Movie Reviews-A Band Called Death, Only God Forgives

A Band Called Death
directed by Jeff Howlett and Mark Covino

The story of the punk-rock band Death is one that I'm not sure could have been written as believable fiction. Three black brothers from Detroit were playing punk before the Ramones, Sex Pistols, or several other punk bands. I had heard of this group before. I have their long out of print cd. I didn't review it here because I'm not a huge genre fan. Nevertheless this documentary is worth watching. I liked seeing some familiar Detroit landmarks and hearing about some classic 1970s Detroit area music names. I wouldn't necessarily say this was a sad tale but it is a sobering one because Death never fulfilled its musical potential. For every musician who writes songs the whole world wants to hear and becomes a multi-millionaire or billionaire there are thousands of others who must put their dreams on hold and find jobs as janitors or fall into substance abuse. However after a long period in the musical wilderness Death is making something of a comeback. 

Death had its beginnings among the younger three brothers of the close knit Hackney family. All of them were musically inclined. Their parents encouraged them to follow their dreams. David Hackney, the oldest in that section of brothers, was a fan of the 60s and 70s hard rock groups. He became an acolyte of a hard edged guitar sound that took its cues from musicians like The Who, Jimi Hendrix and Grand Funk Railroad. As he and his brothers had been taught unity above all else he convinced them to join him in a power trio. They practiced incessantly and loudly, around the neighborhood and at home. This music was NOT popular within their community as David made almost no concession to traditional blues, soul, funk, jazz or early rock-n-roll. He was interested almost exclusively in what neighborhood critics called "white boy music". He liked to play fast, hard and above all loud.

Eventually the band, which is to say David, decided to call itself Death. The film elides over how much live/paid work Death got. I'm thinking it wasn't that much. Death had a very unpolished sound. Of course YMMV. Bobby and Dannis Hackey reminisce how the band's name and to a lesser extent, the band's race made it difficult to find local gigs. Persevering, Death eventually obtained a record deal with Groovesville/United Sound, a local Detroit area recording studio and production company that was primarily engaged with soul artists. After a lot of rejection, United Sound was able to contact Arista record mogul Clive Davis, who heard the band's master tapes and liked them. He agreed to a record distribution and promotion deal. This could have put Death on the fast track to fame and fortune. There was just one requirement. Like most other music industry big shots Davis didn't like the band's name. He wanted the band to change it. David Hackney refused in quite profane terms. For him the band's name, concept and music were all connected. As he told his brothers if we let them change the name that would be giving ownership of our soul. His brothers weren't crazy about the decision but supported their older brother. But that ended their initial involvement in the music industry as Death. Davis withdrew his offer. United Sound decided to find musicians who actually wanted record deals.

The band Death would disappear for the next quarter century. Ultimately Bobby and Dannis would move to Vermont, meet Peter Tosh and reinvent themselves as a reggae and later a gospel group. David stayed in Detroit, brooded and fell into bad habits. It wasn't until one of Bobby Hackney's sons fortuitously heard a friend raving about a mysterious old school Detroit rock group that Death would reform. Musicians such as Questlove, Alice Cooper, Henry Rollins, Vernon Reid and Kid Rock talk about Death. The film is bittersweet. It has interviews with the two surviving original Death members and several of their family members. It details their ups and downs, loves and losses, their frustrations with life and even occasionally their brother David, whom they love and miss terribly. As they point out consistently, throughout the documentary, one of the last things David did before leaving this earth was to hand them the Death master tapes for safekeeping, predicting correctly that someone would come looking for them some day. Even if you're not a fan of this music this documentary is as much about family as it is punk rock. I certainly saw echoes of my family in this story. You also might do so. This movie made me think that you should try to avoid regrets. Let your loved ones know what they mean to you today.
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Only God Forgives
directed by Nicolas Winding Refn

This film was a hot mess. I don't necessarily mean it was no good at all but the director was obviously interested more in visuals and style than he was in telling a story or actually ensuring that actors and actresses had dialogue. Upon thinking about it some more I'm not willing to say it was a s*** sandwich with a cherry on top, which was my initial viewpoint. This is done by the same man who directed Drive. Just as in that movie he evidently wanted his star Ryan Gosling to give a minimalist performance in Only God Forgives. The problem here is that almost everyone else in the film also gives a minimalist performance. So there is no hero or heroine to hang your hat on. There is a LOT of bloody violence. Also the film continues what seems to be a trend of bringing Freud back to the forefront as an explaining factor for people's (or at least men's actions). Maybe Freud was right. It's not like Freud wrote Oedipus Rex or Hamlet, to name just a few Western works that touch on actual or sublimated incest as a motif in socio-sexual development. He just put together some of those things into a theory. And incest is, if not explicit in this story certainly implicit. The protagonist's mother first greets him with a hug that is anything but motherly. She attempts to shame him into action by speaking dismissively of the size of his manhood as compared to his brother's. One wonders how she would know that. The two come across as more embittered ex-lovers, which I think they must be, rather than mother and son. The mother's relationship with each of her sons appears to have been complicated.

