Big Words
Film Review by Kam Williams
It’s November 4, 2008, and Brooklyn is bristling with anticipation about the impending election returns to see whether or not Barack Obama will be the nation’s first African-American president. But the magic of the moment is pretty much lost on John aka MC Wordsmith (Dorian Missick), James aka Jay-V (Gbenga Akinnagbe) and Terry aka DJ Malik (Darien Sills-Evans), despite the fact that they’re black and hail from the ‘hood.
Back in the early Nineties, the three shared a brief promising career as the Down Low Poets, a fledgling hip-hop group which produced a video, two singles and an unreleased album before disappearing from the record-biz radar. The band disbanded, went their separate ways and lost touch entirely.
Today, with Obama poised to make history, we find each consumed by a personal crisis. John has just been laid off from his job as an IT technician. James is now a book publicist in a stagnant relationship and considering seducing his handsome, young intern (Zachary Booth). Only Terry is still an aspiring rap star, and stubbornly refuses to see the handwriting on the wall after a couple of decades squandered desperately trying to make it in the music business.
By a twist of fate, their paths cross at an election night party where Obama’s achievement only serves as a distracting backdrop. Proving far more compelling are the personal questions being raised. What are John’s chances with the stripper (Yaya Alafia) he just picked up at a go-go bar?
Will out-of-the-closet James’ once-hidden homosexuality remain a block to repairing relationships with his former pals, especially his cousin, John? Will Terry drop the hip-hop moniker, pull up his pants, and get a real job?
Written and directed by Neil Drumming, Big Words is a perfectly plausible, character-driven drama with only one glaring flaw. Why bother to set an African-American tale on Election Night 2008, if you plan to give Obama’s triumph such short shrift?
A poignant portrait of a very eventful day in the lives of a trio too self-absorbed to care about who was about to win the White House.
Very Good (3 stars)
Unrated
Running time: 94 minutes
Distributor: AFFRM / Twice Told Films
Ryan Coogler
The “Fruitvale Station” Interview with Kam Williams
For Ryan Out Loud!
Born in Oakland, California on May 23, 1986, Ryan Coogler attended college on a football scholarship, playing wide receiver as an undergrad before earning his MFA in Film and Television Production at the University of Southern California in 2011. He worked as a security guard and as a counselor to inmates at a juvenile prison in San Francisco before getting his big break with the help of Forest Whitaker.
The Oscar-winning actor agreed to produce Ryan’s first feature film, Fruitvale Station, a bittersweet biopic chronicling the last day in the life of Oscar Grant, a 22 year-old black man shot in the back by a cop on a train platform in Oakland, California on New Year’s Day 2009. The case became a cause célèbre because the killing was caught on camera by numerous passengers.
Here, Ryan talks about his critically-acclaimed writing and directorial debut, which has already won awards at both the Cannes and Sundance Film Festivals.
Kam Williams: Hi Ryan. I really loved the film. It’s very powerful.
Ryan Coogler: Thanks so much, Kam. I appreciate your taking the time to watch it and to talk to me.
KW: Congratulations on winning at both the Sundance and Cannes Film Festivals. That’s pretty impressive for a first-time filmmaker. Your picture’s star, Michael B. Jordan, told me Fruitvale received a very long standing ovation at Cannes. What did that feel like?
RC: Just playing at Cannes was overwhelming, man. It was one of those moments I never imagined happening. I think a lot of the response was due to the audience’s connecting to the cast. The performances were incredible! I really felt happy for my actors, especially Michael [B. Jordan], Melonie [Diaz] and Octavia [Spencer]. None of them had ever been to Cannes before. They were really moved to have their work embraced like that. And it was very moving to me how this story that I wanted to relate about a real event that had happened in my hometown managed to touched people thousands of miles away.
KW: What interested you in making the movie?
