Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Dude, I really think that your opinion and argument are completely colored by seeing the movie. The movie could have covered the musician's childhood to set up his weird character traits, his relationship with his parents, what happens to his career after the trip, a closer look at how he perceives the many white people he comes into contact with--including his driver--and how those views are reinforced or evolve. There are a million choices that could have been made in a completely different way.

It's like you watched a movie about War Machine and said, "I suppose it could have been about Iron Man, but he wasn't in the military and was really just a rich playboy. I mean, sure he was a brilliant genius who made the suit, but he's so vain and his interactions with James Rhodes just don't warrant making a movie about him."

TM

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I think you and this conversation are very weird.

TM

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

All I've said, is that without knowing the answers to all your "maybes" you cannot say the movie should have been different. The time in the south fills most of the movie.

In the remaining time to set up who he was would be tough. Setting the white guy up as a conflicted racist is pretty simple and quick- my family is Italian borderline mafia and they cannot believe I'm driving a black guy. There certainly should have been something more about the piano player. I keep saying that, I kept thinking "wait, where does he get this trait?" But he seems very complicated and I'm not sure they could have fully fleshed that out without making a longer, very long movie.

Did you see the white text spoiler?

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

That's because they chose the white guy to follow.

You can't present as evidence parts of a movie in which the black character is not the main character to make your argument that the story would fail with him in the lead, because you necessarily won't have the material that non-lead character would need to be the movie's lead.

TM

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

This is it for me. After this No mas.

All I said was that MAYBE the main character choice was driven by how odd/complex the piano player was, and how it would appear that switching it up would be perhaps challenging. I'm not trying to PROVE anything other than that.

I agree he seems a fascinating character, and I might actually go see a movie about him. I suspect that movie would be at an art house, not a multiplex.

I invited the people who say the movie SHOULD have been different to provide evidence of how you could back fill in his life in a short period of time. I ain't got the burden. If you say the movie SHOULD have been different you got the burden.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Adelson may not be getting any returns soon - https://forward.com/fast-forward/420...delson-cancer/

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

The 1800s would like to have a word with you.

http://www.boweryboyshistory.com/wp-...f77282de87.jpg

https://thejesuitpost.org/wp-content...can-Ganges.png

https://thejesuitpost.org/wp-content...07/schools.pnge

But, Virginia they didn’t give you quite enough information.
 

FFS. Did none of you people learn about the Know Nothings? See “The Gangs of New York”? Listen to any speaker at any St. Patrick’s Day event ever?

Anti-Catholicism in America predates the Consitution by a good 100 years - the William and Mary had colonial support during the Glorious Revolution, and Royal governors appointed by James II were suspected of being closer Papists and were ousted with glee.

Arthur, he does as he pleases.
 

Damn. Two Conholio sightings in a month.

And Flower nails it.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Sadly, between the Texas teacher getting fired for supporting BDS and Meir Kahane’s terrorist thug party becoming part of the Israeli government, I’m being more and more tempted to channel Jim Baker re AIPAC et al. and say that they can go fuck themselves. They’re becoming a version of the NRA, divorced from anything other than blind loyalty to the Judea and Samaria crowd.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I’m a fan of 25th Hour, and this love poem to TCOTU.

Ok, I’m done.
 

My God. I have become Wonk. Fringey warned me this could happen.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

So you're not up for a Bernie Sanders biopic?

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

The thing is, under Netanyahu, there's just not a lot of space between Likud and the Kahane crowd. It looks like more of the Israeli electorate is reacting to him right now, maybe there is hope. Maybe not.

Re: Ok, I’m done.
 

We are all Wonk.

Re: But, Virginia they didn’t give you quite enough information.
 

Massachusetts at one point specifically outlawed Papists.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

So I share a form of cancer with Sheldon.

May he leave his money to the LLS .

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I'd watched the first hour. The second hour was great.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

You realize you're making my point? I am a dago wop and had no idea.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

As TM says, the choice of perspective, of putting the white character at the center and making the black character peripheral to him is a choice. One could make movies about black men, but Hollywood doesn't do that so much, Black Panther excepted.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I saw Sorry To Bother You a few days before BlacKkKlansman, and I thought it was so much stronger.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I’m pretty up there in the story world. But I really think I’ll grow from what the two of you have explained. Neither of you have seen the movie but your insights are really helpful for me. Thank you both.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

You demand proof of why the story should be told a different way. People tell you that it's a classic Hollywood approach to make the white person the focus of the story, relegating an interesting black character to a supporting role presumably either (i) to make it palatable to white target audiences or (ii) because the creators actually saw the white character as more interesting.

