The Best of Enemies

First Hit: I loved the story and the concept behind the story, but at times, the movie languished with its 133-minute running time.

Civil rights, the rights of all people, are a continuing subject in our country. This is shameful, shocking, and sadly mind-numbing to me. As Ann Atwater (Taraji P. Henson) said in the film, “when any of us get cut, we all bleed the same red blood.” Or, at another time she says, “same God made you, made me.” This is the whole point of the film.

Atwater is an activist in her community of Durham, North Carolina. She fights city hall to help the causes of black people in her community. She’s brave and outspoken.

At the beginning of the film, she’s fighting for the rights of people who are renting from a landlord that wants to raise rents or kick people out of his buildings because they are black and want him fix the problems in his units. Some of the issues are no hot water, toilets that don’t work, and electrical issues which mean his renters are struggling to survive in their homes. She’s fighting the slumlord and the whole white part of town that seems to support him to fix the issues in the the homes.

When the black only school burns down, the black community wants her to take the lead to fix the problem of educating their children, and she’s up for it. She and the black community want the children of that school, including her daughter, to go to a white only school – in other words – she wants, what the US government says she’s entitled to, school integration.

To fight against this move, the white city council asks their local KKK President and Exalted Cyclops, C.P. Ellis (Sam Rockwell), to lead the charge against the integration.

The film spends time with both characters learning more about who they are and what they believe. We learn that Atwater clearly has a belief of what is right and she fights for what she thinks. She does this with angry outbursts, persistence, and fortitude. She also has a soft tender side which the film shows as well.

Ellis is shown leading his KKK Chapter at meetings and at the gun target practice range promising to uphold the charter of the KKK. He is married to Mary (Anne Heche) and has four children. One of the boys lives in a psychiatric hospital because of, what appears to be, autism. C.P.’s scenes of tenderness towards this son are lovely, and it shows that he does have a heart. Mary, however, does not hold C.P.’s racial views, but they somehow are able to make their marriage work, and I think it is because she knows the deeper C.P.

As the battle of whether the black children will attend the white schools grows, the city of Durham decides to bring in Bill Riddick (Babou Ceesay) to lead a two-week charrette mediation program to appease the court-ordered school desegregation decree and to come up with a community answer about school integration.

Much of the film and at times, too much, is spent wading through the two weeks of the charrette in a high-level glossy way. Occasionally there is pointed discussion between Riddick, Ellis, and Atwater and we can see how they are slowly beginning to listen to each other.

The worst aspect of the community is when the film shows radicals from the KKK attempting to influence the outcome of the vote through intimidation.

Of course, this film wouldn’t have been made if the vote wasn’t favorable for integration, and the suspense is good enough to wait for. But the part that sickened me was the back stories of how the city council led by Carvie Oldham (Bruce McGill) believe that bending the rules and breaking the law, it is for the betterment of the whole.

Besides the beautiful gas station scene at the end of the film, it was such a nice touch to have short clips of the real Atwater, Riddick, and Ellis during the credits – make sure you see this part.

Henson was excellent as Atwater. She clearly provided the kind of intent and sense needed for the role. Some of her looks at Ellis were slightly overdone, but nothing that came across detrimental to the part. Rockwell is making a name for himself as being the guy on the wrong side of right and easing his character to the right side of freedom. As in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing. Missouri,” he faces and is the opposition to a tough woman but ends up becoming friends with them. Ceesay is terrific as the mediator for the charette. McGill was perfectly southern and arrogant to the plight of anyone but himself. Heche has a small but powerful role in this film as Ellis’ wife. Her clarity of purpose and her visit with Atwater was perfect. Robin Bissell wrote and directed this film. The best part was making this story come alive, but it felt long, and some judicious snipping would have helped.

Overall: The lesson is still alive today, we need to stop seeing people as different, we are one.

Hidden Figures

First Hit:  A very touching and wonderful film about strong smart women overcoming prejudicial perceptions about their capabilities.

This film is based on the book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly, which tells the story of how smart intelligent black women persevered and overcame the challenges of 1960’s discrimination in Virginia to help the United States come from behind and beat the Russians in the space race. This movie chronicles their journey along with the journey of the early space program.

Having grown up in this era, but in Southern California where the overt and obvious signs of segregation didn’t exist, I was shocked knowing that Virginia had segregated lunch rooms, bathrooms, and bus seating. This issue drives this film’s story.

Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughn (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae) are three friends who work for NASA in Langley Virginia. The Russians have successfully launched manned orbital space flight with Yuri Gagarin. Because we were in a cold war with the Russians, it was a societal imperative of the time, that we beat them in the space race.

Under the guidance Al Harrison (Kevin Costner) NASA was struggling to develop rockets, space capsules, and the ability to calculate orbital exit and entry points of these space vehicles. To assist with the more mundane calculations, NASA used a unit called “Colored Calculators” of which Katherine, Dorothy and Mary were a part.

There are three major stories about these women in this film, plus other side stories. This is both the strength and weakness of this film. We didn’t need every story, however the main story about the three finding their rightful paths was divine. Katherine was a mathematical genius graduating high school at age 14 and college at age 18. She is a single mother raising three daughters, while working long hours calculating numbers. When she is discovered as the only one who knows analytical geometry, she gets assigned to Harrison’s group to figure out how the United States will launch a man into orbit and bring him back alive. This is the main theme of the film.

It also documents how Mary had to find a way to become a certified engineer with NASA. As she assisted Research Engineer Kazimierz Czarnecki he asks her why she didn’t become a certified engineer, she tells him, “I wouldn’t have too. I would already be one.”. Dorothy, managed the Colored Calculators but they refused to give her the title of Supervisor because she was black. When NASA attempted to install a IBM computer, she learned Fortran and ended up Supervisor of the computer programmers. However, when there were calculation discrepancies by the IBM computer and the orbital launch was in jeopardy, John Glenn (Glen Powell) says; “Get the girl (Johnson) to check the numbers… if she says the numbers are good, I’m ready to go.”

The mixture of using old original film footage tying together the major events of the day with events in the film was very well done. Emotionally and at a feeling level, this film is very well done. From the moment Katherine’s daughters talk about diving underneath their desks at school to protect themselves from bomb fallout to the hurdles of racism that were being jumped over; tears of joy and sorrow fell down my cheeks.

Henson was amazingly wonderful as a brilliant mathematician and woman who finds her way into a very elite world. Spencer was very good as a woman that wouldn’t let herself be slighted any longer and took matter into her own hands and learned computer programming. Monae was fantastic as the sassy woman who outwardly challenged the status quo. One of the best scenes in film is when she went before the Judge to make her case for getting into an all-white school. Costner was good as the head of the space program and one of my favorite scenes with him was when he ripped the “Colored Only Women’s Room” signs off the wall. Mahershala Ali as Colonel Jim Johnson, Johnson’s beau, was very good. His strength and sensitivity were perfect. Kirsten Dunst, as Johnson’s boss, was strong. She had an appropriate level of aloofness. Powell as Glenn was excellent. His open welcoming personality made everyone’s life better. Jim Parsons as Paul Stafford the lead analyst heading up the development team was very good. Allison Schroder and Theodore Melfi wrote a very good screenplay but it had more side stories than needed. Melfi did a wonderful job of directing this cast, however it felt more complicated and longer than it needed to be.

Overall:  This film documents a changing and glorious time in our country and these women led the way.

Think Like a Man

First Hit:  This film served up both truth and laughs.

Film follows 7 men who are close friends and hang out together often.

The film also follows the women whom they meet. So what is thinking like a man entail? It entails reading Steve Harvey’s book “Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man”.

In this book he gives women advice of how to land men; who are mama’s boys, or can’t commit, or are players, and other behaviors. What happens is that we follow men who are being lured into relationships they actually want by women who are using the techniques written in the book to make the man do what they want.

At one point the men get copies of the book and try to blunt the girl’s attempts but in the end the men want these girls. Through all this is humor, some of it smart, some slapstick, some racial, but mostly it is the kind of humor one expects in the truth.

The bits with the professional basketball players is really funny and I would have liked even more of those scenes.

This film is smart in the way it handles the male and female parts.

This is a very good ensemble piece and although the actors are not largely known (A-list) the acting was strong: Michael Ealy, Jerry Ferrara, Kevin Hart, Terrence Jenkins, Romany Malco, Gary Owen, Chris Brown, Meagan Good, Regina Hall, Taraji P. Henson, Jennifer Lewis, Gabrielle Union, La La Anthony, Wendy Williams and Sherri Shepherd were all funny and good in their roles. Keith Merryman wrote the smart screenplay from Steve Harvey’s book. Tim Story directed this smartly with great movements between couples and scenes.

