Coffee & Kareem

Year 16, Day 104 - 4/13/24 - Movie #4,703

BEFORE: Wow, this film has been on Netflix for four years, which I don't think is typical for an average film.  I thought the standard window was two years, but now I guess that's for films made by other production companies, so it's true, the platform favors their own films, ones produced in-house or made exclusive to their service.  Without exclusive distribution rights, this would have scrolled off Netflix and popped up on Tubi or Roku or Freevee by now.  

I guess it's been on my list all that time, but honestly I'm not sure, I don't keep notes on how long something's been on the secondary watchlist.  How many other films have I got there that I've just back-burnered, with no real intention of getting around to watching them, so they're just taking up space?  This is why I have a cap on the size of that list, it's 325 for a reason, so it doesn't become impossible to figure out where to go next, but also there's enough material for me to make the connections between any two films if needed.  225 on the main list, that gives me 550 films to put in order at any given time, it just feels right. 

David Alan Grier carries over from "They Cloned Tyrone". 

THE PLOT: Twelve-year-old Kareem Manning hires a criminal to scare his mom's new boyfriend - police officer James Coffee - but his plan backfires, forcing Coffee and Kareem to team up in order to save themselves from Detroit's most ruthless drug kingpin. 

AFTER: Yeah, it also feels right that this wasn't a high-priority comedy - it serves a purpose for me here as part of "Black Lives Matter" week, but still, it's been a weird mix of issues for sure - shootings by cops, time-travel, civll rights, African warrior women, aliens and clones?  I'm all over the place, but still there's some kind of commonality threading through it all, even though I've jumped around from NYC to Detroit, with stops in London and Dahomey.  There's a method to my madness if I say there is. 

Don't really know what to make of this one, with its 99% corrupt Detroit police force, the well-intentioned interracial relationship that's so volatile it seems like it's going to erupt at the drop of a hat, and the foul-mouthed black teen who won't let some white cop date his mother, and also decides to do an x-rated rap about his teacher in front of the class for some reason.  It's like this movie kept aiming the comedy lower and lower, like some weird game of limbo. It's just never classy, and that kind of makes it hard to watch.  Is it worth sifting through all these family dynamics and watching a well-meaning white cop get into more and more trouble, until at one point he's technically a fugitive himself, wanted on suspicion of kidnapping and murder?  

They really wanted to make his situation bleaker and bleaker, until he'd need to resort to desperate measures to prove to the world that he's not corrupt, when in fact he might be the only cop in Detroit who's NOT working with the drug dealers.  Yeah, umm, great message there, only how did the film get approval to film in Detroit?  (Ah, but they didn't, it was mostly shot in Vancouver except for one exterior location...). And it looks like it was released a few months into the pandemic, July 2020, when most people had larger things to worry about then the tone of one action comedy.  

Ed Helms, of course, is great at playing a screw-up, he kind of made a whole career out of it, well-meaning guys who can't help digging themselves into larger and larger holes, more complicated situations no matter how they try and fix things. You want to root for that guy, but also you want him to kind of wise up and realize how the world works, most of the time.  I'd be curious to find out if that's the only kind of character he gets offered, or he's made it a point to only choose the hapless, clue-less guy who always means well but makes every situation worse. 

The film is equal parts painful and funny, and I guess that's a stylistic choice, but it's not really one that I want to support, I guess.  I mean, you just know that that James Coffee and Kareem are going to end up on the same page, whatever they do is going to bring them closer together in the end, but does that have to include a strip club, a couple of drug dens, a seedy motel where they handcuff his mother to the toilet and then a big shoot-out with drug-dealers at the steel mill?  Just wondering.  Well, at least they really went for it, whatever "it" turned out to be. 

A ton of NITPICK POINTS tonight, but they're already listed on the "Goofs" page on the IMDB, so there's little point in me mentioning them all here. 

Also starring Ed Helms (last seen in "I Do...Until I Don't"), Taraji P. Henson (last seen in "Think Like a Man Too"), Terrence Little Gardenhigh, Betty Gilpin (last seen in "The Tomorrow War"), RonReaco Lee, Andrew Bachelor (last seen in "Greenland"), William "Big Sleeps" Stewart (last seen in "Good Boys"), Chance Hurstfield (ditto), Serge Houde (last seen in "The Perfect Score"), Eduard Witzke (last seen in "The Predator"), Diana Bang (last seen in "The Interview"), Erik McNamee (last seen in "Horns"), Samantha Cole, Terry Chen (last seen in "Come and Find Me"), Garfield Wilson (last seen in "Game Over, Man!"), Arielle Tuliao, Jag Bal, Sylvesta Stuart (last seen in "Killing Gunther"), Ryan Robbins (last seen in "Reasonable Doubt"), Ian Hawes, Jesse Hutch, Jason Jordan.

RATING: 4 out of 10 pieces of cornbread

They Cloned Tyrone

Year 16, Day 103 - 4/12/24 - Movie #4,702

BEFORE: All right, another weekend almost here, and I only have to spend HALF of this one at the theater, got some free time at home on Saturday, I can catch up on some TV and maybe play a little bit of "Red Dead Redemption", it's been a few weeks.  I've just been so damn busy, with two jobs, the earthquake, the eclipse, the election coming up, it's a lot to handle. 

John Boyega carries over again from "Attack the Block".

THE PLOT: A series of eerie events thrusts an unlikely trio onto the trail of a nefarious government conspiracy in this mystery caper. 

AFTER: This is another weird one, the only thing I can equate this with is two prior sci-fi like films about the Black experience, and those are "Sorry to Bother You" and "Us".  Maybe a little bit of "Get Out" and "Nope", but mostly those first two.  Does anyone even remember "Sorry to Bother You"?  It was a BIG DEAL in 2018 for a couple of months, everybody was talking about it, what did it all mean, what was Mr. Blank's real name?  And then I guess people saw the movie and got so weirded out by it that they didn't know how to process what the movie had to say about society, and then two months later everyone was back to NOT talking about that movie.  And now it's not streaming anywhere (you can rent it on AmazonPrime, I guess) and it's not on cable and it just kind of died.  Maybe it will become a cult classic if they can get it on Black Starz or something. But it was a box office hit, it made $18 million and only cost $3 million to make, how is that any kind of failure? 

