Burn Hollywood Burn: part deux
Twenty years ago, hip hop pioneers Public Enemy decried the perpetuation of decades of exploitive cinema in their now classic, Burn Hollywood Burn! Though many things have changed over the years, current events in the world of cinematic arts prove that many others remain the same. Today, Oscar buzz abounds surrounding the performances of comedienne [...]
After seeing the movie with the same title, I will never think of Chante Moore’s chart topping 1990’s song, “Precious,” quite the same, ever again. The movie Precious left me feeling deeply wounded, confused and horrified that there are actually fellow citizens among us who live lives similar to the film, every day of their [...]
Continue reading …I always take a good look around me before any movie starts. The night I went to see Precious, I saw friends, lovers, mother-daughter looking duos. I saw a lot of women – maybe 50% women of color, of those mostly Black, and several there alone like me. When the previews finally ended and the [...]
Continue reading …Seriously, where to begin? If by the end of the movie the “Precious” character seems to have wrested a measure of triumph in the face of hideous abuse that has degraded the entire course of her short life; a positive HIV diagnosis; two little kids she must find a way to care for, one with [...]
Continue reading …Here in the small college town where I live and work, we had to wait several weeks for the movie Precious to make its appearance at our local theater. Perhaps, there was some felicity in timing, because it has taken me many years to find the courage to read Sapphire’s Push, a novel I first [...]
Continue reading …Since the novel Push became Precious and hit the film festival circuit earlier this year, there were nothing but rave reviews for the film, especially the performances given by comedienne Mo’Nique, singer Mariah Carey, and newcomer Gabourey Sidibe. But once the film hit theater screens across the country, reviews were not stellar all across the [...]
Continue reading …Is Precious, precious? Now that the movie reviews have been written, the buttered popcorn eaten, the diet cola guzzled, the debates concerning its merit defended and scorned; how are you feeling about it? What did you witness? Got butterflies? It’s been said that the African American experience is one long ancestral journey. We all get [...]
Continue reading …In setting out to adapt Push by Sapphire, screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher had a challenge. Push was told in the first-person and in the unique voice of an illiterate protagonist as she struggled to tell her story. Film does not do first-person well or naturally. It is an objectifying medium, one that instead asks us [...]
Continue reading …Be prepared: my article will confuse. I still need time to digest this movie. It’s only been an hour since I went to the theater to experience the film we all know as Precious. What you are about to read are my initial reactions: pre-processing, the still-digesting, partially-raw material of my thoughts. Although not extensive [...]
Continue reading …How is it that I can walk out of a movie that ends with a young woman who is broke, morbidly obese, with no high school diploma, diagnosed as HIV-positive, with no place to live, walking down the street juggling her two children – an infant and a toddler with Down’s syndrome – and feel [...]
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