Best Black Movies of the Decade? Hit or Miss??

BlackVoices has compiled its own list of top 10 Black feature films.

The list does indeed include a Tyler Perry-Madea jam. But does it all check out?

Shoulda been Chappelle sketches...

Have you ever watched or read the news and thought, "MAN! I wish Chappelle's Show was still running."

Here are several moments that have moved me to mourn Dave's deucing (I will always respect the reasons why, though) and general comedic genius in sketch format. List includes some of my own imaginings and guesses at what he and Neal (Brennan) might cook up:

1. 
   
   Dick Cheney's shooting incident (and general 'immortality')


2. 
   
   Hugo Chavez at the UN in 2006 (Mugabe, too)


3. 
   
   Bush getting hit by shoe


4. 
   
   The entire 2008 Presidential Election--EVERY.SINGLE.PIECE. (Rev. Wright-Sarah Palin-Hillary-Obama-McCain--ALL OF IT.)


5. 
   
   the OD coverage of the 'unmarriageable Black woman' debate BUT merged somehow with Lil' Jon in Love


6. 
   
   Tiger Woods >> Another Race Trade


7. 
   
   From my Twitter-roll today >> RT: @jordanrubin "You're free to board and you have a tumor." RT @cnnbrk: Dutch to use full-body scans at airports after terror incident.


8. 
   
   Rutgers' - Imus


9. 
   
   Michael Steele, RNC Chair, uncensored. period.


10. 
    
    Whitney Houston's comeback


11. 
    
    2050: the year people of color are projected to outnumber White people in the U.S.


12. 
    
    Nobel Peace Prize 2009


13. 
    
    Bush Administration at word of Fidel's illness


14. 
    
    Frontline special like the racist H'W'D pets spot, EXCEPT the feature is alternate uses of hot grits in Black History--leading up to Chris Breezy and Rihanna


15. 
    
    Hot air balloon boy


16. 
    
    Swine Flu parody of the 1970s vaccine commercials (see here--shoutout to Jess Law!! LOL)

I know I'm missing SO much more. CONTINUE THIS LIST!!!

Um, So KFC would like to brighten up (like Sosa)...

(and by 'us', i mean 'you', cuz i'm is a vegetarian.) [sic]

anywho--this is the second post across channels, that i've seen today about "racist KFC ads"--one Korean c/o Bossip, the other cricket-English-friendly c/o MediaBistro:

Read on at AgencySpy for what the heck is going on...(not that it matters...)

PSA for NY'ers: NYC Film Networking & Extreme Makeover Headshot 2

Hey!

So if you've got a reel, a nickel and dimepiece, and no dates at 8:00 you should check out this event I just learned of from the Black Theatre Network! Eh? Eh?

The event will power forward until 11p, and it will be held at DROM 85 Avenue A (between 5th & 6th sts). Check the full scoop on FB (Black Theatre Network).

This is open to those who are:
* Actors
* Models
* Directors
* Producers
* Agents
* Screenwriters
* Casting Directors
* Cinematographers
* Composers
* Editors

Enjoy. Tell somebody I sent you! (wink)

Final word on RealWorldDC (i hope). A DMV Event--

tomorrow (12/30) at the Tattoo Bar, 1413 K St., NW.

Yeah. Some of the guys from the cast of Real World DC will be partying it up as Tattoo hosts the MTV premiere of RWDC. It doesn't look like you'll catch B-More Ty. (Hm...)

They're advising folks buy tix so you can skip the line, but from what I gather, I think you should prep yourself for a lot of...oh, i don't know...how should I say this...'extra-ness'? Think tinsel-y glitter without the grit.

If you go, just remember you were warned.

Spike Lee

Spike Lee’s “Passing Strange” TV Debut & DVD Dates

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Check out the S&A word on the street. Spike to debut the on-screen version of the staged performance on PBS in January.

I miss Dilla...'History', Mos Def y Talib Kweli Preview

Catch the video sneakpeek over at Okayplayer.com (gosh, i love those guys...). The Dilla effect will strike your spinal right away.

Video directed by Coodie & Chike. (i think i'm lovin these guys, too.)

Says TheFrisky: 10 Worst Sex Scenes Of 2009

10 Worst Sex Scenes Of 2009

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Only TheFrisky. L.O.L. Promise its (mostly) tame enough for the prude.

BOONDOCKS!? SEASON 3??? WHA?! THANK YOU 2010!!!!

There is a balm.

I gotta agree with RS's song of the decade, so for the cause of said anarchy...

The top 4 contenders on the Rolling Stone's (obligatory) decade list include among them "Hey Ya!" (below) by Outkast (9/2003) and "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley (2006). If ever there were more accurate and organic (that is to say, non-compulsory) additions to a decade list, these songs would have to be winnahhhhs.

Embodying the turbulence of the decade in ink blots and split-personality disorders is oh so appropriate. Think of the '00s as the: 'you didn't see anything' decade. Here's why, as I attempt to put the 'psychological imbalance' of the '00s in social, political, and economic context--starting with the...

First recount (2000). OH SNAP!

Then 9/11 (2001). SNAP!

Then the DC Sniper plus Oscar wins for Denzel-Halle (2002). DOUBLE SNAP!

U.N. Bumble[flip] starring Colin Powell and WMD receipts (2003). TRIPLE SNAP!

And another recount... plus tata-gate (2004). WTH!