Overall: I really enjoyed this film because it rang of truth, was smartly written and well directed.

The Karate Kid

First Hit: A little long but overall satisfying enough as a remake.

I enjoyed the original Karate Kid film. The acting was good enough, the story was sweet and the interaction between Ralph Macchio and Pat Moritat was priceless.

In this new version the premise is the same, new boy in down, this time it’s Beijing China and the local kids beat him up because he invades their territory. The new young boy is Dre Parker played by Jaden Smith and the wise teacher, Mr. Han, is played by Jackie Chan.

What made this film work was Jackie Chan. He was steady, provided a solid base and kept the story in perspective. The shots of China were beautiful and accurate. The constant haze of Beijing reflects a major issue with all major cities in China, rampant pollution.

The pristine shots of other Chinese locations display the immense beauty of the country. The chases through the small markets, stalls and tiny alleyways were effective in showing a flavor of Dre’s new home.

The film felt long and I’m sure there is about 15 – 30 minutes of celluloid that could have fallen to the floor and would not have hurt the story. The lengths of the fights could have been shortened, the segment where Dre gets back at his antagonists by throwing dirty water on his antagonists could have been shortened, or maybe part of the scenes where Dre and Meiying (played by Wenwen Han) explore Beijing could have been cut.

However, the overall story hangs together good enough and just like the first version it is the interaction between the primary actors which makes it work.

Smith, in his first starring role, is good but young. I felt his acting was uneven, yet there is a strength of presence indicating he will improve. He shows an ability to display multiple emotions and stay in character while making it fun to watch him. Chan is the true pro in this film and without his solid performance and immense presence this film and the characters would have become caricatures. Han is adorable as the one true friend Smith makes in the film. Her smile and presence in front of the camera were wonderful. Taraji Henson plays Smith’s mother Sherry Parker and unfortunately I didn’t feel as though she was part of the film, it was more as if we needed to know that Smith had a strong demanding yet loving mother.

Overall: It was enjoyable, the scenes of China were fantastic, and the story although well known was fresh enough to keep my interest.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

First Hit: I got bored waiting for this film to find legs and when it did it lasted too long.

I loved the premise of this film, someone whose body goes from old to young. It reminded of a conceptual story I’m familiar with whereas one is born old, as he lives he gets younger each day and dies as a twinkle his parents eyes.

However, I digress here because this film wasn’t as interesting as my memories of listening to this story. 

The premise is that Benjamin Button (played by Brad Pitt) is born in a body that looks 80+ years old. His mother dies giving birth to him and his father, for inexcusable reason, can’t stand this old looking baby and drops him off at home for aging people.

Benjamin is raised by the house attendant named Queenie (played by Taraji P. Henson), a young black woman who can’t give birth on her own. Benjamin looks old but has the curiosity of a child and slowly (very slowly) he gets younger looking as he gets older.

As a child he is befriended by a young girl named Daisy (who is played at various older ages by Cate Blanchett). We follow Benjamin through his life and slowly watch him get younger. We also follow Daisy’s life and watch her as she gets older.

They meet at middle age and have a wonderful fulfilling life, until Daisy gets pregnant and Benjamin leaves because he doesn’t think he can be a dad as he digresses into being a kid and baby himself (although his mind will be old).

David Fincher the director appeared to get caught into seeing just how subtle he could make the changes in Pitt’s getting younger and Blanchett’s getting older, therefore the film ended up being really long. The computers digitized both Pitt and Blanchett into looking younger than they really are for certain scenes and these shots make them glow (angelic like) when, looking angelic wasn't the intended effect. There is a lot of makeup used on both Pitt and Blanchett and, in fact, the 80 something dying Blanchett telling her daughter who her father is, is the base point of the film. Given that both Pitt and Blanchett are great actors; they did their best with an overly long, drawn out storyline that needed a good pair of hedge shears.

Overall: I was very disappointed by this film from the outset. The opening scenes were tepid and didn’t do much to set the stage. The film was, at least, an hour too long and there were multiple scenes in their entirety that could have been cut with no dramatic affect on the film whatsoever.