wORLD dOMINATION (evil laugh here)…

It seems that in today’s world in order to be successful you basically have to attempt to take over the world, or at least have your hand in almost every arena possible. Now it is all about building “the brand” and everyone is doing it not just corporations like Comcast.  Actors, athletes, and singers are doing it too. It is like everyone is trying to trademark themselves. No one  just sticks to one aspect of business anymore. In the same way that Comcast is involved with things other than cable rapper, Jay-Z has a clothing line, restaurants, nightclubs, and he even tried his hand at opening a casino. Movie studios are no longer just movie studios; they are now these multifaceted, almost universal corporations. They are certainly much bigger than their creators ever imagined they could be i am sure.

I think it is a very sensible idea what these businesses and celebrities are doing. By being involved with so many other things than the one thing they are well known for they ensure some longevity for their success. So if one venture is to fail they still have other things to fall back on so their company doesn’t fail as well.

What I Want…

I must say that it is very cool that you want to know what we want to learn specifically. I have never had a teacher who asked what i wanted so much props to you professor!!!!!!

Ok so getting down to business I’m pulling the race card *{GASP}*. I want to learn/talk about Black films (if any even existed) and actors during the 1920s through the 1940s. I just learned in my theater class about Porgy and Bess, an opera starring black actors and not white actors in “black face” first performed on Broadway in 1935. The opera was later turned into a film starring Sidney Poitier in 1959. I know that Sidney Poitier is a huge and great actor and, according to my theater class, Porgy and Bess was a major theatrical production. So this made me wonder about other black films and actors during this time period. We have learned about a lot of great producers, directors, actors, etc but, no offense, they were all white.

So i want to know what did black films look like? What studios produced them? What black actors were there? How were blacks portrayed in films? Are there any black movies that are considered to be on e of the greats, like Citizen Kane is? What stamp ( if they were even able to) did the black community make on the history of film?

Film Rating System: The Bully Project

YAY THE BULLY PROJECT IS FINALLY PG-13!!!!!!!!!

So if you haven’t heard about the new film, The Bully Project (opening April 13th) it is a film about 5 families and their experiences with bullying. The film is very raw in the way it displays the very real side of bullying amongst kids. Originally the film was rated “R” by the MPAA because the film has the “fuck” in it four times. Really?!? It wasn’t rated “R” for the real, live VIOLENCE displayed between children but for four curse words. The film features and is geared towards middle and high school students so the “R” rating really put a damper on the targeted audience even being able to see this film and receive its very powerful message. The film was first released March 30th as unrated in LA and New York, but in order to reach a wider audience the film was submitted for rating by the distributor, Weinstein Co. were it received its “R” rating.

According to MPAA guidelines a film is rated “PG-13” automatically when one of the harsher sexually derived words (i.e. “fuck”) is used 1 to 4 times and as long as the word was not used in a sexual manner. The Bully Project deals with abuse kids face on a daily basis. I think that the subject matter should outweigh the use of a four letter word that these kids hear everyday. The “PG-13” rating was originally proposed by Steven Spielberg to the president of the MPAA, Jack Valenti when his films Temple of Doom and Gremlins received backlash from parents upset by these the films “PG” rating given the gore and violent content. He said that a “PG-13” rating should be given to films that contained too much adult content for a “PG” rating but not enough for a “R” rating. To me that perfectly describes The Bully Project.

Well thankfully I was not the only person who saw an issue with this rating. Katy Butler, a 17 year old Michigan girl started a campaign on change. com (a website that helps people develop petitions for their cause of choice) to get the rating changed to pG-13 . The petition gained 500, 000 signatures (with me as one of them). Butler has been traveling across the nation speaking out about the importance of the this film receiving a “PG-13” rating in order to get the message out and be more accessible to the age groups that really need to see it. After a lot of leg work by Butler and Weinstein Co. and lots of support from celebrities and average joes alike an agreement was made. The Weinstein Co. and The MPAA agreed that 3 curse words are to be edited out, a small tweak that i think is completely ridiculous and unnecessary.

