Letters to the Editor
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Why We Fight
I think "Why We Fight" would go a long way in explaining why the public supported it. I loved that doc. I also recently rewatched the FRONTLINE special "The Dark Side" all about Cheney and all the shit they pulled leading up to and after 9-11. FRONTLINE did an amazing job on that one, even for them, and it's terrifying.
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"netflix doesn't carry movies I think are important to watch"
Oh, my.
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Wonder Puppy,
No.
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James, Thanks for the "Frontline" recomendation!
Not only is Fontline a great series, but they post all of their films online. I'm going to watch "The Dark Side" this weekend.
If anyone else wants to watch it, Here is the link: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside/
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It's Hard To Be A Sundance Attendee
Any movie in which Jackson plays a guy who keeps the town slut chained to his radiator, wearing nothing but a Rebel flag T-shirt and a pair of panties, has got a different tradition than "art" in view. Snicker, snicker.
Yeah, there's no way there could be anything even vaguely misogynistic about that. Why, it's almost impossible to imagine that this is same crowd of film aesthetes who jumped up to cheer a pimp "bitch-slapping" his whore last year as if Martin Luther King were addressing them personally from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
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Wonder Puppy's conviction is truly an inspiration
to potheads everywhere.
Basically, you'd like for the State Dept to starting thinking about getting around to talking about what should be done in Darfur?
Don't worry, no one will call you a hypocrite for criticizing an effort to liberate the Iraqi people while championing an effort to liberate the oppressed people in the Sudan.
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Answer: Black Snake Moan is not an indy movie
Any movie starring Samuel Jackson, Christina Ricci, and Justin Timberlake, is not an independent movie. Same goes for one starring John Cusack or Julie Christy.
I wrote a screenplay. Somebody else produced and directed it. It cost less than $500,000 and starred local actors, some of whom you may have heard of because of the HBO series roles, but probably not. That was an independent film.
My point being, if it's produced by Miramax or its ilks, or has a major star or three, it might stiil be a charming low budget film, but it is not independent.
P.S., for those who care. My film played the theaters for three weeks. It disappeared. I still have my day job. So it goes.
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Craig Brewer Is Something Else
First he glorifies a violent pimp with Hustle and Flow, and now he's made his own, private Mandingo. In both films he attempts to use nascent musical talent as some kind of palliative. Sorry, but it just won't fly. Exploitation is exploitation, and if he had any real balls as a filmmaker he'd just come right out and admit that's what his work is all about.
And Samuel L. Jackson, good GRIEF! Has any actor gone from brilliance to self-parody faster?? Hell, the "Samuel L. Jackson Soundboard" can act better than he can nowadays.
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can't be misogyny
Yes, it's true that Lazarus (Jackson), an embittered sharecropper and semiretired bluesman whose wife has run off with his brother, keeps Rae (Ricci), a girl known throughout the county for her generosity, chained up and padlocked in his house for much of the film....
Some viewers will doubtless disagree, but I see no misogyny at the heart of "Black Snake Moan."
Who could possibly think it's misogyny????????
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Darfur
There are neither explanations nor solutions for Darfur and Iraq apparent to us within our constructed reality because the frame we view these problems from - nations, governments, diplomacy, etc., all symptomatic expressions of in-group/out-group psychology underlying fear, aggression, and tribalism – this frame which we unquestioningly live with and accept as given, or doxa, is the very cause of the Darfurs and Iraqs.
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Salon & Darfur
...point out that even lefty sites such as Salon act like Darfur doesn't exist. I find that a compelling question. Why don't you?
Because the premise is false. Type Darfur into the Salon search bar, and you get 368 hits. The last Salon headline referencing Darfur was yesterday. This does not constitute acting like it doesn't exist.
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Why I love Salon letters
Wowee, zowee. The same people getting -- justifiably -- p.o.'d at the right-wingers who trashed "Hounddog" sight unseen -- based solely on the premise, are accusing Craig Brewer of misogyny because a woman is chained in his movie. Yeah, there's intellectual rigor for you. Hey, ya know, I saw this incredibly anti-Semitic film. Honest. Jews were killed in it because they were Jews. It was called "Schindler's List." And anybody who thinks Brewer is glorifying the pimp in "Hustle & Flow" should probably stick to William Bennett -- that's about the level of nuance you're able to understand.
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"Devil on Horseback" etc.
Hey rhenley etc.,
You know, I wish I had seen "The Devil Came on Horseback." Everybody I talked to at Sundance who had seen it said it was amazing. At every film festival there's stuff you should have gotten to and just didn't, and Sundance this year had many films that fall into that category. That one's high on my list, and I hope to catch up to it soon. And yes, definitely, my uninformed opinion is that Western governments and the Western media have done little to help the people of Darfur.
On "Black Snake," well, I've said my piece and I don't think any context I can add is likely to change anybody's mind, sight unseen. But quoting my own words back at me as if they exposed some kind of irony is kind of dumb. Obviously my point was that Brewer is playing with the most outrageous, apparently misogynistic imagery. (Among other kinds of outrageousness.) Whether you think he successfully subverts or inverts them, or just finds a self-congratulatory way of repurposing them, is up to you. But at least see the film before you draw conclusions.
To whoever it was who said Brewer should just admit he's an "exploitation" filmmaker (whatever that means), I don't think there's some big secret to reveal. I didn't transcribe his remarks verbatim on Wednesday night, but what I recall him saying from the stage of Eccles was that his principal inspiration for "Black Snake" came from "Southern mythology" and "the drive-in, exploitation thing." He also said that he and Christina Ricci spent a long time looking at various brands of chains and padlocks, to identify ones with the right "aesthetic."
As to the definition of independent film, the industry standard is to follow the money. The financing for "Black Snake" came from independent producers (most notably John Singleton, director of "Boyz n the Hood," "Shaft," etc.), meaning it did not come from the coffers of one of the six major studios. Paramount Vantage acquired distribution rights to the film at some point between initial financing and right now, but they didn't make it. I realize that that explanation does not please everyone, and it may in certain respects be outdated. But it has the virtue of clarity and comprehensibility, and otherwise you're making a Potter Stewart judgment call about any and every film.
It has been suggested that no film with a budget above $10 million can be regarded as independent, no matter whose money it is. I doubt in practice that that "rule" would work much better. But then what? Do you give a cost-of-living increase, so that the number becomes $12 million in 2012, or what? My attitude is generally that some movies are clearly indies, based on the totality of their circumstances ("Old Joy" and even "Half Nelson"), others are clearly not, and there's a universe of gray area, which includes "Black Snake" and "Crash" and "Good Night, and Good Luck" (a Warner Bros. studio film) and a whole lot of other things.