American Masters: The Boomer List
PBS-TV Review by Kam Williams
The United States witnessed a population explosion in the wake of World War II which came to be called the Baby Boom. Stretching from 1946 to 1964, the period was marked in such a surge of live births that by the time it ended 4 out of 10 Americans were under the age of 20.
This year, the youngest members of the massive generation are turning 50, a development that was not lost on Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, director of a trio of award-winning documentaries: The Black List, The Latino List and The Out List. And with about 8,000 now retiring a day, Timothy decided to mark the milestone by making a film recognizing the contributions of cultural icons, one born in each year of the Baby Boom.
Among the subjects of the show is best-selling novelist Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club, who was born in my year, 1952. At the age of 15, she was deeply affected by the loss of her father and a brother a half-dozen months apart. Here, she reflects upon how she felt abandoned by her dad.
She also talks about what it was like growing up Chinese-American. Sadly, she recalls that, as a teenager, “I felt that I didn’t have dates because I was ugly, and that I was ugly because I was Chinese.” Unfortunately, that insecurity about her appearance was only reinforced by a mother who told Amy she wasn’t beautiful and to work hard in school since she’d “never get by in the world on her looks.”
She admits to actually having felt shame about her ethnicity, which she overcame in college with the help of Black Studies courses. Since there weren’t any in Asian-American Literature at her school, she felt drawn to African-American Literature since it appreciated alternative aesthetics to the mainstream. The world is grateful that she was in turn inspired to write fiction, which she sees as a way of meditating on a question.
Other luminaries representing their respective years are Deepak Chopra (1947), Samuel L. Jackson (1948), Billy Joel (1949), Maria Shriver (1955) and Erin Brockovich (1960), to name a few. A poignant collection of personal remembrances amounting to a profound tribute to a memorable American era.
Excellent (4 stars)
Rated TV-PG
Running time: 90 minutes
Studio: Perfect Day Films
Distributor: PBS
The Boomer List premieres on PBS from 9-10:30 PM ET/PT on Tuesday, September 23rd (check local listings)
To see a trailer for The Boomer List, visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jz0icyUEQtc
The Equalizer
Film Review by Kam Williams
On the surface, Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) is a perfectly-pleasant, hail fellow well met. By day, the affable widower is employed as a sales associate at a hardware superstore where he jokes with co-workers who call him “Pops.” Evenings, he retires to a modest apartment in a working-class, Boston community, although bouts of insomnia often have him descending to a nearby diner to read a book into the wee hours of the morning.
The dingy joint looks a lot like the dive depicted by Edward Hopper in the classic painting “Nighthawks.” Among the seedy haunt’s habitués is Teri (Chloe Grace Moretz), a provocatively-dressed prostitute who hangs out there between clients.
Robert takes a personal interest in the troubled teen, a recent immigrant whose real name is Alina. He soon learns that she’d rather be pursuing a musical career than sleeping with stranger after stranger. Trouble is she’s under the thumb of Slavi (David Meunier), a sadistic pimp who’ll stop at nothing to keep a whore in check.
A critical moment arrives the night she arrives in the restaurant and hands Robert her new demo tape while trying to hide a black eye. But he becomes less interested in the CD than in the whereabouts of the creep who gave her the shiner.
What neither Teri nor anybody else in town knows is that Robert’s a retired spy who had cultivated the proverbial set of deadly skills over the course of his career. At this juncture, the mild-mannered retiree reluctantly morphs into an anonymous vigilante more than willing to dole out a bloody brand of street justice on behalf of Teri and other vulnerable crime victims with seemingly no recourse.
Thus unfolds The Equalizer, a riveting, relatively-gruesome adaptation of the popular, 1980s TV-series. Directed by Antoine Fuqua, this version is actually more reminiscent of Death Wish (1974), as this picture’s protagonist behaves less like the television show’s British gentleman than the brutal avenging angel portrayed on the big screen by Charles Bronson.
Considerable credit must go to Oscar-winner Mauro Fiore’s (Avatar) visually-captivating cinematography for capturing Boston in a way which is somehow both stylish and haunting. Nevertheless, the eye-pleasing panoramas simply serve as a backdrop for Denzel who is even better here than in his Oscar-winning collaboration with Fuqua for Training Day.
Revenge as a dish best served cold by a sleep-deprived, diner patron equalizer!
Excellent (4 stars)
Rated R for graphic violence, sexual references and pervasive profanity
In English and Russian with subtitles
Running time: 131 minutes
Distributor: Sony Pictures
To see a trailer for The Equalizer, visit:
Pump
Film Review by Kam Williams
Why is the price of gasoline in the Untied States so artificially high? Much of the explanation lies in a corporate conspiracy to deny us access to alternative fuel sources. A few years ago, the documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car?” illustrated how the auto industry had successfully lobbied politicians to discourage its development.
Now, this eye-opening expose’ shows how big oil has conspired to deny Americans fuel choice for the past century. This state of affairs has persisted in the face of a Supreme Court decision which forced John D. Rockefeller to break up the Standard Oil Company by declaring it a monopoly way back in 1911.
