Friday, September 19, 2008

Ryan O’Neal, Son Arrested For Drugs

Actor Ryan O’Neal and his son Redmond were arrested in their home on suspected possession of methamphetamine. What do you think?

Addie Wharton,
Systems Analyst
“Man, something like this could really hurt Ryan O’Neal’s acting career.”

Oliver DuPree ,
Window Washer
“Thank God they’ve got Tatum around to hold the family together.”

Barry Chen,
Tow Truck Driver
“This proves my theory that people really like drugs.”

Click here to see Jay-Z’s remarks about the Mets.

Today’s video of the day comes from NPR, where Carmen Dixon, Kevin Ross, and I discussed a range of issues from Sarah Palin to Affirmative Action.

According to a Pew Research Center report, the Republican Party is rapidly gaining popularity among American voters. Among Independent voters, Republicans hold a 50-49 advantage in favorability ranking. In August, the Democrats were up by 18 points. Also, among overall registered voters, nearly half hold a favorable opinion of the GOP, their highest rating since 2005. These numbers suggest that the Republicans are back in business at the perfect time.

Although I’m not surprised by these numbers, I’m nonetheless disappointed by them. After Iraq, Katrina, a string of ethical scandals, and the worst economic landscape since the Great Depression, how can anyone with good sense have a favorable opinion of the GOP? With the possibility of a McCain presidency that promises a foreign policy of permanent war, the expansion of neoliberal institutional arrangements, and gross abuse of the environment, how could anyone hold this party in remotely high regard? This isn’t to say that the Democrats deserve much praise either, as their political fumbles over the past two years have only encouraged the American people to lose faith in their ability to offer a progressive vision and action plan for the nation. Still, the notion that half of all registered voters have a favorable opinion of the GOP is downright depressing.

There are several reasons for this disturbing trend. First, the selection of Sarah has energized the Republican base, particularly the social conservatives who have been appropriately wary of John McCain. Despite her lack of preparation or experience, she has been able to excite hardcore Republicans the way Fred Thompson was supposed to. Also, the current economic crisis has caused many Americans to buy into the GOP’s pro-drilling agenda despite its economic and social wrongheadedness. Finally, and most importantly, the increasingly realistic notion of an Obama presidency has caused many voters to retreat to the comfort of the familiar. This is not to suggest that Obama’s agenda is anything more than stale white liberal cant. Still, the notion of a black president is such a radical idea to Americans that many are starting to say “maybe this whole Bush/McCain/proto-fascism thing isn’t so bad after all. Does this represent most Americans? No. But it may be just enough to put McCain in the White House.

Love Jones : So what’s the fuss about?
An EverythingBlaxx film review

“You’ve never seen ‘Love Jones’ before?”  “ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?” “He’s never watched ‘Love Jones’? LYNCH HIM!!!!”

That was the reaction of most some of you upon learning that I’ve never seen this film (OK, I might have exaggerated a bit on that last one) and I was pressed into watching the film and providing an in-depth review. Now I know what some of you are saying right now, “Blaxx, that was 2 years ago, WTF took you so long?” Well, I did take it upon myself to pick up the film on DVD (Thanks Amazon.com) and write a review. Why didn’t it ever get posted you ask? I wasn’t entirely satisfied with what I had written, mainly because of my frame of mind and stance on love at that time, so I let it linger on my hard drive for all eternity. I recently stumbled upon it and marveled at how different 21-year old Blaxx thought compared to 23-year old Blaxx and it was worth revisiting. So let’s get into it.

Now as it has been well documented in the past, I slept on this film when it dropped in 1997 (sue me, I was 11) and when I finally did peep it for the first time, it was long after I had bore witness to the Black movies of the late-90s, early-2000s where every plot revolved around a wedding or special event (see The Wood, The Brothers, The Best Man, Soul Food) or the characters had a stereotypical occupation or interest that because the whole purpose of the movie (for example Love & Basketball, Brown Sugar, Barbershop, Save The Last Dance). So I was admittedly skeptical when one of Love Jones’ opening scenes was set in a spoken word club but thankfully ‘The Sanctuary’ serves only as a backdrop to what keeps the movie moving but I’m going to get into that in a bit. We’re 3 lines deep into ‘A Blues for Nina’ and I immediately know that this is definitely not gonna be another ‘Poetic Justice’. By the time, the scene with Darius and Nina in the record store is done, we’ve established that poetry, music and visual art take home all of the supporting cast awards in this movie.

Speaking of the cast, althought it is the usual suspects when it comes to black actors and actresses, everyong did their thing (with one slight exception). I can never be mad at cha for casting Nia Long in a role that calls for love scenes, that’s always a good look, even if they are with closet homosexual Larenz Tate (I KEED, I KEED). The supporting cast manages to do a lot with very little, I don’t know if anyone else noticed but none of the other characters had very many lines in this movie and serve mostly as sounding boards for the protagonists. With the exception of Lisa Nicole Carson’s Josie (sidenote: Did you know Lisa is schizophrenic? I only learned that today when I asked my good friend Google where she been at) and Isaiah Washington’s Savon who happens to be that slight exception I mentioned a few sentences ago. Nothing against Isaiah personally but I don’t think he was suited for the role and vice versa. The most effective way I’ve found to critique an acting performance is to focus on the character, not the actor, and try to see if you can think of an actor who would do a better job in the same role. I wasn’t able to do this with any other character, but with Savon, the possibilities were endless. The best fit in my mind was, interestingly enough, Leonard Roberts who plays Eddie. I just wasn’t feeling it, especially the scenes with his wife, those were train wrecks. However, he was the focal point of one of my favorite exchanges of dialogue in the film where he and Darius are playing pool. My last comment on the cast is that I was very pleased with the fact that the characters were simply upward-mobile black people, Theodore Witcher easily could have made them some pean pie eating, yuppie mufuckas, or *shudder* musicians, or (insert stereotypical black occupation here).

After watching the film serveral times over the past 3 weeks, I can safely say Theodore Witcher is a better director than writer. Some of the cinematography in the film is excellent and I wish he could have expanded on some of the visuals but that would have taken away from their effect. The scene of Darius and Nina on the motorcycle is probably the greatest 3 seconds of film I’ve seen since Children of Men. Every setting helped answer all the questions you could possibly have about the characters before you even asked them. However, the plot stumbles a bit towards the middle of the movie. The turmoil created between Darius and Nina was kinda thrown together and unbelievable but that’s as much the fault of the poor writingn as it is the fact that the film does a terrible job of establishing any sense of time until the end of the movie.

So overall, what did I think? Good movie? No, great movie. Classic? Errrr…Barbershop classic. Would I recommend it to friends? Well my girl has never seen the movie either but before you think about lynching her, we’ll be watching it this weekend cuz “that’s urgent like a mufucka”