Gladiator II: A Review - There Was a Dream That Was Rome

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. It pales considerably in comparison to the original, but still a decent enough, and entertaining enough, swords and sandals action epic.

There’s been a TikTok trend going around in recent years about how every man supposedly thinks about the Roman Empire at least a little bit every day of his adult life. That, of course, is utter nonsense. Just kidding…it is absolutely, 100% true…at least in my life…I mean, what the hell else am I going to be thinking about during the day except the Roman Empire?  

The makers of Gladiator II, the long-awaited legacy sequel of Ridley Scott’s Best Picture winning Gladiator (2000), are hoping that audiences will think enough about Ancient Rome to make the trek to the movie theatre to go watch a movie about it this coming Thanksgiving weekend.

The film, once again directed by Ridley Scott, stars Paul Mescal as Hanno, a prisoner of war turned gladiator, and features supporting performances from Denzel Washington, Pedro Pascal and Connie Nielson.

In order to avoid any semblance of spoilers, I’ll give a brief and intentionally vague rundown of the plot.

Fifteen years after the events of the original film where Maximus famously kills Commodus, and then himself dies, Rome is an empire on the verge of collapse due to the depravity, debauchery, decadence, militarism and mismanagement of its in-bred ruling class…sound familiar? If you have even a passing association with reality in America, then it should.

Twin emperors, Caracalla and Geta, are bloodthirsty madmen presiding over the empire who have sent skilled general Acacius across the globe to satiate their appetite for conquest.

Acacius invades and conquers the African city of Numidia, where Hanno is a warrior. In defeat Hanno is enslaved in the service of Macrinus, a former slave himself who has a stable of gladiators who fight in the Colosseum. Macrinus sees great talent in Hanno and makes him his number one gladiatorial attraction in the hopes of using Hanno’s success in the Colosseum as a tool to climb the social and political ladder.

The plot, which entails a bevy of twists and turns and flashbacks and reveals, goes from there.

The original Gladiator was a miracle of a movie. A big budget, sword and sandals action epic that barely had a working script during shooting, which, through the sheer force of Ridley Scott’s talent and Russell Crowe’s movie star charisma, became a blockbuster prestige movie that made a bundle of money and won a handful of Oscars. It is, after twenty-four years, still glorious to watch and re-watch.

I kept thinking of the famous line from Gladiator, “what we do in life echoes in eternity” while watching Gladiator II, because what Gladiator II really is, is a very faint echo of the boisterous blockbuster bellow from twenty-four years ago that was the original Gladiator.

Another quote from Gladiator was ringing in my head as I exited the theater after watching all two-and-a-half hours of Gladiator II, and that was “are you not entertained??”

My answer is…”ummm…yeah…I guess so.”

It is undeniable that Gladiator II pales considerably in comparison to the original. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad movie, or that it isn’t entertaining, because it is decent enough and entertaining in its own way, it just means that the best way to enjoy it is to go into it with low expectations.

Gladiator II is, like the original, in its essence, a sword and sandal action movie, and it boasts some impressive fight sequences that are, at times, exhilarating. Most notably Hanno’s fight in the emperor’s palace, which is electrifying for its close-quarters brutality and realism.

But at other times, the fight sequences border on the inane. For example, there’s a fight between gladiators and a gang of baboons that seemed the absolute essence of silliness.

Overall, the movie serves up a bevy of gladiator fights, and even if some of them are a bit preposterous to the point of silly, they’re still gladiator fights…and who the hell doesn’t like gladiator fights?

The plot of the film is a bit convoluted and stretches credulity as well, and its twists and turns don’t quite compel like they did in the original, but that said there are some bright spots.

For instance, whenever Denzel Washington’s Macrinus is on screen, Gladiator II is winning. Washington’s Macrinus is a Shakespearean super villain, like the bastard love child of Iago and Richard III. Denzel chews the scenery in this movie with more aplomb than the CGI sharks in the Colosseum naval battle do their unfortunate victims.

Late career Denzel is often times underwhelming as his verve can wane and his focus can wander. But as Macrinus, Denzel is totally engaged and seems to be having a helluva lot of sinister fun, and it is a pleasure to behold.

The lead of the movie though is Paul Mescal, who is a moderately well-known actor, despite my never having seen his work. I thought Mescal did, for the most part, an admirable job in the lead of Gladiator II.

For starters, Mescal is in fantastic shape for the role, which is in sharp contrast to the mildly chubby Russel Crowe in the original. Mescal has a physical dynamism to him that is undeniable and jumps off the screen in the action sequences in the movie. Unfortunately for Mescal, and despite what Hollywood will tell you, muscle doesn’t make a movie star. Mescal is no Crowe in terms of charisma and gravitas, and he cannot carry the film on his own. In many ways, Denzel steals the show right out from under him….which isn’t much of a mark against Mescal since Denzel steals most every movie he appears in.

Pedro Pascal is subdued and rather forgettable as Acasius, the morally and ethically conflicted general. The lethargic Pascal seems devoid of magnetism in the role and feels out of place in the film.

Connie Nielson, reprising her role of Lucilla from the original, also feels out of rhythm and out of place. Her character’s arc is not written particularly well, and she does not elevate it with her rather anemic performance.

Fred Hechinger and Joseph Quinn, playing Caracalla and Geta respectively, seem to be mimicking Joaquin Phoenix as crazy Commodus for the entirety of their rather one-note performances. There are worse actors to copy than Joaquin Phoenix, but in this case a bit of nuance and variation, which Phoenix brought in the original, would have better served the film.

As for director Ridley Scott, Gladiator II is nowhere near the upper echelon of his staggering filmography, but it must be said that it is truly remarkable that an 86-year-old man is churning out big budget epic movies like this.

Scott has made four films in the last four years, one bigger and more complicated to pull off than the next. The Last Duel (2021), House of Gucci (2021), Napoleon (2023) and Gladiator II (2024) is a grueling gauntlet for a filmmaker half of Ridley Scott’s age…and he doesn’t seem to be done just yet as Gladiator II is doing very well at the box office and no doubt will compel Ridley, and more importantly movie studios, to let him keep going.

While Gladiator II is certainly a flawed movie, it is still a real movie and a proficiently made one that is fun to watch. I don’t think it’ll win any Oscars, or break box office records, but it’s a decent and respectable piece of work for any filmmaker, never mind one that is 86.

If you loved, or even just liked, Gladiator, you’ll find Gladiator II to be a passable but ultimately second-rate imitation. I do recommend you check it out, and do so in a movie theatre, but just be sure to arm yourself with lower expectations.