RC: The incident itself and what happened immediately afterwards in the Bay area, which is where I was born and raised. I heard about the tragedy almost immediately after it happened, because I was home on Christmas break from film school. Then it was on the news, and I still remember the first time I saw the footage on the internet. I was very emotionally affected by it. Everybody in the Bay was. There were protests and rallies and riots. I saw myself in Oscar. We were the same age, he looked like me, and we wore the same type of clothes. Seeing someone getting shot like that, and not getting a chance to say goodbye to his loved ones was painful. I couldn’t imagine myself in that situation. With my being a filmmaker, I wondered whether there was a way I could do something. My mind immediately goes to that, whenever I’m affected by anything, since film is my outlet. Then, I saw how the incident got politicized, and how Oscar became a symbol, this icon, a martyr who had never done anything wrong in his life to some people, and how he was demonized by others as a criminal and a thug who got what he deserved. In truth, he was neither one of those things. He was just a normal person who had both flaws and good qualities. So, I wanted to tell his story from the perspective of the people he meant the most to and who knew him the best.
KW: Have you ever experienced racial profiling yourself?
RC: Yes, absolutely! The most recent situation happened one night while I was just minding my business, sitting in a car with a friend in Albany, California. The police rolled up on us and told me and her to get out of the car and sit on the wet sidewalk because there had been a robbery and I fit the description of the suspect. It was cold, and we had to just sit there shivering for about 30 minutes until I guess whoever it was that got robbed finally arrived and told the police from across the street that I wasn’t the guy.
KW: What sort of research did you do prior to writing the script? Did you interview any witnesses? The police? Oscar’s friends and family?
RC: I started by helping Oscar’s family’s lawyer organize some of the video footage that got turned in to the prosecutor’s office for the trial. That was really comprehensive. Then I pretty much interviewed anyone who had a meaningful relationship with Oscar, all of his friends and family members. That’s where the three-dimensionality of his character in the script came from. I was also able to bring the actors around his neighborhood, and they got to spend time with the characters they were portraying: his girlfriend, his mom, and the friends he was on the platform with the night he was shot. I based my decisions on all of that research.
KW: Did the police cooperate with the project?
RC: No, we left the cops alone. Most of them no longer work as police officers. They were only a very small portion of the film, and we had their court testimony, which we felt was enough.
KW: The officer who shot Oscar was only convicted of manslaughter. Your star, Michael, still characterized it as a murder. Which do you feel it was?
RC: To be honest, I think people can make up their own minds about the legal terminology. You can call it whatever you want, but regardless, a young man’s life was taken unnecessarily. It’s not for me to get caught up in the politics of it. What means the most to me is that he never made it back home to his loved ones.
KW: Why did you decide to paint a warts-and-all picture of Oscar Grant? Were you at all tempted to sanitize his image?
RC: No, I never was. It wouldn’t have made sense to make a film about Oscar and not show the struggles he was dealing with.
KW: What message do you hope people will take away from the picture?
RC: To me, the film is a domestic story about this 22 year-old and his relationships. It is my hope that people will see a little bit of themselves in the characters. And with that, I hope it will trigger a little bit of a thought process about how we connect to and treat each other, whether strangers or those we’re close to. Some people never come in contact with someone like Oscar, a young African-American male, at all. Their only access to his world is through media. So, I hope the film offers some insight for folks like that.
KW: Have you considered making a movie about the assassination of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey by members of a Black Muslim sect, which is another story of national interest? I was writing for the paper at the time, and spoke to him just a couple of days before his murder.
RC: I’m sorry to hear that, man. I followed the case and know a lot about Chauncey, and was moved by what happened. Like I said before, whenever something happens in the community, I think about it in terms of my art form.
KW: You originally went to college on a football scholarship. How did you make the transition from jock to film student?
RC: Initially, I was majoring in chemistry and planning to become a doctor, if football didn’t work out. But in a creative writing class, I had a professor who encouraged me to go to Hollywood and write screenplays. I thought she was a little crazy at first, since it came out of nowhere, but it stuck in my head. I later transferred schools, switched majors, and started taking a bunch of filmmaking classes. Then I went to USC film school for my graduate degree.
KW: Well, we’re all glad you did, Ryan. Thanks again for the time and best of luck with Fruitvale Station during Academy Awards season.
