New Line Cinema Filming "Fist Fight" with Ice Cube and Charlie Day

Ice Cube and Charlie Day Square Off in the New Line Cinema Comedy “Fist Fight,” Now in Production

BURBANK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Production is now underway on location in Atlanta, Georgia, on New Line Cinema’s comedy “Fist Fight,” starring Ice Cube and Charlie Day as high school teachers prepared to solve their differences the hard way. The film is being directed by Richie Keen (“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”).

On the last day of the year, mild-mannered high school English teacher Andy Campbell (Charlie Day) is trying his best to keep it together amidst senior pranks, a dysfunctional administration and budget cuts that put jobs on the line. But things go from bad to worse when he accidentally crosses his much tougher and deeply feared colleague, Ron Strickland (Ice Cube), who challenges Campbell to an old-fashioned throwdown after school. News of the fight spreads like wildfire and ends up becoming the very thing this school, and Campbell, needed.

“Fist Fight” also stars Tracy Morgan (“30 Rock”), Jillian Bell (“22 Jump Street”), Dean Norris (“Breaking Bad”), Christina Hendricks (“Mad Men”), Dennis Haysbert (“The Unit”), and JoAnna Garcia Swisher (“The Astronaut Wives Club”).

The screenplay is written by Evan Susser & Van Robichaux (Funny or Die’s “What’s Going On? With Mike Mitchell”). “Fist Fight” is produced by Shawn Levy, Max Greenfield, and John Rickard. Serving as executive producers are Charlie Day, Ice Cube, Dan Cohen, Billy Rosenberg, and Marty Ewing.

Keen’s behind-the-scenes creative team includes director of photography Eric Edwards (“Knocked Up”), production designer Chris Cornwell (“Ride Along,” “The Wedding Ringer”), editor Matthew Freund (Comedy Central’s “The Meltdown with Jonah and Kumail”) and costume designer Denise Wingate (“Wedding Crashers”).

Principal photography will be take place primarily in and around Atlanta.

A New Line Cinema presentation, “Fist Fight” will be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

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Review: "Dear White People" Suddenly Relevant... Again

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 14 (of 2015) by Leroy Douresseaux

Dear White People (2014)
Running time:  108 minutes (1 hour, 48 minutes)
MPAA – R for language, sexual content and drug use
WRITER/DIRECTOR:  Justin Simien
PRODUCERS:  Effie Brown, Ann Le, Julia Lebedev, Angel Lopez, Justin Simien, and Lena Waithe
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Topher Osborn
EDITOR:  Phillip J. Bartell
COMPOSER:  Kathryn Bostic
Black Reel Award winner

COMEDY/DRAMA

Starring:  Tyler James Williams, Tessa Thompson, Kyle Gallner, Teyonah Parris, Brand P. Bell, Brittany Curran, Justin Dobies, Marque Richardson, Dennis Haysbert, and Peter Syvertsen

Dear White People is 2014 comedy-drama and satirical film from writer-director, Justin Simien.  The film is set at an Ivy League-like university that is facing racial discord, and the story focuses on four particular African-American students.

Dear White People is set at Winchester University, a prestigious and predominantly white school with an Ivy League pedigree.  A recent decision by the school's administration has caused a stir among the African-American student body.  Samantha “Sam” White (Tessa Thompson) has used the controversy, via her radio show, “Dear White People,” to spur fellow black students to action.

Sam's former boyfriend, Troy Fairbanks (Brand P. Bell), is trying to hold onto his position as “head of house” of Armstrong/Parker, an all-black dormitory.  Troy really wants to be a comedy writer, but his father, Dr. Walter Fairbanks (Dennis Haysbert), is Dean of Students.  Dean Fairbanks does not want his son doing anything that might give white people a chance to profile the young man who has a promising future.

Lionel Higgins (Tyler James Williams) is a freshman who is trying to find his place on campus, but he is gay and a blerd (black nerd or fanboy), which makes him an odd-man-out.  His housemates harass him, and the chief tormentor is Kurt (Kyle Gallner), the son of Winchester's President Hutchinson (Peter Syvertsen).  Meanwhile, black student Colandrea "Coco" Conners (Teyonah Parris) is determined not to pegged as being 'hood or from the ghetto.