©2024

The Tragedy of Macbeth: A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. Denzel Washington’s ‘The Tragedy of Macbeth’ is one of the very best films of 2021, but be forewarned, it is for cinephiles and Shakespeare afficionados, others will probably find it pretentious and boring.

The Tragedy of Macbeth, which after a very limited Christmas day theatrical release, premiered on Apple TV+ on January 14, is an intriguing film for a variety of reasons.

The first of which is that it boasts a bevy of star power, including two-time Oscar winner and American acting icon Denzel Washington as Macbeth, as well as three-time Best Actress Oscar winner Frances McDormand as Lady Macbeth.

Secondly, it is the first film directed by a single Coen brother. Academy-award winners Joel and Ethan Coen are one of the most iconic directing duos in Hollywood history, but for Macbeth, Joel Coen is flying solo without Ethan, a first for the brothers.

And finally, it’s Shakespeare’s Macbeth for god’s sakes, it’s one of the greatest plays of all-time, written by the greatest playwright of all-time.

The end result of this witch’s brew of star power, directing style and Shakespeare is a film that, while flawed, may very well be the best film of 2021.

That statement obviously requires context, but the art of cinema was in such a dismal and dire state for the year of 2021, that any discussion about it, if it were done, when ‘tis done then ‘twere well, it were done quickly.

In brief, cinema in the year of 2021 has been a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets its hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

If I saw a dagger before me, I would grab it and plunge it deep into the heart of 2021 with its abundantly awful films and put them out of their misery and me out of mine.

That is to say that The Tragedy of Macbeth is both not as great as it could be but much better than most, making it akin to being the tallest dwarf in the Lilliputian land of cinema in 2021.

What I liked about The Tragedy of Macbeth was that Joel Coen made a bold stylistic choice and did not deviate from it. The film is made in the style of German Expressionism, with its black and white color scheme, sparse sets, straight lines, sharp angles and great heights.

German Expressionism came to the fore in Weimar Germany in the 1920’s, with the most famous films of this school being The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu. As German directors came to Hollywood, their style came with them and became prominent in horror and film noir movies.

Joel Coen’s decision to use German Expressionism to tell the tale of a Scottish warrior falling victim to his own ambitions, speaks to the current, decadent state of America, where unbridled ambition isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.

Just as some interpreted the German Expressionism of the 1920’s as a manifestation of the fragile collective unconscious of Weimar Germany and the impending embrace of stark totalitarianism in the form of Nazism and the Third Reich, Coen’s use of it on Macbeth could be interpreted as a bold statement regarding America’s dire future as well as its current sickened consciousness, political polarization, violent impulses and moral degradation.

Regardless of why Coen used German Expressionism on Macbeth, the stark style and intimate staging on display suits the story and is very pleasing on the eye. It also helps that German Expressionism is, like live theatre itself, less beholden to realism, which makes the very diverse/colorblind casting where many people of color, including Denzel Washington, play the nearly colorless to the point of near translucence Scots (I know because I am one), in context, much more believable.

Also pleasing are some of the performances.

The great Denzel Washington plays Macbeth with a profound weariness that infects his every thought and movement. With Denzel’s Macbeth, heavy lies even just the thought of the crown, nevermind the actual wearing of it.

As good as Denzel is, and he is very good, veteran stage actress Kathryn Hunter, who plays the three witches, steals the show. Hunter’s acting mastery is stunning to behold and combined with Joel Coen’s creative staging of the witch’s scenes makes for truly glorious cinema.

With all that said, and as much as I liked The Tragedy of Macbeth, it isn’t flawless.

For example, Frances McDormand’s Lady Macbeth is surprisingly subdued and seemingly out of sync. As strange as it is to say about an actress with such a stellar resume, McDormand seems overwhelmed with the mantle of Lady Macbeth, and gives an uneven performance as a result.

Another issue was that the hour and forty-five-minute film felt a bit rushed and lacking in deeper emotional connections which could have flourished if given more time. Denzel’s Macbeth and McDormand’s Lady Macbeth, in particular, lack a coherent and visceral emotional connection to one another, which undermines the power of the film.

The thing that galled me most though was Coen’s staging of the great “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow” soliloquy which is among the greatest ever written.

In the film, Coen has Denzel do that powerful monologue as he aimlessly walks down a flight of stairs, which distracts and dilutes the potency of that sacred speech, rendering it, unfortunately, flaccid and forgettable.

All that said, I did greatly enjoy The Tragedy of Macbeth, as it features a powerful performance from Denzel Washington and striking style from director Joel Coen, making it one of the very best films of the year.

But be forewarned, The Tragedy of Macbeth is not popular entertainment, it is solely for cinephiles and Shakespeare afficionados, everyone else should stay well clear. If you’re not an adherent of the arthouse and a devout classical theatre fan, then you’ll probably just find the movie pretentious and frustrating. 

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2022

In the Heights is a box office bust...so let's ban the box office!

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 47 seconds

Whenever the woke diversity and inclusion agenda fails a test, it’s always the test’s fault – never the test-taker’s.

It started in 2020, when the Academy Awards put new rules into place that required future films to be diverse and inclusive in order to qualify for nomination. Now, to bolster that diversity and inclusion agenda, the woke enemies of merit in art and entertainment have set their sights on eliminating box office receipts as a measure of cinematic success.

In the Heights, a musical with an Asian director, Latino writer and all-minority cast, made a measly $11 million at the box office in its opening weekend, instead of the $25 to $50 million some delusional fools were projecting. It’s looking as if it will make considerably less in week two (it ultimately came in 6th on its second weekend with a paltry $4.3 million), but, apparently, we need to ignore its failure to sell tickets and laud its inclusivity aims.

In an LA Times article titled ‘How Hollywood’s box-office parlor game hurts movies like “In the Heights”, writer Ashley Lee declares that the film industry “will have to learn to define the ‘success’ of a film more broadly than in dollars and cents” if it wants to fix its “intractable diversity problems”.

This idea is reminiscent of colleges dropping the SAT and elite high schools dropping difficult entrance exams to boost diversity, or when the military or fire department weakens its physical entrance test to accommodate women.

This ‘equity’ approach, which is meant to result in equality of outcome, as opposed to equality of opportunity, beautifully sums up our narcissistic, petulant and coddled era, in which, if anyone fails a test, then it’s the test’s fault and not the test-taker’s.

As for Lee’s idea of dismissing the box office, it makes perfect sense, according to woke illogic, as once diversity and inclusion become the most important things about a movie – which the Academy Awards now claim they are – then, of course, box office receipts as a metric for success become obsolete.

To the woke, if a movie checks the right identity boxes, it’s already a smash, regardless of whether it makes money, is a highly crafted work of art or is entertaining.