And nobody talks about "Us" any more, that's another movie that felt like it maybe it was some kind of metaphor for the African-American experience, but I think nobody really understood it or knew what to do with it, so people just kind of forgot about it?  That was an even bigger hit at the box office, it cost $20 million to make and grossed over $256 million, any way you slice it, that should be a success, except the story didn't stick with people, because nobody's talking about that movie any more.  Sure, we had a pandemic since then, everyone was busy trying to survive and not lose their minds in lockdown, but one way to keep busy while theaters were closed would have been to stay inside and watch more movies, like "Sorry to Bother You" and "Us".  Something just isn't making sense here.  

Unfortunately, I see "They Cloned Tyrone" heading down the same sort of path, except this one was never in theaters, it went straight to Netflix last July - and I"m guessing it was on top of the Netflix charts for two or three weeks, and then everyone just kind of stopped watching it - of course we don't know because Netflix doesn't release viewing numbers unless its movies do SUPER well and they want to brag about it.  So their silence is deafening, I guess "They Cloned Tyrone" didn't do so well, and then disappeared off of most people's radar.  Not me, once it's on my list I WILL GET TO IT, you've just got to give me a couple months or maybe even a year and a half. 

It feels like this movie is maybe coming from the same sort of paranoia that fueled those other two movies I mentioned - that constant feeling that something not quite right is going on, that the white people are trying to control the black people, or maybe they ALREADY DO.  How many conspiracies have we heard over the years, they're putting something in the Kool-Aid, they're not putting groceries with fresh vegetables in black neighborhoods, they're only opening up fried chicken restaurants there so black people will have more heart disease and cholesterol problems.  OR there's something in the water, AIDS was created in a lab to kill more minorities, and then of course COVID came from a lab, too, and now they're going to use the vaccine to control people or track people, or just flat-out give black people COVID.  People are going to believe what they want to believe, and once a conspiracy gets rolling, it's very hard to prove that it's false, because how do you prove a negative?  And just because you can't prove it's false, that does NOT mean that it's true, but you know what, it's too late because it's already out there. 

The problems start when Slick Charles, a pimp in The Glen area, gets visited by his drug dealer, Fontaine, who he owes money to. After Slick gives him part of what he owes, he sees Fontaine get shot by a rival drug dealer who blocks in his car.   The next morning, Fontaine shows up again to collect, perfectly fine, with no memory of being shot and killed.  But one of Slick Charles' hookers, Yo-Yo, remembers seeing a black SUV drive up and collect his body, and they find the SUV next to a house, in which they find an elevator to an underground cloning lab. Umm, sure.  

The three meet the next day at a fried chicken restaurant, and they all begin laughing ecstatically after eating the food, and they realize there's a powder that's been sprinkled over the chicken that makes everyone enjoy it more. (Not necessary, isn't fried chicken good enough to make everyone happy, black or white?).  After finding the substance in both grape drinks and hair products used by black residents, it's clear that somebody is trying to control the actions of African-American people, but who, and also why?  The surveillance cameras at the chicken restaurant aren't there for the security of the diners, they've got feeds for black churches, strip clubs, the hair salon and more, so basically the whole town's being watched, too. 

So, is everyone a clone? Just some people?  If just some, who gets to decide and by what parameters?  How does creating clones maintain peace and order, this is all a bit unclear, is it just because the clones can be controlled by certain words and sounds?  And who, exactly, benefits from this?  What is the ultimate goal, somehow it's the destruction of the black identity through assimilation?  I'm not seeing how cloning is the path to that, if I'm being quite honest. 

Fontaine eventually meets an older version of himself, which suggests of course that HE is the clone and the other Fontaine is the original. Maybe.  Then there's evidence, though, right at the end of the film, that suggests this maybe isn't what was going on at all, that there's more to the picture.  Well, unless someone's planning a sequel there perhaps should have been a better explanation for everything, right?  Sorry, if you're looking for that it's just not here.  But no, by all means, keep making these metaphors for the black experience that are so far-fetched and hard to understand that everyone's going to forget about your movie in two months' time.  If you really want to make a movie that sticks with people, maybe explain what's going on a little better, just saying. 

Also starring Teyonah Parris (last seen in "The Marvels"), Jamie Foxx (last seen in "Spider-Man: No Way Home"), Kiefer Sutherland (last seen in "The Reluctant Fundamentalist"), David Alan Grier (last seen in "Clifford the Big Red Dog"), J. Alphonse Nicholson (last seen in "Just Mercy"), Tamberla Perry, Eric B. Robinson Jr., Trayce Malachi (last seen in "Tag"), Shariff Earp (last seen in "Moonlight"), Leon Lamar (last seen in "The War with Grandpa"), Joshua Mikel (last seen in "The DIrt"), Ryan Dinning (last seen in "Jungle Cruise"), Swift Rice (last seen in "Dear Evan Hansen"), Megan Sousa, Charity Jordan (last seen in "Respect"), David Shae (ditto), Austin Freeman (last seen in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3"), Shinar Frazier, Jason Burkey (last seen in "Lady and the Tramp" (2019)), Randy Waters, Al-Teron, Kia Shine, Lou Young, Juel Taylor, Dajanea Cole, Elliott Dixon (last seen in "Let's Be Cops").

RATING: 4 out of 10 scratch-off lottery tickets

Attack the Block

Year 16, Day 102 - 4/11/24 - Movie #4,701

BEFORE: All right, let's get on with the second third of this year's movies. I'm going to sort my list today on the IMDB app, so the films coming up are at the top, and I'm going to file away the DVDs from the last month and also grab the DVDs for the next month so they'll be handy.  Sure it's a lot of work, but I only have to do it about once a month, and then I don't have to search for things every night.  9 or 10 films are on the DVR, ready and waiting, and then another 10 or so are waiting on streaming platforms, so there's really a need to keep this all organized, all so I can dive right in with a movie each night and not spend 15 minutes searching for it - of course, the movies are changing platforms all the time, so occasionally there's no getting around it, that movie is NOT where I left it, and I have to then find another way to watch it.  This time I appear to have "lost" a movie somehow, it's underlined on my list, which means I HAVE IT, either on a DVD or a DVR, but now it doesn't seem to be in either place.  I think it's still running on cable, but I'd better be sure.  I may have scheduled it to record on the DVR, and then maybe the cable was out or re-booting that day and it didn't record?  I don't need it for another 2 weeks so at least there's time to fix this, which is why I pre-check the scheduled films after each milestone holiday. 