KATRINA and Condi's untimely stiletto preoccupation (2005). DAMMIT!

So what's an AFRICOM? A Blackwater? Dick Cheney's way of saying STFlipU...and Dave Chappelle, don't go!!!!!! (2006)

What about a troop surge? About that Imus dude... Then Megan Wms, the Jena 6, NJ4, and thatguy Obama...gosh he makes great songs. (2007)

Hmmm...I'm feeling like a recession...how 'bout you? But pass that hope-dope pipe another round. (Obama '08)

And now....presenting Bumbleflip 102: HealthcareRecessionAfghanistanPakistan 2009!
...It wasn't because I didn't know enough/I just knew too much. --Gnarls Barkley 2006

BET gives Swaggtastic Shoutout to WALE!!

That's the name don't forget it. BET called Wale one of the 'Best Looks of 2009'. He's most Hood Fab. How nice. DMV and Um Ricka's Finest (I LOVE THAT SONG! It's with K'Naan! aaaaaggghh!) has a pretty urrea-tastic video reel, too. There's no mistaking where he comes from all the way around:

ft. Lady Gaga - Chillin'

Nike Boots >> D.C. should own Nike, f'real...

W.A.L.E.D.A.N.C.E. >> Peep the jersey!

Real World DC: Gentrification 101

Indeed, the cast pictures of the D.C. Real World-ers are yet another nail in the 'Chocolate-City-wha? 'coffin. (pictures from MTV.com) December 30th, MTV premiere.

Spike Lee sneak peeks MJ's 'This Is It'

Don't expect concert footage. Spike did it up something proper, and started in Gary, Ind. like a true documentarian might--but more than that--probably like MJ would have liked it: short-film style.

Read on over at Rolling Stone.

Michael Jackson - This Is It - Directed by Spike Lee from 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks on Vimeo.

Today is 'Ujima', but...

I'm waiting on @GeeDee215 for my alternate principle. (L.O.L.)

Ujima means collective work and responsibility. The green candle on the farthest right is light. (The center black candle, umoja, and far left red candle, kujichagulia, are re-lit as well.)

I can get down.

Jam boogie to the following until next post...

okay, so...is it me?

Or is Laz Alonso just the simple truth? Sorry...nothing else.
That is all.

If you're in the DC area for New Year's--

Definitely a lot going on.

But if you want to ring in the year on a doper than average note, check out the following goings-on all week long:

12/27 Goapele is kickin it over at Bohemian Caverns tonight!

12/28 BloomBars is hosting open mic night in Columbia Heights.

12/30 The night before New Year's Eve, the Washington Film Institute will be holding Eve of NYE Celebrations on M St (PENUltimate). You get to watch movies!! And fraternize, too.

12/31 Busboys & Poets is kickin' it with One Nation Under A Groove come New Year's Eve, and there will be a nice mobile celebration between the 14th & V and 5th & K locations.

beyond 1/1/10 The Black Nativity is playing at H Street Playhouse through Jan 3.

There will be various Kwanzaa events throughout the city all week long.

Check Anacostia Community Museum for events every evening. Union Temple Baptist Church is one of many area churches hosting week long events in the area as well. Don't sit inside!

KOS (Determination) -- favorite.

This might be my favorite principle.

And here's a sing-along jam to kick off this second day of Kwanzaa. Light the Umoja candle again (black), and the red candle on the farthest left. That is the kujichagulia candle.

Enjoy. (Vinia Mojica & Blackstar)

About V. Ro...On second thought...

maybe she wouldn't be a bad addition to RHoA after all.
Really?? Really?? Now just because they made it didn't mean you should...<*sighs...>
Nene said she got camera cojones, but, uh... maybe she ain't the only one.

SPECspesh: Dec. 4th--late but not forgotten

Mark Clark and Chairman Fred Hampton

Not cut from the same ideological cloth, but family nonetheless, I cannot let this month end without posting this, late or not. Commemorating Kwanzaa brought to mind the "slight" beef between this camp--who I gotta talk about--and the USO, also founded by Maulana Karenga (who I told you to Google).

I just came across this extensive interview conducted by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez of Democracy Now! in NYC.

View the entire show, dedicated to the memory of Black Panthers Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. The two were assassinated December 4, 1969 at 4:45a by the Chicago Police and FBI in what has become one of many State-led medieval-style Inquisitions against domestic heresy, critical action and theory. And all of the above made the BPP a site of State... discomfort to say the least.

Find a friend and check the film, The Murder of Fred Hampton online once you finish. Then, like VH1 might admonish: "Watch & Discuss."

But beyond that, and adopting a spirit of unity and awareness remember, too.

In Case You Missed It...See 'Black Candle' and a Nice Gig for You

In case you missed the 12 noon premiere of The Black Candle today on TVOne --

I GOTCHU!

The DMV, apparently, already got some special treatment in preparation for Kwanzaa 2009.

The Black holiday--dubbed so by Maulana Karenga in 1966 (please Google)--is explored and explained in the documentary feature 'Black Candle.' Earlier this month, Prof. and Director M.K. Asante, Jr. screened the film in communities around the Greater Washington, D.C. area.

But you can see it again in a whole new way:

Roots to Freedom, a nonprofit organization based in the D.C. area, is looking for Community Outreach Interns who will be primarily responsible for getting 'Black Candle' to its proper audiences. Distribution at its grittiest! Love it.