Another director would have made this into a standard action/revenge flick. Refn went for something else. I don't think it quite worked for me but it was different at least. Gosling has only a handful of lines. The movie felt like a silent film.

Julian (Gosling) manages a Bangkok, Thailand boxing club. Some fights are fair; others are fixed. The club provides thugs for and is a money laundering front for the drug import-export operation overseen by Julian's older brother Billy (Tom Burke). To say that Billy is unstable is an understatement. After the conclusion of a match Billy is desirous of rough sex with a prostitute, the younger the better. He is turned away by a few pimps until he finds one willing to give him what he wants. The sex is not shown but the aftermath is and it's ugly. Billy has raped and murdered the underage prostitute. For whatever reason Billy doesn't seek to escape. He is still there at the scene when the quiet and serious police Lieutenant Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm) arrives to handle the matter. Chang's a very hard but brutally fair man whose idea of justice might be looked upon approvingly by Tywin Lannister. He allows the girl's father to beat Billy to death. However, disgusted by the fact that the father pimped out his own flesh and blood, Chang later amputates the man's hand as a reminder to be a better father to his remaining children. Chang is never without his trusty short sword (really more of a machete). Chang is also equally devoted to his family and karaoke.

This incident brings Billy's boss, his and Julian's mother Crystal (Kristin Scott Thomas) to Bangkok. She's a racist, foul mouthed, cold eyed, mean, sexually charged drug baroness who can't believe that Julian hasn't already taken revenge. Julian looked into it but refused to act when he found out his brother's actions. Crystal could care less about the "yellow n*****s" as she calls them, saying only that whatever Billy did he must have had his reasons. Crystal constantly tries to manipulate Julian into doing something (maybe something of a more intimate nature as well). But as boss she is also quite comfortable ordering Billy's crew to put people in the ground. The rest of the movie goes on from there but again the story and plotting are very weak and virtually non-existent other than what I've outlined. This is a dreamy surrealistic flick full of neon colors and fantastic sets. Dreams, flashbacks and reality combine and confuse both the viewers and the characters. I've heard that Refn, who also directed Valhalla Rising, had a similar visual style but better story in that film. I may have to check it out. Bottom line with this film though was that it was strange. Thomas and Pansringarm give the best performances. But their work was almost was wasted here. Do not see this if you are expecting Gosling to give a well, driven, performance. But if you just like watching Gosling this movie might be up your alley.
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Attraction, Fetish and Racism: Asian Girlz and Day Above Ground

Human beings (especially the male variant) are visual creatures. If we see something that we like then we either make it known that we are available or inform that person of our interest in the culturally appropriate manner. Everyone has slightly different preferences. If you favor red hair and a relative lack of melanin you'll probably look first in one subgroup of humanity. If you prefer a lot of melanin you'll look in another subgroup. Whether via inertia, deliberate political/romantic decision, lack of opportunity or childhood cultural imprinting most people wind up with folks from their own particular subgroup, however defined. But humans have always mixed and always will mix. There's nothing wrong with this. Some people even prefer people who are not from their group. I don't automatically think this is bad. It depends on the reasons. There's a thin line between having a preference and having a fetish. There's an even thinner line between expressing admiration for a certain subgroup's real or imagined particular characteristics and reducing a member of that group to a sexual stereotype. Saying I like Black women is one thing. Saying I like Black women because they just want to get f*****d all night is probably something different. 

The band Day Above Ground recently crossed that line between preference and fetish with the song "Asian Girlz". This five minute song listed every stereotype about East Asian women. The song may have been meant as a satire on some non-Asian men who do indeed fetishize Asian women. Angry people could be missing the point entirely. Or it could just be 100% racist crap. If it was meant as satire, which I'm not sure of, it didn't work. Levy Tran, the Vietnamese-American model who acted in the video gave an apology.

I'm so sorry once again to anyone who was offended by the video. It wasn't at all the intention. I truly apologize
— Levy Tran (@MissLevy) August 1, 2013

I sincerely apologize to all who feels that I set Asian women back 50 yrs. I know I lost respect from a lot of ppl. It wasn't my intention
— Levy Tran (@MissLevy) July 31, 2013

Check out the video and one funny response to it below. Both videos are slightly NSFW. There is no nudity but there's implied sex and sexually explicit language in the first video and profanity in the second.