RC: Thank you, Kam.
To see a trailer for Fruitvale Station, visit:
The Conjuring
Film Review by Kam Williams
In 1952, Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) founded the New England Society for Psychic Research. Back then, the couple also began devoting a wing of their home to a museum of occult artifacts they would collect over the course of their long career.
Lorraine was a celebrated clairvoyant and medium while her World War II veteran husband was the only non-ordained demonologist recognized by the Catholic Church. As a team, they would investigate thousands of reports of haunted houses over the years, most notably, The Amityville Horror.
The Conjuring, directed by James Wan (Saw), revisits one of the Warrens’ lesser-known cases. Set in 1971, the film unfolds in Harrisville, Rhode Island where they were summoned to the secluded, lakefront home of Roger (Ron Livingston) and Carolyn Perron (Lily Taylor).
The Perrons had recently moved into the old farmhouse with their five young daughters (Mackenzie Foy, Joey King, Hayley McFarland, Shanley Caswell and Kyla Deaver), initially ignoring several, telltale signs that the place had bad energy, such as their pet pooch’s refusal to enter the premises. In addition, the smell of rotting meat would periodically permeate the air, and they would awaken every morning to discover that their clocks had stopped running at precisely 3:07 AM.
Nevertheless, as optimistic new owners, the Perrons did their best to adjust to the disconcerting disturbances, only to have the supernatural spirit gradually up the ante. Before long, it was shaking paintings off the wall, toying with an antique music box, and knocking loudly three times in the middle of the night, an ostensible insult to the Holy Trinity.
Mr. Perron was particularly frustrated by these developments, given that as a truck driver he often had to be away from his family for as long as a week at a stretch. The straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back arrived when the evil escalated from annoyances to the demonic possession of a loved one.
And when the Vatican dragged its feet about sending an exorcist to the scene, the Perrons enlisted the assistance of the Warrens out of sheer desperation. What ensues is a classic battle between God and the devil heavily laden with lots of Christian symbolism.
Provided you aren't offended by an obvious, faith-based agenda suggested by exchanges like “Are you baptized?” “No.” “You might want to rethink that.” this film otherwise proves to be a deceptively-frightening, old-fashioned screamer which does a masterful job of ever so slowly ratcheting up the terror. The most spine-tingling exorcist flick since, well, since The Exorcist!
Excellent (4 stars)
Rated R for disturbing violence and scenes of terror
Running time: 112 minutes
Distributor: Warner Brothers
To see a trailer for The Conjuring, visit
Turbo
Film Review by Kam Williams
Theo (Ryan Reynolds) is routinely ridiculed by his friends for entertaining what they see as the impossible dream of one day competing in the Indianapolis 500. Even his brother, Chet (Paul Giamatti), suggests that, “The sooner you accept the reality of your existence, the happier you’ll be.”
After all, Theo is just your garden variety, suburban snail and thus so slow he can barely get out of the way of a lawnmower or a kid on a tricycle. But that hasn’t stopped him from permanently painting the number “5” and racing stripes right on his shell.
Theo whiles away his days dining on tomatoes that have ripened on the vine and fallen to the ground. At night, however, he retreats to his lair to watch TV and see drivers like his hero, Guy Gagne (Bill Hader), fly around racetracks at over 200 miles per hour.
Everything changes the day Theo is inadvertently sucked into the engine of a passing automobile and accidentally injected with nitrous oxide. By the time he is deposited back on the ground somewhere in the inner city, the slowpoke slug has been transformed into the speed demon, Turbo, thanks to the luminescent laughing gas now coursing through his veins.
Soon, the motoring mollusk becomes the latest internet sensation and is welcomed to the ‘hood by a posse of streetwise slugs led by mellow Smoove Move (Snoop Dogg), trash-talking Whiplash (Samuel L. Jackson) and seductively sultry Burn (Maya Rudolph). He also finds human benefactors in the kindly co-owners of Dos Bros Tacos, a mobile Mexican restaurant.
