Movie Reviews: The Undercover Man

The Undercover Man
directed by Joseph Lewis

This 1949 film is more of a crime drama than a noir film.

Although Eliot Ness and his high profile raids are popularly linked with the downfall of Chicago Outfit head Al Capone, it was actually the more anodyne work of IRS accountants/tax agents like Frank Wilson that actually resulted in Capone's conviction and imprisonment on tax evasion charges.

This movie is loosely based on Frank Wilson's story. 

The film deviates from noir storylines by avoiding the true bleakness of real life events.

In real life although Capone was convicted and later sent to Alcatraz, the organization that he inherited and built thrived without him, growing to wield national influence, including in Hollywood and Las Vegas. 

Capone's conviction did not prove that good would win over evil. It just showed that mobsters needed to pay their taxes and keep a lower public profile, a valuable lesson that Capone's successors took to heart. 

Nevertheless The Undercover Man still effectively used noir elements of claustrophobic corruption and frustration with the law. Although everyone at the time would have recognized the Capone story, this movie set its tale in an unnamed city. As Tolkien did with Sauron, the film keeps its Big Bad (Capone) off screen for 99% of the story.

Ferris State History Professor Goes On Rant

Occasionally I had some eccentric teachers throughout educational career. Some instructors had little interest in the subject matter, didn't like me or for that matter any of their students, or were clearly just playing out the string until they retired, married someone rich or won the lottery, which ever came first. 

That's life. But I don't recall any of my teachers (and most of them were indeed decent men and women) ever losing it quite like Ferris State University History Professor Barry Mehler recently did. To be fair, evidently the good professor was a little peeved by the University's insistence upon holding in person classes at a time when the Covid pandemic is not subsiding. 

I can understand this frustration. My employer is making unpleasant noises about ending working from home options. If you force people to choose between their money and their life you might get more responses like this. 
BIG RAPIDS, MI – A Ferris State University faculty member has been placed on administrative leave after he reportedly went on a profanity-laced rant about the coronavirus pandemic during a class lecture video that was posted online.

Barry Mehler, a history professor in Ferris State’s humanities department, called his students “vectors of disease” and blamed the university for holding in-person classes amid the COVID-19 crisis during an introductory video posted to his YouTube account on Jan. 9, 2022.

Movie Reviews: Venom: Let there Be Carnage

Venom: Let There Be Carnage

directed by Andy Serkis

This is the sequel to the previous Venom film. If you didn't watch the first film it doesn't matter because this stands alone. This film is not about impressive characterization or complex storylines. It's about special effects. The Venom movies are modern reworkings of the werewolf legends. 

Imagine that a mild-mannered schlub had a monster inside of him, one that was virtually immune to harm, needed human flesh and blood to survive, and was almost all id with nothing to moderate or channel its impulses. 

Or think about being the host for a alien parasitic life form that told you that it had your best interests at heart but was actually insidiously reworking your body for its own mysterious purposes. There are some serious horror movie vibes to either of those situations but the sequel doesn't go down those paths. Despite a fair amount of well, carnage, this movie's violence is neither that explicit nor impactful.

Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is a journalist who shares his body with the alien symbiote Venom (also voiced by Hardy). Venom, like all of his species, can't survive for long on this planet without being bound to a human body. And not every human body will do. There must be, as with any relationship, the correct chemistry. However, lately Eddie and Venom are increasingly at odds. Venom sees no reason to hide.  Eddie wants Venom to stay hidden as much as possible.

Movie Reviews: Idlewild

Idlewild
directed by Bryan Barber

This 2006 film was a  messy mishmash of genres and therefore didn't do too well when released.

I think the big problem was that it greatly underestimated its probable audience's intelligence and patience and used far too many anachronistic music performances, language, and attitude. 

It's as if the director, producer, and writers started out to do their best to make a African-American magical realism/musical in the vein of Chicago or Moulin Rouge before losing their nerve and deciding to include too much foul language or needlessly explicit violence aimed at the rap audience. 

Still, upon rewatching this movie, I realized the film has a lot of sentimental melodrama in the best sense of the term.  

I dare say a viewer might even shed a tear or two if they are not careful. Although some of the characters are not particularly well drawn the actors generally excel at making the viewer care about them. 

Idlewild also has a strong message  hidden within. Just so no one misses it the film uses Cooley High as a touchstone.  

I am not sure if the creators specifically named this movie after the real life Michigan lakefront town of Idlewild that was a Black run resort area during the harshest days of segregation. 

Movie Reviews: The Laws of Gravity

Laws of Gravity
directed by Nick Gomez

There are many movies about desperate, conflicted, bored, and impoverished young men looking for a way out. 

Regardless of race, class, religion, ethnicity, these movies tend to have the same themes, dramas, and battles. Male behavior is apparently pretty similar no matter where you are. 

This low budget early nineties movie had as its most obvious antecedent Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets but I am sure that there are several other films/directors that could claim to have some influence on Laws of Gravity. 

I thought that the ending was unsurprising but this movie wasn't trying to be shocking or subvert expectations, though it does so once or twice. The film felt like a documentary that was shot with the participants being unaware of the camera. I was impressed with the acting. 

I think we all know some people, who despite having some skills or intelligence, never really made it to the level of success that we thought that they would. Laws of Gravity examines how that works. 

Sometimes it's bad luck. Sometimes it's self-sabotaging beliefs or behavior. And often it's a combination of all of those factors. 

Movie Reviews: TNT Jackson

TNT Jackson
directed by Cirio Santiago

This 1974 movie was an ambitious mix of blaxploitation, kung-fu, and pre-Charlie's Angels jiggle-vision. 

And by ambitious I mean that this movie was ambitious in exactly the same way someone pedaling a go-cart thinks that he's going to win the Daytona 500. 

It's okay to dream big but if you don't have the basic tools for success you're just wasting your time. 

This movie ran for a little over an hour but that was too long. 

With a better screenplay, better budget, better direction, and better special effects, this would have been more entertaining but then it wouldn't be the movie that it is.

Diana "TNT" Jackson (Jeanne Bell, one of the earliest African-American Playboy centerfolds) learns that her brother is missing and presumed dead. 

Discovering that her sibling was mixed up in the drug importation business, TNT (so called because of her dynamite looks and her kung-fu skills) traces her brother to Hong-Kong. 

Non-Citizen Voting In NYC

New York City recently made it legal for non-citizens to vote in municipal elections. 

This will include legal immigrants on green cards/visas and illegal immigrants with DACA status or who can otherwise show residence in NYC. 

When I first heard about this I thought it was a joke or some deliberate conservative lie, but no in fact, this was indeed the case.

New York City became the largest city in the country to allow noncitizens to vote in local elections after the City Council on Thursday overwhelmingly approved legislation granting the right to more than 800,000 legal residents.
The move places New York City at the forefront of the debate over voting rights, serving as a stark contrast to some states that have moved to add voting restrictions, including explicitly barring noncitizens from voting.
The legislation was approved over the objections of Mayor Bill de Blasio, who questioned whether the City Council has the power to grant voting rights to noncitizens. Legal experts expect that the bill could face a legal challenge. Noncitizens would be able to begin to register to vote a year from now. They could begin voting in local elections as of Jan. 9, 2023, according to the City Council.