One man's response

Thoughts?

Was this satire gone wrong?

Is this the most racist song you've heard?

Bigot Ted Nugent insults Stevie Wonder

In reaction to the Zimmerman trial verdict, Stevie Wonder announced that he would cease performing in Florida. Obviously many people disagreed with this decision. One who did was the guitarist and right-wing attention whore Ted Nugent  who described Wonder and his decision in ugly insulting terms.

“How brain-dead do you have to be? How strangled by denial, how dishonest, how cheap do you have to be to focus on a clear-cut case where all the evidence, from the DOJ, from the FBI, from the army of investigative specialists in Florida determined that George Zimmerman acted in self-defense against a life-threatening attack by hoodlum, dope-smoking Trayvon Martin,” he continued.  Nugent said Wonder has gone from being one of the most soulful men in the world to “soulless.” He also called Wonder’s boycott “brain-dead.”  “I will pray for Stevie Wonder and all these other numb-nuts who think that Trayvon Martin is more important than the tens of thousands of slaughtered blacks at the hands of blacks,” he said.

Nugent is constitutionally incapable of agreeing to disagree or couching his honest opposition in non-insulting terms. No, like a lot of similar conservatives, Nugent seemingly believes that anyone who disagrees with him is stupid, evil, soulless, and probably racist to boot. While I'm not sure that a man who performs in a Confederate Battle Flag t-shirt has room to call anyone racist or soulless, this is just the latest in a long line of racially charged vitriol from a has been guitarist who is the very picture of intolerance. To the extent that Nugent is the face of the Republican base, and he does seem to be quite popular with certain Republican elected officials, the Republican Party will continue to have low popularity among the coalition that elected President Obama twice. I'm going to write more on this later if I ever get time but people don't vote for people who make it clear that they hate you. We wrote post-election about whether the Republican party could shed its image of racial exclusion or even if it wanted to. As long as Nugent feels comfortable identifying as a Republican, the Republican brand will be racist.

Nugent is entitled to his opinion of course but I thought it might be useful to review each musician's list of notable accomplishments, statements and skill sets.

Stevie Wonder

• Led a movement to recognize MLK's birthday as federal holiday.
• Provided artistic inspiration to freedom fighters in Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa
• Involved in cultural boycott against South Africa.
• Completely reworked pop, funk and soul music in the sixties and mid seventies. Well respected worldwide but especially in music formats that grew out of the African diaspora.
• Has incredible skills in composition, arrangement, singing and performing. Pretty much able to fit in any genre he wants. Several disparate musicians count him as a seminal influence.
• Won over twenty Grammys.
• With very few exceptions, has been on the side of increased tolerance and human rights for all for most of his public life.

Ted Nugent

• Supported Apartheid in South Africa.
• Does not believe all men are created equal.
• Writes editorials musing that the wrong side won the Civil War.
• Long history of making racially ugly statements, most recently claiming that the black community has a mindless tendency to violence.
• Long history of making sexually ugly statements, ie. calling women whores and "c****s". This is a favorite slur of his. He once called Hillary Clinton a "toxic c***" and "two-bit whore for Fidel Castro."
• Said he wanted the President to suck on his machine gun.
• Well known for having sex with underage groupies, including allegedly a 12 year old Courtney Love.
• Adopted an underage girl so he could have sex with her.
• Musical skills appear limited to a few seventies hits. Seems to be a limited guitarist. Writes songs about sex, killing and more sex.
• By own admission allegedly avoided Vietnam War draft by not washing for days and supposedly defecating and urinating on himself before appearing at draft board.                                                                                                                                          

So, with that history to choose from how could you not believe that Stevie Wonder is the soulless one here. Ha. Seriously though if I were the sort of (ahem) soulless piece of excrement who was molesting underage girls or shooting fenced in animals for fun then I would definitely call up Nugent and ask him for advice. If I wanted to change popular music across the world and help support liberation movements though, perhaps I would do better by talking to Wonder.

What is interesting to me is not so much that an old racist white man is indeed an old racist white man. No. What is fascinating about Nugent is that white people who presumably know better, like say Nugent's close friend, author and local radio host Mitch Albom, never ever ever publicly denounce, chastise or distance themselves from Nugent's hateful statements. Nor are they called upon to do so. This is the EXACT opposite of what takes place with any black public figure that makes a comment even a smidgeon as ugly as Nugent regularly does. When President Obama said that a police officer who arrested Professor Gates for the crime of being in his own home acted stupidly, you would have thought he said he wanted to eat white babies raw from the reaction he received from the media and white citizens in general. His polling numbers dropped and he had to set up a rather stupid "beer summit". In what world does the President of the United States need to be concerned about offending a two-bit local police officer? This one, evidently.

