foxface

I found Spike Lee's filming of this musical to be extraordinary because I felt like I was in the audience and on stage at the same time. The music is good and the plot stays interesting.

The great thing this play expresses is how an individual tries to escape the confines placed on his existence by virtue of his race. Many people can relate to taking the journey to self discovery. As an African-American, it was interesting to see how the "Youth" wanted to escape from his confines by heading to Europe where there didn't seem to be any confines. There tension of this escape is illustrated between the scenes between the Youth and his Mother, and at one point she asks him why can't you be comfortable with your own? This musical is funny, religious, and international at the same time. All of the actors were great. The music was fantastic. All hail Stew!

I enjoyed the movie Good Hair, because I felt it raised all of the issues regarding the African-American community and the thought process behind "good hair". This movie wasn't a preachy movie and introduced many concepts in a very subtle way ( the psyche of good hair, media images of black hair and acceptance/rejection of black hair in its natural state (the scene with high school girls, who tell the one girl with natural hair, she wouldn't be hired for a job and that she didn't look "together" was jarring.

I felt the film did a good job of covering who controls the economics behind black hair (hardly any blacks, mainly whites and Asians) and the staggering amount of revenue ($9 billion annually) in the industry, generated by people who own less than a percent of the industry. The film looked at everyday people who get weaves, and pay serious money (the lay-away plan was sad, funny, and ingenious at the same time) and the reason they feel weaves are necessary. Calling relaxers "creamy crack"was funny and alarming at the same time. The health risks, the thought of lye and the discussion of scalp burns was right on target.

The message regarding the impact of celebrity in our culture is so deep, that every day women will spend beyond their means to look like a Beyonce or Rhianna, though they don't have either of these women's financial means. The idea that straight "white" looking hair is equated with beauty and self worth was a undercurrent theme in this movie.

The male point of view is represented by the rich and famous (Andre Harrell, Paul Mooney) and the barbershop. No matter what a black man's economic status is, they all were catching the same type of hell regarding not being able to touch a woman's weaved head. Rev. Al Sharpton was the exception to this dilemma, but didn't mention the limitations of having relaxed hair. Yet he did point out hair shouldn't sabotage a black woman's economic situation, but often does. Money spent on a weave could be spend on education or a 401K plan instead. Black men also feel the economic pinch the weave provides, because they often have to provide money for weave upkeep and to keep their relationship.

The limitations of having a weave (no swimming, no touching the hair, can also be examined in the movie "Something New" which is also an examination of the weave culture in addition to interracial relationships between black women and white men. The question was posed do some black men deal with white women exclusively, because they can go swimming, and have their hair touched, opened up another can of worms. This movie can't explore all of the psyche behind the phrase "good hair" but does a good job of opening up the conversation.

One thing the movie does is make the audience look at the children who looked too young to be putting chemicals in their tender scalps,and who seemed to be indoctrinated with the message that their hair needed to be straight in order for them to be considered pretty. That was just sad, because the people sending them those messages were their own mothers,grandmothers, and society at large. As a black woman with relaxed hair, I really have to think about the ideology, society, and the culture that has influenced the choice I've made regarding the hair choice I am making. These women are making a choice, but if they knew of the insidious nature that feeds the beast, would they or I consider a different reality, which is our natural hair?

Michael Clayton is a great film because the script was so well written. The suspense is not action driven, but character driven, due to Michael Clayton (George Clooney) being the glue or arch angel that holds the company together, while being marginalized as the invisible man.

Michael's gift is the ability to fix problems, even when he can't manage his own gambling addiction, divorce, and mounting debts. He is not unlike many people watching this movie. Tilda Swinton's character is almost his twin sister, she is fixing up the problem, solving the problem(unethically through murder) so that her law firm can do well. However, the audience can see that (like Michael) her job is all she has in her life and that she is an obsessive compulsive person (laying out her stockings one by one, nitpicking cloth off the bed spread, practicing her speech). Yet, she wants to present a face of perfect control in a male dominated culture (by presenting herself as sexless or asexual-you forget she is a woman).

This is an adult film with real adult relationships and the problems that arise from those relationships. The characters are people who are left to control situations that are out of their control. This is a film about greed over humanity, right against wrong. Arthur (almost like Arthur of the knights of the round table) is the one person who try to preserve the truth (holy grail) and despite his insanity, is the person who believes in the law and wants to practice it openly and honestly. You see his brilliance as a lawyer during the confrontation in the alley with Michael Clayton. Once Arthur is dead, you also the marginalization of his existence as a human being (which happens to the dead in real life) by the lawyer constantly on the phone at a wake, the business deal having to take place, despite a death a partner at the firm.

The "action" in this movie is demonstrated through the acts of the characters. Except from the car blowing up and speeding on the highway, there is no real "action" in the traditional sense of the word. Despite this, the director and the script do a good job of keeping your audience interest. All of the actors were brilliant and looked world weary, which was appropriate for the film. The cinematography on this film was excellent, a lot of gray in the background (skies, houses, asphalt, buildings, etc).

The horse scene for me represents a couple of things. The horse scene is a bridge from the 1st act of the film to the second act-which is the consequences of everyone's actions coming into play. It also serves as the death of the old way of life for Michael Clayton to the new way of life he will lead once everything is resolved. So the car blowing up is literally a car blowing up and metaphorically the end of Michael's old way of life. The horses were pure and in a natural state, nothing was manipulated about them, which drives Michael to get out of the car and look at them. The horses also look at Michael as if they recognize and see in him what he sees in them (purity, integrity, honesty). Up until that point, Michael thought he lost that aspect of himself.

All in all a good movie, which is why Tilda Swinton probably won the Oscar. Too bad nobody else was recognized for their work.