While watching Dear White People, I often thought of Spike Lee's 1988 film, School Daze, which was the first Spike Lee film I saw and which remains a personal favorite.  Both films are driven not so much by plot as they focus on characters and settings.  Lee's film is set at a HBCU (historically black college or university) and focuses on class strife among black students and also delves into how African-Americans often discriminate against each other based on how light-complected or dark-skinned he or she is.

Dear White People is set at a predominantly white school, but focuses on mostly black students.  The film's writer-director Justin Simien seems to make several pointed statement:  Back people don't exist to entertain white folks.  Black people are not here to provide fodder for white people's curiosity and prejudice.  Black people's culture, pathologies, and the way we live are not to be exploited so that white people can mock us at their leisure.

With a great many characters comes a great many motivations and conflicts, and that causes the story in Dear White People to lose focus.  There is so much going on in this movie that it is practically a pitch for an original cable television series, because only a serial comedy-drama could do Justin Simien's ideas and angles justice.

Still, the movie is especially interesting.  It was almost as if I could not stop watching it.  Plus, Tyler James Williams as Lionel Higgins and Teyonah Parris as “Coco” Conners give star-making turns.  Their performances make their characters the most interesting in this film, by far.  If Ms. Parris were a white actress, this role would have earn her roles in several high-profile films for at least the next two years, some as the female lead.

The sky is the limit for Williams.  I think so after watching him make Lionel force Tessa Thompson's Sam to share the spotlight as Dear White People's signature character.  There is a moment in the film when Lionel tells Dean Fairbanks that in high school, he had more trouble from his Black classmates.  It takes guts and talent to pull off a moment like that, and Williams has both.  And Dear White People is better for his performance.

Also, a video of members of the University of Oklahoma chapter of the fraternity, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, performing a racist chant/song was recently made public.  In the wake of that incident and the subsequent fallout and controversy, Dear White People is now more relevant than ever.

7 of 10
B+

Thursday, March 12, 2015


NOTES:
2015 Black Reel Awards:  2 wins: “Outstanding Breakthrough Performance, Male” (Tyler James Williams) and “Outstanding Breakthrough Performance, Female” (Teyonah Parris); 8 nominations: “Outstanding Motion Picture” (Justin Simien, Angel Lopez, Lena Waithe, Ann Le, Effie Brown, and Julia Lebedev), “Outstanding Actress, Motion Picture” (Tessa Thompson), “Outstanding Supporting Actress, Motion Picture” (Teyonah Parris), “Outstanding Director, Motion Picture” (Justin Simien), “Outstanding Screenplay-Original or Adapted, Motion Picture” (Justin Simien), “Outstanding Ensemble” (Kim Coleman), and “Outstanding Breakthrough Performance, Male” (Brandon P Bell), and “Outstanding Score” (Kathryn Bostic)

2015 Image Awards:  4 nominations: “Outstanding Motion Picture,” “Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture” (Tessa Thompson), “Outstanding Independent Motion Picture,” and “Outstanding Writing in a Motion Picture” (Justin Simien)


The text is copyright © 2015 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Review: Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 103 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux


Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003) – animated film
Running time: 86 minutes (1 hour, 26 minutes)
MPAA – PG for adventure action, some mild sensuality and brief language
DIRECTORS: Patrick Gilmore and Tim Johnson
WRITER: John Logan
PRODUCERS: Jeffrey Katzenberg and Mireille Soria
EDITOR: Tom Finan
COMPOSER: Harry Gregson-Williams

ANIMATION/FANTASY/ADVENTURE/FAMILY with elements of comedy and romance

Starring: (voices) Brad Pitt, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Michelle Pfeiffer, Joseph Fiennes, Dennis Haysbert, and Jim Cummings with Frank Welker

The subject of this movie review is Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, the 2003 animated swashbuckling fantasy and adventure film from DreamWorks Animation. While this film is technically a Sinbad movie, the character is taken out of its traditional Arabic context and moved to a Greek setting. Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas finds the sailor of legend framed by a goddess for the theft of a magical book and forced to save the life of a childhood friend.