It is actually useful to have racist cretins like Nugent spewing forth their hatred. This is indeed the soul of the Republican party. It's who they are. The more people who realize this the more difficult the Republican party will find it to win national elections. White supremacy may still be a winning theme in some local districts but nationally the Republicans will sooner or later get tired of getting their brains beat out for the Presidency. And they will have some tough decisions to make. I'm looking forward to the fun...

The Federal Government wants your passwords

Allegedly the U.S. Government is obtaining or trying to obtain your various internet passwords.
I can't say that I am surprised by this allegation. The horrible thing about the post 9-11 world to which Americans have eagerly submitted is that it gave permission to the most power-hungry authoritarian impulses on the both the left and the right to run amok. We have ceded so many rights and privileges of citizenship in order to be safe that I do not doubt that a future Administration will wish to put video cameras and screens in each American's home just to keep an eye on what everyone is doing. If we have to submit to a virtual strip search in order to fly, are subject to random stop-and-frisk walking the streets, have the Post Office scanning every piece of mail that has been sent and sharing that with intelligence or law enforcement agencies without a judge's approval, and have the NSA monitoring phone records and likely phone conversations and real time web conversations, why wouldn't the government just want to make things easy for itself by just getting user passwords? No muss no fuss. They can just sign on as you and read through your email or blog posts or facebook messages without any issues. What's the big deal right? If you have nothing to hide why wouldn't you want the government to have your passwords? What are you? An Al-Qaeda supporter? A fascist? A socialist? A Green Party voter?
LINK

The U.S. government has demanded that major Internet companies divulge users' stored passwords, according to two industry sources familiar with these orders, which represent an escalation in surveillance techniques that has not previously been disclosed.If the government is able to determine a person's password, which is typically stored in encrypted form, the credential could be used to log in to an account to peruse confidential correspondence or even impersonate the user. Obtaining it also would aid in deciphering encrypted devices in situations where passwords are reused."I've certainly seen them ask for passwords," said one Internet industry source who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We push back."

A second person who has worked at a large Silicon Valley company confirmed that it received legal requests from the federal government for stored passwords. Companies "really heavily scrutinize" these requests, the person said. "There's a lot of 'over my dead body.'"The Justice Department has argued in court proceedings before that it has broad legal authority to obtain passwords. In 2011, for instance, federal prosecutors sent a grand jury subpoena demanding the password that would unlock files encrypted with the TrueCrypt utility.

The Florida man who received the subpoena claimed the Fifth Amendment, which protects his right to avoid self-incrimination, allowed him to refuse the prosecutors' demand. In February 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit agreed, saying that because prosecutors could bring a criminal prosecution against him based on the contents of the decrypted files, the man "could not be compelled to decrypt the drives."In January 2012, a federal district judge in Colorado reached the opposite conclusion, ruling that a criminal defendant could be compelled under the All Writs Act to type in the password that would unlock a Toshiba Satellite laptop.

Both of those cases, however, deal with criminal proceedings when the password holder is the target of an investigation -- and don't address when a hashed password is stored on the servers of a company that's an innocent third party.

In a display of breathtaking spinelessness the House of Representatives recently refused to pass the Amash Libert-e Act. This bill would have stopped the NSA activities concerning phone records and made it EXPLICITLY clear that what the NSA has been doing is not legal. It's important to notice that most Democrats voted for this bill, while most Republicans were opposed. While it's certain that some of those Democratic aye votes were only allowed by House Minority Leader Pelosi because she knew she already had the votes to defeat it, the fact remains that on this issue at least the Democratic and Republican Leadership as well as the White House were all united in defending the right of the NSA to gather any records on anyone at anytime. Such bipartisanship. It sort of gives the lie to the idea that the House Republicans won't unite with the President on anything. Without Republican assistance this bill would have passed the House. The President and the House Republicans are both in agreement that you don't have any rights the NSA needs to be concerned with. It's also important to point out that the Michigan Republican who introduced this measure, Justin Amash, is a libertarian. I have my issues with libertarians but when it comes to civil liberties at least, many libertarians and liberals are reading from the same choir book. And their interpretation of constitutional scripture doesn't change depending on who's sitting in the pulpit.

