A look at the American Black Film Festival, held this past weekend.

Making films is hard and making good ones even harder, so the American Black Film Festival, held last weekend in Los Angeles, adheres to the old adage that 90 percent of life is just showing up. To paraphrase a panelist during one of the festival's events, "I've seen Citizen Kane and that shit was boring. What about Why Do Fools Fall in Love?" [full story]

A review of Tropic Thunder in The Root:

First things first: Ben Stiller's new movie Tropic Thunder, is neither as offensive as some feared nor as wry as I had personally (perversely?) hoped. In an age where repetitive, moronic attacks on the dignity of various groups are often met by tactical shows of manufactured outrage, Thunder, with its kitchen-sink jumble of provocations—blackface, Jewface, Southeast Asian stereotypes and the plentiful use of the word "retard"—could have been a memorable identity-related meltdown or a challenging satire on the order of Putney Swope (directed in 1969 by the father of Thunder co-star Robert Downey Jr.).

Instead of providing us with epic success or failure, though, Thunder is just boring and loud. The film is a prime example of the very Hollywood stupidity it pretends to satirize. Although I support the God-given right of any demo, group, segment or coffee-klatch to use their First Amendment privilege to protest against images they find offensive, picketing this expensive pile of "feh" is actually doing it a favor, as "political incorrectness" is Thunder's only selling point.
[full review]

This story originally appeared in the Village Voice in 1997, issue 41
UNTITLED.

How To Be a Player Directed by Lionel C. Martin

This story originally appeared in the Village Voice in 1996, issue 41.

ASHES AND EMBERS

JOHN SINGLETON GOES TO THE SOUTH TO REBUILD--AND TORCH--A LOST BLACK TOWN

This article appeared in the Village Voice in 1997

Money Talks
Directed by Brett ratner
Written by Joel Cohen and Alex Sokolow
A New Line Release
Event Horizon
Directed by Paul Anderson
Written by Phillip Eisner
A Paramount Release

reviewed by Gary Dauphin