Doesn’t Hollywood make great adventure films like Raiders of the Lost Ark anymore, or how about one that’s just good? I suspect that Dreamworks’ Jeffrey Katzenberg was attempting to make a “great” animated adventure film when his company took on the task of creating Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas. Visually the film rocks the boat as hard as any other adventure film, but in the end, it lacks the heart of the great American animated films. The film also lacks the show-stopping performances that leave us wanting more, like Raiders did.

Sinbad (Brad Pitt), the Arabian playboy sailor is set to steal The Book of Peace from a galley when he discovers that the book is under the protection of a boyhood friend, Proteus (Joseph Fiennes). Later, a shape-shifting goddess, Eris (Michelle Pfeiffer), makes a deal with Sinbad for him to make another attempt at theft, but she betrays him, steals the book, and frames Sinbad.

The theft is punishable by death, but Proteus offers his life as ransom so that Sinbad will be free to find the book before the date of execution. Proteus believes that only a sea captain of Sinbad’s skill can make the arduous journey across the oceans to retrieve the sacred tome. To make sure that Sinbad keeps his end of the bargain, Proteus’ betrothed Marina (Catherine Zeta-Jones) follows Sinbad and his crew to Eris’s dark kingdom of Tartarus.

Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas seems a little lost in the current movie marketplace. It’s a boys adventure animated film, and both Fox (with Titan A.E.) and Disney (with Treasure Planet) have suffered spectacular box office flops with boys oriented animation. Computer animated films like Finding Nemo and Monster’s Inc. appeal to both the kiddies and the adults with their broad humor and tales of families and friendships fighting adversary.

What does Legend of the Seven Seas have going for it? It has striking, traditional cel animation in rich beautiful colors and 3-D computer modeling of spectacular and awe-inspiring cityscapes. The filmmakers use computer animation to create large scale crowd scenes and to unleash some of the most impressive, monstrous creatures you’ll see in animation for a long time. The story is rather simple-minded, but the fast-paced script by John Logan (a co-scriptwriter on Best Picture winner Gladiator) keeps the film story bouncing off the walls like a madly-inspired pulp novel. The score by Harry Gregson-Williams is the kind of stunningly grand and opulent affair usually reserved for serious, live action epics, so it makes Sinbad seem more serious than it is.

The voice acting is mostly bad, and I mean really bad. Brad Pitt is atrocious. Let’s face it, and he needs to be seen as well as heard. He’s a package deal – a good actor with a good face and body. If they aren’t together, all you have is slop. Catherine Zeta-Jones, whose voice I find so distinct, is so nondescript that if not for her name on the marquee, we’d never know who it was. Dennis Haysbert’s sonorous tones are wasted on the hideous dialogue Logan (or whoever rewrote this) gave him. Listening to the film’s stilted dialogue is torture, and in the end, it’s the major misfire that does in this movie.

Most of the time, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas is gorgeous to look at, but with the deep pockets of American film studios, how can animators not at least make an animated film look good? Other than that, there’s nothing to make this film stand out. The story is just so matter-of-fact; even the prize to be obtained, The Book of Peace, lacks resonance. It doesn’t seem important, and the script really isn’t clear on why it should be important; the book might as well have been a gold-encrusted jack-in-the box.

A really good animated film can have a simple story, but it must reach the audience’s (children and adults) hearts and as well as appeal to their minds. Dreamworks certainly has the power to make beautiful animated films of an epic scope, but this is ultimately only a show of force i.e. we (Dreamworks) can compete with Disney. Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas simply lacks heart. Finding Nemo’s story of a grieving father’s desperate search for his only child really touched a large number of viewers. A cast of witty and talented voice actors who can keep up the banter and make their characters’ emotions and moods seem real just endears itself to viewers.

For all the thunder and lightening Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas has, it’s mostly a disposable adventure film. It is certainly an entertaining adventure film, but there’s nothing to make it stand out. I don’t think kids are going to buy it because there’s nothing in the film to endear them to it. Lovers of adventures films will have a good time, but they’ll almost certainly forget Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, if not by the time they walk out the theatre, then certainly by the time they reach the first stop light.

5 of 10
B-

Updated: Friday, July 05, 2013

"Beasts of the Southern Wild" Goes Wild at 2013 Black Reel Awards

At the 13th Annual Black Reel Awards, Beasts of the Southern Wild won the "Outstanding Film" award, one of its four wins, which included an "Outstanding Actress" award for its young star, Quvenzhane Wallis.  Meanwhile, Denzel Washington won his record fourth "Outstanding Actor" award for his performance in Flight.

