Howard is perfect for the movie adaptation of The Honey Badger.

1. Howard was great as Rhodes. His chemistry with Downey far exceeded Cheadle's. I mean, they seemed like real buddies with a history. At most, Cheadle's Rhodes seemed like he was loose acquaintances with Stark. Maybe that fit with the story of that particular movie, but there should've been more to it, I think.

2. Great post Gabe. I'm not as sure as you that critics have a responsibility to champion a subpar film because it represents a step forward in terms of the race situation in Hollywood, though. If I were reviewing Red Tails, which I haven't seen, I'd probably evaluate it by the same criteria as any film (which by almost all accounts it is lacking) while being sure to push the fact in my review that we need to see more movies of its ilk, albeit better. Awareness, and all that.

And in terms of its impact, I'd say the fact that it has been made represents a step forward -- even if it flops. Maybe Hollywood will be even more scared to finance movies like this in the future, sure. But in terms of the "arc of history," the fact that projects like this are now coming together and happening, even if their quality has been negligible (Miracle at St. Anna also comes to mind), is a sign that things are improving. Maybe a little.

I would go as far as to say it's a step backwards if it flops. Gives execs an excuse to say, "See? Told you so."

BTW, it shouldn't go without noticing that Cuba Gooding Jr. is really awful in this. The movie begins with this big dogfight and fighter plane sequence, and then the planes come in, and Cuba steps into the frame. He looks on for three seconds, clearly having no idea what he's supposed to be seeing, then awkwardly shoves a smoking pipe into his mouth that he's clearly never ever once used before. Gooding proceeds to chew on this thing like it's some sort of RELIABLE ACTOR'S PROP for the entire movie, having not once studied how people are supposed to look comfortable with these things.

Yeah execs can say "told ya so" now, but the movie itself would remain a reflection of the fact that there are interests out there, white interests, who want to see films like this get made -- even if there's not an audience that wants to go see them. I think that is a reflection of changing times, personally. I imagine the pattern of progress with anything this unorthodox starts out with something widely rejected by the public. In that sense, it is a "first step."

And I count myself as someone who wants to see that immense bastion of charm that is Cuba Gooding, at least in Jerry Maguire, succeed. Obviously this movie isn't the one for him.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ambler 

That's a dangerous apples and oranges comparison.  Smith and Denzel are hopelessly trapped in their own stereotypes now.  Denzel as the noble black savior who doesn't get laid, and Smith as the wise cracking white people relaxer.  I think Lucas was aiming to give blacks a different stereotype to normalize.

 

What are you talking about?

Denzel's not really typed that way (sounds more like Tom Hanks to be honest). He's actually one of the few actors out there that people enjoy watching equally as a "noble good guy" or a "badass/villain/anti-hero".  A lot of the stuff he's done since Training Day is too complex and dark to be characterised like that. Man On Fire is a a seriously fucked up character, and a million miles from Remember The Titans or whatever. Even his next flick, Safe House, he's the outright villain clearly playing the black Hannibal Lecter (ie  sociopath). Denzel can literally get away with murder onscreen. He's inherently charasmatic and likable so he hets away with it, but by god, he plays a lot of raging assholes. He isn't Sidney Poitier.

Training Day, Man On Fire, Manchurian Canidate, American Gangster, Out Of Time, Inside Man, Safe House....these are more roles you'd expect to be played by a younger Al Pacino. Or going back a bit further, James Cagney or Humphrey Bogart.

When you look at Denzel's overall career, he really has got one of the more fascinating career progessions. At various times in his career his "type" has resembled everything from Gregory Peck to John Wayne to Robert DeNiro (also not a big fan of getting laid in films.lol). He's hard to pin down as an actor.

Yeah, but Denzel really only plays those extremes. Noble do-gooder, or scum-sucking villain. Malcolm X is one of the last times he's played anyone with any moral complexity.

I'd like to see him tackle something a bit more nuanced and/or colorful. Something like Safe House or even a "passion project" like The Great Debaters looks like Denzel Greatest Hits.

Yeah Gabe, I agree. Denzel is no great actor who is paving the way for black performers everywhere -- in terms of the roles he takes, at least. I do think his earlier performances deserve some more scrutiny, though. His role in Philadelphia is super interesting, even if the movie ends up being some maudlin pap (sorry Demme!). I mean, there's a reason why the African-American/gay rights minority struggles are tied together, and I think Denzel's position in that arbitration is surprisingly complex, as he performs it. The script is sometimes quite muddled and even nonsensical in its themes, but Denzel is wonderful at shaping them into something obviously compelling, in my books.