Of course, this is all just more hypocritical woke preening, pandering and virtue signaling, as Lee and her ilk use the box office as a bludgeon as much as anybody when it suits them. For example, in a glaring case of ‘physician heal thyself’, the article bemoans the “parlor game” of box-office projections and expectations that, when not met, set a negative narrative around a minority-led film, but plays the same parlor game, linking to another piece that claims ‘“In the Heights” is the rare Latino blockbuster. Three Times writers on what that means’. That headline ran the day the movie opened and made presumptions about how it would be received that ultimately failed to materialise.

The box-office success of Black Panther, which made over a billion dollars, and female-led movies such as Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman are often used as evidence by those who say diversity is the ticket to prosperity. Hell, In the Heights only exists in its current form because director Jon Chu had a blockbuster with Crazy Rich Asians, with its all-Asian cast, and writer Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, with its majority-minority cast, raked in wads of cash.

Not surprisingly, considering its fatally flawed philosophical foundation, the rest of Lee’s vapid article is peppered with vacuous declarations about diversity and inclusion problems in Hollywood – most notably, “the vanishingly rare major studio movies with nonwhite leads”. I wonder if she actually watches movies, given, over the past 30 years, Denzel Washington and Will Smith were two of the biggest movie stars working in Hollywood, and, in the past decade, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, Michael B. Jordan and the late Chadwick Boseman have dominated major studio films.

In addition, in 2020 alone, Tenet, Sound of Metal, Soul, Minari, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, One Night in Miami and Judas and the Black Messiah all had “nonwhite leads” and were nominated for Oscars. And Will Smith’s Bad Boys for Life and Jumanji: The Next Level, starring Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart, ranked first and fourth, respectively, at the US box office for the entire year. This proves that, contrary to Lee’s inane claims, Hollywood’s use of “nonwhite leads” is neither “vanishing” nor “rare”.

I’m a cinephile who prefers the arthouse to the cineplex, so box office is not exactly something I hold up as a symbol of cinematic virtue. But, in the case of In the Heights and other examples of mainstream Hollywood entertainment that are designed to rake in money, using box office receipts to measure their success or otherwise is the only viable and logical metric. In La La Land, the only color that truly matters is green, so the notion of eliminating that particular measure of a film’s success would go down like a lead zeppelin…and definitely not like Led Zeppelin.

The reality is that the woke can rig the system to honour their trite version of ‘diversity and inclusion’ with Academy Awards, but if they want lasting power in money-hungry Hollywood, their movies had better make bundles of cash or their whole house of politically correct cards will come tumbling down right on their empty little heads.

A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2021

The Little Things: A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. A derivative and abysmally dull movie that is devoid of any redeeming qualities.

The Little Things, written and directed by John Lee Hancock, is a neo-noir cop movie set in 1990 that tells the story of Joe Deacon, a Kern County Deputy Sheriff, who returns to his L.A. roots and teams with L.A. County Detective Jim Baxter to try and find a serial killer. The film, which premiered on Friday January 29th, 2021 in both theatres and on the streaming service HBO Max, stars three Academy Award winners, with Denzel Washington as Deacon, Rami Malek as Baxter, and with Jared Leto as Albert Sparma, the suspected serial killer.

In 1995, David Fincher’s neo-noir cop movie Seven, starring Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt, became a smash hit and propelled Fincher, Pitt, Kevin Spacey and Gwyneth Paltrow into the stratosphere of the Hollywood A-List. In an interesting what-could-have-been twist, Denzel Washington, who was already a mega-star in 1995, turned down the role in Seven which eventually went to Pitt. One can’t help but wonder how different the movie and the history of Hollywood, would’ve been if Denzel and not Brad were the centerpiece of Seven.

It seems Denzel thinks about that too, since he chose to do The Little Things, which is a very cheap knock off of Fincher’s iconic 90’s noir masterwork. Unfortunately, The Little Things is no Seven, hell…it isn’t even a decent episode of Law and Order, if such a thing exists.

The Little Things is a painfully derivative, cliche ridden, visually stale, dramatically stilted, narratively incoherent mess filled with ridiculously preposterous character choices and even more preposterous plot twists…but besides that how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?

The trouble with The Little Things is most definitely writer/director John Lee Hancock. Hancock’s filmography, which includes such notable pieces of mundanity as The Rookie, The Blind Side and Saving Mr. Banks, is a who’s who of forgettable films. Hancock is one of those Hollywood company men who make a very good living churning out middle of the road drivel that is pointless and meaningless. Hancock’s summit is mediocrity, and he never clears base camp with The Little Things.

If you thought that with a cast of three Oscar winners you’d at least get some interesting performances…you’d be very wrong.

Rami Malek is absolutely atrocious in the film as the wrapped too tight detective Baxter. Malek is so uncharismatic, dull and lifeless it’s quite remarkable. Malek’s stilted and uncomfortable performance is filled with so many bizarre side glances and preening it feels like he has either never acted before or can only act as Freddie Mercury.

The great Denzel Washington is also out of sorts, and never finds a rhythm or purpose to propel his character. It is jarring watching Denzel, one of the best actors and movie stars of his generation, flail so fruitlessly and wander so aimlessly through a film so obviously beneath him.

Thankfully, Jared Leto really stretches himself and plays a wild-eyed weirdo who may or may not be a serial killer. I am kidding of course, Leto is forever playing weirdos and this one is his least interesting. There isn’t anything remotely compelling about this forced and contrived performance.

In conclusion, much to my shock and chagrin, The Little Things is a frustrating and aggravating viewing experience that was an utter chore to sit through. I’d rather be tied up and slashed to death by a second rate serial killer than watch this third rate movie. I cannot imagine anyone with any semblance of taste or half a brain in their head would ever enjoy this movie in the least.

©2021

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota Podcast: Episode 20 - The Last Samurai

This week things get combative on the pod as Barry and I do battle over his newest choice for a quarantine watch, 2003’s The Last Samurai, which stars Tom Cruise and is directed by Edward Zwick. We also play another round of everybody’s favorite games - Hollywood Mogul. The stakes are high as the loser of the game and the debate must commit seppuku at the end of the podcast!

LOOKING CALIFORNIA AND FEELING MINNESOTA: EPISODE 20 - THE LAST SAMURAI

Thanks for listening and stay safe out there!

©2020

BlacKkKlansman: A Review

****THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!! THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!!****

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. A flawed but insightful, incisive and compelling film that speaks to the struggles of our time.

BlacKkKlansman, directed by Spike Lee and written by Lee and a coterie of others (based on the book Black Klansman by Ron Stallworth), is the true story of Ron Stallworth, a Black cop in Colorado Springs who infiltrates the Ku Klux Klan. The film stars John David Washington as Stallworth, with supporting turns from Adam Driver, Laura Harrier and Topher Grace.