It ought to go without saying but I'll say it anyway. Yes it is a dangerous world out there and people in the various law enforcement and intelligence agencies must make decisions I wouldn't want to make. They know things I'll never know. And I want everyone to be and stay safe. Yadda, yadda, yadda. But I still say that unless you have a reason specific to me there is no reason for a government agency to have my password. And thanks to that little thing called the Fifth Amendment I think if you ask me for my password I'm going to tell you to commit an anatomically impossible act.

I think the time has come for us to have a constitutional convention. I'm no attorney and certainly no conservative but it looks to me as if the practices of our law enforcement and intelligence agencies are stretching the limits of what our laws were meant to prevent. The new allegations of password requests are just the latest evidence of the old truism that if you give people an inch they'll take a mile. Or put another way,

"Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations"-James Madison

Movie Reviews-42, Fruitvale Station, Evil Dead, Vehicle 19

42
directed by Brian Helgeland

I'm not a huge baseball fan. Although I do happen to be currently kicking behind in my fantasy baseball league. Go figure. Snicker. Nevertheless obviously I knew about Jackie Robinson and the mythic figure he became to several black Americans in the post-war era. So watching this film I attained a better understanding of why my maternal grandfather, like Robinson a WW2 veteran, was such an enthusiastic Dodgers fan (Robinson's team). Though this is a sports movie and as such is mostly concerned with struggles between and among groups of men, it has a surprisingly strong secondary story line concerning the love between Jackie Robinson and his wife Rachel. She is key to providing Jackie support and love to keep going. She even has some relevant baseball advice. They protect and nurture each other. It's rare to see this in a black couple in a big budget Hollywood movie. This is really odd when you think about it. 42 is a traditional feel good movie. It's also big on sports cliches but it has the advantage in that a great many of these cliches in the story actually occurred.

This film takes place shortly after WW2. Last season the Brooklyn Dodgers were almost but not quite good enough to win the pennant. Changes in American society were afoot. Brooklyn Dodgers general manager/president/part owner Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford) is determined to be part of what he thinks are required changes in American society, most specifically baseball. Rickey intends to find a black player who is skilled enough to play in the previously all white major leagues and who is smart and strong enough to deal with the eruptions of hatred that will surely follow from fans, rival players and even his own teammates. Rickey thinks that man is Jackie Robinson.

Robinson is one of the most skilled players on The Negro Leagues Kansas City Monarchs, a flashy shortstop with a quick temper. But what gets Rickey's interest is thinking that Robinson, a former Army officer with a history of standing up for his rights can put that on the backburner and instead more or less turn the other cheek for the greater good (advancement of rights for all black players) . This is something that was probably required at the time and which is still echoed today. It is most definitely not something that was healthy. Robinson would die at only 53 from heart problems and diabetes which were no doubt related to the stress he endured.
Nevertheless Robinson (excellently portrayed by Chadwick Boseman) reluctantly agrees to Rickey's demand. Then as now a white man and a black man taking the same action were often viewed quite differently by white media and fans. Rickey frames this as the guts not to fight back. Don't know that I'd quite see it that way but then again those were different times. Even today black people in white environments often code switch and hide their true feelings. So there you are.

So Robinson, accompanied and supported by his beautiful wife Rachel (Nicole Beharie), embarks on a journey through the minor leagues in Montreal and Panama which will ultimately end up with him starting in the big leagues for the Brooklyn Dodgers. To say that this came at a cost is something of an understatement. Often sometimes black people can joke about how the open racism of years past could be preferable to the "Who me, I'm no racist" passive-aggressive incidents that are more common today. And often times white conservatives claim with a straight face that black civil rights leaders actually yearn for the legal racism of the good (bad) old days. Well I don't think that's actually true. Nobody black or in their right mind would really want those days back. Some things in America haven't changed of course or are just hidden but many things have changed. The movie shows more than it tells but whether it's something as simple as trying to get a bite to eat or flying on a plane that an airline employee doesn't think black people should be using or having mobs threaten your life with impunity or de jure public segregation in the South and de facto public segregation in the North, being black in 1947 America was full of legal and routine insults to your dignity, safety and life.

Robinson tries to deal with this by attempting to ignore it and rise above it but it's not that easy. The forceful Dodgers manager Leo Durocher (Chris Meloni), who claimed indifference to Robinson's race, profanely and almost violently shut down a Dodgers' petition drive to drop Robinson, and who may have coined the phrase "Nice guys finish last", was suspended from baseball in part because of gambling allegations but also for sleeping with a Hollywood actress not his wife. So he's not around to run interference for Robinson. He's replaced by aged and seemingly ineffectual manager Burt Shotton (Max Gail). Robinson must negotiate the initial hostility or disregard of his teammates and more importantly the hatred of white players on other teams who do things like hit him in the head with baseballs, spike him and try to break his ankles. The worst of the worst is Phillies manager Ben Chapman (Alan Tudyk) who can not help himself from unleashing the ugliest racial and sexual vitriol whenever Robinson appears at the plate. As Robinson himself later tells his wife (paraphrasing) "I will never be broken by these people. But they came close today".

