This N' That....

So many thoughts....so much slacking...

Sorry for not posting. I have a sublet in L.A. while I'm looking for a permanent place...with no freakin' air conditioning! Who lives like that here? Needless to say, with 90 and a hundred degree heat, I haven't really felt like blogging.

But the heat has broken, so here I is. I have so much to say, but I know most folks don't like to read long, involved posts (at least here they don't) and frankly, I'm not in the mood to write one. So I'll do some drive-by observations:

Big Mamma's House 3: Why?


Why all the hulabaloo over "District Nine" in regards to racism? I thoroughly enjoyed it...people are never satisfied...jeesh. If you wanna talk about some real BS, see above.


Why are serial mash-on-anything-that-moves Hill Harper and 3 times married Steve Harvey suddenly considered "relationship experts" after writing suspect books? I am seriously scratching my head over that one.


If you are complaining that there is no interesting film out there, and you still haven't seen "Life Is Hot In Cracktown", you have no valid argument right now.




What happened to Andre 3000, Elijah Kelley, and Don Cheadle all doing separate Sammy Davis, Jr. projects?


Speaking of Sammy Davis, why does Nick Cannon dress and act just like him on "America's Got Talent"...velvet jackets and boutineers? Really?


Why did I see a billboard for LL Cool J's TV show, and think "I wonder who that Black guy is?" before slowly realizing that was him? Ummm...Ell--whatever you are doing to that face of yours, now would be a very, very, very good time to stop. And oh--the lip licking thing? Bury that too.


Speaking of burying, what crypt did they finally find his co-star Chris O'Donnell in?


I can't wait to see Lee Daniel's "Precious" even though everybody is referring to it as Tyler Perry and Oprah's film...I'm not surprised, and not amused. I find it interesting, however, that Mo'Nique and Mariah Carey are getting serious Oscar buzz.


And a very special thanks to Ebony Jet for selecting me as one of their favorite blogs, AOL Black Voices for linking me on their main page, and fine, wonderful readers like yourself placing me in the top 50 film blogs in the whole, wide world on Wikio....not bad for a super-slacker, eh? :-) But I know I need to step up my game...working on it (really!)

Hello There...

Hi all. I guess it's safe to say I'm back for awhile for 3 good reasons:

1) I was moved by the concern of my safety in the quake via email (btw, it scared the sh*t out of me, and I was in the big one in San Francisco).

2) If I die in a quake, I don't want my last blog post legacy to be a week old "today in b'days post", haha.

3) Your girl is monetizing her blog a bit, which means I have to get my slacking self together and actually write on my own blog a bit regularly (the nerve). I even answered your recent comments (!).

So, there has been a lot of little, unimportant news...I'll get to some of it. Thanks for all who emailed me about the Black Cinema stamps. I actually wrote about them a while ago in February HERE. I usually write about things way ahead of time, so if it seems like I'm late or not aware of something current, use my searchbar to check the archives.

First up. a funny story Sergio emailed me about the Oprah/Tyler Perry "romance" (lmao):

“He just kept complaining to Oprah that he’s this successful film director and yet the paparazzi ignore him,” said a source close to Perry’s camp. “So [while on vacation in Italy] Oprah took him by the arm and said, ‘come on, let’s go take some pictures.'"

According to the source, Oprah made sure the paps got all the shots they needed of the pair while they vacationed with Oprah’s BFF Gayle King in Portofino, Italy last week.“Apparently, he complains a lot to Oprah because she did the same thing for him while they were in L.A. together last year,” said the source.

From IW: Damn, just sad.

Did you know that Charles Dutton served some serious hard time? I didn't. My man has overcome some serious odds. From Variety:

Random House's Crown Books will publish multihyphenate Charles Dutton's memoirs in 2010. The book's working title is "From Jail to Yale.''

In 1968, at age 17, the Baltimore native was convicted of manslaughter, and he served 7½ years in prison.

Less than two years later, he went back to prison after being convicted of possession of a deadly weapon. During his second stint behind bars, he became involved with prison theater groups and after his release went on to college and the Yale School of Drama.

From IW: Interesting.

This is very random: Sanaa Lathan and Nia Long will be two of the voices on "The Cleveland Show" a spin-off of the cartoon "Family Guy". This should be interesting as I am usually not amused by the "satire" of Blacks on that show. At all.

What I am amused by, however, is a new blog I discovered called "You Know You Dead Azz Wrong". It is crazy, hilarious, and extremely mean and ignorant. Keep that last part in the forefront of your mind if you click on the link, and view sigh inducing pictures like this one (sorry folkses):

"Debaters" is Debatable For Me....

OK, this is a repost of "Yawn" (with an addendum), a ditty I wrote back in June (yes, your Black Cinemist is always on top of it) on "The Great Debaters":

Oprah Winfrey is set to produce "The Great Debaters" directed by and starring Denzel Washington. Now before you panic, this isn't Winfrey's first time producing. She's produced a number of films to include Their Eyes Were Watching God, Halle Berry's project for ABC, a few years back. The movie is based on the true story of an underdog debate team that went on to beat Harvard's team.

As for Washington, this is his second directorial job following the 2002 film Antoine Fisher, in which he also served as one of the producers. Written by Robert Eisele and Suzan-Lori Parks, The Great Debaters is based on a true story of Melvin B. Tolson. As a professor at Wiley College in East Texas, he has been inspires by his students to create the college’s first debating team, which successfully conquered Harvard in the national championships.

"The Great Debaters", features Washington as Mel Tolson, along with other cast members such as Jermaine Williams as Hamilton Burgess, Nate Parker as Henry Lowe, J.D. Evermore as Captain Wainwright, Justice Leak as Harland Osbourne, Breon Pugh as Wiley Student, Charissa Allen as Benita, and Robert X. Golphin as Dunbar Reed among others.

