In Do the Right Thing, the subject is not simply a race riot, but the tragic dynamic of racism, racial tension, and miscommunication, seen in microcosm. The film is a virtuoso act of creation, a movie at once realistic and symbolic, lighthearted and tragic, funny and savage... I have written here more about Lee’s ideas than about his style. To an unusual degree, you could not have one without the other: style is the magician’s left hand, distracting and entertaining us while the right hand produces the rabbit from the hat. It’s not what Lee does that makes his film so devastating, but how he does it. Do the Right Thing is one of the best-directed, best-made films of our time, a film in which the technical credits, the acting, and Lee’s brazenly fresh visual style all work together to make a statement about race in America that is all the more powerful because it blindsides us. - Roger Ebert (SPOILER) [more inside]
posted by Trurl on Dec 20, 2011 - 74 comments

"You know something very bizarre is going on in Hollywood when the movie Rise of Planet of the Apes tells more about the black experience in America than The Help." Max Gordon reflects on the truths that Hollywood can't talk about openly, and the dangers involved in sugarcoating the past.
posted by invitapriore on Sep 12, 2011 - 158 comments

Oscars take a pass on people of color. [more inside]
posted by Baby_Balrog on Jan 26, 2011 - 193 comments

"It's a barbecue area." "They call this: Babakiueria!"
posted by Fiasco da Gama on Jun 30, 2010 - 12 comments

The SF Signal Mind Meld feature poses science fiction related questions to a number of SF luminaries and the scientist, science writer or blogger. Subjects have included the best women writers in SF, taboo topics in SF, underated authors and the most controversial SF novels of the past and present. The also cover lighter topics, such the role of media tie-ins, how Battlestar Galactica could have ended better (bonus Geoff Ryman) and the realistic (or otherwise) use of science on TV SF shows.
posted by Artw on May 6, 2009 - 17 comments

Call her Madame. Among the old-timers, the story went like this: a woman known to everyone as Madame came to California from Kentucky with her children and her husband. But once they were in the Gold Rush State, her husband left her. Desperate to find work, she introduced herself to a movie director named D. W. Griffith. He not only cast her in his movie, but the two became friends for life. And with this woman, called Madame Sul-Te-Wan, what we now call Black Hollywood began -- as a new book by historian Donald Bogle explains. (more inside)
posted by matteo on Feb 7, 2005 - 6 comments

Dutchman is a movie (originally a play) which "mirrors the difficulties of life for an African American male through the clash between a white woman and a black man sharing a subway car in NYC." And I don't mean to belittle that, but ... has anyone else noticed similarities between Shirley Knight (2)(3), the lead actress in Dutchman, and Heather Graham? Do today's actors and actresses try to achieve success by directly copying actors and actresses from the past? (I know they study them, but this almost borders on plagiarism, if that's possible)
posted by jwells on Mar 5, 2001 - 14 comments