The selected candidate will receive some notable perks. Among them, a copy of M.K. Asante, Jr.'s 500 Years Later, It's Bigger Than Hip Hop annnnnnnndddd...

since you missed it--The Black Candle.

To learn more about the opportunity, check the WaPo listing online here.

Today Umoja is lit. Umoja means 'unity', and is represented by the black candle at the center of the kinara. To learn more on your own about the seven principles of Kwanzaa, check Karenga's site at http://www.officialkwanzaawebsite.org/index.shtml.

Centric has been kicking it with 'Salt-N-Pepa' reruns, and...

i have definitely been a 3am glutton for all of the Salt, Pep and Spin' foolery. And now there's more!!

VH1 TV Shows Music Videos Celebrity Photos News & Gossip

(Like last night's trip to Atlantic City for Spin's gig? Good stuff.)

But in only a few short weeks, Sandra "Pepa" Denton is going to dominate her own series on "Let's Talk About Pep." It's set to be a small scale 'Tough Love', just for Pep, featuring her good friends Jacque Reid, Joumana Kidd, and .

The show is set to premiere Jan. 11th right after Fantasia Barrino (American Idol) premieres her own show on VH1, "Fantasia For Real."

Oh, yes! And Chilli, too (TLC's Rozonda Thomas).

Start gulping juice over at VH1.com. (All the sudden they got it in for the Black women-demo, eh? Wonder who caused that...[cough, RHoA, cough])

NENE SAID...(*guilty grin)

"I make Real Housewives of ATL", and you can add some itches so those under rocks can hear you.

Sorry. But I love it.

FEATURE PRESENTATION: Reading Pictures & Sounds in 2010

I came across The Drama Review (TDR) journal while I was in NYC in the garment district. It struck me, because on the cover is Paul Robeson, undoubtedly invested in the moment, surrounded by microphones, eyes intense and pointed fist raised mid-message.

The picture of Robeson is at a 1948 rally protesting the Mundt-Nixon bill. And it was this kind of performance—not Go Down Moses— that got Robeson blacklisted and called all manner of ‘Commie’ foolishness fo’sho, fo’t’real. TDR’s deal is to examine performance in its “social, economic and political contexts.”
And to echo Jay-Z: so necessary.

LOOOOOOOOVE IT!

So let me put things in a smidge of perspective this Christmas day: North American box offices hit a new high in 2009, banking a record $10bn [in Pharrell-ian currency]. And the first thing that comes to my mind is escape. The economy sucks, to keep it modest. Somehow, I anticipate ‘TARP’ entering our lexicon the way ‘Google’ has as a verb, noun, and adjective. And honestly, there’s a lot of grit building up between the superpowers of the world. Grit we will soon and surely feel. (not just in Kabul or Tehran or Islamabad or Pyongyang or…)

But movie houses are still packing ‘em in. We’re happy to dull the pain. Dissatisfied? Change the channel. Get ‘er On Demand. Go next door. Lull yourself to sleep with [insert network here]. Go ‘head an’ get high off of [insert sitcom/dramedy/reality show here]. By all means:

Entertain yourself to death!

But like Badu says on her “Master Teacher” track: you better ‘stay woke.’
Now is certainly the time—perhaps more than ever before—for us to master how we receive our entertainment. How do we read pictures? How do we read sounds?

Yes. I’m insinuating that apocalyptic things are happening.
I don’t mind saying it because they’ve happened before. But they happened at a time when we were much less connected, and much more impressed by the immediacy and emotional affectation of the moving images we saw.

As of 2009 (and well before), your friendly living room ‘idiot box’ and neighborhood cinema are not, as independent filmmaker Haile Gerima would say, benign sources of entertainment. Instead they are very much part and parcel to the propaganda of our times. And we would only be wise to read the message above the message; the commentary that lies within each and every 30-min. to an hour slice of television, the commentary that lies within each and every military spot run during shows geared toward ‘urban’ demographics during war time, and in every feature length and short presentation in a Magic Johnson Theater near you.

TV & movies is one heck of a drug [sic]. Available to the masses in bulk by only a few big time dealers. (NKOTB: NBCU-Comcast!)

Without the presence of critical storytellers who look like ‘we’—AND DON’T—and have experienced ‘we’ kind of stories from ‘we’ kind of perspectives—OR ARE AT LEAST CRITICAL ENOUGH TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE—there remains what David J. Leonard (Screens Fade to Black, 2006) calls “the rise of neo-liberalism and the hegemony of colorblind rhetoric,” which he believes has “infiltrated” people of color and independent storytelling to the point of “rendering analysis of the state and white supremacy as obsolete.”

Precious has become such a sensitive hit, in part, because of the critical acclamation it’s being ceded, and I’d daresay, because it presents a shadow of return to state accountability in the Black film—a notion H’W’D would love to say makes it a, somehow, less “universal” story. Yet, every storyteller in the game could take a cue from Lee Daniels and Sapphire and the whole cast and crew when it comes to chanting down Babylon to its face. Precious isn’t your typical 2000s Black film—where we neatly pull ourselves up by some invisible boot straps, cite kujichagulia, and toast in some ritzy downtown club where we get to be frou-frou, chic-chic Black. Because it is oh-so-trendy now, in case you hadn’t noticed. Instead, Precious gets a little uncomfortable in all the right places. What about a living wage? What about welfare today? What about the complicity of the State in creating the abuses we tend to think we’re above inflicting within communities of color since we got, like, BET and TVOne and Centric (ooh, and now a Black President)?