John Boyega carries over from "The Woman King". I made a little bit of headway into the time-travel section of the list by watching "See You Yesterday", and now I've almost cleared the alien invasion section by watching today's film, along with the one I watched in January.  There's just two of those left now, but they're damn hard to link to.  And in a couple weeks I can pick up the "dystopia/apocalypse" films again, that's another tricky topic.  

FOLLOW-UP TO: "The Darkest Hour" (Movie #4,630)

THE PLOT: A teen gang in South London defend their block from an alien invasion.  

AFTER: OK, so it's not exactly "Hamlet", but perhaps it doesn't have to be, it can just be what it is, a film about aliens landing (the hard way) and coming into contact with a group of street kids. Look, when the aliens come they're not going to know our ways, so them landing on the White House lawn or at Buckingham Palace is very unlikely, they could just as easily land in the middle of the desert, but a city is much better, because after their long trip, those aliens are gonna be hungry.  

Let me go easy, maybe, because this was director Joe Cornish's first film - every film is somebody's first film, maybe - and also actor John Boyega's. It also feels like the filmmakers went out of their way to try to duplicate how teens talk and how they might react to a real alien invasion, like what weapons they might use to fight back and how they'd avoid being eaten.  And they thought pretty hard about what these aliens should look like, and how they would move, and how scary would it be if they didn't have eyes, for example.  So in one way it's also a pre-cursor to "A Quiet Place", another invasion film where the aliens are deadly, but also not built anything like humans, so it takes a while to understand how they function, and therefore how they can maybe be defeated.  Also a bit like "Stranger Things", only with British teens, but this film came first. 

Clever to set the invasion during Guy Fawkes Night, which is a time that Brits set off a lot of fireworks, akin to our Independence Day (only what do Brits know about independence, am I right?)  Who's going to notice aliens falling to earth when there are fireworks going off all over the place, explosions everywhere and the sky already being lit up?  Does this imply that the aliens were smart, or did they just get very lucky?  I liked some of the concepts here, like the idea that the first alien the teens fought was a female, kind of like a Queen Bee, and all the rest of the aliens were males, who could center in on the Queen by smell.  They have no eyes, after all.  

But really, the only thing that changes from alien invasion film to alien invasion film is the look of the nasty E.T.'s and the city they're invading.  I've seen one group of teens fight floating light aliens that were invading Moscow, and now it's another group of teens fighting bear-gorillas with glow-in-the-dark teeth invading London.  It's like the screenwriters are just filling out a big script with blanks in it, like playing "Mad Libs". OK, give me a city, now give me two animals and a weird facial feature... Now pick one character to not make it to the final reel, and we've got ourselves a script!

But this film got a second look years later from sci-fi fans when John Boyega got cast in "Star Wars" and Jodie Whittaker got a role on "Doctor Who", and they realized Nick Frost, who was in "Paul" and "The World's End" and "Shaun of the Dead" also has a role.  So this might be worth a look just for those reasons alone - NIck Frost is always fab.  He's not in tomorrow's film, sorry, but he'll be back here for two more films in about 10 days. 

Also starring Jodie Whittaker (last seen in "One Day"), Alex Esmail, Leeon Jones, Franz Drameh (last seen in "The Gentlemen"), Sammy Williams (ditto), Simon Howard, Nick Frost (last seen in "The Sparks Brothers"), Maggie McCarthy (last seen in "See How They Run"), Danielle Vitalis (last seen in "The Bubble"), Paige Meade, Gina Antwi, Natasha Jonas, Michael Ajao (last seen in "Last Night in Soho"), Luke Treadaway (last seen in "Unbroken"), Flaminia Cinque (last seen in "Leap Year"), Jumayn Hunter (last seen in "Dom Hemingway"), Selom Awadzi, Haneen Hammou, Jacey Salles, Karl Collins (last seen in "The Flash"), Joey Ansah (last seen in "How to Talk to Girls at Parties"), Adam Leese (last seen in "King of Thieves"), Lee Long, Jermaine Smith, Paisley Billings, Frankie Clarence, Chris Wilson (last seen in "Dream Horse") and the voice of Adam Buxton (last heard in "Sing 2").

RATING: 6 out of 10 marijuana plants in Ron's weed room

The Woman King

Year 16, Day 101 - 4/10/24 - Movie #4,700

BEFORE: Here we go, Movie Year 16 is 1/3 over after tonight - and to think I was trying at one point to put "Oppenheimer" on this big century mark, thankfully I went a different way, because that Best Picture winner was an almost total snooze-fest.  I would rather have a big, action-packed notable movie for a nice round number like tonight's count.  Let's hope this one fits the bill.  

Adrienne Warren carries over from "Rustin". I've got one month to get to Mother's Day, I think I have the right mix of films to get me there, but as always, it's gonna be tight. 

THE PLOT: A historical epic inspired by true events that took place in the Kingdom of Dahomey, one of the most powerful states of Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries. 

AFTER: Last year, my 100th film for the year was also my Easter film, that's just how things shook down, Easter was a bit later on the calendar in 2023.  But then I went right into my Doc Block month for the year, since Joanne Whalley was in "Paul, Apostle of Christ" and naturally she carried over into "Val", a doc about her ex-husband, Val Kilmer.  This year I've got a ways to go before I hit the documentaries, most likely after Father's Day, assuming I can fill the spaces properly before then.  Different year, different vibe.  

