For the Last Week of a Short Month

BLACK HISTORY MONTH:
AN OBJECTIVE PERSPECTIVE.
BY THE ASSIMILATED NEGRO

Feel Bad Movies

For months I put off seeing Children of Men for fear of its intensity. I was right, it is intense, but its worth whatever harm the stress might have done to my system. The cast and the subject matter offer plenty to chew on, but I get the feeling Alfonso Cuarón could direct a junior high school play and make it brilliant.

Just suck it up and see the Feel Bad Movie of the Year!

My other feel bad faves:
The Departed, Martin Scorsese's Shamrock Take on the good old themes of ethnicity, class, corruption, and Catholic imagery, with Vera Farmiga as the Madonna. Lookit. Until recently, I thought Scorsese wasn't as good as his disciple Spike Lee, at portraying people outside his proverbial 'hood (I remember a scene in the otherwise waspy Age of Innocence when a fresh boatload of new immigrants arrives in the background. Two were played by Scorsese's parents. At that moment, I wished he would have made a movie about those characters instead.), but the Departed and the Aviator have changed my mind.

Pan's Labyrinth. Don't be disappointed when the god Pan fails to make an appearance.

Mass Transit Culture

This morning on the trolley I sat between two guys who both happened to be reading poetry. When the trolley started to take a funky detour and I need someone to tell me what the heck was going on, the young man reading Pablo Neruda was extremely informative.