In the absence of storytellers who will say a manageable bit about hyper-surveillance (like in Boyz n the Hood) or provide a troubling view of gender roles and expectations (like Sweet Sweetback’s…) what is your entertainment NOT saying? Why? In the absence of such storytellers, what farce of an American Dream are you being sold in our sociopolitical climate? Who funds what you watch? Who doesn’t care what you don’t watch? What’s the message in the sum total of what you do watch?

You don’t need to answer.
Just treat this like your 0-101.
You’re welcome. A beautiful world, I'm tryna find.
Merry Christmas! ;-)

IT'S HERE!!!!!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WELCOME TO...Grits, Grit, & Glitter!

What does that mean anyways?

It means fresh and new. Green. No. It’s not spring. But there’s a reason to get excited.

The Holidays bring rich thoughts and experiences with them. Tinsel is sparkling. Egg nog is in stores. Wrapping paper shimmers.

Poinsettias, glimmering lights and warm, glowing candles plus all the public displays of Technicolor without the Technicolor.

Thundersnows—at least on the east coast this year—leave sheets of glittering snow (and ice)…all around. The season is too beautiful for words (if you don’t think about the shoveling/slipping parts). That’s the Glitter.

Families will trek through airports, stuff themselves in Amtraks and Greyhounds the nation over trying to soothe those things only home can. Be it with some auntie’s sweet potato pie. Some mama’s macaroni & cheese. Some grandmother’s knowing. That’s the grits.

And whether life is kicking you in the pants right now or it isn’t yet, all this aesthetic overload is here to drown out your pity partying in the name of seasonal sales and holiday cheer. Nearly 16% Black and Brown unemployment or not (20-plus in Detroit), capitalisticexploitationofChristianbeliefs or not.

That’s the grit.

And that’s the reason I love the irony of ‘cinema’ (to sound o’fishull [sic] and random).
At its purest, it’s about the story. And at the heart of every story is conflict. No matter how great or small. At its simplest, it’s about beauty. Aesthetics. Beautiful pictures. Beautiful actors. Beautiful effects. Beautiful sounds. Beautiful struggles.

Cinema should come naturally to people of color.
Even so, we who have learned to eat stories and grow generations, self-medicate with them in song, verse, riddle, rhyme and prayer—we’re often hard-pressed to find that gift honored and reverenced in or by mainstream on any size screen. I don’t profess bytwenty8 to be that place. But I hope I’ll get you at least as provincially ravenous for people of color film/tv and so-called third cinema as I am.

Welcome to bytwenty8!
Hope you like yo’ gif’!!!!

ALMOST HERE!!!! in less than 12 hours...

GET EXCITED.

Dec 25th I'm all...

GRITS.

GRIT.

GLITTER.

The appetizer taste of bytwenty8's re-launch.

Jan 1st we're going beta.

This will be the place where Black cine gets its due. All Black & Brown. All the time. TV & Film. And someday stage.

classical film theory?

eat said {heart} out.

Fantasia&#8217;s Reality Show Proves There&#8217;s Another Career Option Besides Broadway For &#8216;Idol&#8217; Alumni

Fantasia&amp;#8217;s Reality Show Proves There&amp;#8217;s Another Career Option Besides Broadway For &amp;#8216;Idol&amp;#8217; Alumni

Senator Vitale to The Situation: Straighten Up and Fly the [flip] Right

So the New Jersey Italian American Legislative Caucus led by state Sen. Joseph F. Vitale is so over MTV's Jersey Shore.

Peep the letter he wrote to Phillipe Dauman, Viacom president and CEO, about Snooki n'nem.

Somehow I just don't think Viacom expected shade from this direction. Domino's Pizza and Dell have already pulled out as sponsors, and all I can see is that banned episode of Boondocks playing and re-playing in my head...

COM-UH-DEE!

ONLY 2 DAYS LEFT!! bananas...

GET EXCITED.

Dec 25th I'm all...

GRITS.

GRIT.

GLITTER.

The appetizer taste of bytwenty8's re-launch.

Jan 1st we're going beta.

This will be the place where Black cine gets its due. All Black & Brown. All the time. TV & Film. And someday stage.

classical film theory?

eat said {heart} out.

In the middle of 'Inside Man' on BET...a Snuggie!

I was so focused, and then the zebra-print snuggie and roof raising...

Bribery Scandal Exposed Within African American Film Critics Association

Bribery Scandal Exposed Within African American Film Critics Association

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Prez got jokes...Obama's Holiday Prank

Obama got jokes...

He quasi-prank-called outgoing Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine on WTOP as "Barry from DC".

Now you tell me what "Barry" he's posing as. DMV knows well. Dig it.
Obama really is that guy. you know what i mean?

3 days and counting!!

GET EXCITED.

Dec 25th I'm all...

GRITS.

GRIT.

GLITTER.

The appetizer taste of bytwenty8's re-launch.

Jan 1st we're going beta.

This will be the place where Black cine gets its due. All Black & Brown. All the time. TV & Film. And someday stage.

classical film theory?

eat said {heart} out.

because i do miss 'Girlfriends'...

...and in honor of the unfinished project dubbed the "Black 'Sex and the City'" (based on Helena Andrews' memoir, Bitch is the New Black, to be produced by Grey's EP Shonda Rhimes), I present 'Drool', co-starring Jill Marie Jones (Toni!!!!!!!):

Thanks, Shadow & Act! This sounds like...um...let's say Thelma & Louise times Little Miss Sunshine times Burn After Reading times The Nanny. Don't look for it in a theater, though...