This is ultimately a hip hip hooray movie and so it ends on a positive note, one that happened (slightly differently) in real life . If you're looking for a heroic story this could be a movie you'd want to see. There's no cynicism or antihero stuff here. The good guys are good and the bad guys are bad. Some bad guys later become good guys. You don't have to be a baseball or sports fan or even mildly knowledgeable about sports to enjoy this film. Robinson and my grandfathers were of the same generation so it was interesting to me to look back and see the sorts of things that people of that age had to deal with. And everyone is dressed sharp! If you have any 40s style clothing readily available, hold on to it. I tell you that style is coming back. Lucas Black, John C. McGinley, and Andre Holland also star.
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Fruitvale Station
written and directed by Ryan Coogler

Just see this film. Okay that's really all I need to say. It's by far the best of the movies mentioned here today. From a purely technical point you would have thought this film was directed by a middle aged or old master of film, someone who had been making movies for decades. Nope. Ryan Coogler is only 27 years old and Fruitvale Station is his first feature length film. I don't know how he got so good so young and so quickly but I'm betting this won't be his last good work. The level of quality of display here in terms of the camera work, the lighting, the writing and the way the entire film fits together is truly freaking astounding. There's a reason the Weinstein Company distributed this. There's a reason it won Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at Sundance. There's a reason Forest Whitaker helped produce it. There's a reason it won at Cannes. Coogler really is that good. This is literally a rookie coming out of nowhere and tutoring grizzled veterans in his field on how to succeed. This has Oscar written all over it but it never feels like it's TRYING to be Oscar bait material, if that makes any sense. This is a rare film that could be critically and commercially successful AND make social commentary. It's rare that one film can do any of those things superbly let alone all three. 

Regardless of what you think of the Zimmerman verdict and we may yet have some final thoughts on that later, one of the most despicable things that the defense attorneys and conservative writers and personalities did and are still doing was to put Trayvon Martin on trial. In their telling a seventeen child was transformed into a MANDINGO SUPER THUG who was looking for trouble and got what he deserved. Well of course he wasn't that. On the other side of the spectrum exactly because the racist mindset has trouble dealing with complexity or recognizing humanity, the Civil Rights movement spent a lot of time trying to find and/or groom perfect victims, precisely because it knew that racists will seize on any imperfection and seek to blow it out of proportion. So if you're an unwed mother or have a fast reputation, sorry lady but you can't be the face of a bus boycott. Trying to integrate baseball, nope you can't fight back against a white racist who hits you in the head with a 90 mph fastball. And so on. 

Well as most people know black people are neither saints from heaven nor demons from hell. Black people are just people. And that is the approach in depicting Oscar Grant that Coogler takes in Fruitvale Station. Of course if you're reading this blog you already know this but again it is quite unusual to see it in a Hollywood movie. Strictly speaking this is an independent film.

Fruitvale Station depicts the last day of Oscar Grant's (Michael B. Jordan-Wallace from The Wire) life. Grant is neither saint not sinner. He's somewhere in between trying to make it. He cheated on his girlfriend Sophina (Melonie Diaz), though he may have stopped. He occasionally sells weed to get by. Oscar has been to prison and suffered through the experiences there. He's a gallant man but he may be somewhat of a lazy one as he's been fired from his grocery store job for being consistently late to work. All the same he loves Sophina. He loves his sister Chantay (Destiny Ekwueme) though he's not crazy about paying her rent. He loves his mother (Octavia Spencer). And he is insanely devoted to his and Sophina's daughter together, Tatiana (Ariana Neal). There is nothing he won't do for her. He's an engaged father. He could be good husband material. Sophina's not sure about that. But when a stranger sees the affection that Oscar has for Sophina he not so jokingly asks Oscar why hasn't he married her. Oscar looks like he's deciding to do that. He's on the verge of turning his life around. He wants to provide for Tatiana and ensure that he has the respect of Sophina and his mother.

Of course we all know how this story ends. It's the little things that make this such a powerful movie. Coogler blatantly foreshadows things at least three times. If the film had a weakness that would be the only thing I could point to. But those moments almost create a majestic and biblical flow to the story. We know what those seemingly innocuous incidents indicate but we can't stop them. Michael B. Jordan hit this out of the proverbial park but everyone involved in this film gave very strong performances. Neal and Diaz deserve special mention.