From Invisible Woman: Sorry, but as Homer Simpson would say.... booorrrriiiing. I have as much patience for these Stand and Deliver/Dangerous Minds/Freedom Writers/Whatever That Movie Terrance Howard Was In movies as I do TV remakes. NEWS FLASH! When inner city kids are given the same resources, materials, attention, focus, and opportunities as "suburban" or private schools, guess what? They can excel JUST LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE! Hollywood (Oprah and Denzel included) can we get a movie with some risky/dark/interesting/sexy subject matter? I'm just sayin'.....

I.W. 12/18: OK, maybe I rushed to judgement on that, but 6 months later, I still don't want to see that ish. Yeah, I said it. So, I'll give love to D. Yobachi Boswell, who wrote about it on his blog "Black Perspective":

The Great Debaters--By D. Yobachi Boswell

Is the Great Debaters another in a long line of Lean On Me wanna-be movies gone bad? Mmmm, probably not. For one it takes place 70 years ago, so you don’t have the cliché’ ‘gang riddled school with graffiti tatted walls’ thing going. Also unlike all the ‘teacher rescues the natives’ movies we’ve been cursed with since Lean On Me starring Morgan Freeman as our protagonist and Stand And Deliver starring Edwards James Olmos in the position of youth inspirer; we don’t have the great white hope condescension of some do-gooder whitey coming from outside to save the Blacks and Hispanics.

Here the protagonist is played by Denzel Washington, and as he is, his students are Black. He comes from their community. Furthermore, these aren’t wayward young folks, looking to run the streets, who’s parents don’t understand the importance of education; where the protagonist must bring them along. These are Black college students in the 1930s; they really choose to be there. From what I’m reading this film leans more Dead Poets Society than Dangerous Minds.

And good. I’m from Hip Hop and I could do without the pimped out low riders and 2 hours filled with “ya know what I’m saying” for once.

There’s a decent review of the movie here .

The film is the second directed by Denzel Washington, following Antwone Fisher, and also stars Forrest Whitaker and a grow up Jurnee Smollett who you might remember as Eve in Eve’s Bayou.

I don’t know if it’s a good movie quality wise, I haven’t seen it; but it seems like worth giving a chance at least as much as the numerous crappy movies made by white people that we flock to spend our money on; and then complain about how we get no love in the movies.

You vote with your dollars baby.

The film opens on Christmas.

Cocoa Colored News....

Blogger was down for quite some time this morning, so I don't have time to post what I wanted to this morning (still preparing for North Carolina), so I'll leave you with news from the fabulous Cocoa Lounge....love! :-)

Cocoa Loungers are always wondering what's next from their favorite actresses. Here's a look at films that have been announced or already in production with Black Hollywood's A-List Scene-Stealers:

Kerry Washington joins Mos Def and Alfre Woodard in Bury Me Standing.

Gabrielle Union and Morris Chestnut are together again for Perfect Christmas. And the busy actress is also in production on sci-fi comedy, Starship Dave, with Eddie Murphy.

Paula Patton co-stars with heavyweights Kevin Costner and Kelsey Grammer in comedy, Swing Vote.

Kimberly Elise re-teams with Denzel Washington for Oprah Winfrey-produced and Suzan-Lori Parks-penned, The Great Debaters.

Zoe Saldana gets bionic in the film version of adventure-hit, Avatar.

Pirate of the Caribbean's, Naomie Harris, joins Keanu Reeves and Forest Whitaker in The Night Watchman.

And Thandie Newton teams with Cocoa Lounge favorite, Idris Elba, and Gerard Butler for the Dramedy, RocknRolla.

From I.W.: Oh snap, I didn't know "The Great Debaters" was written by Suzan Lori-Parks. She wrote that play I saw with Mos Def in it on Broadway, that my early morning brain can't think of the name of right now. Now I feel bad for dissing it in a previous post. This film with Paula Patton sounds OK, but I can't wait to see the one where she is gonna play a pimp.

ps: Is Zoe Saldana black? Everything I've read says she not, but she's always on these black lists....

YAWN....

Yanked from the wonderful Beatniks website:


Oprah Winfrey is set to produce "The Great Debaters" directed by and starring Denzel Washington. Now before you panic, this isn't Winfrey's first time producing. She's produced a number of films to include Their Eyes Were Watching God, Halle Berry's project for ABC, a few years back. The movie is based on the true story of an underdog debate team that went on to beat Harvard's team.


As for Washington, this is his second directorial job following the 2002 film Antwone Fisher, in which he also served as one of the producers. Written by Robert Eisele and Suzan-Lori Parks, The Great Debaters is based on a true story of Melvin B. Tolson. As a professor at Wiley College in East Texas, he has been inspires by his students to create the college’s first debating team, which successfully conquered Harvard in the national championships.


"The Great Debaters", which is currently in production, features Washington as Mel Tolson, along with other cast members such as Jermaine Williams as Hamilton Burgess, Nate Parker as Henry Lowe, J.D. Evermore as Captain Wainwright, Justice Leak as Harland Osbourne, Breon Pugh as Wiley Student, Charissa Allen as Benita, and Robert X. Golphin as Dunbar Reed among others. (thanks, Beatniks)


From Invisible Woman: Sorry, but as Homer Simpson would say....booorrrriiiing. I have as much patience for these Stand and Deliver/Dangerous Minds/Freedom Writers/Whatever That Movie Terrance Howard Was In movies as I do TV remakes. NEWS FLASH! When inner city kids are given the same resources, materials, attention, focus, and opportunities as "surburban" or private schools, guess what? They can excel JUST LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE!

Hollywood (Oprah and Denzel included) can we get a movie with some risky/dark/interesting/sexy subject matter? I'm just sayin'.....