The 13th Annual Black Reel Awards winners were announced on Blog Talk Radio, Thursday, February 7, 2013, in Washington, DC.

The Class of 2013 – The 2013 Black Reel Awards winners (for the year in film 2012):

Outstanding Film
Beasts of the Southern Wild

Outstanding Actor
Denzel Washington - Flight

Outstanding Actress
Quvenzhane Wallis - Beasts of the Southern Wild

Outstanding Supporting Actor
Samuel L. Jackson - Django Unchained

Outstanding Supporting Actress
Naomie Harris - Skyfall

Outstanding Director
Ava DuVernay - Middle of Nowhere

Outstanding Screenplay (Original or Adapted)
Ava DuVernay - Middle of Nowhere

Outstanding Documentary
The Central Park Five - Sarah Burns, Ken Burns & David McMahon

Outstanding Ensemble
Django Unchained - Victoria Thomas

Outstanding Foreign Film
The Intouchables (from France)

Outstanding Score
Dan Romer & Behn Zeitilin - Beasts of the Southern Wild

Outstanding Song
John Legend “Who Did That to You” from Django Unchained

Outstanding Breakthrough Performance
Quvenzhane Wallis - Beasts of the Southern Wild

Outstanding Voice Performance
Dennis Haysbert - Wreck-it Ralph (Walt Disney Animation Studios)

Outstanding Independent Film
LUV - Sheldon Candis

Outstanding Television Documentary
Brooklyn Boheme - Nelson George & Diane Paragas

Outstanding Independent Documentary
Soul Food Junkies - Byron Hurt

Outstanding Independent Short
The Bluest Note - Marques Green

Outstanding Television Movie
A Beautiful Soul - TVOne

Outstanding Television Actor
Sean Patrick Thomas - Murder on the 13th Floor

Outstanding Television Actress
Aunjanue Ellis - Abducted: The Carlina White Story

Outstanding Television Supporting Actor
Courtney B. Vance - Let It Shine

Outstanding Television Supporting Actress
Alfre Woodard - Steel Magnolias

Outstanding Television Director
Vondie Curtis-Hall - Abducted: The Carlina White Story

Outstanding Television Screenplay
Elizabeth Hunter - Abducted: The Carlina White Story

Review: "Kung Fu Panda 2" Brings Awesome Back

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 45 (of 2011) by Leroy Douresseaux

Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011)
Running time: 90 minutes (1 hour, 30 minutes)
MPAA – PG for sequences of martial arts action and mild violence
DIRECTORS: Jennifer Yuh
WRITERS: Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger
PRODUCER: Melissa Cobb
COMPOSERS: Hans Zimmer and John Powell

ANIMATION/MARTIAL ARTS/COMEDY/DRAMA

Starring: (voices) Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Gary Oldman, Dustin Hoffman, Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, David Cross, James Hong, Michelle Yeoh, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dennis Haysbert, and Danny McBride

Kung Fu Panda 2 is a computer-animated film from DreamWorks Animation. A martial arts, action-comedy, it is the sequel to the Oscar-nominated 2008 animated film, Kung Fu Panda. The sequel is every bit as good as the original, but the action and fight scenes in the new movie not only surpass the first film, they are also better than anything yet seen in computer-animated films.

Following the events of the first film, Kung Fu Panda 2 finds Po (Jack Black), the giant panda, living his dream as the legendary Dragon Warrior. He protects the Valley of Peace alongside his friends and fellow kung fu masters, the legendary Furious Five: Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Crane (David Cross), Mantis (Seth Rogen), Viper (Lucy Liu), and Monkey (Jackie Chan). Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) wishes to continue Po’s lessons by helping him pursue inner peace.

However, Po and the Furious Five must race stop a powerful new enemy, Lord Shen (Gary Oldman), the exiled son of the late Peacock Emperor. From Gongmen City, Shen plots to unleash a powerful new weapon that threatens to destroy kung fu and help him conquer China. For Po, however, there is something familiar about Shen and his murderous army that paralyzes him whenever he faces them. Suffering from bad dreams, Po must delve into his past, the place he doesn’t want to go. If he doesn’t, Shen will win.