There's a certain unfair arbitrary nature to life. Why does one person happen to get cancer and die young while another works in an asbestos and lead rich environment and lives a long and healthy life. We don't know. Similarly Coogler shows all the tiny little decisions in Oscar's life that lead him to be on the train and have the fatal encounter with Officer Caruso (Kevin Durand), fictionalized version of real life Officer Johannes Mehserle.
This movie will make you angry but really the defining emotion is sadness. Death is final. There's no coming back. All you can do is hope/believe you will see that person on the other side or remember the good times you had while they were here. This is a tremendously powerful film.
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Evil Dead (2013)
directed by Fede Alvarez

I guess you could say this is the anti-Cabin in the Woods. This is of course a remake of the classic 1981 film Evil Dead. I wasn't going to see this but obviously changed my mind. The beauty of the original film lay in just how much dread, horror and unease the actors, producer and director were able to squeeze out of a very low budget movie. And let's not forget the swooping masterful camera work. This remake would have been okay on its own but doesn't hold a candle to the original though it cost multiples of the original budget.  But I think this was aimed at people who hadn't seen the original film. 32 years was a long time ago. There are plenty of people walking around who seemingly don't pay much attention to anything that happened before they arrived on the scene.

So if you saw and enjoyed the original this film might be just ehhh to you. If you didn't see the original, although I would certainly want to know why, if you're a horror movie fan then you will probably enjoy this film. It lacks the visceral nature of the original but tries to make up for it with even more grand guignol. And judging by the massive box office returns it succeeded. This film had limited or non-existent use of CGI. Sometimes classic tropes work for a reason and don't need to be mocked, reworked, parodied or deconstructed. Young people inadvertently calling up forces they neither understand nor control is an old chestnut but it works. Mix it with some Lovecraftian overtones and it works even better. This is not a shot for shot remake. It does some things the same, turns other things around and tries to make its own story. One big change is that one woman takes a much more active role. Actually you see that in a lot of movies these days.

Anyway for those of you who aren't familiar with the story Mia (Jane Levy) has been taken out to an old cabin in the woods by her friends Olivia (Jessica Lucas) and Olivia's boyfriend Eric (Lou Pucci). They are waiting for the arrival of Olivia's brother David (Shiloh Fernandez) and his girlfriend Natalie (Liz Blackmore). Evidently Mia is a junkie. She's tried and failed to get clean before. Olivia, a registered nurse has decided to lead this intervention in a last ditch attempt to help Mia to get and stay clean. The last time Mia overdosed she was clinically dead for a while. Olivia is a take charge sort of woman and wants David's buy-in to not give in to any of Mia's sure to arrive whining, pleading and guilt tripping. David's not sure he can do this because as with all families his sister knows just the buttons to push to trigger his guilty feelings. In this case they have to do with David not being around for their mother's decline and death.  Later the young people venture into the basement and discover what the viewer via flashback already knows is some serious bad mojo. For some insane reason Eric finds a book (basically The Necronomicon) that should not be read - it even has warnings saying do not read this book- and decides to read from it. Mia ends up getting possessed though neither she nor her friends or brother are aware of this at first. The craziness and bloodlust starts to spread. And there are only a few ways to stop a demon possessed human. And two of them involve total bodily dismemberment or burning. I'm sure you can figure out the rest. Eric is so stupid you want to leap through the screen and slap him around but his poor judgment is a genre norm.
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Vehicle 19
directed by Mukunda Michael Dewil

This wasn't a very good movie. Let's just get that out of the way upfront. Unless you happen to be a hardcore Paul Walker fan this movie is not for you. And even if you are such a fan I still wouldn't waste time on this flick. The story started out kind of promising but fell off a cliff. It was hard to care about any of the characters in the story. Because almost the entire story takes place in the confines of a minivan, claustrophobic doesn't even begin to describe the film. People have used this trope with phone booths, car trunks, coffins and elevators and for my money it rarely works unless the director switches back and forth between the confined location and something going on in the outside world. That raises tension. But in this story, the minivan is it. And not only is the location stripped down but along with that almost by definition this is a movie where Walker has almost all of the dialogue. The only good thing about this film was they it helped me to more easily distinguish between a white South African accent and an Australian or New Zealand one.

Michael Woods (Walker) is an American felon who's breaking parole to meet his ex-wife Angie, who works in the US embassy in Johannesburg. Woods obviously wants to meet Angie and make a case for why they should get back together. Angie is just as obviously on the verge of telling Mike to get lost for good. Her voice (we never really see her face) is full of annoyance, regret and almost devoid of affection. But Mike feels that a million to one chance of getting back together is better than no chance. He's not too proud to beg. When he arrives in South Africa he finds that the rental car agency has given him a minivan instead of the sedan he requested. But since he's already late and doesn't quite know how to get to his ex's place (either the embassy or her home) he decides not to make a stink about it.
Unwise.

