THE OBENSON REPORT

Here are a few more discouraging reviews (hat tip to GreenCine):

From David Edelstein of New York Magazine:

"Miracle at St Anna will doubtless be extolled by people who mistake [Spike] Lee's righteous clobbering for moral seriousness," writes David Edelstein in New York. "Lee's climax is part punishing bloodbath, part florid religious uplift, and the coda is so maladroit it's hard to believe anyone on-set could keep a straight face."

And this one from Noel Murray of AV Club:

"This pains me to write, because I'm a lifelong fan of Spike Lee's, and I think his recent run of films (25th Hour, Inside Man, When The Levees Broke) has been downright inspiring, but Miracle at St Anna is a botch of the first order, a movie that telegraphs its leadenness in its first 10 minutes, and departs two-and-a-half hours later having left behind maybe two or three memorable scenes."

And this one from Eric Kohn at the Jaman Blog:

"Lee's noble attempt to create a World War II drama with African American soldiers fails to create a compelling narrative, marred as it is by forced melodrama and a shoddy screenplay that sounds like some kind of second rate pulp novel from the 50s," writes Eric Kohn at the Jaman Blog. "The director undoubtedly qualifies as one of the finest American filmmakers of the last 30 years, but he might work better on his home turf."

However, there is one bright spot. From James Rocchi at Cinematical:

Needless to say, he doesn't actually build a time machine, rather just simply lays down the groundwork for the potential creation of one sometime in the future, once all the uncertainties of building such a thing have been sufficiently resolved.

How Spike Lee will adapt this is a mystery. I think it could be a challenge if it's a completely faithful adaptation, but I doubt that it will be. Spike will have to get creative, and squeeze as much life as he can out the humanistic elements of the book, and find a way to balance the scientific, without allowing it to dominate.

Spike could also follow the same path that writer/director Shane Carruth took when he made his 2004 Sundance grand prize winner, Primer - also a time travel film. I own Primer on DVD and I've watched it more than thrice, but I still can't say that I completely understand the theories and ideas that the starring characters constantly share with each other. The 79-minute film hits the ground running - no backstory, no footnotes. It's as if Carruth is saying, you either understand what we're talking about or you don't, but we're not going to "dumb it down" by explaining everything to you... We're scientists and this is how scientists interact with each other and their work. So, either you buy it, or you don't. But yet, somehow, I've never been turned off by the fact that much of what is discussed is foreign to me, and instead find myself fascinated by it all.

So, I suppose Spike could implement a similar strategy.

Or Spike could maybe consider something along the lines of PI (by Darren Aronofsky), another Sundance winner, and another favorite film of mine that I've seen countless times but haven't completely digested - essentially, making it something of a thriller... one man's relentless quest in search of an answer to a problem that's been consuming him, as others close in on him to gain control of the knowledge in his head.

It's a book about one man's life's work and passion, chased vigorously, unwaveringly, at the expense of his social sanity. It's not sci-fi in the typical Hollywood sense - there aren't any scenes that would require computer generated effects, no aliens, no interstellar explosions, no time machines, despite the film's title. There are moments of reverie which Spike could have some fun with, wherein, Dr Mallett dreams about seeing his work realized, and utilizing it for the purpose that initially motivated him to dedicate his life to creating it. Other than those moments, there really aren't any other possibilities to razzle and dazzle the audience with spectacle!

If I were the screenwriter adapting the book, I would focus in on a very specific period of Dr Mallett's life, instead of attempting a bio-pic that covers the 50+ years the book lives in. I would focus on Dr Mallett as an adult, which is where he made the most progress on understanding and laying the foundation for his time travel machine; his life was fuller then - married twice, meeting several Nobel Prize winning physicists he could only admire from afar when he was younger... And I would attack those latter years in much the same way Carruth did in Primer - except, unlike the men in Primer, Mallett had a life outside of his research (the older version of him anyway), which would make for an even more interesting story, hence, the balance I mentioned earlier that Spike will have to manage.

I have no idea when the film adaptation will go into production. Just because a book is optioned doesn't mean that its celluloid brethren will be born instantaneously. It could be years before we hear about this again, or possibly not at all. Octavia Butler's Kindred has been optioned several times over the last 15 years or more, and we're still waiting for someone to finally see it all the way through. Not surprisingly, financing is often the hold-up. But I think Mallett's story is one that can be done "cheaply," relatively speaking of course, in the $10 to $30 million range. Keep in mind that the average studio movie budget these days hovers around $60 to $80 Million. So, $10 to $30 Million is less than half the average. Whether Spike will be able to raise the money is an uncertainty. If he gets a star to play the older Mallett, then funding might be a snap.