Popularity doesn't matter for documentaries this Oscar season

...yeah right.

The Doc outlook in the Oscars' 2010 season.

I am a little biased here. But I really feel--bias aside--that 'tis the season (in particular, cuz it's always been the season...) to discuss redistribution of wealth.

Like, go-hard.

I've seen one really solid documentary critique of capitalism proper before (The Corporation, 2004), but perhaps Mike's visibility and the heavy rotation of our current 'financial crisis' will make "Capitalism: A Love Story" (Michael Moore) cut a little deeper.

Cuz if Bernie Sanders (I-VT) can almost discuss redistribution of wealth on 'Colbert', maybe we can talk about Huey P's theory of Intercommunalism. [go read To Die For the People].

Where did all the indie pics go?

Where did all the indie pics go?

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AT&T would now like your index fingers, too...

So don't be frightened when in about 15 more minutes, should you visit a Turner-connected site, you come across some annoyingly effective AT&T ads.

Why does it matter enough for me to take the time to post something about Turner (the people who bring you CNN, TBS, TNT, Adult Swim, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera) selling a "Netblock" to AT&T?

Because it is pretty significant evidence of the Internet's monstrously effective equalizing ability. You--the user of the Internet and bearer of invisible money--have, in part, forced many a big business to change their gotcha!-strategies to make you spend said invisible money.

Turner used to gamble your eyeballs on TV advertisement slots, but YOU watch what you feel like watching when you feel like watching it on your computer a lot more often now. And that's become a big enough problem that AT&T and Turner (one of the largest [monopolizers][j/k! ...wink.] in the media game) think it's worth it to gamble your eyeballs on...drumroll...

YOUR COMPUTER!!!

Yes. You are being stalked. And actually, this is what helps/hurts/excuses the lack of browner visibility in places like television--where advertising is EVERYTHING. literally. and in film, where demographics are EVERYTHING. literally....and blah blah blah blah.

BUT!

Nothing matters if your eyeballs aren't there. And ANYBODY can have an audience on the IN'NANET! You know what that means? Advertising or not--underrepresented storytelling for everybody!!!!!!

MWAHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHA!

(lols--don't mind me...i'm silly...)

The one to watch will be TY from B-More. Duh.

MTV to preem Real World D.C. come December 30th.




So...


Confession.


Uh. I haven't watched Real World since, like, um...idk...7th grade?


BUT, it's coming home! Gotta watch. And the extra perk will be the urrrea cat (or at least, just a few stones away) Ty[rell] from Bawdimor. D.C.'s just racking up in reality points, ain't we?




(image from BaltimoreSun.com)

They SO heard me and the bestie talking in public...

Check this theater the LA Times covered.



Pretty chic-chic pricewise, but they let you do dinner while you watch the movie.



jealousy=envy (sort of)

4 days and counting!!

GET EXCITED.

Dec 25th I'm all...

GRITS.

GRIT.

GLITTER.

The appetizer taste of bytwenty8's re-launch.

Jan 1st we're going beta.

This will be the place where Black cine gets its due. All Black & Brown. All the time. TV & Film. And someday stage.

classical film theory?

eat said {heart} out.

227 & Sesame Street's Alaina Reed Hall-Amini dead at 63

Really????

5 days and counting!!

GET EXCITED.

Dec 25th I'm all...

GRITS.

GRIT.

GLITTER.

The appetizer taste of bytwenty8's re-launch.

Jan 1st we're going beta.

This will be the place where Black cine gets its due. All Black & Brown. All the time. TV & Film. And someday stage.

classical film theory?

eat said {heart} out.

2009, you just won't quit.

E! Online: Brittany Murphy in Pictures

1977-2009

Free issue while Cameron and 'Avatar' stack coins...

Here's a preview of 'Losers', set to premiere in April 2010 and also featuring the lovely Zoe Saldana as well as [YAY!] Idris Elba (Daddy's Girls, Obsessed, American Gangster).

Saldana will not perform the function of FOX News' 10-ft. CGI [imperial] dream girl, however, she will be the kick-butte belle, Aisha, of Andy Diggle's 1980s comic gone big-screen.

The Losers are a CIA Special Forces Unit tired of "witnessing one too many covert atrocities."

They dead themselves in a helicopter "accident" in order to return to the U.S. and subvert the CIA's domestic operations "one heist at a time."

Columbus Short (Stomp the Yard), soon to appear in 'Sex and the City 2' will pop up in 'Losers' too. You can check him out now, though, in 'Armored' alongside Laurence Fishburne (CSI and the world...).

Oh. And Andy Diggle doesn't mind you downloading a free issue of 'The Losers' from DC Comics.

Get excited.

'Losers' is directed by Sylvain White. Set to premiere April 9, 2010.

Warner Bros.

GO MO'!

Another THR jam. Key in at 2:30.

THR gets Quentin Tarantino's Top 10 of 2009

Fair enough.

Newsweek: The Munchkins 70 Years Later

(and a few TBS marathons later, too.)

When FOX News says they like a movie...

you should probably run for cover.

Check The Phenomenon, Politics and Art of 'Avatar' .

