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Last Updated: Feb 12th, 2009 - 12:36:27 |
For sure, 2008 was not remarkable for movies by or about Black people. Fewer Black directors brought features to the big screen and few Black actors found opportunities outside of formulaic roles. But despite this general malaise, some productions and performances were bright spots. Here they are, with excerpts from my reviews:
1. “Slumdog Millionaire”
This award-winning production, about a young man who enters India’s version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” to win the love of his life, is not thought of as a “black” movie. But the quiet and unstated miracle within it is that it tells the story of the disparaged “untouchables” of India, who are dark and often Muslim. Directors Danny Boyle and Loveleen Tandan, as well as screenwriter Simon Beaufoy, tell this story, based on the novel by Vikas Swarup, with energy and poignancy.
2. “Seven Pounds”
It takes a likeable actor such as Will Smith to carry off the movie “Seven Pounds,” which tackles one man’s obsession to atone for his past and does not spare any heart-rending emotion along the way…Director Gabriel Muccino, who directed “The Pursuit of Happyness,” manages a juggling of identity, purpose and emotion for as long as he can. “Seven Pounds” is an exercise in keeping the viewer engrossed by deliberately withholding key details until the very end of the movie.
3. Jeffrey Wright and Thandie Newton in “W”
The gold in this underrated movie are the scenes depicting the inner-workings of the Bush administration as it plotted and executed its disastrous invasion of Iraq. Josh Brolin turns in a good performance as Bush but the supporting cast—including Thandie Newton as Condoleeza Rice and Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell—is outstanding. “W” doesn’t make us laugh as much as it leaves us in deep thought about the state of United States politics—and leadership.
4. Cadillac Records
“Cadillac Records,” the movie starring Jeffrey Wright, Adrien Brody and Beyoncé Knowles, offers a rich taste—if not all the facts—of Chicago’s Black music scene of the 1950s and 1960s, which gave birth to popular music that we know today… The movie is best enjoyed as a series of fine performances. Wright carries the film in an amazing turn as Muddy Waters, even to the point of allowing us forget that he looks nothing like Waters, a chocolate-colored man with a big, round face and high cheek bones… But, back to the performances: They come rolling in, in an often surprising way: Columbus Short (“Stomp the Yard”) as the mercurial harmonica genius Little Walter; Mos Def as a bouncy, idiosyncratic Chuck Berry; Cedric the Entertainer as songwriter Willie Dixon and Beyoncé Knowles as Etta James. Knowles does an able job of enlarging her modern post-soul vocals to fit the brassier sound of James, who will be forever known as the first African American vocalist to “crossover” to White radio with hits, including “At Last” and “Sunday Kind of Love.” Knowles even reportedly put on 15 pounds to play the rounded James, who is depicted as another tragic mulatto and, though it seems to contradict fact, as Leonard Chess’ lover.
5. “The Express”
The way sports in the United States is inextricably linked to race in the United States is certainly not lost in this film, which is set during the 1950’s when Ernie Davis became a football star at Syracuse University, following in the foot steps of the great Jim Brown. Like “”Glory Road,” This production has the feel of polished rather than gritty re-creation of Syracuse and other portions of the United States, where the team traveled and often received hostile receptions, especially in the South. And, like “Glory Road” and “Remember the Titans,” the attention is split between the story of the Black player and the Whites who surround him, in this case, legendary Syracuse football coach Ben Schwartzwalder (Dennis Quaid), who was a Southerner himself and had to learn about societal change as much as he was determined to teach about football.
6. “Ballast”
Director Lance Hammer paints a bleak corner of the Mississippi Delta in tones that are cold and depressing but startling in their sense of reality. It’s easy to think of “Ballast” as “The Wire” transported to another impoverished Black neighborhood—one in the Deep South. He tells the story of a man named Lawrence, a boy named James and a woman named Marlee in scenes that seem to merge the flat landscape with the emotional tenor of those living quiet, desperate lives. This is an art film that has won numerous awards, including wins for directing and cinematography at the Sundance Film Festival. It is being played in art houses around the country. It does not unfold like Hollywood; it is not a comedy or melodrama.
7. “Miracle at St. Anna”
There is a moment early in Spike Lee’s latest joint, “Miracle at St. Anna,” when an elderly Black man, Hector Negron, peers at an old World War II flick starring John Wayne on TV. Then, almost inaudibly, Negron mumbles to himself about how Black soldiers were over there too and how “we fought too.” The scene, quiet and fleeting compared to visceral scenes of war, is a reminder that “Miracle at St. Anna” is, first and foremost, a longed-for big screen production about African American men who fought during World War II. How Black soldiers have been missing in action, particularly in flicks about the “good war,” has not gone unnoticed by scores of Black veterans who find themselves absent from most accounts of the so-called “greatest generation.”
8.”Honey Dripper”
The movie “Honeydripper” is all about transitions and changes, big and small, in life. Though it, we witness the transition of popular taste, from classic blues acts to an electrified rhythm and blues, and to an expansion of opportunity in a community nearing the birth of the Civil Rights Movement. As he did in “Matewan,” director John Sayles returns here briefly to the theme of labor, unions and the role played by race as workers attempted to organize. With history writ large and small in the script, with thoughtfully rendered dialogue, as well as moments of humor and magic, “Honeydripper” might remind theatergoers of a play by the late August Wilson.
9. “Trouble the Water”
Even though Kimberly and Scott Rivers set out to videotape the events of August 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit the U.S. Gulf Coast, the resulting documentary, “Trouble the Water,” is also a rare first-person account of being Black and poor today in the United States. With any documentary about race or poverty, it is not unusual for the issues of voice and perspective to take center stage. Those old-school treatments of the subject, when a White person, or a designated Black (DB) from the media comes to the ghetto to frame and explain it, are so tired. In contrast, snippets of video by the Rivers couple feel fresh, authentic and are an exercise in citizen journalism in the era of Youtube.com, video e-mail and video cameras on cell phones.
10. Viola Davis in “Doubt” and Taraji P. Henson in “The Curious Life of Benjamin Button”
Doubt” doesn’t present easy answers or conclusions to arguments about priest conduct or racism in the Catholic church. And while we are in the swirl of the narrative’s questions, the Black people included are not fully drawn characters, even though they are at the center of the drama. Despite her bit part, Viola Davis is so powerful in her role (as another pained and conflicted Black mother) that she is raking in award nominations.
In “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” Brad Pitt turns in a nuanced performance as a man accustomed to living a life where nothing is as it should be. Taraji P. Henson expands herself as an actress by also bringing nuance and warmth to what could have been another big screen mammy role.
Honorable Mention:
Don Cheadle in “Traitor”
Actor Don Cheadle and his film “Traitor” deliver a knock-out blow in a story about the so-called “war on terror.” The strength of the film, which takes us from Africa, to the Middle East, to Paris and then to the U.S., is a narrative that includes Muslims and Islam in a manner that is not simplistic or stereotypical.
This list also appeared on Tom Joyner's BlackAmericaWeb.com,/i>
You can order Esther Iverem's critically praised We Gotta Have It: Twenty Years of Seeing Black at the Movies, 1986-2006 (Thunder’s Mouth Press, April 2007)at Amazon.com or purchase at your favorite bookstore. It makes a wonderful gift! Thanks!
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