Ironically, I do think that the most successful films at normalizing the presence of ethnicities in mainstream films are those that make no mention of it at all. Fast Five especially comes to mind. That movie is utter blowhard shit and I hate it, but I do applaud it for being the first successful "ethnic movie" to come out of the American filmmaking system in probably ever. But I would never give it a positive review. Ever.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gabe T 

Yeah, but Denzel really only plays those extremes. Noble do-gooder, or scum-sucking villain. Malcolm X is one of the last times he's played anyone with any moral complexity.

 

I'd like to see him tackle something a bit more nuanced and/or colorful. Something like Safe House or even a "passion project" like The Great Debaters looks like Denzel Greatest Hits.

I actually disagree. A lot of Denzel's "do gooders" are basically distasteful pricks who manage to redeem themselves in the end ( Glory, Philidelphia, He Got Game, Out Of Time). And his villains and anti-heroes are always shaded. His Frank Lucas in America Gangster was no one dimensional "scum sucking villain", even though he could have been. Denzel just played him as a guy caught up in his circumstances, who still had values (even though he was willing to shoot Stringer Bell in broad daylight and light guys on fire).

Inside Man was a complex guy. Funny, sexist and vulgar...may or may not have been corrupt. But ultimately, got the job done. There was no extreme with that character. Man On Fire is a guy who tortures and kills, but hates himself for it and believes he's going to hell. That performance is up there with John Wayne's in The Searcher's for moral ambiguity.

I think people just take Denzel's work for granted. He brings complexity to roles that probably don't merit it on paper.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JMulder 

.

 

Ironically, I do think that the most successful films at normalizing the presence of ethnicities in mainstream films are those that make no mention of it at all. Fast Five especially comes to mind. That movie is utter blowhard shit and I hate it, but I do applaud it for being the first successful "ethnic movie" to come out of the American filmmaking system in probably ever. But I would never give it a positive review. Ever.

Vin Diesel and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, have mixed/black heritage, but they've always been the kind of actors that can "pass" (ie, not really considered black). Christ, Diesel regularly plays Italians. How many other black actors do you think are cast as Italians? For me Diesel and The Rock are in the same category as Wentworth Miller (who is half black, but is often cast whiite, and rarely percieved as "black")

Yeah, Tyrese (who will never be confused as anything but a black man) was in it, but his role was severely underplayed compared to the eariler flick were he was front and center with Paul Walker. Fast Five is no great victory for black actors. It's just another victory for the casting of actors that are racially ambiguous enough to not really be thought of as "black".

It's almost like saying the success of Cameron Diaz is a big victory for Latina actresses. Or the succes of Johnny Depp paves the way for Native American Indian film stars. Diaz may have hispanic heritage and Depp may have some Native American background, but most of the world just sees them as white, or physically, close enough to white.

It's a stubbornly old-school kind of film, basically made as a vehicle to make the boys flying the unfriendly skies in WWII look good. Its just that those boys happen to be black.

And yes, the complaints are valid. There's some wooden moments, and as mentioned, Cuba ain't good, except for scattered lines here and there ("Never doubted it.").

A sizeable amount of it works, however. The comraderie between these soldiers is great, the actual dogfights are fun, I loved that planes aren't just shot down, but the worst kills occur because the pilot's plane was shot, and he's literally stuck bleeding to death in the air, the racial conflicts are all handled with pretty remarkable restraint, neither forgiving, or demonizing.

No, it doesn't go nearly as much in detail about the history of this crew as maybe it could. But it doesn't have to. Ever. The film wants to be the kind of film little kids run out and start calling themselves Lightning, and yell around the neighborhood about taking down Hitler. And there's enough depth to make it not a hollow experience.

It's a Hollywood film about fighter pilots. And I found myself rooting for every single one of them to kick Hitler's ass.

Screw expectations of more. I kinda loved it for what it is. For everything else, there's still the 95 film.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justin Clark 

It's a stubbornly old-school kind of film, basically made as a vehicle to make the boys flying the unfriendly skies in WWII look good. Its just that those boys happen to be black.

 

And yes, the complaints are valid. There's some wooden moments, and as mentioned, Cuba ain't good, except for scattered lines here and there ("Never doubted it.").

 

A sizeable amount of it works, however. The comraderie between these soldiers is great, the actual dogfights are fun, I loved that planes aren't just shot down, but the worst kills occur because the pilot's plane was shot, and he's literally stuck bleeding to death in the air, the racial conflicts are all handled with pretty remarkable restraint, neither forgiving, or demonizing.

 

No, it doesn't go nearly as much in detail about the history of this crew as maybe it could. But it doesn't have to. Ever. The film wants to be the kind of film little kids run out and start calling themselves Lightning, and yell around the neighborhood about taking down Hitler. And there's enough depth to make it not a hollow experience.

 

It's a Hollywood film about fighter pilots. And I found myself rooting for every single one of them to kick Hitler's ass.