I avoided this film on Netflix for quite some time, 18 months maybe, and not just because it was darn near impossible to link to - I thought it looked kind of like some "Black Panther" rip-off - a tribe of female warriors that resembles the Dora Milaje loyal to King T'Challa.  But now I find out that there's some historical truth here, that there was an African country called Dahomey and they had a notable military unit that the Europeans called the "Dahomey Amazons".  And during the age of colonization, Dahomey was a big player in the slave trade, however they didn't sell their own people into slavery, they had raids on other countries and they sent people from their next-door enemy's lands into slavery.  Makes sense, I suppose, but how am I supposed to feel sympathy for a country like that?  

Easy enough, this movie only shows the reverse, with the enemies of Dahomey conducting raids on their land, and selling THEIR people into slavery.  Well, sure, OK, now we're on Dahomey's side, with their skilled militant women and their nice, clean consciences. Plus now we can think of this country as the start of African feminism - and how's that process coming along.  They're still doing WHAT to teenage girls?  Man, talk about a big step backwards.  I'm going to quickly read up on Dahomey's history, but since that country isn't around now, I'm guessing the story didn't end well.  Let's see, new economy based on palm oil, brought down the Oyo Empire, ah, here we are, the Franco-Dahomean War.  Ah, well, they lost and became a French protectorate in 1894.  Didn't become self-governing until 1958, and now it's called Benin. 

It's still a constituent monarchy, which means the title of King isn't inherited from father to son, it can be passed from one person to another based on other rules, such as whoever is the head of a certain ethnic group, or maybe just to whomever the last King chooses when he abdicates.  So what we see in this film is actually sort of kinda somehow true to life.  Still, there's that title, "The Woman King", doesn't seem to make much sense grammatically - if a woman takes over from the king, why doesn't she become the queen?  Is "King" now becoming a gender-neutral title, like how we now say "actor" to mean collectively both actors and actresses?  Somebody look into this and let me know. 

Anyway, this is set back in 1823 or so, so no real strong connection to modern times, so this just isn't Wakanda, it's a different country.  And there's King Ghezo on the throne, he's got a bunch of wives to choose from, and really the best career path for women in Dahomey was to be one of the king's wives, but barring that, being one of the Agojie is pretty cool too - you get to learn to sword-fight and do cool judo moves to overpower your enemies, who are mostly men.  I'm not going to even get into this as a gender-thing, because it's unusual, also because the women are shown here usually beating or killing the men, and sure, they're the heroes of the film so that's to be expected.  

We see these female warriors from the perspective of Nawi, a young woman who joins them when she proves too "difficult" to get married, she harasses the men who her father arranges marriages with, and then suddenly they're not so interested any more.  But this wasn't a time when people married for love, they married for land and other business-related things like dowries.  I know, I know, but different time, different vibe.  Nawi's father brings her to the palace and "gives" her to the King, so it's a choice between wife or warrior, and she goes with warrior. 

Her training is difficult, and it ends with an obstacle course race that looks a LOT like the one seen in the "Wonder Woman" movies on Themyscira - and I don't think that's a coincidence.  

Nawi is trained by Izogie and watched closely by General Nanisca, who feels some connection to her, but also is bothered by how she doesn't follow the rules and bucks the conventions of the group, in fact she kind of reminds Nanisca of herself at a younger age, and there's probably a reason for that. Years ago Nanisca was captured by their enemy, General Oba, and raped.  She got pregnant, and gave up the child to missionaries, say, you don't suppose....

The Agojie attack the Oyo Empire, who of course are led by General Oba - they're successful but three of the female warriors are captured.  One escapes and finds her way back to the Agojie, JUST as King Ghezo is about to make Nanisca his ruling equal, the Woman King - but he won't authorize a rescue party just to attack the Oyo and get a few warriors back.  But who listens to him, anyway?  Nanisca sets out with a group of warriors to get her maybe-daughter back, and also kill the man who raped her years ago, for good measure.  

OK, maybe it's a bit by-the-numbers, but there aren't a lot of female-driven African warrior films out there, so it's got uniqueness going for it.  I found it all a bit confusing and I think I fell asleep once or twice, but I woke up, had some more Mountain Dew and kept going.  Worth the effort, I think. And I think if anything, the female warriors seen in the "Black Panther" comics and movies were based on these warriors from Dahomey to begin with. 

Also starring Viola Davis (last seen in "Beautiful Creatures"), Thuso Mbedu, Lashana Lynch (last seen in "The Marvels"), Sheila Atim (last seen in "Pinocchio" (2022)), John Boyega (last seen in "The Circle"), Jordan Bolger (last seen in "Tom & Jerry"), Hero Fiennes Tiffin (last seen in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince"), Jimmy OduKoya, Masali Baduza, Jayme Lawson (last seen in "The Batman"), Chioma Antoinette Umeala, Siyamthanda Makakane, Shaina West (last seen in "Black Widow"), Sivuyile Ngesi (last seen in "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom"), Riaan Visman, Seputia Sebogodi, Angelique Kidjo, Wanda Banda, Lethabo, Kekole Mathabathe, Daniel Hadebe (last seen in "Dredd"), Kgomotso Moshia, Zozibini Tunzi, Makgosto M, Thando Diomo, Julius Tennon (last seen in "Air"), Pumla Ndlazi, Bonko Khoza, Sne Mbatha, Boitumelo Makgalemele, Kwanda Tim Diamini, Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi (last seen in "The Brothers Grimsby"), Joel Mukadi

RATING: 6 out of 10 burning huts

Rustin

Year 16, Day 100 - 4/9/24 - Movie #4,699

BEFORE: Yep, another film that played at the theater during the run-up to Awards season, or maybe it played a couple times, once during the Tuesday night Film Appreciation class.  Such screenings are my bread and butter now, even though I'm technically still a temp there, I usually get about two or three shifts a week, more during the guild screenings (November to February) and during film festival season (June and October).  Next week I've got an interview for a staff position, I'm hoping that they think I'm qualified, but still I might not be able to take the job because if I have to give up my other job to do it, it would mean a big pay cut.  I think, anyway, I'll have to do the math.  Still, it would be nice to be considered for the job, even if I can't take it at this time. 