As it turns out there's a phone in the van that rings. He answers and someone with a very thick Afrikaans accent tells him to make it quick and that everything he needs is in the car. Mike is like who is this and hangs up. He talks to Angie and tries to explain he's running late but she thinks he's either scoring drugs or getting drunk. He then finds a gun under the seat. And shortly afterwards a bound and gagged woman spills out of the space behind the backseat. It turns out that she's a missing prosecutor Rachel Shabangu (Naima McLean) who has information about police financed and directed sex crimes. Someone calls back. This someone has identified Mike as an American who is breaking parole by being in the country. They say no harm no foul about the rental mixup but very strongly suggest that Mike drive the minivan to an abandoned warehouse where they can sort everything out. And Angie is calling Mike every 10 minutes wanting to know where he is now. Rachel doesn't want Mike to go to the warehouse. And this kicks off a lot of relatively boring car chases, shootouts, attempted carjackings and so on. Yawn. Mike is an incredibly stupid and selfish man. Rachel is a cardboard cut out. They could live or die but I could not have cared less.
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What German Sounds Like

Some years ago in a different department and on a different project I worked with a number of Germans. They were like anyone else once I got to know them. Some were nice, some not so much. Each man or woman was a different individual. I learned a lot from some of them. I learned to stay away from others. But listening to them speak their native language to each other always sounded to me, well something like the video below. I love listening to German opera but as I used to joke with some German co-workers, German is the perfect language for telling people what to do. I'm not yet convinced of its utility for sweet nothings or lullabies. It is difficult for me to detect anger in German language since almost everything sounds angry. And I have the same problem detecting anger in Zulu since some of the saddest and/or angriest Zulu music almost always sounds happy to me. So it goes. That is the problem with only speaking one language. I should have buckled down and learned different languages when I had the chance. Obviously this video is a parody and an extreme exaggeration and not meant to be anti-German.... =)

The British Royal Birth and American Media

Well, that's done. Aren't you excited? If you were like me you were anxiously waiting to get news of the British royal birth. The new Prince of Cambridge was born yesterday and I am just so excited by this news. The rest of you must have been similarly intrigued because most of the American based television news shows I skimmed before coming to work and after arriving home were all filled with American anchors and gossip columnists acting a fool. Lots of precious air time and print space on various American stations and newspapers was devoted to the amount of time that the Duchess of Cambridge spent in labor, what the name of her new child was going to be, how long it would be before this boy would be king, who was ahead of him in the line of succession, how his birth would officially be announced, who was qualified to actually be in the delivery room to verify that he actually arrived from the nether regions of the Duchess and wasn't some sort of nefarious pretender Antichrist switched at the last moment and all sorts of other trivia that was only possibly of interest to various addled headed romantics.  It made this sappy old traditionalist feel a swell of royalist patriotic feeling in his heart and.... wait a minute....

That's right, I'm not British. I'm American. And usually I am not personally emotionally engaged in the arrival of a child into this world unless that child is mine or that of my kith and kin. I am ALWAYS happy to hear that friends, relatives, classmates, co-workers or other people I know are new parents/grandparents/uncles/aunts. I enjoy seeing their baby pics and hearing their funny stories. Why? Because I know these people and like or love them. Other folks? Well the best estimate is that there are approximately almost 400,000 children born every day on this planet. I don't mean to be a curmudgeon but I don't know or care about most of those people. I wish every child on this planet happiness, health and long life. My interest ends there.

I don't understand why it is big news in this country when a new heir to a foreign throne is born. Although you might not know it from some accents heard on various American news shows this country is not a province of the United Kingdom. We actually fought wars to make that point. We have no kings, no nobility and if this country had House words they would probably be "We do not bow". 

So it was amusing and confusing to me to see so many American TV producers evidently accurately make the call that their audience cared that William and Kate did what roughly 73 million people (take a little off from that number thanks to polygamists, multiple births and artificial insemination) successfully do each year. Perhaps, and this is a sobering thought, it's news in this country because by some standards we now have less social mobility in the US than exists in the United Kingdom. So we're getting the atrocious class structure without the cool gothic or baroque castles. I'd rather have the castles. Maybe it's just a logical extent of a silly celebrity fixation in which we want to know everything about celebrities. I don't know. I can't help but be reminded of this classic Monty Python clip, which more or less accurately sums up my feeling towards all monarchies.