After I heard the basic story behind 'Avatar', though, I must say...I'm not surprised FOX News is half-behindedly endorsing it. Cuz it's really like...Zoe Saldana as a blue Pocahontas (the Na'vi people in the movie are supposed to be, like, "noble savages") but in Second Life, if it were 1492 in the future.

<*eyeroll>

So Pinkington basically suggests that the "meta-politics" of James Cameron's flick will resonate with lovers of the GreatWhiteHope trope--those who secretly or openly believe in the saving grace of a single-handed white person to tame the savages and save the white, or capitalist beneficiaries of the world.

Pinkington won't exactly own up to his accusations about how he expects "the left" to identify with 'Avatar', so instead he chalks up his admissions to "i report, you decide."

So allow me to translate:

Empire is going to think [and by that, i mean they already think] this is a great idea >> planetary imperialism.

So does art really imitate life?

just saying...just sayin.

6 days and counting!!

GET EXCITED.

Dec 25th I'm all...

GRITS.

GRIT.

GLITTER.

The appetizer taste of bytwenty8's re-launch.

Jan 1st we're going beta.

This will be the place where Black cine gets its due. All Black & Brown. All the time. TV & Film. And someday stage.

classical film theory?

eat said {heart} out.

‘Real Housewives’ Cleared In 85% of U.S.

‘Real Housewives’ Cleared In 85% of U.S.: "NBC Universal has cleared its off-Bravo Real Housewives franchise in more tha..."

Aha.
I'm late. But aha. I'll share the full extent of the "aha" once I've done a little research, but this explains a lot about the sudden now-you-see-Nene-next-season-you-won't speculations. 'Sheree's-friend-Tania" is cute, and Victoria Rowell is too, but...uh...

Not to mention--another tardy revelation (hehehehe): what in the heck does this Comcast-NBCU mean for RHoA?
Clearing 85%, eh?
If greater distribution, only--great.
If it means some show scrubbing for the ATL ladies...mm. mm. some dare them. including me.

cuz WHO GON' CHECK ME, BOO?

Golden Globes' Black Newcomer Guilt

Gabs HEARTS NSync, so t'was only fitting for JT to say her name.

If you Tivo'd last Tuesday's Leno, you can check the Precious star's (Gabourey Sidibe) insane *NSYNC trivia skills demonstrated as she sat with Lance Bass.

Not hating, but brief sidebar:

With the Golden Globes being a somewhat reasonable predictor of Oscar season nominations and all...does anybody suspect/think [*cough, sputter....cough] that H'W'D and the "Hollywood Foreign Press" make attempts to mask their [oh-so-apparent] prejudice with Black newcomer nods?

Reference J-Hud in '07.

NOT--REPEAT--NOT HATING! i'm jus'sayin.

Heart Gabs and J-Hud. But can-a-Black-vet get some love? (GO MO'!) How'z'about'a Black DIRECTOR?

Anybody?

Anyone?

i know we have to save room for Meryl Streep, who could get nominated without helm-ing anything, but dang homie.

7 days and counting!!

GET EXCITED.

Dec 25th I'm all...

GRITS.

GRIT.

GLITTER.

The appetizer taste of bytwenty8's re-launch.

Jan 1st we're going beta.

This will be the place where Black cine gets its due. All Black & Brown. All the time. TV & Film. And someday stage.

classical film theory?

eat said {heart} out.

CreativeControl.com on Artistic Integrity

http://www.creativecontrol.tv/www/: A mini-series that looks at how artists fight to maintain their integrity without giving in to WACK WORLD!!!

bootLEG CORNER: When Art Worked, Roger Kennedy & David Larkin

"Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions, when it ceases to be dangerous, you don't want it." --Countee Cullen

While Obama gives his speech on jobs, Roger Kennedy is talking to Diane Rehm about how FDR, through the WPA, saved a place for artists in the New Deal.

Kennedy and David Larkin have just published a reminiscing text about how art--from post office murals to theatre projects to this to that and the third--created an opportunity for artists to get to work.

However, there is the ominous question of censorship--to which Kennedy answers with artistic commentaries of the tenements and sweatshops of the 1930s--graven enough into the national imaginary that we might not flinch, but "Bred'ren can we candidly speak?"

Many are calling in to ask how such a "wonderful program" could dissipate so quickly. Well...I think this may be the answer. As it applies to Black artists, subsidized art has always been the source of great contention and debate. Resources have always been slim, hence the theorem of eternal gratitude --within the history of Black art and literature-- to the Lomaxes, and van Vechtens, and lest we forget the "godmothers."

That being said, there's a strong resistance to the concept of democratically-sponsored art in the first place. But if it weren't for the humble "handout"...<*crickets...> would Black art--much of which risks co-optation (and has suffered co-optation) by public and commercial interests--have the visibility (and vulnerability) it currently enjoys?

There have to be crickets, because at the end of the day every subsidy is owed. Period.

So the real concern I'm having, then, I guess is this:

how do you maintain a critical politcs of Empire, make sure your art never loses its infidelity to Empire, and still spend Empire's so-called money to produce your critiques?

Child, please.

In the meantime, go read this book. And then read about the writers who would ultimately create the Memory project through the WPA's Federal Writers' program. When I find the name of this other book, I'll repost it. It covers the "Harlem Renaissance scene" so to speak, and this is the book that first taught me about rent parties. ;-)

See...that's what Wall Street should've had.