At one time, in the late 1980's and early 1990's, Spike Lee was one of the most important filmmakers in cinema. His breakthrough film, 1989's Do the Right Thing, which featured Lee's signature aesthetic of humor, drama and cultural commentary was an explosive piece of cinema that catapulted Lee into the spotlight and into the hearts of cinephiles everywhere.

Lee followed up Do the Right Thing with two films that weren't quite as ground breaking but were noteworthy films nonetheless, Mo' Better Blues (1990) and Jungle Fever (1991). Following those two critical and commercial successes Lee then made his masterpiece, the phenomenal Malcolm X (1992), which is a staggering cinematic achievement.

After reaching the summit with Malcolm X, the cinematic world seemed his for the taking, but then something strange happened to Spike Lee...he lost his fastball. I am not sure why it happened, whether it was a case of the muse abandoning him, his mojo shrinking, his spirit being broken or his just not giving a shit anymore, but I know it most certainly did happened. To be clear, he didn't lose it all at once...but there was a noticeable and precipitous decline in the quality and artistry of his work in the wake of Malcolm X.

The middling movies Crooklyn, Clockers, Get on the Bus, He Got Game and Summer of Sam are all painfully lackluster efforts, especially in the shadow of the murderers row of Do the Right Thing, Mo' Better Blues, Jungle Fever and the Babe Ruth of the canon Malcolm X. The precipitous decline in Lee's filmmaking ability was equaled by his fall from cinematic relevance.

Lee wasn't just losing his artistic and critical fastball, the box office had left him as well as none of those films even made back their production budgets, making this unfortunate streak a near death blow to Lee's career. Directors can churn out average and below average films for decades...but only if they make their investors money or at the very least do not lose their investors money...a perfect example is Ron Howard.

The last Spike Lee film I saw in the theatre was also the first Spike Lee film to make any money since Malcom X, and that was 2002's 25th Hour. Three things stood out about this movie in regards to Lee's other films, the first is that it is a story about a White protagonist and stars a White cast. Secondly, it made more profit than all of the previous seven second tier Lee films (post Malcolm X) combined, and actually made more in net profit than even Malcolm X. And third, even though I thoroughly enjoyed 25th Hour, it was not a "Spike Lee film" as his signature aesthetic was noticeably absent. While I hoped 25th Hour signaled a new phase in Lee's career and began his long climb back into relevance...it didn't. Lee's descent into cinematic irrelevance only seemed to quicken its pace.

In 2006, Lee had a financial hit on his hands with the film Inside Man (which was originally supposed to be directed by...ironically, Ron Howard), but while the box office was stellar, the biggest of his career, Lee's artistry was lacking, and the movie was little more than a Denzel Washington star vehicle rather than a Spike Lee joint, and again, could have been directed by anyone. After Inside Man the wheels came off the cinematic wagon for Lee as he churned out a string of films, one more awful and irrelevant than the next.

Which brings us to BlacKKKlansman. With BlacKKKlansman Spike Lee has done something extraordinary...he got his fastball back. Now, it isn't all the way back, not by a long shot. If Lee was throwing 98 MPH heat in his early 90's heyday, and in his post-Malcolm X phase dropped to an anemic 90 MPH, and in the last decade has been hurling up grotesque 84 MPH meatballs, with BlacKKKlansman he hits a solid and very respectable 92 to 94 MPH on the radar gun.

The story of BlacKKKlansman is the right story at the right time with the right filmmaker. BlacKkKlansman is right in Spike Lee's wheelhouse and shows him to be artistically and cinematically invigorated by the material because it allows him to highlight his best quality...namely his flair for mixing of humor, politics and cultural commentary. Though not as sharply crafted as his sterling early works, this movie is easily Lee's best effort in the last 25 years, hands down. It is vibrantly relevant, pulsatingly alive and at times gloriously infectious.

Lee's direction is energetic as he unfurls an insightful and incisive story that lays bare the perilously combustible nature of our time. Lee's politics, particularly his racial politics, have always been overt in his films, but in BlacKKKlansman he is not only able to get a blunt and brazen message across out in the open, but also covertly weaves a subtler, yet ultimately more nuanced, mature and impactful political message just beneath the emotionally furious surface of the film.

As much as some may take this film as an anti-White and pro-Black screed, they would be missing the deeper messages embedded in the movie. If you can leave your preconceived notions at the door and watch the film looking for Lee's masterful weaving together of the dynamics at play in the Black and White power struggle, you will be surprised, if not downright shocked, as to what the film is telling/teaching you. In my reading of the film Lee's vision is not so starkly black and white (pardon the pun) but he appears to be trying to find allies where he once saw enemies, and is trying to solve problems rather than exacerbate them.

The film's star, John David Washington, gives a charismatic and magnetic performance as Ron Stallworth. Unbeknownst to me prior to seeing the movie, John David is Denzel Washington's son, and the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. John David is certainly not the skillful actor and master craftsman his father is...but that is an unfair bar to set...rather John David is his own actor, and to his benefit he isn't a look-alike of his father either. John David does have his father's undeniable charisma and charm though and he carries this film from start to finish with aplomb and ease. Funny, likeable and genuine, John David Washington's confidence never crosses the river into arrogance, and that is a quality that will serve him well in the future, which will hopefully be very bright.

Adam Driver is an actor I generally do not understand. I do no think he is very good and cannot for the life of me understand why other people do. That said, he does solid work in BlacKKKlansman and is an asset to the movie. Driver's character is a bit underwritten, but he makes the most of what he is given.

The luminous Laura Harrier plays Patrice, the love interest of Ron, and she is excellent. Harrier is able to imbue Patrice with not only a determined strength, but a nagging fragility that is compelling to behold. Harrier makes Patrice a complex character where a lesser actress would've made her a two-dimensional bore.

Topher Grace is spectacular as Klan leader David Duke (yes, THAT David Duke). Topher's performance is so understated and comedically genius as to be sublime. Of course, Topher is aided by the fact that David Duke is such a repulsive and captivating character as to be amazing, but to Topher's credit, he does not make Duke a caricature but rather a very real and genuine human being. Topher's ability to seamlessly and subtly make the Duke character's emotional transitions elevates the film considerably.

It is also worth noting that two actors give terrific performances in very small parts. Alec Baldwin has a cameo as Dr. Kennebrew Beaureguard, and he crushes his minimal screen time, which was a treat since the last time I saw him he was embarrassing himself with his hackneyed performance in Mission Impossible. And Corey Hawkins has a small supporting role as Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) that is electric. The scene where Ture gives a speech is one of the best in the film and Hawkins' performance (and Lee's direction) is dynamic.

