your rainbow connection

american blackout has restored a lot of the faith i'd lost in the modern political documentary, which a certain michael moore had othewise been working hard to obliterate. To repeat what so many others have said, Cynthia McKinney is very much a modern day (Georgian) Shirley Chisholm. Watching her make Rumsfeld lit.er.ally squirm on camera is worth the cost of admission alone, (and probably the dvd, too).

If the French wanted to stand up and cheer at documentary, *this* is the one they should have chosen. you've got voter disenfranchisement galore. corruptive politics. scared national republicans. and a strong black woman who gives a damn. Seeing the facts sprawled onto the screen to show just how jacked the past two elections were, sad- and angry-making. Despite all odds, this is still a film about empowerment.


and, as seen mentioned on damali ayo's space account, dark days, about folks living in the subway/amtrak tunnels of nyc 5+ years ago. awesome. no campy shots. no patronization. no laughing at the subjects. just real human beings who happen to live in the tunnels underground. even the photo shots of rodentry reflect the caution the movie makers took in making the film.

my ANTI-shout out, as long as we're on the topic of movies, sherrybaby. i saw this movie over a year ago under a different name. it was one of those movie preview screenings things. it was free, but i'm never ever going to have that time back. i'm sure they've polished part of it. but this one was beyond saving. the movie itself left me itching to cleanse my poor brain and eyeballs afterwards. if i was nicer to myself, i would have (audibly) said 'fuck it' and left the theatre. horrible treatment on the subject of child/adult sex abuse. the approach of chemical addiction recovery left much to be desired. we've got a bunch of WoC in the prison half way house, many of whom are clearly "trash" characters. a couple of kids of colour who apparently just sit around waiting for white women to come sprinting all the way from their lily white suburbs so the kids can point the way to the neighborhood drug dealer.
and a wise old (native american)/indian.

and then i stayed for the post-movie survey. . . . which was apparently so traumatizing the only part i remember is the question ofrating the characters on something or another. and while almost every character was described by their relationship to somebody else, dean was the exception. his signifier? "the Indian".

i think i wrote them a term paper on my little sheet of paper. i doubt they read any of it.

i seem to have gone on another movie binge this past weekend. all theaters appropriately compensated, even (if passes count as compensation).
to start, i'm going to go with last week, however.

( transporter 2 )

and moving on to this past weekend, in order of appearance...

( hedwig and the angry inch )

( the history of violence - rape mentioned. )

( velvet goldmine )

and, last but not least, ( mirrormask )