I must admit to being in love with great martial arts fighting scenes. I could watch the fight sequences in films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero, and even Ninja Assassin on a continuous loop. The fight scenes are what really won me over with Kung Fu Panda 2. It’s still hard for me to believe that computers can create this kind of character animation and movement with such precision and dynamism. I don’t know if I should call it high tech virtuosity or art as the illusion of life. Kung Fu Panda 2 has some of the most beautiful animation I’ve ever seen and rich hues and colors that sparkle.

This movie is not all about the visual spark, however. Kung Fu Panda 2’s story has heart and also the kind of compelling character writing we’ve come to expect from Pixar’s films. Po’s struggles with identity and his origin and the fear that engenders are genuine to the point that you might start worrying about him as if he were a real person. I can say that same thing about Lord Shen, a thoroughly fashioned character and the kind of complicated, complex adversary usually reserved for films seeking Oscar nominations. Gary Oldman does a splendid job in his voice performance as Shen, emphasizing that while Shen is the contrast to Po, they also have similar issues.

Anyone who tells you that Kung Fu Panda 2 is more of the same may not quite be full of crap, but they’re more than half full. This is a sequel that is a continuation of the original’s excellence, and Kung Fu Panda 2 is one of the year’s best.

9 of 10
A+

Sunday, May 29, 2011

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Review: "Far From Heaven" is Heavenly (Happy B'day, Julianne Moore)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 80 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

Far From Heaven (2002)
Running time: 107 minutes (1 hour, 47 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for mature thematic elements, sexual content, brief violence and language
WRITER/DIRECTOR: Todd Haynes
PRODUCERS: Jody Patton and Christine Vachon
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Edward Lachman (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: James Lyons
COMPOSER: Elmer Bernstein

DRAMA/ROMANCE

Starring: Julianne Moore, Dennis Quaid, Dennis Haysbert, Patricia Clarkson, Viola Davis, James Rebhorn, Ryan Ward, Lindsay Andretta, Jordan Puryear, and Celia Weston

Last year (2002), a number of people thought that mean old Halle Berry had stolen her Best Actress Oscar for Monster’s Ball from Nicole Kidman for Kidman’s performance in the overblown and somewhat empty Moulin Rouge!. This year, Nicole finally received an Oscar for her performance in the tepid and mediocre The Hours, but she may have been the thief this time. Julianne Moore gives a rich and lush performance as a 1950’s era housewife facing a philandering husband and the era’s strict racial and social mores in Todd Haynes’s Far From Heaven, a film that may have touched too close to home for many in Hollywood's hypocritical, closed, and bigoted community.

Cathy Whitaker (Julianne Moore) is the dream housewife living the dream version of the American dream. Her husband, Frank (Dennis Quaid), has a hot advertising executive job, and together, they have a huge two-story home and two adorable children. They fill their lives with the latest consumer goods, and they throw fancy, catered affairs for their ritzy, upper middle class friends. However, Frank has a skeleton in the closet with him; he’s gay, and he is having an increasingly difficult time suppressing his need to press male flesh. As her marital crisis worsens, Cathy turns to her gardener, Raymond Deagan (Dennis Haysbert), a strapping hunk of black manhood, for comfort. That relationship doesn’t sit well with cracker and spearchunker alike, and racial tensions, which had been on the down low, simmer and threaten to boil over.

Todd Haynes (Velvet Goldmine) made Far From Heaven a kind of homage to the slick melodramatic films of the 1950’s, in particular the work of director Douglas Sirk. Sirk’s work was ignored for years after his heyday, but he always had a cult following. In the last few decades, many have given his films a more critical and careful review, especially his infamous color remake of the old black and white film, Imitation of Life. Far From Heaven apparently borrows liberally from Sirk’s film, All That Heaven Allows, in which a socialite also falls for her gardener.

Heaven magnificently captures the amazingly rich and colorful look of Technicolor films. It’s like watching a movie from another era, from the impressionistic palette of the photography and the opulent art direction to the lavish costumes and Elmer Bernstein’s fabulous score. It is hard to believe that someone could capture the lost look of the Fifties melodrama, but Haynes ably puts it together.

