MVP of the Week: Chiwetel Ejiofor

Posted on October 20, 2013 at 8:00 am

I have been a huge fan of Chiwetel Ejiofor since I first saw him in the 2004 film Dirty Pretty Things. “12 Years a Slave” may be his breakthrough performance, and I hope it encourages audiences to seek out some of his previous work in films as widely varied as Denzel Washington’s sidekick in Spike Lee’s Inside Man, a sci-fi villain in Serenity, a romantic pianist in Woody Allen’s Melinda and Melinda, and a drag queen in Kinky Boots.

He also plays a musician in “Dancing on the Edge,” a miniseries premiering this week on Starz.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF5LQY2fvWE

 

 

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Actors Breakthrough Perfomers

12 Years a Slave

Posted on October 17, 2013 at 6:15 pm

A-
Lowest Recommended Age: Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating: Rated R for violence/cruelty, some nudity and brief sexuality
Profanity: Constant use of racial epithets, sexual references
Alcohol/ Drugs: Drinking and drunkenness
Violence/ Scariness: Intense and disturbing violence including rape, murder, whipping, and abuse, disturbing and graphic images
Diversity Issues: A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters: October 18, 2013
Date Released to DVD: March 3, 2014
Amazon.com ASIN: B00G4Q3NDA

12-years-a-slave-2Watching “12 Years a Slave” is a shattering experience. It shatters any remaining illusions of gracious, chivalrous, Southern plantation life in the pre-Civil War era.  They were based on the late 19th century myth-making from the children of slave-owners in a toxic effort to disguise the reality that the South was fighting to preserve a system of virulent racism fueled by the economics of plantation life. It shatters cherished notions of the first principles underlying the founding of this country.  The man who wrote the revolutionary words that “all men are created equal” was a part of this atrocity. It shatters all previous depictions of slavery.  By comparison they seem cartoonish and fraudulent, from “Gone With the Wind” to “Django Unchained,” more about the time they were made than the time they depicted. And, like all great films, it shatters our previous notions of what was possible on screen, with performances so vivid and compelling they seem to break through every boundary, between us and them, between then and now, between actor and audience. In one audacious moment, Solomon Northrup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free man sold into slavery, looks into the distance, eyes filled with ineffable suffering and loss, and then turns to face us, looking into the eyes of those who are looking at him, bringing us further into his world.

This is different because it is a rare story of pre-Civil War South told from a black person’s point of view. It is based on Northrup’s book, written after he returned to his family.  It is the story of slavery from a man who experienced it, and who knew what it was like to live as a black man who was not just free but better educated and more successful than most people of any race in his community. In that sense, it is a story told from inside the system of our country’s greatest shame.  In another sense, it is presented by outsiders, director Steve McQueen (British) and stars Ejiofor (the British son of Nigerian immigrants) and Lupita Nyong’o (born in Mexico, raised in Kenya, educated in the US).  They tell us Northrup’s story — and ours — without being tied to the way we prefer to tell ourselves what our history is and means.

Northrup is a successful musician, happily married with two adored children and respected by both white and black members of his community in New York State.  He accepts a job playing with some circus performers (Scoot McNairy and “SNL’s” Taran Killem) in Washington, D.C., where slavery is legal.  They drug him and sell him to a slave dealer (Paul Giamatti).  Without his papers, he cannot prove he is a free man.  Soon he is renamed Pratt and transported to Louisiana, where he is sold first to a comparatively benevolent man (Benedict Cumberbatch), but then, when he gets into a fight with the overseer (an oily Paul Dano), he is re-sold to a brutal man who prides himself on being an n-word-breaker (Michael Fassbender).  Northrup loses more than his family, his liberty, his name, and his freedom.  He loses his very self; he is told early on that if the white people know he can read and write, it will create more trouble for him.  Indeed, when he tries to be helpful by suggesting a better system for transporting the crop, he earns the gratitude of his master but incurs the jealousy of the white boss.  The only way to survive is to pretend to be the sub-human the owners need them to be to continue to hold onto their bigotry.

This movie makes clear the poisonous, psychotic twisted mind that can accept or even justify the idea that one person can buy and sell another.  Over and over, we see the slaveholders at the same time acknowledging and denying the humanity of the people they think they own.  A female slave sobs because her children have been sold and she will never see them again.  The woman of the plantation, briefly sympathetic, says, “Poor woman.”  But then, immediately after, “Your children will soon be forgotten.”  Slaves are included in family worship services (though not seated with the family).  But their souls are never acknowledged; they are categorized as livestock.