Not surprisingly, all of the above, including the food cart, make their way from L.A. to Indiana, with altruistic Angelo (Luis Guzman) and Tito’s (Michael Pena) life savings covering the Indy 500 entrance fee. At the track, it’s no surprise that the race ultimately morphs into an exciting showdown between Turbo and his idol, Gagne.
Marking the masterful directorial debut of David Soren, Turbo is a visually- captivating and inspirational modern parable guaranteed to keep the tykes perched on the edge of their seats for the duration. For, besides its uplifting, overcoming the odds message, the movie fills the screen with a memorable menagerie of colorful characters who keep the laughs coming en route to the satisfying resolution.
A hilarious, high-octane variation of Aesop’s fable about The Tortoise and the Hare!
Excellent (4 stars)
Rated PG for mild action and mature themes
Running time: 96 minutes
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
To see a trailer for Turbo, visit
Ain't Nothing Like Freedom
by Cynthia McKinney
Book Review by Kam Williams
Clarity Press
Paperback, $19.95
290 pages, Illustrated
ISBN: 978-0-9853353-1
“Elected six times to the House from the state of Georgia, Cynthia McKinney cut a trail through Congressional deceit like a hot ember through ash. She discovered legislators who passed laws without reading them… [and] black-skinned individuals shilling for the white status quo.
She excoriated government lassitude over Hurricane Katrina… [and] held the only critical Congressional briefing on 9/11… She read truth into the Congressional Record, held town hall and hearings, led protests, showed up while others played along to get along…
This is the Cynthia McKinney saga as it stands to date—what she saw, what she learned, and how she fought for change.”
--Excerpted from the book jacket
Former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney is a fearless firebrand who always seemed to be sitting in the middle of controversy, both during her tenure in the House of Representatives, and since. Whether it’s questioning the legitimacy of the 2000 Presidential Election, suggesting that the U.S. had advance knowledge of the 9/11 terror attack, punching a Capitol police officer who asked to see her I.D., blaming a failed reelection bid on the Israel lobby, insinuating that there might be more to the murder of gangsta’ rapper Tupac Shakur than an East-Coast-West Coast turf battle, running for the Presidency against Barack Obama in 2008 as the Green Party candidate, being aboard a boat torpedoed by Israel as it tried to run a blockade of Gaza or, most recently, intimating that the Boston Marathon bombings might have been an inside job on the part of the local police, she’s never been one afraid to speak her mind.
Dismissed by some, present company included, as simply too nutty to take seriously, Cynthia has languished lately at the lunatic fringe of American politics. Frankly, I’d long since written her off as a hopelessly-paranoid conspiracy theorist in the wake of her staff’s treatment of an innocuous journalist like me as suspicious when I innocently asked for an interview.
Here, the marginalized iconoclast makes a decent attempt at resurrecting her terribly-tarnished image with this self-serving autobiography, Ain’t Nothing Like Freedom. The book doesn’t touch much on her personal life beyond several sincere expressions of affection for her parents and son, Coy.
Instead, the author focuses squarely on her checkered career, conveniently putting a positive spin on many of its dubious and debatable highlights. For example, in a 20-page chapter on her presidential campaign, not once does she mention the fact that she rubbed a lot of people the wrong way by potentially spoiling Obama’s historic bid, the same way that 3rd party candidate Ralph Nader had done to Gore in 2000.
Basically, McKinney paints herself as a woman of the people and a tireless advocate of such causes as Hurricane Katrina victims, reparations for African-Americans, and the preservation of the planet. Along the way, she repeatedly indicts her fellow black politicians as sellouts, including the President, predicting that folks will tire of his speeches and symbolic gestures if they remain “unattached to real gains and material change in the community’s conditions.”
Among her advocates is anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, who asserts that Cynthia was more deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize than just-elected President Obama. McKinney, wacky or wise? You be the judge.
A classic case of revisionist history walking a fine line between inspired and insanity.
To order a copy of Ain’t Nothing Like Freedom, visit:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0985335319/ref%3dnosim/thslfofire-20