BTW, since we're also facing this Comcast-NBCU deal down its barrel, who senses some juice for independent film, TV, and LIVE theatre???? Anybody? Anybody??

theARCHIVES: Yeah...about that 'Semiotics, Structuralism & Television' by Ellen Seiter

on ELLEN SEITER's
“Semiotics, Structuralism, and Television”

nineteen eighty-seven, 4/2009

I raised the ‘signs’ conversation in writing on [Manthia] Diawara’s piece about identification. More than merely identifying with the characters, the context that that character exists in, the context the program exists in and, drawing from E. Ann Kaplan, how all those elements are constructed must be taken into consideration. Contextualizing the entire unit and the signs represented in the unit—whatever that unit will be—seems directly related to the matter of identification and resistant spectatorship.

Ellen Seiter sums up the ideas of Saussure and Peirce by saying that they “recognized that some signs have no ‘real’ object to which they refer: abstractions (truth, freedom) or products of the imagination (mermaids, unicorns). More important, they wished to argue that all signs are cultural constructs that have taken on meaning through repeated, learned, collective use” (p 34).

Roland Barthes, she says, believed verbal language closes down the number of possible meanings the image might have. She quotes Barthes as saying, “It is not very accurate to talk of a civilization of the image—we are still, and more than ever, a civilization of writing, writing and speech continuing to be the full term of the informational structure. (…) [T]he text directs the reader through the signifieds of the image causing him to avoid some and receive others; by means of an often subtle dispatching it remote-controls him towards a meaning chosen in advance” (p. 44).

So if the sign is a collective configuration, and if I employ the five channels of communication that Seiter will modify for application to television, the verbal is indeed informing what denotations I should embrace in receiving the sign of, say, ‘Black female character’ located on ‘XYZ primetime comedy.’ But given the greater context or paradigm of primetime comedies (with Black female characters…), my ‘collectively-informed’ reading of a Black female character is, likely, going to be constructed by very similar “speakers” of the text (McDonald’s interludes), or very similar syntagms (back-to-back ‘urban’ comedies on TV schedule or, over a period of seasons: cancellations - re-airings - unannounced appearances on different nights, etc).

In other words, I have a feeling, via a convenient sampling (2006, The CW, Sunday nights: Everybody Hates Chris > All of Us > Girlfriends > The Game > (America’s Next Top Model) and the sponsors of this programming, plus Mara Brock Akil, Kelsey Grammar, and Debbie Allen) that all the same things are informing the Black female character that I am ‘unconsciously’ attracted to on the television. The first signification—skin color—is what will probably draw me, because the second signification, “Black woman/woman of color” is what is denoted to me. The connotation will probably include a sense of her rarity on the television screen.

But, if I knew/cared to examine who “speaks” the text –whether at the level of production, commerce, or current events/public advocacy—I think I’m bound to find patterns that reflect why this image is marketable for those creating her—and what’s more—why I’m hard-pressed to find too much variation among these Black women, in terms of class, mostly, and why I know they won’t last long. (Only The Game is left.)

Of course, this doesn’t mean I won’t watch (I definitely did). Of course, in my viewing, my ‘gaze’ may still be an oppositional one—I’ll interpret the signs on my own personal-communal collective terms, since the ‘reality’ is a dearth of representation behind the screen as well as on the screen—where the so-called ‘collective’ builds the signs for highest maximum return. However, this kind of engagement with the signs I ‘should’ be identifying with is, arguably, characteristic of a ‘niche’ television viewing audience.

Later in the essay, Seiter recasts Emile Benveniste’s remarks about ‘discourse’ saying, this is the “medium” through which we come to know television. Seiter says that, “In its current usage, discourse carries the stronger implication of speech governed by social, material, and historical forces, which disallow certain things from being said or even thought while forcing us to say certain other things” (p. 67).

Seiter notes that discourse “is not ‘free speech.’” She cites how censure played out in the children’s viewing of Fangface. She cites Hodge and Tripp as saying, “Verbal language is also the main mediator of meaning. It is the form in which meanings gain public and social form, and through discussion are affected by the meaning of others” (p. 62).

This suggests that while Barthes may have a point where his ‘civilization of writing’ is concerned, there are still a very select few (globally) who are positioned in such a way to be about the business of dictating the ‘informational structure.’ As long as film and television are such corruptible, colonizing and dangerously popular worldwide exports via the image (constructed and informed by such a small minority) how can the discourse of television not function as censorship in and of itself? I knowingly paint with a broad brush, but television and film as a medium of (global) social ‘discourse’—and as a capitalist construct—keeps so-called minority and niche audiences out of the community that informs sign creation.

theARCHIVES: Yeah...about that 'Feminist Criticism & Television' by E. Ann Kaplan

On E. ANN KAPLAN's
“Feminist Criticism and Television”
nineteen eighty-seven, 4/2009

I think it interesting that to merit critical attention one must still engage these very rigid identities. Because while the conversation of Madonna—and salutation given to her “Blond Ambition” phase—at the conclusion of the essay is meant to point to her obstruction of the presumably (patriarchally) gendered lens, and complete awareness of the ‘televisual apparatus’ and the politics it engages, there’s still, ultimately, a reification of the identity she’s employing as an ideally desirable identity.