The supporting character was a musician and a gay black man trying to navigate The Fucking South in the '60s. The white guy was a lout who drove his car. As far as I'm concerned, all the evidence you need is in front of your face. You counter with, "But the movie I saw has limited back story, interaction, evidence that the supporting character could be the lead." I say, "That's because in the movie he isn't the lead." You demand more evidence.

"No mas" is right.

TM

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I find that Ed Norton goes from excellent to infuckingsufferably arrogant and self-satisfied very quickly. He is often unwatchable.

TM

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I might be, but Bernie seems to have chosen to mostly avoid black people, no?

TM

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Are we comparing these two movies because we're on the topic of movies with black male leads?

I want to see it. It's weird, though. The reactions have been all over the place, like with Vice. That one I don't think I'll watch. I've had enough of Dick Cheney for two lifetimes.

TM

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

This is hilarious.

TM

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Maybe, but he has still managed to explain to John Lewis what's good for black folks.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

You're welcome.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Also: https://ew.com/tv/2019/02/22/green-b...-savior-movie/

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

https://memegenerator.net/img/images...0/12592857.jpg

TM

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I'm comparing them because I saw them within a couple of days, and I don't see a lot of movies. I walked into both movies not knowing anything about them. Sorry To Bother You felt fresh and unpredictable, and it definitely had a lot to say about race (and capitalism), things that do not often creep into mainstream movies (if it is a mainstream movie -- I saw it at an ordinary movie theater). It reminded me a little of Do The Right Thing in that it felt honest and different and informed by the view about how things play out in a very specific place (Oakland instead of Brooklyn). Obviously there are huge differences between the movies and I'm not sure I would make that comparison if I hadn't seen Spike Lee's movie a few days later, but I did. Sorry To Bother You has some bad actors, but there is no question that the movie is about systemic exploitation on a number of fronts.

BlacKKKlansman, by contrast, felt somewhat stale to me, establishment. What happened to Spike Lee? The message of the movie is that the face of racism is a few back-country hicks, and that if you can get the police department to hire a black and a Jew then they will get the job done. Black activists like the female lead need to just trust the cops. The tidy ending to the internal PD conflict was completely wrong. Do The Right Thing Ends shows you a cop killing Radio Raheem, with no justice. In BlacKKKlansman the racist cop does his thing earlier, and the rest of the cops take care of him in the end -- seriously, a fantasy Hollywood ending. In contrast, Lee doesn't do anything with the mysterious higher-ups who tell the police chief to close the investigation and destroy the files. The movie has no reckoning with systemic racism -- it's view is that racists are a relatively small number of pathological bad guys who the system can get rid of. In that context, the tacked-on documentary footage at the end seems to suggest that there are just more of them now.

If the problem with the Green Book is that it tells a heroic story about racism from a white perspective, the problem with BlacKKKlansman is that it tells a heroic story about racism with a black hero that turns racism into the exception, not the societal rule. If you want a movie that white people can go to confirm their (self-serving) belief that racism is not them, it's a few hicks with guns with hoods, there's your movie. It's an up-to-date feel-good movie about racism.

eta: And seriously, what happened to Spike Lee? I turned on Fresh Air a few weeks ago and Terry Gross was interviewing someone who was telling clicheed, uninteresting stories about visiting his relatives in the South as a kid, and turned out to be Spike Lee.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I re-watched Gran Torino the other night and posted something about it on FB. Then a friend posted, "That is a racist movie and another white savior cop out." The friend is a guy who actually came here from Guatemala, crossing the border in the trunk of a car. He travels the country doing pro-immigration story shows- and that's how I know him. He has rather strong views as one might imagine.

Anyhoo, I think it is a movie about a racist, not a racist movie. But I had never thought of the white savior thing about it- but damn- Gran Torino isn't just a white [s]avior movie; it's an actual SAVIOR movie. He is a full blown Christ figure.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I'm pretty sure that the main character choice was driven by the fact that he was the screenwriter's father.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

My mother tells stories about moving from her Italian mother's home base in Pennsylvania where she had tons of family and went to the catholic school to rural West Virginia where her family was one of three or four catholic families in the county. They are not welcoming stories.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

My sister said it was a combo of Office Space and any of the Charlie Kauffman screenplays. She absolutely loved it, and I was glad to see it was on one of the various streaming services we have.

(Wonking seems to be the new standard here).

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I just wrote a huge response, but this site keeps logging me out and I lost it. Not sure I'm going to write it again.

TM

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Cf. High Plains Drifter.

Bring me sushi, and some gin, gig serf
 

“An unkind summary, then, of the past half decade of the consumer internet: Venture capitalists have subsidized the creation of platforms for low-paying work that deliver on-demand servant services to rich people, while subjecting all parties to increased surveillance.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...panies/584236/

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Ali was good playing a deep character. But I wasn’t happy with the absolute spoof of Italians. Still, Hollywood has no problem making complete and total characteratures out of an entire nationality.