Haynes’s really impressed me with his script. While he manages to capture the social and personal heat that filmmakers hid under the surface of their films in the 50’s, he also writes a story that revels in and openly mocks the hypocrisy of the supposedly enlightened America of that time. By the 1950’s, the United Stated considered itself the greatest nation on the face of the earth, a land awash in freedom and opportunity, when in reality, freedom and opportunity were simply catch phrases for the powerful sold to the powerless.

Although the film is set in the 1950’s and portrays 50’s era prejudices, the film is perfect for this time, as well as a clear reflection of a past time. Watching Frank Whitaker struggle with his sexuality and watching Cathy and Raymond be persecuted for their friendship, you can’t help but realize that things have not changed. Homosexuality is still taboo today, and many well-known political and public figures still refer to homosexuality as the most heinous sin of all. Interracial friendships of any kind are still call attention to themselves and still cause many people to frown. Today, we give the alleged acceptance of the gay lifestyle and color-blind friendships lip service. However, modern American society is still almost as stuck in the mud as the one portrayed in Heaven.

As good as Haynes and his technical cohorts are in recreating a film that looks like it came from an movie era almost half a century gone, the people who make Far From Heaven more than just a grand technical achievement are the actors. Ms. Moore makes Cathy a charming character, a generous woman with an open heart and a good spirit. She easily rides the good times, but she makes it through the tough; she has to, as we know by the title, that all doesn’t end so very chipper. I was amazed by her performance. She made Cathy’s happiness and satisfaction with her life not just a façade, but the real thing.

So often, middle class housewives are played as secretly unhappy, but Cathy is quiet content; in fact, she adores her life, and she does her best to stay happy even when she encounters difficulty. I’m sure many would consider it politically incorrect to portray a housewife as a strong heroine, fighting to save her marriage, family, and lifestyle Julianne Moore makes you believe; she makes you root for Cathy. She even drew me into the character, so that I felt like I was experiencing every joy, every pain, and every slight that Cathy experienced. What more can one ask of a performer other than that she make you believe and feel?

A lot of people always knew that Dennis Quaid was a very good actor; somehow, a fair assessment of his talent kept getting lost because of his good looks and tomcatting lifestyle. It takes a movie like this and The Rookie to show us what an underrated talent he is. Quaid makes Frank both pathetic and sympathetic – quite complex. He doesn’t allow the viewer to always make an easy assessment of Frank. He’s just a man in a complicated situation fighting his own complications within himself.

Next to Cathy, the best character in this film is Raymond the gardener. He’s a noble Negro full of wisdom, and, at first, that might seem so typical – quiet suffering black man, so strong in the face of silly racism. However, that stereotype is a deliberate creation of Haynes, and Haysbert pulls it off with disarming charm and the knack of a skilled movie thespian. In the kind of film Haynes recreates, Raymond would have been noble, like the God-loving housekeeper in Imitation of Life. Here, the point isn’t his nobility; Raymond simply has to be strong, like Cathy, to survive the slings and arrows of outrageous hypocrites. Somehow, the proper acclaim for Haysbert in this role was nonexistent.

Do you realize that of all the post-season film awards, only the Golden Satellite Awards (as of this writing) recognized Haysbert’s performance with even a nomination (which he also won)? What up? Were (dumb) white critics and voters just too color struck (and dense) to notice the subtlety of both character and performance in Raymond’s case? Or do they feel that awards for Halle and Denzel pretty much take care of awarding darkies for film roles for another decade or so?

Give Far From Heaven a viewing. Not only is it relevant, but it’s quite entertaining with beautiful performances; Julianne Moore’s alone is worth a look. It’s also one of the best films about the culture of class and racial hypocrisy that you’ll ever see.

8 of 10
A

NOTES:
2003 Academy Awards: 4 nominations: “Best Actress in a Leading Role” (Julianne Moore). “Best Cinematography” (Edward Lachman), “Best Music, Original Score” (Elmer Bernstein), “Best Writing, Original Screenplay” (Todd Haynes)

2003 Black Reel Awards: 1 win: “Theatrical - Best Supporting Actor” (Dennis Haysbert)

2003 Golden Globes: 4 nominations: “Best Original Score - Motion Picture” (Elmer Bernstein), “Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture” (Dennis Quaid), “Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama” (Julianne Moore), “Best Screenplay - Motion Picture” (Todd Haynes)

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