So, who do I think could assume the role? Mallett is 63 years old this year. If Spike takes my advice and focuses on the man's recent life, where much progress was made on his time machine project - meaning roughly the last 10 to 15 years - he'd need an actor in his mid 40s/early 50s, who could be easily and naturally aged with make-up, as he ages from about 48 to 63 years old. So, that narrows the list of potentials down to just a handful of actors in that mid-40s/early 50s age range - Don Cheadle, Jeffrey Wright (he'd probably be my first choice if Spike goes the path I just described), Denzel Washington (although he's in his 50s now, however, I can see Spike going with him since they've worked together several times before)... who else? Maybe Laurence Fishburne. Unless Spike goes with an unknown, but I doubt it, especially if the budget is substantial.

I plan to read the book again. Sometimes it's better the second time around - not that it was bad the during the first read. But going back over the physicist jargon that dominates the memoir might do me some good. I'll keep Wikipedia open on my laptop for easy look-up access!

By the way, incase you are wondering, here's a clip from Primer. It's not the most indicative of the point I made above, but it gives you an idea of what I saw in my mind as I read Mallett's memoir:

Here's the trailer for PI:

Did you know...

... That Spike Lee's younger brother, Cinque Lee, is also a filmmaker, and has written and directed 4 feature-length films since 1995, all independently financed, produced and distributed, with no real contributions from older brother Spike?

The first was a drama called Nowhere Fast, made for just $29,000 in 1995, and is described as "a film powerfully weaved together through stories of its desperate characters and depicting the dangerous hours they face during one fateful day. Lee cast nineteen actors as a motley assortment of disenfranchised, dispossessed and downright weird characters, including junkies, prostitutes, thieves, dealers, dopers, mental patients, street people, and a failed magician, all of whom collide wildly on the hot city streets on a Friday afternoon during a scorching heat-wave in Brooklyn." Do The Right Thing Part 2 possibly?

His second feature was a sci-fi film called Windows On Your Present, made for $50,000, and co-starred his sister, Joie Lee (who has also been featured in a few of Spike's earlier films). In the film, two characters, Europe and Leber, are lost souls in a world where love and color have never existed. They stumble upon a pill that transports them to a world of color and love for a short time. After the effects of the pill ware off, they are returned to their depressing world of no color. They decide to search for the source of the pills and consume enough of them to never return. This was made in 2000. Sounds intriguing... we rarely get to see black people in sci-fi flicks, especially the more seemingly cerebral kind.

And his last outing was a film called UR4 GIVEN, made in 2004, for just $12,000. In the film, a drama, Monica, a 27-year-old woman and a victim of child abuse, is suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, splintered personality, flashbacks, repressed memories, and migraines. To help combat her demons she interviews victims of child abuse on camera. Monica eventually realizes that she has to confront those demons. She returns to her small hometown to revisit the place where her rapes took place, and while there, she runs into the man who raped her as a child, but he has no idea who she is. Instead of telling him who she is, she hatches a plan to exact revenge, one that could cost her life. Hmmmm... curious.

Of course, in each of these films, given their individual budgets, don't expect to find any recognizable actors - at least on the star scale anyway. I'd love to get my hands on all of these films out of sheer curiosity. They might actually be worthwhile and in need of support. Of the 4 films, I only found one of them available for sale anywhere - Nowhere Fast. You can find it on Amazon for less than $10. CLICK HERE. I've already placed my order. I'll keep looking for the others. They have to be out there somewhere.

It's rather unfortunate that Spike doesn't talk more about his brother's independent efforts, or help him push his films. Or maybe he does, and I'm just not aware. I'm not saying that he should actively lobby for his brother, but maybe give him a "shout out" every now and then... or even some "props,"... something... anything to let us know that his brother exists and is making art. Unless Spike just doesn't think his brother's films are any good, which is possible, I suppose.

So, Spike Lee's premiere opus, She's Gotta Have It, has finally been granted a long awaited DVD release.

Up until yesterday, the 15th of January 2008, any potential purchaser of the film would have had to spend their dollars on the archaic VHS version, with its washed out whites and fading blacks (as in celluloid colors not the cast). Thankfully, we now have another, better choice.

