The year 2009 damn-sure should be the toughest year in my adult life. I learned quite a bit—but not enough about writing about film. This year only has one half-dozen entries from my Blog—apart from those compiled in “DVDs with the Elders.” Nevertheless, here are references to films that I’m exceptionally proud to recommend.
2009-04-29: “Movie Dare: You make a movie about this…” |
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2009-04-29: “When you only have time to see one African genocide movie, see ‘Sometimes in April’” |
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2009/05/07: “Kenneth Branagh’s and Lawrence Fishburne’s Othello” | “Now, on the flip side of the Roman coin, I have also heard very, very strong suggestions from the days of my impressionable youth that Othello’s love for Desdemona was blind—to be blunt: colorblind. I don’t know what script my appointed educational authorities were reading but Othello under Oliver Parker’s direction has Lawrence Fishburne at a very pivotal moment explicitly identifying Desdemona’s beauty by her skin color. Lawrence Fishburne in the show says, “Yet I’ll not shed her blood, nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow, and smooth as monumental alabaster…” |
2009/05/25: “‘Days of Glory’: The African Soldiers of WWII” |
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2009/07/14: “The Cinematography of James E. Hinton for ‘Ganja and Hess’” |
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2009/10/16: “Abdoulaye Ascofaré and the Film That Touches Me Most” | “For those with little feelings for such African works, you might dig into a similar artistic story of third-world girls faced with sex slavery. See Lukas Moodysson’s Lilja 4-ever. The first act of the film features a heart-wrenching scene where a mother abandons her teenage daughter. I had to stop watching the movie for weeks before I decided to finish the film.” |