A positive review for this. A negative one for No Country for Old Men.

Right.

Here I am in 90%-ecru (no one is really "white" you know!) Iowa and the movie my office mates & I are going to see tonight is "The Perfect Holiday" because 1) it's the holiday season, 2) we're looking for a 'happy' movie and, 3) no one told all of us ecru-Americans that this was a movie for only a black audience.

You know, whether it's politics, movies or whatever else, I think the people with their 'feet on the ground' are way ahead of some of the political pundit & writer class. Ms. Zacharek blew it with this limiting review.

This review got me thinking about other actors who seem to be trapped in the "actor of color" box.

Someone like Regina King. This woman is an enormous talent who always seems to take relatively uninteresting roles and deliver amazing performances. She brought real heart to Jerry McGuire. And you just have to watch her scenes with Janet Jackson in Poetic Justice to clearly see the difference between an actress and a singer playing an actress onscreen.

And yet, she goes underutilized while other, far less talented folks become huge stars. It would be great to see the Regina Kings of the world get the roles and credit they so richly deserve.

When movie tickets cost upwards of $10-$13, the seats are filled with obnoxious cell phone talkers, a bag of popcorn costs $7, and netflix can give you six movies for the same price, to be watched in the comfort of your quiet home, it's going to take a lot more than a "trifle" to pull me into a theater.

That is why trifles fail. They aren't worth the hassle and expense. I'll wait a couple of months and watch it on netflix. And I doubt I'm alone.

Just chiming in to agree with your point that there are some exceptional actors who happen to be black, and it's unfortunate they show up in narrow unimaginative films with a central focus on color.

Howard is so good. Loved him in Hustle and Flow. And Queen L (aka Dana Owens), she's always fun. Ms. Owens has a great album of jazz standards from '04 in her catalog of recordings. Still, this is a movie that isn't grabbing my attention.