There are terrible beatings.  There is torture and rape.  Slave children run and play, laughing, ignoring the man who is almost choking to death as punishment. There are property identification chains slaves must wear if they go off the property, like something between a hall pass and a dog tag.  There is a slave who has made her peace with what she has done to get better treatment — and with what she now does to other slaves.

Instead of the lush orchestral score usually underlying period films or the melancholy flute and drum usually heard in Civil War films, Hans Zimmer has created spare, edgy music that is bleak without being maudlin.  McQueen’s approach is sure and direct and the script by John Ridley is ably structured and thoughtful.  Nyong’o’s gives performance of exquisite grace and heart-wrenching dignity.  But the center of the story is Northrup.  Ejiofor is sure to get an Oscar nomination for a performance of unparalleled depth and eloquence.

Parents should know that this film includes very graphic and disturbing images of slavery, with rape, murder, and abuse, brutal whipping and atrocities, nudity, sexual references and situations, constant racial epithets, drinking and drunkenness.

Family discussion: What was the significance of the early scene in Mr. Parker’s store?  How does this story differ from other movie depictions of the pre-Civil War South?  Why did Northrup join in the singing of “Roll, Jordan, Roll?”

If you like this, try: book by Solomon Northrup, “Amistad,” American Experience: The Abolitionists, and Roots

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Based on a book Based on a true story Drama DVD/Blu-Ray Pick of the Week Epic/Historical

October Releases: Awards Season Begins

Posted on October 7, 2013 at 8:00 am

Fall is here and that means we will start seeing some of the movies the studios are betting on for Oscars, Golden Globes, and Critics Choice Awards.  “Gravity” is a critical and box office hit already, just four days after its release, with Oscar talk about Sandra Bullock’s bravura performance and the even more impressive work by co-writer/director Alfonso Cuarón and the visual and sound effects team.  Coming up this week and through the month we have two more movies, both based on true stories, that have already generated awards talk:

“Captain Phillips” (October 11) Tom Hanks stars in a gripping story of the real-life captain who was kidnapped by Somali pirates.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp6jpeDeQmE

“12 Years a Slave” (October 18) Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Solomon Northrup, a free black man who was captured and sold into slavery. Brad Pitt, Alfre Woodard, Michael Fassbender, and Benedict Cumberbatch co-star.

 

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Trailers, Previews, and Clips

Salt

Posted on July 27, 2010 at 10:24 pm

B-
Lowest Recommended Age: High School
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action
Profanity: Brief strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs: None
Violence/ Scariness: Constant peril and violence, shooting, fighting, explosions, torture, some graphic images, many characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues: Very strong female character
Date Released to Theaters: July 23, 2010

“Salt” is the story of a CIA agent with an exemplary record who is accused by a mole of being a Russian spy, part of a cadre trained as children to infiltrate America by living normal lives until ordered into action. Angelina Jolie plays the title character, Evelyn Salt, bringing all of her Angelina Jolie-ness with her, for better and worse. She continues to explore the fearless action star stunt daredevil side she showed in the “Tomb Raider” movies and “Wanted” and the intensity of a wronged but fierce and fearless woman she showed in “The Changeling” and “A Mighty Heart.” And there’s the inevitability of her real tabloid-fodder life spilling over into the story as well, the wild child with her knives and épater le bourgeouis attitude evolving into the glowing madonna working tirelessly for the world’s children and happily devoted to her own highly photogenic six.

And so, when the movie opens, showing us Salt/Jolie being tortured by North Koreans, wearing nothing but her scanties, all of that comes along with whatever we are learning about her character. She is fierce and brave and will do anything it takes to protect her home. Once she is rescued, she holds it together until she sees who it was who insisted on getting her out, not the CIA, which has strict procedures for calculating the greater good, but her German boyfriend Mike (August Diehl), a scientist specializing in spiders.

Five years later, she has a desk job at a CIA cover organization and is getting ready to celebrate her wedding anniversary when a Russian guy shows up with an offer to provide information. He says that Salt is a Russian spy and is about to kill the Russian president (yes, I know that does not seem to make much sense). Her long-time colleague Ted (Liev Schreiber) believes she is telling the truth when she says she is loyal to America. But another official named Peabody (Chiwetel Ejiofor) wants her investigated. Salt runs. It could be because she thinks Mike is in danger or because she does not trust Peabody. Or it could be that the Russian was right.

The chase and fight scenes are well staged, especially when Salt leaps across the tops of trucks as they race along a highway. But the absurdity of the plot is made even harder to accept because Jolie’s dignified diligence seems so out of step with the film’s tone. The Jolie of “Tomb Raider” and even “Gone in 60 Seconds” knew how to have fun on screen. But the wild child era is over, and even in film these days, Jolie seems to want to go for the gravitas. If so, this is the wrong movie.

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