As much as I liked BlacKKKlansman, it isn't a perfect film. I thought the Klansman characters were very poorly written, or underwritten as the case may be. The caricature of all Klansman as stupid and redneck is a cheap and easy way to make fun of them, but a bad way to make the case that racism is a prevalent and predominant evil in our society. The Klansmen in the movie lack a genuine desperation and fear which would make them much more complicated (and believable) characters instead of being the cartoon cutouts that are only motivated by sheer lack of I.Q. combined with in-bred hate that the movie makes them out to be.

Lee may have some of his fastball back, but certainly not all of it. The final 1/3 or 1/4 of the film shows the cracks in Lee's skill level. As the story accelerates towards its climax Lee's direction gets messy if not downright sloppy. Lee's cinematic incoherence is matched by some dubious writing and plot twists that make for a muddled and mundane finale to an otherwise pretty riveting narrative.

Lee then adds a coda to the film that is completely extraneous, indulgent, logically absurd and frankly embarrassingly idiotic, that in many ways scuttles the exquisite cinematic experience of the movie. This coda is so amateurish and dreadfully awful it is truly amazing, so much so that I felt myself and my opinion of the movie deflating as the scene wore on. This scene feels like it is from a bad high school morality play rather than a quality piece of cinema. But then...Lee redeems himself with a second coda that ends the movie...which I will not spoil...only to say that it is dramatic and emotional dynamite and is extremely well-done and poignant.

In conclusion, BlacKKKlansman is easily Spike Lee's best film of the last 25 years. It is a relevant piece of cinema that speaks to the troubles of our time by equating it with the troubles in our past. Buoyed by a strong lead performance from John David Washington, BlacKKKlansman is a smart, often subtle and insightful film that packs a wallop, and is well-worth your time and money to go see in the theatre.

©2018

Fences : A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!!****

Estimated Reading Time : 6 minutes 27 seconds

My Rating : 2.5 out of 5 Stars

My Recommendation : See it on Netflix or Cable. No need to see this film in the theatre.

Fences, directed by Denzel Washington and with a screenplay written by the late August Wilson based on his Pulitzer and Tony Award winning play of the same name, is the story of the life and struggles of Troy Maxson, an African-American garbage man in 1950's Pittsburgh, and his wife Rose and their teenage son Cory. The film stars Denzel Washington as Troy, Viola Davis as Rose, Mykelti Williamson as Troy's handicapped brother Gabe and Jovan Adepo as Troy's teenage son Cory.

I am a unique, and some might say unfortunate combination, as I am one of those most reviled of creatures, the classically-trained actor, and yet, I am also one of those most loathsome of beings, the film school graduate. This educational background makes me not only insufferable to most people but also virtually unemployable in the real world. That said, it does give me an interesting perspective when I watch films or go to the theatre. It was the classically-trained actor side of me, which absolutely loves live theatre, that was really excited to go see Fences. Classically-trained actor me also really loves August Wilson's work, and believes he is one of the great playwrights of the last century. His ten-part "Pittsburgh cycle", of which Fences is a part, is one of the great achievements in modern playwriting. Wilson wrote the screenplay to this film adaptation of Fences in 2005, finishing it shortly before his death. Denzel Washington and Viola Davis both won Tony awards for their portrayal of Troy and Rose in a 2010 revival of Fences on Broadway. 

For those reasons and others, like most everyone I know who saw it loved it, I had great expectations heading in to see Fences. The way I saw it was that Fences is a truly fascinating story, was a wonderful play and had two transcendent actors starring in it, what could possibly go wrong? Well, as I sat down to watch Fences, the classically-trained actor part of me gave a self-congratulatory bow and elegantly stepped aside and let the film school graduate part of me come to the forefront, and that part of me realized very quickly that a hell of a lot can, and did, go wrong with this film. Fences is a great play, but, sadly, it isn't a great film. A major part of the problem is that Denzel Washington wears a directors hat for the first time in his otherwise stellar career. Washington is undoubtedly a great actor, and in many ways he is getting better and more complex as an actor as he ages, but he is certainly not a great director. And just as the great actor Denzel Washington struggled with a skill out of his wheelhouse, directing, so did August Wilson, a great playwright, struggle as a screenwriter. 

Cinema is not theatre. As the saying goes, it is "moving pictures, not moving words." And so we come upon the first major issue with the movie Fences, namely that it is written to be a stage play and is not conducive to the screen. Writing for the stage and writing for the screen are as different as say, reading the written word as opposed to speaking aloud. The rhythm and meaning change dramatically when you say words aloud contrasted to when you read them silently. This occurs for a variety of reasons, such as the physical act of speaking aloud requires the in and out of breath, the use of the voice musculature, posture, body language, intent and things of that nature. This is why the spoken word takes on a certain distinct rhythm and the written word takes on a very different rhythm. So it is with stage and screen. For instance, on stage, actors do not speak when other actors are speaking, they articulate clearly so that the back of the house can hear them, they gesticulate more grandly so that everyone can see them, and they do not turn their back to the audience as they speak. These actions, while unnatural in the real world, create a rhythm of performance which suits the medium of the stage perfectly. 

On screen, a different rhythm is created, voices can over lap, actors turn their back, they can whisper and can use the smallest and most delicate of movements to convey deep meaning. On film, speaking is at the very most, a secondary tool to tell the story and convey meaning, whereas on stage, speaking is the ultimate tool of conveying meaning and storytelling. As an example, in Shakespeare's MacBeth, in the early part of the play (Act 1 Scene 4) a character recounts a spectacular battle and everything that happened in it. It is a compelling monologue, and includes the famous line, "nothing in his life became him like the leaving of it." While this writing is basically exposition, it is still exceedingly well done. In theatre you sometimes need to have expository dialogue, but in cinema, you don't need exposition, you can just show and not tell. So, in this example, you would open MacBeth showing that great battle scene, and not having someone describe the great battle. This is one of the most major fundamental differences between theatre and film. Another difference is that film is a director's medium of visuals and stage is a writer's medium of the spoken word. 

The problem with Fences as a film is that it is entirely theatrical and not cinematic. The performances, while good, are theatrical performances, not film performances. The rhythm of the writing and storytelling is theatrical, not cinematic. The arc of the narrative is a theatrical arc, not a cinematic one. The film suffers greatly from the most rudimentary lack of understanding that the art of filmmaking is fundamentally very different from the art of theatre. In my eyes, the great blame for that falls on the film's director, Denzel Washington. 