Frank Harts carries over from "See You Yesterday". 

THE PLOT: Activist Bayard Rustin faces racism and homophobia as he helps change the course of Civil Rights history by orchestrating the 19633 March on Washington. 

AFTER: Everybody knows about the March on Washington, where Martin Luther King gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.  And sure, MLK was the headliner, but his speech was only possible because of all the people behind the scenes, and apparently the chief organizer of the event was this Bayard Rustin person.  No, I'd never heard of him before, but he led (or deputy-led, it's complicated) the team of people who came up with the idea, who drummed up financial support, who spread the word and then did all the event planning, from the buses that got people there from other cities to the refreshments and the lavatories.  And don't forget the sound system, because Dr. King's speech wouldn't have much impact if nobody could hear it.  Thinking only about Martin Luther King when you think about this pivotal moment in history would be like crediting only Neil Armstrong for the Apollo 11 landing, when there were two other astronauts and a whole team of NASA engineers and support personnel back on Earth.  (see also: "Hidden Figures")

So yeah, it's great that films are now seeking out those relatively unsung heroes of the Civil Rights movement, and then there's the added angle, part of the reason that Rustin's efforts were, well not ignored but downplayed, could be connected to homophobia.  (I was about to say due to his lifestyle choices, or his sexual orientation, but as i understand it, those terms have fallen out of favor, because they imply that being gay is a choice, and the emphasis now is on calling it an integral part of who people are, rather than a choice.). Of course, it was a different time, sure.  And the Civil Rights movement was trying to fight for freedom and equality for all, regardless of gender, skin color or religiious beliefs, and at least during the 1960's, it seemed like maybe they left one criteria off of that list.  It was a process, I guess. 

People at the time didn't really understand bisexuality, you were either one thing or another, and the common belief was that gay people were incapable of forming partner bonds, or even long-term relationships, and the struggle for gay marriage wouldn't take place for another few decades, so gay people pretty much had a "hall pass" of sorts.  Or it was kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy, some psychology expert couldn't find any long-term gay couple so it was determined that they didn't exist, and then maybe gay people came to believe this about themselves, so they didn't seek out such things.  Who's to say?  Now, of course, we know that's all B.S, because there are gay marriages now, and gay divorces, and the legality of things sometimes falls behind actual practice, so there simply MUST have been gay people who acted like married couples, they just didn't publicize it that much, for fear that society just wasn't ready to accept it. 

The gay lifestyle was so misunderstood that Strom Thurmond called Rustin a "communist", that long-term Senator was extremely racist already, but I doubt that he really understood homosexuality if he was equating it with Socialism.  Thurmond also got name-checked in the "Oppenheimer" film, BTW, he was a senator for South Carolina for 48 years, after all, and the biggest opponent to civil rights legislation for two decades at least.  He filibustered for over 24 hours against the Civil Rights Act of 1957, but still somehow claimed he wasn't a racist, he was just doing it in support of states' rights.  Yes, specifically, the states' rights to discriminate against African-Americans, or as he probably called them, the "coloreds".  

The film also paints a complicated picture of the various Civil Rights organizations at the time, which were apparently frequently at odds over their policies, and argued over the best ways to move forward, politically.  There was the N.A.A.C.P., the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Congress of Racial Equality, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Commitee, and the National Urban League. The leaders of these organizations, along with A. Philip Randolph, formed the "Big Six" to plan the event, forming a group called the Council for United Civil Rights Leadership.  Randolph had, along with Rustin, been planning a March on Washington since 1941, when they wanted to protest discriminatory hiring during World War II by U.S. military contractors.  But FDR signed an executive order to establish the Committee on Fair Employment Practice, and it seems this fixed the problem, so no march in 1941.  But they never gave up on the idea, it just got delayed for another 22 years. 

Randolph and Rustin began planning the 1963 march in December of 1961, and initial plans were for a two-day protest, however that meant they'd have to set up tents for sleeping, like the Woodstock festival did a few years later, so it was trimmed down to a one-day event, no tents. It was announced in May of 1963 and planned originally for October, but then in June it got moved up to August - so, not a lot of time to plan everything.  It might not have been possible if the organizers hadn't promised "civil disobedience", which honestly sounds like a contradiction in terms or an oxymoron, like "Civil War".  They were expecting a crowd of 100,000 but ended up with more than 200,000, most of whom arrived by bus. 

The D.C. police forces were at full capacity, with 5,900 officers, plus 2,000 men from the National Guard and 19,000 troops waiting in the suburbs somewhere, directed there by the Pentagon.  Rustin and Randolph countered with 5,000 NYC police officers who were recruited to act as private marshals - the organizers had the brilliant idea to police the crowd themselves, as they trusted their own recruited police more than the cops from another city.  Alcohol sales were banned in Washington for the first time since Prohibition.  The film got very detailed about the planning, which I sure appreciated, but I doubt most people are as into event planning as I am, so you may notice that there's very little footage of the event itself.  Well, it's not a documentary, and you can watch Dr. King's speech just about anywhere else.  Again, this is the story of the man who planned the event, if that's not your cup of tea then maybe watch a different movie. 

After the event, the "Big Six" met with President Kennedy, so yeah, that was a very positive result, but Bayard Rustin was not invited.  As a true event organizer, he stayed behind to oversee the clean-up.  Since I've been a house manager of a few hundred events myself in the last two and a half years, I get it.  The job's not done until the trash is in the dumpster and the doors are locked, so to speak.  This part rang true, for sure. 