 

Screw expectations of more. I kinda loved it for what it is. For everything else, there's still the 95 film.

I haven't seen Red Tails yet, but this description (along with Gabe T's) make it sound pretty much like a World War 2 flick Joe Jonhston would make (ie The Rocketeer, Captain America).Corny in places, old fashioned, but deliberately so. Old school entertainment. I'm surprised a film like this is causing so much consternation among fanboy critics, who usually eat up Johnston's brand of corn. Wonder if it's the all-black angle or the presence of George "you raped my childhood with the prequels" Lucas that is driving those reactions.

I'm glad that it appears to be doing well at the box office. Studios are still racist as hell, and simply can't fathom the notion of the public wanting to see movies without white people in central roles.  Red Tails performing well won't really change much, imho. But at least they can't use the excuse of not casting black actors in studio films because Red Tails bombed. And while there may be some familiar names in it (Cuba, Terrence Howard), not a single one of them is a real box office draw. The fact that it's beating Haywire (which looks like it will bomb) which features a small army of mostly white "movie stars" (Michael Fassbender, MIchael Douglas, Ewan Mcgregor,Channing Tatum) is a good look.

Makes you wonder why someone like Idris Elba wasn't put in the central role in Avatar. People would have seen it in droves because of the 3-D blue aliens. And we'd have a deserving performer fast-tracked to A-list movie stardom. Instead, we get stuck with a block of wood like Sam Worthington headlining films.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Holistic 

 

Makes you wonder why someone like Idris Elba wasn't put in the central role in Avatar. People would have seen it in droves because of the 3-D blue aliens. And we'd have a deserving performer fast-tracked to A-list movie stardom. Instead, we get stuck with a block of wood like Sam Worthington headlining films.

That wouldn't have fit in with Cameron's 'going native' trope in his formula for boffo box-office.  

That's an interesting piece of casting to consider, since putting a minority (in the realm of Western culture) in that archetype could've given the film an automatic boost of 'complexity' the same way Aliens becomes more noteworthy by having Ripley be a female character (since some criticize Cameron's heroines as being male anyway).

Always found it weird that the aliens in Avatar were mo-capped by all black actors. I mean, it's not like the setting demanded the actors be all one ethnicity -- it isn't even on Earth. It belies a little bit of racism that "native" (read: primitive) is synonymous in Cameron's eyes with being black.

Yeah, I thought about that too after seeing the film.  What's even weirder is... why just black?  Especially since the Na'vi were basically Native Americans.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JMulder 

Always found it weird that the aliens in Avatar were mo-capped by all black actors. I mean, it's not like the setting demanded the actors be all one ethnicity -- it isn't even on Earth. It belies a little bit of racism that "native" (read: primitive) is synonymous in Cameron's eyes with being black.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcnooj82 

Yeah, I thought about that too after seeing the film.  What's even weirder is... why just black?  Especially since the Na'vi were basically Native Americans.

WTF ???  "all black actors"?

am i missing the 'snark' ?

 you guys do know that Wes Studi was in Avatar, right?

Whoops!  No snark on my part.  I just plumb forgot he was in it.  My mistake.  Silly of me to forget... THE SPHINX!

I blame JMulder!

:D

Yeah, just an oversight. I certainly do not think Wes Studi is black, if that's what you're getting miffed about.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcnooj82 

Whoops!  No snark on my part.  I just plumb forgot he was in it.  My mistake.  Silly of me to forget... THE SPHINX!

Quote:

Originally Posted by JMulder 

Yeah, just an oversight. I certainly do not think Wes Studi is black, if that's what you're getting miffed about.

it's all good...

I've just been reading so many political blogs/comments these days where people post such blatant FoxNews-generated, anti-Obama bullshit so that when an inaccurate assertion is made, I go into "correction-mode".

plus, we don't want to anger Magua....you wouldn't like Magua when he's angry.   

:)

I won't go as far to say that I loved it the way Justin did.  I'm much closer to Gabe's reaction to the film.  And I'm very glad that such a film was made at all.

It took me a bit to get into the film's groove.  Yeah, there's the corniest of lines coming out of every mouth.  Then those fuck ugly red credits throughout the opening bomber sequence.  I realize this is a pretty damned shallow complaint, but boy... it really affected my outlook of the film.  They looked tacked on with a default font on Final Cut/Premiere at the last minute before prints had to be made.  For a while, nearly everything about the film felt like it was a made-for-TV movie. 

Like the prequels, it had really flat staging and overuse of the slow-zoom when it wasn't showing us dogfights.

It also didn't help that the sound mix on the film felt kinda timid.  I don't think it was the speakers in the theater, since the TDKR trailer sounded perfectly fine.  The digital cinematography often felt too dim and washed out.  Once again, the TDKR trailer looked fine as well.