What alternative fuels might a car run on? Well, besides electricity, there’s solar power, methanol, ethanol and hydrogen, to name a few. Who knows what other new ideas might have been encouraged if Congress hadn’t discouraged development of competing energy options by granting the gas-guzzling car manufacturers a stranglehold on research and development via tax breaks and other measures.
This wholesale sellout of the American public is the subject of Pump, an eye-opening expose’ co-directed by Joshua and Rebecca Harrell Tickell. It is the husband-and-wife team’s sobering thesis that, “We have to come to grips with the fact that this is the end of the Oil Age.”
What more proof do you need than the sight of the devastation visited upon Detroit, a latter-day ghost town where, “the hope of the average person for a better life has disappeared” in the wake of its being abandoned by the car conglomerates for greener pastures? And the Motor City might just be the tip of the iceberg, if you believe the dire warnings issued intermittently during this powerful documentary by John Hofmeister, the former President of Shell Oil.
Today, as founder of Citizens for Affordable Energy, he indicts an unnecessary addiction to oil as the root cause of everything from political instability and war to climate change and environmental crises. His organization’s aim? A simple one, merely to make fuel choice a viable reality.
Food for thought the next time you cavalierly instruct the gas station attendant to “Fill ‘er up!”
Excellent (4 stars)
Rated PG for mature themes
Running time: 88 minutes
Distributor: Submarine Deluxe
To see a trailer for Pump, visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTytxMdlazM
Take Me to the River
Film Review by Kam Williams
A lot of great soul music came out of Memphis in the Sixties and early Seventies. Stax Records launched the careers of acts like Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes and Booker T. and the MGs while its cross-town rival Hi Records had Al Green, Ann Peebles and O.V. Wright. Take Me to the River is a reverential retrospective which is a combination tribute to the city’s impressive legacy and a tip of the cap to some up-and-coming artists still recording in the region.
The movie marks the directorial debut of Martin Shore, who tapped Terrence Howard to narrate the documentary. The Oscar-nominated actor also raps and sings in the picture which features the reflections of hip-hop icon Snoop Dogg who pays tributes to the trailblazers that paved the way for him.
But what makes the movie worth its while is hearing such soul greats as Booker T., Mavis Staples, David Porter and Charlie Musselwhite wax romantic about the good ole days. We learn that the bands were often integrated at a time the rest of Memphis was still strictly segregated.
Some of the reminiscing relates how the local cops would deliberately profile and harass them as they exited the studio after late-night sessions, being not only racist but jealous of the groups’ newfound fame and fortune. We also hear about how the assassination of Martin Luther King in Memphis cast a pall over the entire town that ultimately took a toll on the music business, too. Stax executive Al Bell refers to his company’s early demise as an economic lynching.
An overdue homage to a city that for close to a decade was home to the second largest black business in America.
Very Good (3 stars)
Rated PG for smoking, mild epithets and mature themes
Running time: 98 minutes
Distributor: Abramorama
To see a trailer for Take Me to the River, visit:
Hector and the Search for Happiness
Film Review by Kam Williams
Hector (Simon Pegg) is a funny duck, as they say. The eccentric neat freak is lucky to have a gorgeous girlfriend like Clara (Rosamund Pike) who’s willing to put up with his odd requests, such as arranging everything in perfect order, from his socks to his sandwiches. He’s even more fortunate to have a thriving psychiatric practice, given the barely-contained contempt he routinely exhibits for the folks lying on his couch.
A moment of truth arrives the day one of them (Veronica Ferres) finally summons up the courage to tell him to his face that he’s transparent, inauthentic, and just going through the motions. Conceding that he’s become so jaded that he isn’t helping his equally-miserable patients anymore, Hector decides to embark solo on a globe-spanning, spiritual quest for the fulfillment that has somehow escaped him.
After all, how could he not have joy, when surrounded by all the trappings of success? Hector’s plans have Clara concerned about whether the relationship is on shaky ground, since she’s been reluctant to start a family and she’s also aware that he has an ex (Toni Collette) in the U.S. he still cares about.
Unfolding like the alpha male answer to Eat Pray Love (2010), Hector and the Search for Happiness is an alternately introspective and action-oriented travelogue played mostly for laughs. Simon Pegg exhibits an endlessly-endearing naïvete as the peripatetic protagonist, whether misreading the flirtations of a prostitute (Ming Zhao) in China or taking a while to realize that his cab has been carjacked by the underlings of an African crime boss (Akin Omotoso).
Such perils notwithstanding, our intrepid hero persists in posing his pressing question “What is happiness?” at each port-of-call as he circumnavigates the globe. Taking copious notes on a writing pad, he records the answers he receives, like “Being loved for who you are,” “Answering your calling,” and “Feeling completely alive.”
Eventually, Hector experiences that elusive “Eureka!” epiphany he needs so dearly, which allows him to rush home revitalized to Clara and a career and clients who might not be so annoying after all. A feel-good meditation on the meaning of life, guaranteed to leave you counting your many blessings as you walk up the aisle.
Excellent (4 stars)
Rated R for profanity and brief nudity
In English, French and German with subtitles
Running time: 114 minutes
Distributor: Relativity Media
To see a trailer for Hector and the Search for Happiness, visit