Also starring Colman Domingo (last seen in "Zola"), Ami Ameen (last seen in "The Butler"), Glynn Turman (last seen in "80 for Brady"), Chris Rock (last seen in "Venus and Serena"), Gus Halper (last seen in "Cold Pursuit"), Johnny Ramey (last seen in "New Year's Eve"), CCH Pounder (last heard in "Avatar: The Way of Water"), Michael Potts (last seen in "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom"), Audra McDonald (last seen in "Respect"), Jeffrey Wright (last seen in "American Fiction"), Lilly Kay, Jordan-Amanda Hall, Jakeem Powell, Ayana Workman, Grantham Coleman, Jamilah Rosemond, Jules Latimer, Maxwell Whittington-Cooper (last seen in "Human Capital"), Kevin Mambo (last seen in "Rebel in the Rye"), Carra Patterson (last seen in "Straight Outta Compton"), Da'Vine Joy Randolph (last heard in "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish"), Adrienne Warren (last seen in "Tina"), Bill Irwin (last seen in "Igby Goes Down"), Jamar Williams, Hope Clarke (last seen in "Into the Night"), Rashad Demond Edwards (last seen in "The Music Never Stopped"), Phoenix Southwood, Isabela Spurlock, Amir Carr, Jeffrey Jordan, Melissa Rakiro, Cotter Smith (last seen in "You Don't Know Jack"), Ivan Moore, Drayton Walker, Chris Blount, Robert M. Pflegardt, Christopher Anglim, Devin Doolan, Marlon Bradley Ray, Thomas W. Wolf (last seen in "White Noise") with archive footage of John F. Kennedy.

RATING: 6 out of 10 travel coordinators using the same alias

See You Yesterday

Year 16, Day 99 - 4/8/24 - Movie #4,698

BEFORE: Today's the big eclipse day, and I don't mean to alarm anyone, but it's been a freaky year already, and now this?  We had Valentine's Day intersecting with Ash Wednesday, and then Easter right up against April Fool's Day.  I know, I know, Easter moves around but still, this just didn't feel normal - not every one has to worry about lining up their movies with holidays, sure, so maybe it's just been a challenging year FOR ME.  But think about this, we had a couple years of a pandemic, or a plague of sorts, and then we get an earthquake followed by an eclipse (darkness) and then there's a bumper crop of cicadas (locusts) coming next week?  And all right over Passover?  It seems almost biblical, reminiscent of the plagues that Moses allegedly summoned or predicted, or they happened and he just took advantage of them.  But if get frogs falling from the sky in a few weeks, or the rivers start turning red, then I'm going to run for the hills before the boils and the killing of the firstborn.  

Look, I'm not that religious, I'm just saying if you were ever thinking of starting a religious cult or trying to predict the end-times, this might be your time to shine.  Sure, we've been through this with Y2K and 2012 and every time we get more than a foot of snow, but one of those times, the prophets will be right.  Remember what Oppenheimer said about the sun, one day that big nuclear furnace is going to explode and we'll die, or it will run out of fuel and collapse and we'll die.  It may take thousands of years, but it's going to happen, it's entropy and it's inevitable. We should be working on getting off this planet and taking root somewhere else, just in case.  We're using up Earth's resources, anyway so that clock is ticking, and if we wait too long we'll lose our chance. Just saying. 

As things stand, I'm expecting the apocalypse to kick in and maybe coincide with Election Day, that's where I maybe see this going.  Myra Lucretia Taylor carries over from "American Fiction". 

THE PLOT: Two Brooklyn teen prodigies, C.J. and Sebastian, build makeshift time machines to save C.J.'s brother from being wrongfully killed by a police officer. 

AFTER: There's another common confluence, we go through it every year, Black History Month coincides with other February events like Valentine's Day, President's Day and Super Bowl Sunday, which was always in January when I was growing up, and they just kept making that NFL season longer and longer, until they had to move it to the next month.  But I never seem to get around to celebrating Black History in February because I devote my movie-watching to romantic films.  Can I make up for it now?  This week's films (after "Fair Play", anyway) all seem to have something in common, look, we can maybe think of this as "Black Lives Matter" week-and-a-half or something. 

I'm a fan of time-travel movies for sure, but they are notoriously hard to link to, worse than any other genre.  There are so many romances and horror films that I have to keep separate lists of those, but at least I GET TO those movies.  I've had the same 7 or 8 time-travel movies on my watchlist for YEARS and it's so rare when I can link to one, I feel I have to take the opportunity.  Sure, I could probably link TO "Project Almanac", but then how will I link back to other movies?  And I keep saying I'll just work them in to the regular line-up in the other non-holiday months, but then I rarely ever get around to watching them, it's a damn shame.  Oh, I've seen "Looper" and "Safety Not Guaranteed" and "The Tomorrow War" and such, I just don't think I'll ever be in a position to clear this category. 

The production values and special effects on this film are, well, not great - but the film is also asking you to believe that two teens could build two individual time machines - or temporal displacement units, OK - and carry them in two backpacks, almost like they're Ghostbusters proton-packs or something.   And sure, we don't REALLY need to know how the science works, because time travel's not real, come on, it's a movie and we can cut it some slack here.  BUT their science teacher is played by Michael J. Fox in a cameo, so they've got that going for them.  He only wants to give them a B+ for their efforts, but hey, he's hoping they can really get their time machines working before the big Science Expo (in the summer?  isn't there no school in July, usually?). He also wants them to consider the ramifications of time travel, what can it be used for?  And who better to ask this question, than Marty McFly himself?  

Well, I guess we need a reason for these two geniuses to not be in school, so they can test out their chronal relocation packs, which open up wormholes that will take them back exactly 24 hours, and they can only stay 10 minutes before they have to go back.  Hey, they're beta testing, maybe the next model will let them travel back further or stay longer.  But on their FIRST trip back to yesterday, C.J. tries to get revenge on her ex-boyfriend Jared by dumping slushess on him, and they inadvertently cause him to get hit by a car and break his arm.  

There are further complications when Jared complains about C.J. to her brother Calvin, and this causes him to leave a party earlier than he did originally, and therefore in the new changed reality, he and his friend are walking down a street at the wrong time, the police mistake them for two bodega robbers who ran by them, and Calvin ends up getting shot dead by the police.  

After the funeral, C.J. sets on improving the time-backpacks so they can travel back further, because she wants to go back and save her brother's life, however there is a chance that C.J. and Sebastian will encounter their former selves and cause a time paradox, or worse, bump into the versions of themselves that changed the timeline - so they have to avoid themselves, much like Marty McFly in "Back to the Future 2".  And they do manage to save Calvin on the next trip, but then something much worse happens.  

