Django Unchained and the sad decay of genteel etiquette

The American interpretation of slave management was a brutally violent enterprise. The facade of civility was exactly that - a pathetic attempt to cover, to sanitize, the pall of violence that hung over daily life.
 
Django Unchained did a great job of capturing the awkward frailties of trying to be genteel and, at the same time, so cruel. Both Don Johnson as Big Daddy, and Leonardo Di Caprio as Calvin Candie, very deftly captured the nuances of the internal conflict.

Life's Hoppin' Bob and Django Unchained's Stephen: Understanding the Uncle Tom complex

Have you ever heardd someone ask why Black people can't "unite" like other cultures, or why there is so much violence within the Black community (I will not digress to observe that there is inner-racial violence in any criminal element, such as Italian on Italian or Japanese on Japanese, except to say that the Black community does not hold a patent on the phenomenon).

Hoppin' Bob from Life, and Stephen from Django Unchained, bring to life characters who, on the face of it, seem particularly reprehensible but, on closer examination, are very understandable and, perhaps even, sadly sympathetic.

Well, almost.

The Length of Movies: Longer than necessary, or Post Modern Impatience?

Happy New Year everyone. Looks like this will be the first new entry for the new year.. This idea came to me when watching a news segment on BBC news regarding the length of many current films, compared to films of the past. 

Traditionally, most films are precisely or just over the 90 minute mark. Lately with more current films however, have been known to go over that time, in some cases between 100-125min in length. 

Life, prison and the new slavery

I’m a big fan of Eddie Murphy’s acting chops. Even in movies that most people hate (Norbit is a great example) he demonstrates remarkable character-acting. This post is not about Murphy specifically, so I’ll refrain from attempting to further explore the nagging question of why he has not been able (or willing) to do what other 80s comedians (Tom Hanks, Michael Keaton to name two off the top of my head) have – be taken seriously doing drama while still being able to dabble in comedy periodically.

This post is about the 1999 movie Life, perhaps Eddie Murphy’s greatest. He’s had many great movies (Coming to America pops to mind on many levels), but Life is yet at another level still.

Red Tails, between the Hollywood blockbuster & Real life Heros:

Normally I do not make a review of a movie I haven’t seen yet. Typically we do reviews on films that are already out or ones we’ve seen in the past (this one is scheduled to be released by January 20^th by they way).

For this particular film, about the Tuskegee Airmen, however, I think I will make one of those rare exceptions, mainly due to my interest in many famous battles during WWII.