY?  I watched until the end, and I still can't quite determine that. 

Along the way, Tom's got to try to re-connect with his daughter - they've been trying to hold things together since the violent death of Tom's wife, which his daughter witnessed.  A school project on her mother is a chance for her to go through a literal box of memories, and doing so brings her closer to her mother's memory but also pushes her away from her father at the same time.  This family stuff was handled much more artfully than the police corruption investigation, that's for sure. I'm still not sure which policemen, if any, were working to solve the missing persons case - and how everything related to that ledger.

Also starring Ed Harris (last seen in "Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond"), Keke Palmer (last seen in "Hustlers"), Eva Mendes (last seen in "The Place Beyond the Pines"), Luis Guzman (last seen in "The Last Stand"), Maggie Lawson (last seen in "Still Waiting..."), Jose Pablo Cantillo, Robert Forster (last seen in "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past"), Edrick Browne (last seen in "Manglehorn"), Marc Macaulay (last seen in "Matinee"), Peter Franzen, Rosalind Rubin, Mike Guy, Richard Folmer, James Barnes, Linda Leonard, Ritchie Montgomery (last seen in "Lay the Favorite"), Patrick Kirton, Peyton Wetzel, with archive footage of Cary Grant (last seen in "Topper"), Katharine Hepburn (last seen in "Holiday")

RATING: 5 out of 10 soccer trophies

Shaft (2019)

Year 13, Day 122 - 5/2/21 - Movie #3,826

BEFORE: Well, if I'm not going to follow the Peter Dinklage connection (Link-lage?) I've got to fill the spaces between here and Mother's Day somehow, so Regina Hall carries over from "Death at a Funeral" and I've got room for a Samuel L. Jackson Fest.  Well, almost, I'm going to have to double-up to fit all the movies in, but it's the weekend, and I can do that.  

It's quite possible that Mr. Jackson is already in the lead for appearances overall over the last 13 years - he's been in at least 50 films since I started doing this, but that's not counting archival footage used in documentaries - the IMDB and I differ on this point, whether that constitutes an "appearance".  But movies about movies love to use clips from "Pulp Fiction" and such - either way, he's very prolific, and I just don't have time to really sort through everything and confirm just how many times he's been on my screen, so it's easier to just say he's the champion, and he's pulling further ahead this week.

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Shaft" (2000) (Movie #2,932)

THE PLOT: JJ Shaft, a cyber security expert with a degree from MIT, enlists his family's help to uncover the truth behind his best friend's untimely death. 

AFTER: Well, it was 19 years since the last "Shaft" movie - the franchise has no need of numberings its sequels or giving each one a distinctive title, like "Halloween", it's much too cool for that - so that's just enough time for John Shaft Jr. to have formed a relationship, fallen in love with his baby mama, broke up with her for her own protection, and been an absent father to an almost-adult son.  That son finds a different way in to law enforcement, by being a computer nerd and data analyst working for the FBI.  

This sets up both a buddy-cop comedy with a twist (father & son from two different worlds working together) as well as a fish-out-of-water thing, with JJ Shaft from the suburbs forced to navigate the underworld of Harlem, NYC.  No amount of research can prepare him to walk a mile in his father's footsteps, let alone his grandfather's (grand-uncle's?).  The year 2000 was a much different world, and that goes double for 1971.  (I know, I know, as I pointed out about a week ago, I still haven't seen the original "Shaft" film, that's on me. I could link to it from here, but then I'd have no link back to current films - which is a bit of a shame, that film turns 50 this year.)

JJ's got a friend who works with ex-veterans and struggles with addiction, and he's assigned to investigate a mosque in the Bronx with possible ties to terrorism, all of this feels a bit too trendy, perhaps, but making peace with his father shows him that maybe the old ways are the best, kicking down doors and getting into gunfights.  But, are they, though?  He's also not the kind of man who would put the moves on his childhood crush, he'd spend eternity worshipping her from afar, and in that case, at least, his father inspires him to go for it.  

It would be too easy, though, plus very non-PC if the mosque really were a front for terrorists and drug dealers, so of course there's a "Law & Order" style twist that connects back to Shaft Jr.'s long-time nemesis, and also involves rousing Shaft Sr. from his decades-long hibernation.  But once you get three John Shaft's together, naturally they're unstoppable, and even cool-but-slightly-unreliable technology can't get in their way and prevent them from shooting up the bad guys.  There will be a whole Avengers-style team of SuperShafts before too long at this rate.  Still, it satisfies the requirements for keeping the franchise going, even if somebody can't be bothered to number the sequels.  I wonder how much confusion this creates among different generations of movie-goers?  

Also starring Samuel L. Jackson (last seen in "Unfit: The Psychology of Donald Trump"), Jessie T. Usher (last seen in "Independence Day: Resurgence"), Richard Roundtree (last seen in "Brick"), Alexandra Shipp (last seen in "Love, Simon"), Matt Lauria, Titus Welliver (last seen in "Promised Land"), Cliff "Method Man" Smith (last seen in "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot"), Isaach de Bankole (last seen in "Norman"), Avan Jogia (last seen in "Zombieland: Double Tap"), Luna Lauren Velez (last heard in "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse"), Robbie Jones (last seen in "Fantasy Island"), Aaron Dominguez (last seen in "Like a Boss"), Ian Casselberry (last seen in "Get Out"), Almeera Jiwa, Amato D'Apolito, Leland Jones, Chivonne Michelle, Tashiana Washington (last seen in "Straight Outta Compton"), Sylvia Jefferies, Whit Coleman, Adrienne C. Moore, Sawyer Schultz, 

RATING: 6 out of 10 inappropriate Christmas presents