DJBlackSwan

I think GN&GL would be a great double feature to share with friends. here's what i'm thinking of showing at a movie party and why.

GN&GL CBS News. set in the early 50s. Begins in 1958.

SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS (1957) 1957. Story of a ruthless columnist character. Similar stark black and white cinematography, set in NYC.

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GN&GL Commie-baiting, McCarthyism, it's effects on the arts and society, and the courage it takes to combat and overcome it.

CRADLE WILL ROCK (1997) Commie-baiting, HUAC, it's effects on the arts and society, and the courage it takes to combat and overcome it.

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GN&GL "jazz" score, excellent performance by Dianne Reeves.

SHADOWS (1959) John Cassavetes exploration of anti-Black racism during the Beat era. noted for its "jazz" score, and "jazz" themes of individuality, the repressive limitations of society, state and the entertainment industry, and the pursuit of freedom. Set in NYC.

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GN&GL Murrow, who made his mark as a reporter during WWII on "This is London". heavily criticized the collusion of network media, advertising.

IT'S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER (1955) Dark MGM musical. Even though it's a musical, it incorporates some stark commentary on what happened to a lot of soldiers coming back from WWII -- nobody wanted them after a while, and nobody cared. One former soldier finds a career in advertising for a soap company, which sponsors a banal proto-reality show, exemplifying what Murrow referred to in his speech as "evidence of decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live".

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GN&GL Conservative/repressive/paranoid/suffocating climate of the 1950s. Corrupt conservative bullies pretending to be blameless martyrs. Liberace on "Person to Person", 'nuff said.

FAR FROM HEAVEN (2002) Douglas Sirk homage/sendup of the conservative/repressive/paranoid/suffocating climate of the 1950s, set in a supposedly "liberal" New England state. Centers on race relations and gays who are forced into the closet using conventional marriage as a cover-up. Will also make a fine double feature with BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN when it comes out on DVD.

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GN&GL The attempted silencing effects of conservatism and witchhunting.

SCANDALIZE MY NAME: STORIES FROM THE BLACKLIST (1999) Effects of the Red Scare/conservative witchhunt on Black performers of the 50s who were active in Civil Rights and opening up the entertainment industry to nonwhites.

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GN&GL Conservative bully grandstanding for votes will always be shown up for the transparent tactics and lies they are.

A BEAUTIFUL MIND (2001) The woozy search for nonexistent subversives in our midst turns even our most brilliant into insane paranoid schizophrenics.

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GN&GL Dianne Reeves sings "I've Got My Eyes on You", by Cole Porter

Broadway MELODY OF 1940 (1940)Ffor one reason and one reason only: "I've Got My Eyes on You". OK, two reasons: the number is performed twice, once by Fred Astaire solo, and in the final, big production number which also includes the legendary "Begin the Beguine" mirror sequence. The final rendition is performed by Eleanor Powell, Fred Astaire, and George Murphy, who has already been mentioned on these pages as a "friendly witness" to HUAC and notorious conservative ass hole, becoming Republican CA state senator in the 60s, at the same time that that dumb dead f' Ronald Reagan was also governor. the musical number is fantastic, and I happily, ironically admit that out of all of Eleanor Powell's male dance partners, George Murphy is my favorite.

Eleanor Powell would today be targeted as a major, very outspoken "religious progressive" btw, in favor of human rights, as well as civil rights. she got death threats from conservatives in the mid-50s for having Black people as regulars on her local Los Angeles religious TV show, "Faith of our Children". So in that light, "I've Got My Eyes on You" a fun act to watch.

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I love classic Hollywood and the classic entertainment world in general; it's never dull. GN&GL was fantastic, particularly it's overt commentary on our current state of complacency, wealth, comfort and general intellectual laziness.

But I might have ranked it a 10 had it gone into one of the most hated and reviled passions of the 50s and 60s. Allusions were made to Edward R. Murrow's swipes at segregation, exploitation of migrant workers, apartheid |and| J Edgar Hoover", but those could have been more rigorously interrogated, given the reality of the Civil Rights movement (particularly Brown vs Board of Education (1954), which began in earnest the dismantling of legalized segregation).

The inclusion of Mrs. Annie Moss' testimony, IMO, was intended as a substitute for interrogation of the anti-communist's focus on the African American struggle for parity in the US.

And yet, the bright whites and rich blacks of Good Night and Good Luck make it easy on the eyes, and the superb casting of Dianne Reeves as as the moral commentary of the 1950s Columbia Broadcasting System rate it a 9/10 in my book.