Simply put, Denzel Washington is a dreadful director. The film lacks any sort of visual cohesion and has a myriad of bizarre and incoherent camera angles and shots scattered throughout which undercut the dramatic momentum of many scenes and the whole film. There is a sequence where Denzel does a critical monologue which feels like it was shot so haphazardly that one wonders if there were any professionals on the set at all. It is beyond strange. Washington's weak eye for visuals, along with his hapless cinematographer Charlotte Bruus Christensen, results in a plethora of oddly framed shots and poorly executed camera maneuvers that left me shaking my head. There are other amateur directing moves that fall flat as well, such as perspective issues, random swelling of music, and a lack of visual, dramatic, and storytelling consistency in regards to the fence for which the play is titled. 

The performances from Denzel Washington and Viola Davis are highly skilled, but they lack great power to move because they are meant for the stage and not the screen. The performances ring hollow because they do not fit the screen on which they are captured. The language is the stilted language of the theatre, not the free flowing language of real life or the screen, thus it always feels like we are watching someone deliver a performance. I am sure if I were fortunate enough to see these same actors give these same performances on stage, I would be left speechless, but I saw them on screen and instead was left profoundly cold. 

Another issue with the performances, is that they feel a bit derivative of other work these great actors have done in their past. Washington's Troy is somehow physically and vocally reminiscent of his Oscar winning role in Training Day, so much so that I half thought he was going to declare, "King Kong ain't got nuthin' on me!!" at one point. Viola Davis' performance echoes nearly all her other stand out work in the past in that she plays a noble, fragile, resolute woman who, at least once during a climactic crying scene, will have snots uncontrollably running down her face. And then there is Mykelti Williamson, an actor I truly admire, who turns in a cringe-worthy performance as Troy's handicapped brother Gabe. Like Washington and Davis before him, Williamson seems to be conjuring up characters from his past, in this case his shrimp- loving character Bubba from Forest Gump . 

As much as I have been critical of the performances and the film, I do realize that it will receive a whole host of Oscar nominations, but I believe that is because the Academy will be projecting upon the film what it hoped to see, and not what was really there on screen. Denzel Washington and Viola Davis are shoe-ins for acting nominations, as is August Wilson for an adapted screenplay nomination. No doubt Denzel will also get a Best Director nomination as well. While I greatly admire all three of these individuals, Washington, Davis and Wilson, and their talent, skill and remarkable previous work, I think they are not at their best in Fences.

In conclusion, Fences is a lost opportunity to adapt a brilliant play to the screen. Writer August Wilson's inability to adapt his staggering playwriting talents into screen writing results, creates  an uneven and discordant film. Denzel Washington and Viola Davis give technically proficient performances that ultimately ring hollow due to the script and Washington the filmmaker's, fundamental failings. While I didn't hate Fences, I also certainly didn't love it. It is a shame that such a great story wasn't able to translate more seamlessly to the big screen, as Hollywood is in desperate need of unique and original works. At the end of the day, Fences is never able to rise above being just an ordinary film, which is disheartening because it is such an extraordinary play. 

©2017

#OscarsSoWhite : Don't Believe the Hype?

***ESTIMATED READING TIME: 20 MINUTES***

On January 14, 2016, at 5:30 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) announced the nominations for the 81st Academy Awards. For the second year in a row none of the actors nominated in the four acting categories, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress, were minorities. All twenty nominations went to White actors. The lack of Black acting nominees in particular, set off firestorms of outrage in the media and online.

A day after the nominations were announced, in response to the alleged "snub" of Black actors, artists and films, Spike Lee declared he would not attend the Oscar ceremony where he would have been an honored guest having been awarded an honorary Academy Award in November. Jada Pinkett Smith, wife of one of the actors thought to be "snubbed", Will Smith, also publicly declared she would "boycott" the awards show by not attending or watching it on television. Pinkett Smith tweeted "At the Oscars…people of color are always welcomed to give out awards…even entertain. But we are rarely recognized for our artistic accomplishments. Should people of color refrain from participating altogether?".

Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs, a Black woman, said that changes would be made in order to make the Academy, which does not make public it's membership demographics but which is rumored to be 94% White and 77% male with a median age of 62, younger and more diverse. On January 20th, the Academy announced an expansion of membership to include more women and minorities and to make the membership younger and with more recent work experience in the industry. This has done little to quell the anger felt by the Black community and their supporters of all colors, which have used the #OscarsSoWhite meme as a rallying cry.

The emotional response by the #OscarsSoWhite community to what they perceive as racially biased slights and snubs by the Academy and the film industry are very understandable in a historical context, but that doesn't make them rational or even real. Racism is a deadly serious topic, and charges of racism are not a matter to be taken lightly. I believe that the reaction to the alleged slights by the Academy are a result of emotionalism and not rationalism. A closer look at the film business here in America and abroad, and the demographic reality of Black people in those places, shows that the perception of massive Black under-representation in the Oscar acting categories is not one backed up by facts. A closer examination of the films, artists and actors alleged to have been snubbed this year, and their artistic merit, shows that this controversy is much ado about nothing, at least in regards to race. That doesn't mean that racism doesn't exist, it just means that it isn't the reason there have been no Black actors nominated for Oscars in the last two years.

THE SUBJECTIVE

CONTEXT

Part of the uproar this year has to do with perceived snubs from last year. The film Selma is often brought up as a film that was snubbed along with its African-American director Ava Duvernay and its Black lead actor David Oyelowo. The thing that people tend to overlook is that yes, Duvernay and Oyolowo weren't nominated last year, but the film Selma was nominated for Best Picture and won an Oscar for Best Original Song.

Duvernay is a gifted director, and her work on Selma is admirable, but her not being nominated is far from a grievous slight. Selma is Duvernay's first major feature film, and if history is a guide, the Academy needs to be strongly convinced to give any first time director a nomination. It isn't impossible, but it is rare. For instance, John Singleton, an African-American man, was the youngest person ever nominated for Best Director and Best Screenplay for his first feature Boyz in The Hood. Selma is a good movie, but I think we can all agree that it is no Boyz in the Hood. And just to put the Academy's reluctance to embrace directors early in their careers into perspective, consider that Martin Scorsese, maybe the greatest American film director, was not even nominated for his fifth feature film Taxi Driver, one of the most iconic films in american cinematic history. In fact, the Academy didn't nominate Scorsese for Best Director until his seventh feature, Raging Bull, and it took the Academy another 30 years after Taxi Driver to finally give Scorsese an Oscar win with his Best Director award for The Departed.

Oyolowo was in a similar boat, as he was relatively unknown to the Academy prior to Selma. His work is terrific in the film, but it isn't transcendent. If Oyolowo had been a more familiar face to the Academy I believe he would have been nominated for Selma. If Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle or Jamie Foxx gave that same exact performance they would have been nominated because the Academy knows and trusts them and their work. Not nominating Oyolowo and Duvernay is not a decision based on racism, but on typical Academy trends and  politics. Which leads us to Oscars General Rule #1 : Except in the most rare of occasions and with the most transcendent performances, the Academy votes for talent with whom they are very familiar.