The story doesn't really resolve, we just see C.J. continually traveling back to try to correct her mistakes, and at first this bothered me, that we don't get to see her succeed, but I suppose this is a metaphor for how hard what she's doing is.  She's trying to stop a police shooting, and that means finding a way to defuse a difficult situation, or somehow preventing it in the first place by stopping the robbery, or maybe she could accomplish this by ending racism.  Any way you look at it, it's a tall order, and it's maybe going to take a lot of tries to solve this puzzle - so what started out as a simple premise then ended up as something more akin to "Groundhog Day". 

Hey, at least they resisted the temptation to title the film "Black to the Future".

Also starring Eden Duncan-Smith, Dante Crichlow, Astro (Brian Stro Bradley) (last seen in "A Walk Among the Tombstones"), Marsha Stephanie Blake (last seen in "Person to Person"), Johnathan Nieves, Michael J. Fox (last seen in "Framing DeLorean"), Wavyy Jonez, Rayshawn Richardson, Khail Bryant, Ejyp Johnson (last seen in "Like Father"), Barrington Walters Jr. (last seen in "Run All Night"), Muhammad Cunningham, Carlos Arce Jr., Rony Clanton (last seen in "Being Flynn"), Yvette Mercedes (last seen in "Night Falls on Manhattan"), Courtney Noel, Manny Urena (last seen in "The Kitchen"), Brett G. Smith (last seen in "Man on a Ledge"), Michael A. Fearon, Damaris Lewis (last seen in "Fatale"), Ron Bobb Semple, Jeanine Ramirez (last seen in "Ghostbusters" (2016)), Patrice Bell, Frank Harts (last seen in "Paterson"), Jonathan Wilde (last seen in "You Were Never Really Here"), Tuffy Questell (last seen in "Going the Distance"), Tremaine Brown Jr., Monique Robinson, Waliek Crandall, Taliyah Whitaker (last seen in "Marry Me"), Samuel Smith (last seen in "Cadillac Records"), Donna Hayes, Allen Holloway, 

RATING: 5 out of 10 ways to play dominoes

American Fiction

Year 16, Day 98 - 4/7/24 - Movie #4,697

BEFORE: Another day, another dollar - headed to the movie theater early this morning, because I need to unlock the place so someone can come in and take the wooden armrests out of theater 1, they're going off-site to be re-stained, and then in theater 2 this afternoon, a double-screening of "Monkey Man" and "The First Omen".  Yeah, gonna pass.  I'm busy catching up on films that screened there months ago, like "Fair Play" and "American Fiction".  That makes FOUR films in 7 days that I worked as a House Manager on, and did not view yet, except in little bits where I had to pop my head into the theater and check on the film's proper sound and picture.  Well, somebody got to do it. 

But I should have about four hours to kill in the office with literally nothing to do, so if I can find a way to watch "American Fiction" on the office computer, I'm going to do that. It's available On Demand on cable, and I'm paying for cable, so I'm not really hurting anybody by watching this for free some other way. 

Patrick Fischler carries over from "Fair Play".

THE PLOT: A novelist who's fed up with the establishment profiting from Black entertainment uses a pen name to write a book that propels him into the heart of the hypocrisy and madness he claims to disdain.  

AFTER: I'm catching up on another film that was screened at the theater where I work, this one got quite a few guild screenings, so I knew early on it could be an Oscar contender, because there was so much advance publicity for it.  You can't say that didn't work, the film got five Oscar nominations and one win for Best Adapted Screenplay.  I think Jeffrey Wright would have had a good chance at Best Actor if "Oppenheimer" hadn't completely dominated the awards this year.  I like Jeffrey Wright, he tends to make films more enjoyable, from the last few Wes Anderson films to... well, the last few James Bond films, I guess. Even James Bond and Batman need at least one black friend, whether it's Felix Leiter or James Gordon. I don't see how THAT James Gordon ends up looking like Gary Oldman later, but hey, multiverse. 

Here he plays Thelonious "Monk" Ellison, a writer who is black, but whose books aren't connecting with a black audience, or a white audience, for that matter, so he's teaching literature at an unnamed California college and he gets put on sabbatical because his use of the "N" word offended some white students, which is both ironic and ridiculous - if the word doesn't bother him, why should it bother white college kids?  It's probably because of "white guilt", only he doesn't see it that way.  Honestly, he should feel good about the fact that the word makes those kids uncomfortable, but he's got no patience for them, he's becoming a curmudgeon, like Tom Hanks in "A Man Called Otto". 

He travels back to his hometown of Boston to visit his family, though he points out that's not likely to improve his outlook.  His elderly mother is showing signs of dementia, and while he's there, his physician sister becomes unable to care for her any more.  So his divorced and now-gay plastic surgeon brother flies in from Arizona, and they have to work out what to do about their mother, how to pay for her care, whether to let the family cook/maid go and what to do about their father's beach house.  If it seems weird to you that a black family has a beach house, first, you may be racist, but also, remember this is a family of mostly doctors, "Monk" is the odd one out, as a writer. I grew up in a town in Massachusetts where a lot of people had summer homes on Cape Cod, but my family didn't.  (They filmed part of this in Scituate, which is a beach town 30 miles south of Boston, between Quincy and Plymouth.)

While appearing at a book festival in Boston, he notices a large crowd that turned out for a novel "We's Lives in Da Ghetto", written by another black author, Sintara Golden.  Monk's jealous of her success, sure, but also after reading some excerpts he's convinced that it's an example of a book that plays upon black stereotypes (like, I don't know, maybe "Precious") and has black characters talking in broken English, acting all street, taking drugs, living the thug life, and therefore really connecting with white readers.  

At the same time, Monk meets a soon-to-be-divorced female lawyer who lives across the street from the beach house, and also meanwhile, he gets a call from the New England Book Association to be a judge for their annual Literary Awards while he's in town - they're trying to demonstrate their diversity, so he'd be helping them improve their image while collecting a daily stipend for his time.  