Sight and Sound/Rodger Ebert’s Top 10 List

First of all, seriously Citizen Kane is #1?!? Seriously?? I thought the movie was decent but not #1 greatest movie of all time decade after decade….after decade, but then again what do I know. I don’t look all the deep into movies or have any real appreciation for the art of film making  so I doubt that this movie would have even made my list had I voted.

I like the way Ebert categorizes the way people vote. We either vote  for our own preferences, to bring attention to a film, or as a matter of  strategy. I would say that I am more of a personal preference voter with a sprinkle of wanting to highlight certain films i believe people should see or didn’t get enough credit. My top 10 list would look nothing like any of the lists in Mr. Ebert’s article. Some of those movies I have never even heard of. However, I do like some of his contenders: Juno, No Country For Old Men, and Pan’s Labyrinth. it seems pretty unfair that some of these newer films have no chance of making this top 10 list.

I do think that it is very interesting that some of the top 10 directors listed do not have films listed in the top 10 or vice versa. Is it that director’s make their choices for these lists based on who the director is? Personally, I think if that is in fact the case the the integrity of the lists is somewhat compromised. Just because a movie is good doesn’t mean its director is worth noting, but as i said before what do i know.

The Hollywood Ten

The Hollywood Ten are as follows:

1. Samuel Ornitz

2. Adrian Scott

3. Herbert J. Bieberman

4. Lester Cole

5. Edward Dmytryk

6. Ring Lardner Jr.

7. John Howard Lawson

8. Albert Maltz

9. Dalton Trumbo

10. Alvah Bessie

Each of these men make a speech in the film denouncing McCarthyism and Hollywood Blacklisting.

Movie Review: 21 Jump Street

WORST MOVIE EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well now that i have gotten that off my chest let me explain. First of all the language used in this movie would make even the crudest, uneducated person blush. Every other word was either a profanity or outrageously explicit sexual reference. Do not get me wrong i am in no way opposed to profanity in movies ( my favorite movie of all time is Harlem Nights for goodness sake), but this movie went more than overboard. It went so far over the cliff’s edge it crashed and burned  twice onto the jagged rocks below. How and why this movie held the top spot in the box office for 2 weeks straight not only boggles my mind but makes me weep for humanity and what we now consider comedy.

Next was the plot line. I was so darn confused about what was going on. Was the movie about the drugs being sold in a high school? Or was it about 2 misfit officers and their misadventures? Or was it about 2 friends and their desire to redo high school? The movie concentrated so hard on how many times they could say penis and m-th–f—er  in one scene that the plot was just all over the place and left the viewer so taken aback that they couldn’t process anything else.

I made the mistake of watching the movie with my mother ( my very, very religious, 57 year old mother to be exact) and after about an 45 minutes into the movie neither one of us could stand it any longer so we cut it off. we literally sat in silence and awe for 15 minutes trying to comprehend what it was that we just saw and heard. I later went and researched the original  Fox television show, 21 Jump Street  (starring Johnny Depp) and it did not appear to be anything like what this movie turned out to be. According to what i read the show touched to relevant and controversial issues of the time, such as homosexuality, teenage drug abuse, etc. There was some serious license taken with the “remake”. The only thing that seemed to stay true to the original was the plot (a department, run out of a church, of young looking police officers that solved cases in high schools and college).

At the end of the day maybe it was my mother and I’s fault for buying the movie on bootleg (not too sorry about that i would never pay theater price to see that garbage) and missing the movie’s NOT RATED rating (which really makes no sense when you think about it), but that still does not excuse that fact that 21 Jump Street is a horrible, terrible, no good, very bad movie. 

Books to Movies: Failures or Successes?

