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The First Black Movie Star

               Perhaps the title here is a bit controversial. Hattie McDaniel was the first black person to win an Oscar, for her turn as the caricatured “Mammy” in Gone with the Wind (1939), and Stepin Fetchit rode the “Laziest Man in the World” character to stardom in the early days of Hollywood. Still, the case for this sobriquet I believe is strongest made for the actor and singer Paul Robeson.           Robeson was always more of a personality than an actor. Whether he was playing Othello, an Africa warlord, or a day labourer, he was always recognizably himself - he never lost himself in characters in the way that we consider “acting”. With his 6’3 height and athletic build, he was always instantly recognisable - to say nothing of his distinctive voice, a rich bass baritone that has often been imitated, but never equaled by subsequent performers. Despite not being a classically trained actor, it was through his persistence in making sure that Black characters were portrayed with
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Skate Movies

      I was never a skater - I was much too uncoordinated. My few misadventures on a skateboard were enough to convince me that it wasn’t for me. Some of my friends were pretty good at it, but I was happy enough to watch. I did, however, spend countless hours on the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater video games. I still have a weird sense of pride for how good I was at them - I might not have been a stellar student, but I could rack up millions of points through calculated button mashing. These games introduced me not only to skateboarding, but also to bands such as the Dead Kennedys, Bad Religion, Suicidal Tendencies, Rage Against the Machine, and many other bands that became staples in my high school CD collection. So, despite never landing a kickflip, I get nostalgic when I see people skateboarding. That nostalgia has led me to check out a few movies that are about skateboarding. I say they are “about skateboarding”, but what I have found is that they are really about domest

Grey Gardens

This past weekend I went to Long Island for the first time. Being from New Jersey, this felt a little strange - not only had I never been there, I admit I have never really thought much about my 118 mile neighbour. When asked if there was anything in particular I wanted to see, I only had one point of reference, an old mansion in East Hampton, so that’s how I found myself ogling Grey Gardens last Saturday. Grey Gardens occupies a place in the imagination of everyone who knows its story. During the Great Depression, it was known for its extravagant parties - not quite on the level the neighbouring fictional Gatsby Mansion was supposed to have, but not far off. It was owned by Phelan and Edith Beale (Big Edie, from now on); she, a singer and an aunt to future First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and Princess Lee Radziwell; he, a lawyer at her family’s firm. It was the idyllic life of the American upper crust - lots of money, a house in the Hamptons, and a brood of

Made In Dagenham, On the Basis of Sex

PHOTOGRAPH: PAT GREENHOUSE/THE BOSTON GLOBE/GETTY IMAGES          Last Friday was International Workers Day, popularly known as May Day, and as such a number of workers in the United States staged a walkout to protest working conditions during the time of COVID 19. Workers from Amazon, Walmart, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Instacart, and many other companies picketed poor health and safety conditions, as well as low wages. Labour activity of this scale is rare in the United States; working class solidarity is not what it is in Europe, and the government has conspired with corporations to make unions difficult to form and unpopular among many workers. The corporate owned media did little to cover these demonstrations, choosing instead to show heavily armed reactionaries calling for states to end the lockdown, a move that will needlessly lead to thousands of more people dying. It was in this context that I watched Made in Dagenham (2011). I was looking for a film about successf

Kirk Douglas, In Memorium

Seventy years ago America was on the precipice of becoming a full blown police state.         Many lived in fear that they might be suspected of having ties to the communist party and be called in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). If this happened, they would be asked to name other people who might be categorized as subversives. If they refused, as many did, they could expect to lose their jobs and serve some time in prison.        In 1950 Howard Fast, a novelist, was called in front of HUAC. The committee asked him to for the names of donors to an orphanage Fast had set up, an orphanage for the children of Americans who had fought with the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War. Fast refused, and was sentenced to a few months in prison for contempt of Congress.       After he was released, Fast wrote Spartacus , a novel about a Thracian slave who leads other slaves to revolt against Rome. It's a loosely veiled critique of HUAC. No pub

South Africa: A Study of History and Film

                                   For a long time now I have had a fascination with South Africa. I cannot say if it is through knowing South Africans, through taking two college courses that focused on South Africa, or just a natural interest aroused by the idiosyncratic nature of the country. The parallels between South Africa and America are well documented – as Robert Kennedy said in 1968, both can be described as a land settled by the Dutch in the mid-seventeenth century, then taken over by the British, and at last independent; a land in which the native inhabitants were at first subdued, but relations with whom remain a problem to this day; a land which defined itself on a hostile frontier; a land which has tamed rich natural resources through the energetic application of modern technology; a land which once imported slaves, and now must struggle to wipe out the last traces of that former bondage. While I was in South Africa over the 2016-2017 Christmas and New Yea

Vincent on Screen

          Two weeks ago my father rented a house in Duck, North Carolina, on the beach, and scattered family members made the trek south to spend a week together swimming, reading, cooking, watching movies, and, of course, assembling a thousand piece puzzle. My mother had bought a puzzle that contained numerous paintings by Vincent Van Gogh, which was great as it gave us all a rich experience studying his work as we tried to assemble the pieces. As we worked on this puzzle, I found myself sputtering all sorts of facts and theories about Van Gogh, and I soon realised that I seemed to know quite a bit about the man, despite having never studied him nor even reading a single book about him. Everything I know can be credited to two films – Loving Vincent (2017) and Lust for Life (1956).             I saw Loving Vincent at the Princeton Garden Theatre last year, and was absolutely mesmerized by it.   I knew little of Van Gogh’s life – I knew that he had been unsuccessful in his own li