Monk has also taken it upon himself to write a satirical novel, playing up those same stereotypes, under a pseudonym, Stagg R. Leigh, and then is shocked when his agent gets an offer for a $750,000 advance on this book. He hate-wrote the book as something of a joke to make a point, and now it looks like it will be his first big hit, a best-seller that's somehow just what the market seems to want.  Well, giving the public what they SEEM to want seems a bit like a no-brainer, and perhaps this would explain why there are so many movies in the "Fast & Furious" franchise.  

It's not very hard to predict how these plotlines are going to collide with each other, I mean, what are the odds that a publisher is going to rush the printing of his book he wrote under a fake name in order to JUST make the deadline for the literary awards that he is going to be judging under his real name?  Well, pretty good if you realize it's a movie and coincidences are just convenient ways to drive the plot forward.  Monk tries to slow the publication by changing the book's title to a four-letter word, but that only drives interest in the book higher.  He does some talk show interviews with his identity concealed and acting all "gangsta", and this creates even more fervor, plus the FBI wants to know if he's really a wanted felon.  Umm, don't you think the FBI would have a way of un-altering his voice and image and figuring out his identity if they really wanted to?  Or they'd trace the payments or tap the agent's phone calls and find out the author's identity if they really wanted to.  

Meanwhile, things kind of work out on the family front, he uses the money from optioning the film rights to get his mother into a nursing home, the maid conveniently gets married so he doesn't have to keep paying her, and Monk reconciles with his brother and they figure out that it's OK that their father had a few affairs, so what, and also it's OK for Cliff to be gay, again, so what? That just leaves the relationship with the lawyer, but Monk kind of screwed that up, because he was upset that she was reading the book he wrote under the other name.  Jeez, get over yourself, please!  She likes your other books too, you shouldn't be jealous of yourself!  Do you think Stephen King has a problem with his friends and family reading his books that were written under the name "Richard Bachman"?  That would be really dumb.

NITPICK POINT: Monk sees his own book on sale in a chain bookstore, and gets upset that it's featured in the "Black Authors" section, or "African-American Interests", or whatever, it's a special interest part of the store, and clearly he feels that it should just be on the "Fiction" shelf, so he complains and then tries to move the books himself.  The employee says that because it's a chain store, none of the employees have any say in where the books are placed. I doubt this is true, because I've seen a lot of bookstores, like a Barnes & Noble in the suburbs of Boston, where the employees are encouraged to make recommendations about the books they like, and put those books on special shelves with notes about what they loved about those books.  When the employee realized that the author was standing right there, I think IRL a bookstore employee would have been more helpful, maybe even offer to place the books in the "Local authors" section, or maybe even get him to autograph a few.  My point is that I think a bookstore's staff are more likely to be people who care about books and how they're presented, and not just mindless drones taking orders from corporate overlords. 

NITPICK POINT #2: $4 million for film rights to a novel sounds like a great deal, but is it? Monk's agent would probably get 10% of that, so that's part of the money gone off the top, and he's down to $3.6 million.  Then it's just like the lottery, I think, that much money puts him automatically into the 50% tax bracket, and since he wouldn't want to pay that money with his return, it's better to put away half for taxes, or better yet, send it to the IRS in advance to pre-pay, that's what an accountant would probably suggest, anyway.  So now it's down to $1.8 million, and he also said he was going to pay off the reverse mortgage on his mother's house, not sure how much money that was, but it's a three-story colonial with a widow's walk, that can't be cheap, so maybe a few months after the deal he's still got a million, and that just doesn't buy what it used to.  MAYBE he can cover the cost of his mother's senior living apartment, but for how long?  It's almost $7,000 a month for a private room.  My point is, like in yesterday's film, mo money, mo problems.  If it were me, I'd sell the family home to pay for her senior living and medical expenses and live in the beach house, rather than the other way around - the beach house is smaller and probably easier to maintain, it's just that living on the coast in the winter or during hurricane season would be a real nightmare.  But once Agnes goes into permanent elder care, surely there's no need for both houses. 

I don't really like it when a movie about an author writing a book turns into "Hey, then a movie company wanted to turn my book into the movie that you're all watching RIGHT NOW..."  It's a narrative cop-out, it worked for "Adaptation" but then a million other movies copied that "meta" idea, and it's worn out now.  But on the other hand, there were ZERO scenes of an author with writer's block staring at a blank computer screen or, worse, a typewriter with an empty sheet of paper, so there's that. 

Also starring Jeffrey Wright (last seen in "Asteroid City"), Tracee Ellis Ross (last seen in "The High Note"), Issa Rae (last seen in "Vengeance"), Sterling K. Brown (last seen in "The Rhythm Section"), John Ortiz (last seen in "Nostalgia"), Erika Alexander (last seen in "Love Liza"), Leslie Uggams (last seen in "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks"), Adam Brody (last seen in "Think Like a Man Too"), Keith David (last seen in "Nope"), Okieriete Onaodowan (last seen in "Person to Person"), Myra Lucretia Taylor (last seen in "Swallow"), Raymond Anthony Thomas (last seen in "Isn't It Romantic"), Miriam Shor (last seen in "Maestroe"), Michael Cyril Creighton (last seen in "Home Again"), Neal Lerner (last seen in "Ode to Joy"), J.C. MacKenzie (last seen in 'The Hunt"), Jenn Harris (last seen in "Better Living Through Chemistry"), Bates Wilder (last seen in 'Confess, Fletch"), Ryan Richard Doyle (last seen in "Free Guy"), Skyler Wright (last seen in "The Forger"), Michael Jibrin (last seen in "Don't Look Up"), John Ales (last seen in "Spy Hard"), Carmen Cusack (last seen in "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood"), David De Beck (last seen in "The Company Men"), Joseph Marrella, Stephen Burrell, Nicole Kempskie, Greta Quispe (last seen in "Human Capital"), Elle Sciore, Dustin Tucker (last seen in "Love, Weddings & Other Disasters"), Celeste Oliva (last seen in "Thoroughbreds"), Christopher Barrow, Alexander Pobutsky, Joshua Olumide, Megan Robinson, Samantha Gordon, Adrian M. Mompoint.

RATING: 7 out of 10 family photos