DEFINING OSCAR

Before going any further, we should try and define what exactly is the purpose of the Academy Awards. Historically, the goal of the Academy when giving out awards to is try and the thread the needle between commerce and art. It wants to reward 'prestige' films which are close enough to the mainstream that they are financially viable yet have artistic merit to them. The Academy wants people to tune in to their awards show, so they nominate films that people have heard of with famous actors in them, but that are not seen as pure popcorn, money making enterprises. I reek of the art house, so for my taste the Academy leans much too far towards commerce, but to the general public they probably lean much to far towards art with their awards. Regardless, this is what the Academy is trying to do. With all of that said, let's take a closer look at this year's controversy.

The purported snubbing of Black actors at this years Oscars has a very simple premise to it, that there are Black actors who gave better performances this year than the White actors nominated. So let's examine the performances most mentioned when discussing the Oscar snubs of this year and see if this premise could be a valid one. 

GUESS WHO'S NOT COMING TO DINNER?

STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON

The first film mentioned is almost always Straight Outta Compton, the bio-pic of the famous rap group N.W.A. and their rise to fame, and their struggles once they got there. The film was very successful, making $200 million at the box office from a $28 million budget. Which brings us to… Oscars General Rule #2 : Box office success does not guarantee a film is great, or even good, and it certainly doesn't guarantee Oscar nominations. For instance, Star Wars : The Force Awakens, has made a billion dollars this past year but received no nominations. Sometimes films that are extremely financially successful do get nominations, Titanic for example, but that is not always the case.  

Straight Outta Compton is, in my professional opinion and to my terrible disappointment as a fan of N.W.A., not a great movie. It is a pretty standard, paint by numbers, musical bio-pic. It is not very compelling, it looks flat visually, and it has major pacing, performance and narrative issues. The thing that stands out the most to me about the film is how relentlessly safe it is, in structure and in execution. The fact that in reality, N.W.A. was so successful because they were deemed to be so "dangerous" and hard only heightens how flaccid and impotent the film really was. If you are someone who really loved the film and think it deserves an Oscar nomination, I would tell you that I believe that you are seeing the film you wanted to see and not the film that actually was.

In addition, there is not a single standout performance from any of the actors. Yes, the actors looked like the people they were playing, but none of the actors are even remotely good at actually, you know…acting. There is a lot of posing and preening, but there are no genuine human moments in the entire film. The acting performances are incredibly shallow and hollow, it is almost like watching someone trying to act someone who is trying to act. Giving an acting Oscar nomination to any of the cast would be the equivalent of nominating an Elvis impersonator.

Musical bio-pics of iconic bands like N.W.A. are not usually heartily embraced by the Academy. A perfect example is Oliver Stone's The Doors from 1991. Just like Straight Outta Compton, The Doors tells the story of a revolutionary American band from its start to finish and all the turmoil in between. Both films were made about twenty years after their musical subjects broke up and/or died. Unlike Straight Outta Compton though, The Doors had a two-time Oscar winning director at the helm, Oliver Stone, and had a universally praised, dynamic performance from its lead actor, Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison. Unlike Oliver Stone, Straight Outta Compton director F. Gary Gray has had basically a journeyman's career with no track record for successful dramatic and artistically relevant films. Unlike Val Kilmer in The Doors, Straight Outta Compton has no well known lead actors and none of them give performances that would rank up there with Kilmer's Morrison. The Academy gave no nominations to The Doors film, its director Stone or its lead actor Kilmer. Like many people, the Academy didn't like The Doors, and like many people, they didn't love Straight Outta Compton either.

One thing to point out is that Straight Outta Compton, like Selma, was not entirely overlooked by the Academy, but rather got a nomination for Best Screenplay. The problem for many though is that the writers of the film were White and not Black. #OscarsSoWhite have used this as proof that the Academy is racist as it shows they only reward White artists and not Black ones. This is just a short cut to thinking. I guarantee you that Academy members had no idea what color the writers of Straight Outta Compton were and just threw the unworthy film a bone in the form of a screenplay nomination in order to NOT be perceived as being racist. Straight Outta Compton doesn't deserve a screenplay nomination, but the fact that people use this one nomination as proof of racism is the height of absurdity. One question that maybe the #OscarsSoWhite people should be asking as opposed to why the Academy only nominated the White writers, is why did Ice Cube hire White writers instead of Black writers to write his film? Could it be that Ice Cube just wanted the best writers he could get at the price he was willing to pay, and these White writers filled the bill? Is Ice Cube racist because he hired White people to write his film? The answer to that is obvious.

WILL SMITH : PARENTS JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND

Another actor often brought up as being rebuffed by the Academy is Will Smith for his performance in the film Concussion. Again, this is quite a stretch in searching for proof of racially biased snubs. Will Smith is, or was at one time, a giant movie star, but he is not now nor has he ever been a great actor. If Will Smith had made Concussion fifteen years ago, he would have been nominated, because he was, at that time, at the height of his career. Which bring us to…General Oscars Rule #3 : The Academy rewards big money-making movie stars for taking chances on prestige films, hence Smith being nominated for Michael Mann's Ali and for his work in The Pursuit of Happyness. It would be an error to conclude that Smith gave great performances in those films because he was nominated, he didn't. He was very average in The Pursuit of Happyness and he was not good at all in Ali, but the Academy rewards people who make them a lot of money, and Will Smith made a helluva lot of people a helluva lot of money, so he was rewarded by the Academy for taking the chance on those two prestige-type films. For an example of the Academy rewarding a movie star with a nomination, look back to Harrison Ford, the box office champ of all time with the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films, and his lone nomination for Witness. Ford wasn't great in Witness, but he had made people tons of money, so the Academy rewarded him for that. Ford tried his hand at other 'prestige' type films, Mosquito Coast and Regarding Henry as two examples, and his work was ignored by the Academy both times.

It is also mildly amusing that Smith and N.W.A. should be brought up in the same Oscar discussion as they are polar opposites in regard to their rap music ability and credibility. Will Smith got into the music and film businesses in order to get rich and famous, not to express his artistic self like N.W.A., this is painfully obvious by the choices he made. His rap career was the worst, most cringe worthy attempt to appeal to as large an audience as possible. Remember "Parents Just Don't Understand"?  In contrast to N.W.A.'s body of work, and Dr. Dre and Ice Cube's post-N.W.A. work, Smith is a laughably soft and weak rapper. His acting career has been equally tepid and just as pandering. Remember "The Fresh Prince"or the calculatingly formulaic Bad Boys, Men in Black, Independence Day and Wild, Wild, West? Smith has succeeded not by being great at anything he attempted, be it rapping or acting, for he is mind numbingly average at both, but by being an extremely appealing presence and a genuinely likable guy. Being so likable and enriching so many people is how he got nominated for Ali and The Pursuit of Happyness. For Smith to feel slighted that he is not getting his artistic due with his lackluster performance in Concussion is beyond a ludicrous.