So it seems that the new trend in movies is turning best selling books into movies. Over the past years we have seen all of the Harry Potter and Twilight series acted out on the big screen. We have also had For Colored Girls, The Lovely Bones, The Help, and even Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs make the transition. I have come to wonder what sparked this new trend. Has original movie writing come to some sort of stand still that now studios are left with no other choice but to turn good books into either good movies or major disappointments? I admit that I am a SUPER HUGE Harry Potter fan and was ecstatic when they decided to turn them into movies. However, as an avid reader and die hard fan sometimes I hated the movie renditions of my favorite books. It seems that either the directors take the story in a completely different, off the wall, way off book direction or they remain close to the original story line.  I know that each director has their own style , but do we ruin these already great works when we turn them into films. The Twilight series has done great at the box office but according to some critic reviews I’ve read the movies are deemed horrible due to the fact  that the director sticks to closely to the author’s original work. So what does it mean when the critics hate the movie but it still triumphs at the box office? Or what about when a movie is critically acclaimed but doesn’t meet audience expectations? Is the movie a failure or a success?  Also what is the standard for which we are deciding which books to turn into films? Steve Harvey’s best selling  self help book, Act Like a Lady Think Like A Man has recently inspired a film due to hit theaters the end of this month. Is no book or genre exempt from being made into a film? I will end by saying that while I am not opposed to turning books into movies this trend is starting to go just a tad bit over board for me.

Good Deeds (a movie review)

I went to see the movie “Good Deeds” by Tyler Perry on Friday and I must say I was pleasantly surprised. The movie was fantastic!!! Normally I am more of a fan of Perry’s plays than I am his movies, but with this movie he really out did himself  and showed get maturity as a director and actor. He set his comedic side away and actually was serious and gave a heart-felt performance. There was not even the slightest trace of his larger than life alter-ego, Mabel “Madea” Simmons.

If you have never experienced a Tyler Perry movie or play the story lines and themes pretty much remain the same. There is always a family full of drama with someone on drugs, dying, being abused, etc, etc… However, in most instances the family finds its way to the truth and the light lots of singing, praying, and Madea, who is simply Tyler Perry in old woman drag. In ” Good Deeds” this was not the case. He didn’t give his usual depiction of a down home southern black family; this movie was modern and updated yet it still remained true to the classic Tyler Perry movie style. The movie still makes a profound statement and provides a deep message, however, you don’t have to sit through 10 songs in order to get it. This is the first movie he has ever made that actually seemed real. There was no exaggeration of the story-line or characters.

This movie is definitely a must see. I laughed. I cried. I related. I felt their anger. I felt their pain. Then I cried tears of joy in their victory. I strongly suggest that people go and support this movie.

 

Bette Midler: the new Mae West?

This past weekend, as I stared at the bills laying on the table in front of me and visions of all the homework i had to do dancing in my head, i decided to take a step  back into my childhood (when life was simple *sigh*). I grabbed a huge bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and popped my favorite childhood movie into the VCR (yes i still have one on those). The movie was “Hocus Pocus” starring a very young Sarah Jessica Parker and Bette Midler, and if you have never seen this movie or at least slightly know the plot line then shame on you. So as i sat there fixed on my couch, quoting every line, and singing every song I couldn’t help but notice the resemblence Bette Midler has to the late (and i guess great) Mae West. Not only do they somewhat look alike ( in my opinion) but they both pull off the acting sext appeal thing very well. From what we saw and went over in class Mae West was a sort of  sex symbol way back when and although Bette Midler isn’t being asked to pose for Playboy she pulls the whole sexy vixen off on and off camera as well. The only thing that really seperates them is that Bette Midler is also a comedian. She manages to mix her sexy vixen with comedy, (which i’m not really sure if Mae West could do but she doesnt look like she could). Midler even has a burlesque/showgirl/comedic show happening now In Las Vegas at Caesers Palace that is doing very well. Maybe if West was able to mix it up like Midler the Code era might have been better on her.

  VS. 

Citizen Kane

So i must admit i actually kinda  liked this movie. However, the annoyingly long  article/review about it by Paulina Kael i could have done without.

After suffering through the article by Ms. Kael I managed to get that she feels the the movie did not reach its peak until long after it was released. It was unappreciated in the 40s but as time progressed and and the ways of old were forgotten the movie was finally able to be appreciated for the masterpiece it is or was. She also thinks that the movie is a “shallow masterpiece” (whatever that means) instead of a profound work of art as many believe it to be. I do not think she solely places the success of the film on Orson Welles. I feel she gives an equal amount of praise and credit to several people for the greatness of Citizen Kane.