Ok... so once I got accustomed to all this, I was able to enjoy myself as I got to know the characters.  This wasn't always helped by the film's sloppy, almost non-existent structure.  That was a particularly weird disconnect, since all of the dialog sounds like it's coming from the most lazy and conventionally structured Hollywood movie.  It was often like the worst of both worlds.  But the confident charm of the cast really help make it bearable.  I even enjoyed Cuba's performance.  The guy looked like he was having fun doing nothing but grandstanding and awkwardly using his prop pipe (which Gabe has already described very well). 

David Oyelowo clearly gave the clearest and most appealing performance in the film.  Honestly, I got choked up during his death scene.  It sounded like the big guy sitting a few seats away from me was trying to hold back the sniffles too.  Critics may have not liked the film, but I hope audiences respond well like this.

Nate Parker was solid as well, but his character wasn't developed very well and his drinking problem never felt real.

And oh... the main Nazi pilot that we see throughout the film?  I could NOT stop thinking of Paul Rudd.  He reminded me of an evil Paul Rudd. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcnooj82 

Andy, that's HORRIBLE!

 

It made me laugh so hard...

That video Andy posted of the girl having trouble walking around... it was later proven to be all bullshit. I couldn't tell you WHY someone would do that sort of bizarre hoax just to get on TV, but no girl got her nervous system damage from a damn flu shot. So, you can feel free to laugh at the video with no guilt.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Holistic 
Wonder if it's the all-black angle or the presence of George "you raped my childhood with the prequels" Lucas that is driving those reactions.

I have a feeling that is the case; I mean, Lucas is a rather easy target to make fun of.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcnooj82 

I won't go as far to say that I loved it the way Justin did.  I'm much closer to Gabe's reaction to the film.  And I'm very glad that such a film was made at all.

 

It took me a bit to get into the film's groove.  Yeah, there's the corniest of lines coming out of every mouth.  Then those fuck ugly red credits throughout the opening bomber sequence.  I realize this is a pretty damned shallow complaint, but boy... it really affected my outlook of the film.  They looked tacked on with a default font on Final Cut/Premiere at the last minute before prints had to be made.  For a while, nearly everything about the film felt like it was a made-for-TV movie. 

 

Like the prequels, it had really flat staging and overuse of the slow-zoom when it wasn't showing us dogfights.

 

It also didn't help that the sound mix on the film felt kinda timid.  I don't think it was the speakers in the theater, since the TDKR trailer sounded perfectly fine.  The digital cinematography often felt too dim and washed out.  Once again, the TDKR trailer looked fine as well.

 

Ok... so once I got accustomed to all this, I was able to enjoy myself as I got to know the characters.  This wasn't always helped by the film's sloppy, almost non-existent structure.  That was a particularly weird disconnect, since all of the dialog sounds like it's coming from the most lazy and conventionally structured Hollywood movie.  It was often like the worst of both worlds.  But the confident charm of the cast really help make it bearable.  I even enjoyed Cuba's performance.  The guy looked like he was having fun doing nothing but grandstanding and awkwardly using his prop pipe (which Gabe has already described very well).

I agree with all of the above... and yet, I still managed to enjoy the film and even with its faults it is nice it is doing relatively fine at the box office. It seemed like old George moved on from the serials of the 30's to war movies made during World War II, as the dialogue and situations seemed straight out of one of those cornball 40's flicks. But due to the feel-good moments and the charm of the cast as a whole (even Ne-Yo playing a guy named Smokey who probably not by coincidence sort of reminded me of Smokey from Friday) I am glad I saw the film, even if I didn't really need to see it on the big screen.

EDIT: Of course I should mention that I'd rather see this sort of predominately African-American film do well rather than any of the gobshite from Tyler Perry!

Here to unite this thread and the Spike Lee one is the latest Half in the Bag.

http://redlettermedia.com/half-in-the-bag/red-tails/

They might be over doing it with the 'racism is over' business, but they make the point nicely that it probably couldn't be the whole story here.  And George seems to be playing that White Guy Champion For The Darker Folks role from outside the movie, which is different.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Perfect Weapon 

 

That video Andy posted of the girl having trouble walking around... it was later proven to be all bullshit. I couldn't tell you WHY someone would do that sort of bizarre hoax just to get on TV, but no girl got her nervous system damage from a damn flu shot. So, you can feel free to laugh at the video with no guilt.

 

Yeah, I recall footage of her walking around just fine when someone sneaks up on her with a camera.  And she looked pissed.  I think it was all connected to the vaccination/autism controversy.

If I hated the last "Indiana Jones" am I going to hate this too? Does it have that same gee-willikers vibe to it with not really weight or drama?

The film itself has a gee-willkers vibe, but there is SOME weight and drama to it.  I mean... it'd better, right?