To return to the discussion of signs, specifically Ellen Seiter’s reference to connotation and denotation, I feel it useful to repeat her breakdown of connotation:

“On a connotative level, shades of hair color (the first level of signification)
are used to produce signifieds such as ‘glamorous,’ ‘beautiful,’ ‘youthful,’
‘dumb,’ or ‘sexy’ on the second level of signification. These connotations,
widely known through their repeated use in film and television, are ones that
have a specific history in the United States, one that stems from glorifying the
physical appearance of Anglo women (based on their difference from and presumed
superiority to other races and ethnicities). But they are also subject to change
or revision over time” (p. 40).

Seiter also points to Madonna’s music videos citing an instance “in which she deliberately ‘quoted’ Marilyn Monroe’s hairstyle and what it connotes: sexiness as a costume).” Which is really to confirm the ‘signifieds’ associated with the connotative significations: shades of hair color, shades of lip color, shades of skin color, etc.

(My first beef)
I am in no way a Madonna-hater, and actually would echo Kaplan’s sentiments about the ways in which her ‘filmic’ literacy constructs her performances as a violation of hegemonic patriarchy at work on the so-called idiot box. I would especially echo Kaplan’s statement that Madonna “challenges constructs of both genders because it understands gender as a sign-system that does not necessarily coincide with identity.” And I would go on to say that this statement is where I wanted Kaplan to go much sooner in her breakdown of feminist criticism of television—an awesome essay in such a short space of Allen’s complete text.

As a Black female (wannabe) filmmaker, already interested—if not necessarily competent—in the convergence of sexual politics, film and television, and what that convergence means, I will say I missed Kaplan’s reference to ‘womanism,’ coined, actually, by Alice Walker, and entering the lexicon of at least wom(e/y)n-of-color feminist thought(s) in the 1980s. Womanism came to be viewed as a necessary space for Black women in the absence of a feminism that spoke to their plight at the intersection of race and gender and non-normative sexual identification in an only recently post-Jim Crow era at that time. While these feminisms have their shortcomings and do overlap with the feminisms Kaplan has already laid out, I think I’ll still use ‘womanism’, Kaplan’s (Althusserian) Marxist-feminism, and the concept of post-structuralist feminism (specifically because she identifies post-structuralist feminism as an anti-essentialist theory) to build my response to her essay on the whole.

Kaplan references Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” piece in order to recast the ideas of ‘fetishism’ and ‘voyeurism.’ She uses these to give us a way of understanding the “three basic ‘looks’” that Hollywood uses to satisfy desire in the male unconscious. The first voyeuristic look is entirely dependent on the ‘scopophilic’-indulgent presumably male camera technician; the second is the perspective of the males in the narrative, meant to objectify the women within their gaze; and finally the look of the actual spectator, which is forced to mimic either previous gaze. A few sentences later (p. 263), Kaplan would go on to identify the whole female body as “’fetishized’ in order to counteract the male fear of sexual difference, that is, of castration,” and if the spectator is female, these are positions she is forced to inherit.

This would be all well and good if it weren’t for the fact that we are assuming a lot about the spectator and the film-er. For one, we’re assuming they identify as ‘heterosexual’ and; two, in assuming a female objectification, we are forced to dis-imagine a non-heterosexual-male objectification. We haven’t fully problematized patriarchal-hegemonic constructions of the masculine side of the binary in our (albeit revolutionary, but short-sighted) feminist-analyses. While ‘womanism’ might recognize and beg an account of the racist-sexist lens (and likely include an analysis of the otherization and fetishizing of any woman-of-color presence, and non-every-American-is-middle-class presence), and (Althusserian) Marxist-feminism may recognize how these constructions obey the maximum-possible-return rules of capitalism even as they inform these identities and are informed by ‘real’ manifestations of these identities (Kaplan’s and Meehan’s “goodwife, harpy and bitch display[s]”), it appears to me that the post-structuralist-anti-essentialist approach is missing.

The very thing Kaplan will praise MTV and Madonna for is lost, because we’re assuming the very gender-specificity that Kaplan argues MTV and Madonna destroy. Perhaps, the root of the problem is what language “won’t allow” us to do when we’re having these conversations about these kinds of ideas. However, I’m feeling there’s an awesome body of work that’s been left untouched by television critics because of these same conservative bents and assumptions.

For example, I would greatly appreciate a similar analysis of Sri Lankan singer/rapper M.I.A; Even more dangerous, an analysis of rapper, Lil’ Kim or Jamaican dancehall DJ Lady Saw. These women, through their performances, and by their identification as women of color already ostracized by dominant forms of media and culture, are excellent examples of what Madonna may never be able to do for little girls of color, like myself, where reclamation of agency is discussed. How these women work the televisual-apparatus—with all of its rules and presumptions, and faithfulness to normative significations where race, historically/racially/morally constructed sexualities, and colonial relationships between the U.S. and the so-called Third World are concerned, and constructions of Black masculinities and men of color masculinities are concerned (something that Kaplan completely ignored, but was entirely relevant to her discussion of Madonna’s Cleopatra performance (p. 275))—is an area of ‘feminist’-deconstruction of film and television that I would love to see.

Okay....look--Hug? Hug, please?

Chocolate City wants to say yes to 'same-sex marriage.'

So does that mean we can put these ugly accusations behind us? (That-desperately-heinous-70%-statistic-when-a-ridiculous-trace-amount-of-Black-people-even-voted-at-all-in-the-California-elections-the-day-Barack-Obama-was-elected???)

I would love it if we could go back to the way we were.

Because this is just silly...

I can't keep divvying myself up like this. Female interests. Black interests. LGBTQ-Ally interests. Faith interests....it's a little exhausting.