Unfortunately, it's not quite the DVD package I hoped for, as it's lacking in any extra features that I think a film classic like this surely deserves - for example, director's commentary, unused scenes, a documentary on the making of the film, and even the clichéd "where are they now" segment. I'd certainly like to know what happened to Tracy Camilla Johns.

I dug deep for a trailer or even a clip of the film on YouTube but my search returned nothing, which actually surprised me.

Regardless, pick up She's Gotta Have It on DVD today, at Amazon.com. It's only $14.00.

Just click on the image below...

BE SURE TO LISTEN TO MY PODCAST AT BLOGTALKRADIO.COM, OR SUBSCRIBE VIA ITUNES.

As a black filmmaker, I've always prided myself on being sensitive of my portrayals of those marginalized groups of people, notably people of color and women.

I've sometimes passed, and other times failed "the test." But the more I make myself aware of how other marginalized groups feel about their representation, or lack thereof, by the Hollywood machine - undoubtedly the preeminent film production and distribution power in the world - I realize just how deeply ingrained many of the stereotypes have become in my psyche, albeit unconsciously, and later manifest themselves in my thoughts, as well as my actions.

In watching the clip below, I realized just how desensitized I've become towards the pejorative portrayals of Arabs in Hollywood films. I have been challenged in my acceptance of many of these films as strictly pure entertainment, when in fact they have essentially taught me what to think about an entire group of people. It goes to show just how powerful cinema is, something which I've talked about several times on my podcast. What we pass off as mindless entertainment is actually not as mindless as we think, because the repeated use of these derogatory images, fed to us ad nauseam, does have some impact, often negative, especially if we are almost never exposed to anything to the contrary. It's truly a dangerous dynamic.

Even what seem like the most harmless of films, something like the Disney animated ALADDIN, reinforce these dangerous, uninformed stereotypes, maybe somewhat subtly, or packaged in a wave of lush colors, cute song and dance, and mawkishness, and are then seen by millions of people, notably, sadly mostly children.

There have been films produced by Hollywood in cooperation with the Department of Defense, showing American men and women in the Armed Forces killing Arabs at random, like the Arnold Schwarzenegger box office smash, TRUE LIES, the Jamie Foxx starrer, THE KINGDOM, as well as films like NAVY SEALS, IRON EAGLE and RULES OF ENGAGEMENT. I had no idea that a film like RULES OF ENGAGEMENT, was co-written by Senator James Webb of Virginia, who also served as Secretary of the U.S. Navy under Ronald Reagan. So with Washington solidifying its connection with Hollywood, there'll likely be a bias, probably an intentional one - in essence going out of their way to reinforce our fears of Arabs as terrorists, making it significantly easier for our government to convince us into buying a so-called "war on terror;" something we all should be well aware of.

But as I started off saying... I feel obligated to make myself aware of the portrayals of marginalized groups on screen, not only because I'm a filmmaker, but as a fellow human being - one who has been fighting this battle against Hollywood's destructive stereotypes, notably of people with my skin color. And as I make myself aware, via literature I've read, or communication with people from other marginalized groups, I'm forced to confront many of my prejudices, and reexamine my attraction to certain films I've seen in the past. For example, films like DO THE RIGHT THING, or SHE'S GOTTA HAVE IT - both hailed as treasured works within the realm of black cinema, and even in broader circles; but when dissected with a feminist slant (as was done so eloquently and extensively in a book called Redefining Black Film), they were revealed to be counter-feminist, misogynist and just plain old sexist (SHE'S GOTTA HAVE IT notably) in their presentation of black women and their sexuality - facts I was completely oblivious of upon initially seeing these films, but which have now tainted my perception of the films, and in turn the filmmaker... not to disastrous effect, but enough that I'm now significantly more critical of Spike Lee's work than I ever was.

There have been several films that I loved upon initially screening them; but with this growing awareness and sensitivity, I feel obligated to be overtly critical of those films I see that reinforce stereotypes, especially of those "invisible" people (to borrow from Ellison), or that follow trends of marginalization. It makes for very unpleasant viewing experiences, which partly explains why I haven't seen many films recently; and I often wonder if I'm being too critical. However, with what I now know, and continue to learn, I just don't see how I could not be.

The following clip is from a documentary called REEL BAD ARABS: How Hollywood Vilifies a People. You can buy the film here: www.reelbadarabs.com.

RECORDED MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24TH 2007
TRT 60 MINUTES

Hosted by Tambay A Obenson

TOPICS THAT WERE COVERED:

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Thanks!

Tambay A Obenson
http://www.obensonresport.com/
http://www.tambayobenson.com/