People Who Hate This Movie have their roots with those puritanicals who looked with scorn upon the CAKEWALK of the late 1800s, JAZZ in the early 1900s, the LINDY HOP in the 20s, GOSPEL and SWING in the 30s, RHYTHM AND BLUES in the 40s, ROCK AND ROLL in the 50s, FUNK in the 70s, and RAP/HIP-HOP in the 80s-present.

All of these inventions/genius of African-Americans are the foundation of all popular culture in the US. These are also the inventions that nonblacks define themselves against, either through dismissal, disapproval and morality-based contempt, or, direct imitation. I predict, krumping and clowning will very soon go the same way.

Speaking of Gospel, this movie is grounded by that tradition. So in order to understand it, you have to understand the continued centrality of this group of institutions called "the Black church". The narrative constantly centers back on the church for this reason. It is framed by two classic Gospel songs, "Seek the Lord" by the influential Caravans, the seminal 1970 crossover hit, "Oh Happy Day" by the Edwin Hawkins Singers, now a Northern California institution; and "Ghetto Gospel" by 2Pac and Elton John.

Why? David LaChapelle makes it crystal clear by his inclusion of the remark from Miss Prissy: "these same movements can be found in church". Dragon's Mom, who apparently "krumps for Christ", also makes this connection. "When they dance they dance from their spirit, when I'm at church, I dance from my spirit." So if you are confused by what's going on in this movie, stop fretting about stereotypical representations of Black folk, or what to think of the African dance montage; put aside your class-inflected value judgments on whatever you think "Black culture" is, and don't pretend it's beyond you. Instead, get yourself to your nearest Black church, this Sunday. The crosscuts of slow-motion clowning and krumping to the soundtrack of "Oh Happy Day" just might make sense to you, if you do.

This isn't just Black culture, Black culture is the foundation of American culture. I give "American culture" another year until it starts appropriating and watering down clowning/krumping and making it its own, just like it has every other Black cultural form, for the past 500 years. 9/10

Marry and Reproduce. Consume.

Submit. Watch TV. No independent thought, no ideas, buy, obey authority. Sleep. Doubt humanity. Conform.

All typically hierarchical, top-down, cutthroat, conservative, anti-human ideals, as enforced by a riot-gear police state that beats up blind Black men and bulldozes homeless settlements.

Except, conservatives/Reaganites/"free enterprisers" and other reactionaries aren't lizards from spaceships, profiting from the coldness of the conservative heart. That's where "it's only a movie" backfires on us, bearing as it does some accurate reflections of the Reagan Era excesses. Thus, they Live still leaves us with only two choices, complicity or rebellion, and in this movie, both turn out to be radical acts.

Because, as much as political and social conservatives in the United States snivel and whimper about "the media", and "liberal Hollywood", they depend on both for their survival and perpetuity. After all, their beloved union-busting "teflon president" and Governator were spat out onto the American populace by so-called "liberal Hollywood". Conservatives also get to add to their roster successful governors who built their names on pro wrestling, as well as a host of friendly witnesses to the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), including a conservative senator from California, a former MGM song-and-dance contemporary of Ronald Reagan named George Murphy. So I don't know what they are continually whining about, seriously.

And anyone who recalls the Reaganite-California 80s, the political and social context that has given us the Bush 90s-00s, remembers the police brutality of the LAPD, the battering ram, gated communities enforced by private police, the rise of homelessness, Reaganomics, and of course, the beginnings of cable and small-screen wrestling. It should go without saying that the camera ready surveillance society that passed for science fiction in '88-'89 -- for which we should suspend disbelief -- is today a routine part of American life.

And speaking of all-seeing eyes, t'was blind, but now I see...access to higher Truth via Black people and 2-D black and white glasses.

It's true: Black American religion is the central redemptive force in They Live. Note the "African Methodist EPISCOPAL Free Church" (a made-up conflagration of the "African Methodist Episcopal" and white-Methodist derived "Evangelical Free" churches), the broadcast site of the Cable 54 hacks. The Psalm 23-quoting blind Black preacher (Raymond St. Jacques) who in fact can "see", and transmits the broadcast hack of the Eeeeeeevil Tee Vee station. And, by extension, handsome Keith David reprising his solid supporting man roles, this time as Frank, the reluctant revolutionary.

Oh yes, and despite the mullet, Roddy looks GREAT shirtless in his snug fitting jeans...wow!

They Live: the heavy-handed Fight Club of the 80s, without the irony and with a different kind of humor?

Or, They Live: the logical sequel to Halloween 3.

Consider and decide, good reader.