CREED

Which brings us to Creed. There has been much angst that Sylvester Stallone (who is White) was nominated for his role in the 6th Rocky movie but that Michael B. Jordan (who is African-American) was not nominated. Again, this has nothing to do with race. Michael B. Jordan is a terrific young actor, with a great chance at a bevy of Oscar nominations in his future. The reality is that Creed is nowhere near an Oscar worthy film either, but that it is perceived to be Stallone's swan song. It might not actually be his swan song, and the Academy might be getting head faked by the Lazarus-esque Italian Stallion, but the Academy wanted to reward him for his long career and to let walk him off into the sunset a winner (much like they have done with Clint Eastwood…on numerous occasions). Stallone was rewarded for Creed not because he was great in it, but because he, and the film, were 'good enough' given the low expectations they had going in, to give him a pass.

Which brings us to General Oscars Rule #4 :The Academy eventually rewards actors for their long careers and for making a lot of people a lot of money over the course of their careers. Look, God knows Stallone is no Marlon Brando, but he has made people very rich with not only his Rocky movies but with Rambo and all his other films. The question could be raised, if the Academy is rewarding Stallone for all the money he's made people, why not reward Will Smith too? Well, the biggest issue here is not race, but age. Will Smith needs to be around for another two decades or so before the Academy will contemplate giving him what they are giving Stallone, which really amounts to a lifetime achievement type of Oscar nomination. In other words, it simply isn't Will Smith's time yet.

Michael B. Jordan has a truly fantastic career ahead of him, but Creed is the 6th Rocky movie and isn't exactly a prestige film. It was perceived as a money grab to make one more Rocky movie, but the film was better than expected, which doesn't make it great, it just makes it not awful. This is not a reason to nominate the film or Jordan. The same can be said of director Ryan Coogler, who has a very bright future ahead of him as well, but a Rocky sequel is not the place to cry foul on not getting an Oscar nomination.

SAMUEL L. JACKSON

Samuel L. Jackson has also been mentioned as being snubbed for his work in The Hateful Eight. Samuel Jackson has done some remarkable work in his career, but The Hateful Eight is not one of his better performances. It is very derivative of his other, better work (from Pulp Fiction for instance, where he was nominated), and the fact that the film is a lesser outing from Quentin Tarantino doesn't help his argument either.

I would argue that Jackson has lost out on nominations before, most notably in Tarantino's Django Unchained and in Spike Lee's Jungle Fever, but I don't believe those lack of nominations were the result of racial bias, just a weak-kneed, poor taste in film by the Academy.

BEASTS OF NO NATION

The performance by a black actor that I think should have been nominate this year, but wasn't, is Idris Elba in Beasts of No Nation. I believe the film, it's young Ghanaian-born lead actor Abraham Atta, and Idris Elba all deserved Oscar nominations. Beasts of No Nation, Atta and Elba were not overlooked because of racism, but because of the insidious arrogance of the film business. Beasts of No Nation was distributed by Netflix and because Netflix skirted some arrangements with movie theaters, it was only shown in very limited release in theaters. It was available immediately on Netflix though. The Academy still hasn't wrapped their head around Netflix and looks at Beasts of No Nation as some sort of hybrid film/tv project. Which brings us to…  General Oscars Rule #5 : The Academy only respects film, not tv. Thus Beasts of No Nation was in an industry no man's land and the film, Elba's and Atta's performances were lost to the Academy voters. This is a terrible oversight but not a racially motivated one.

WHO SHOULDN'T BE NOMINATED?

When #OscarsSoWhite talk publicly about the racism in the Academy and this year's lack of Black actors, one thing remains elusive but very important, namely, what White actors who were nominated shouldn't have been nominated. If the #OscarsSoWhite people are going to accuse Academy members of being racist and nominating people based on race, why wouldn't the #OscarsSoWhite people have the courage to say what actors they think should not have been nominated? This is a pretty important point that no one seems to want to bring up.

Who should Will Smith replace on the Best Actor list? Michael Fassbender? Leonardo DiCaprio? Eddie Redmayne? What about Samuel L. Jackson? Should he replace Matt Damon? Or Bryan Cranston? There are arguments to be made, but #OscarsSoWhite has to have the courage to actually make them. They can't say one person deserves a nomination without implying another person doesn't deserve it, so they should have the intestinal fortitude to tell us who they would throw out. 

Since I am asking people to say who should NOT be nominated, I will go first. This year I think Abraham Atta from Beasts of No Nation should, without question, be nominated for Best Actor over Bryan Cranston of Trumbo. Trumbo is a dreadful film and Cranston is awful in it. I would also have nominated Idrs Elba of Beasts of No Nation over Sylvester Stallone from Creed. As previously stated, there are reasons that have nothing to do with race as to why Stallone and Cranston were nominated this year over Atta and Elba. The first reason is (General Oscars Rule #5) the Academy's issue with the releasing of the film through Netflix and not into theaters. The other reasons are that (General Oscars Rule #1) Atta is a total unknown and Bryan Cranston is a beloved actor in Hollywood for his previous work. Elba being overlooked has to do with the Netflix issue (General Oscars Rule #5) and with the Academy rewarding Stallone for his long and prosperous career (General Oscars Rule #4). 

A final note about snubs in general. Snubs happen every year to all sorts of actors. great actors get snubbed one year when they deserve a win, and then get an award another year when they don't. The Academy is slow to reward fresh talent, and quick to give make-up awards. For instance, Denzel Washington should have won a Best Actor Oscar for his tremendous work in Malcolm X. While Denzel was nominated he ended up losing the award to Al Pacino for his work in Scent of a Woman. Denzel deserved the win, but Pacino got the trophy. This was not due to racism, it was because of the fact that the Academy had overlooked Pacino's stellar work earlier in his career. Which brings us to General Oscars Rule #6 : The Academy makes up for most of their very stupid mistakes over time. So in this case, Pacino, who didn't win for his unbelievably great work two decades earlier in The Godfather and Godfather II, Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon, finally got his award for a less than stellar performance in Scent of a Woman. Denzel was overlooked for his remarkable work in Malcolm X, but a decade later got his Best Actor Oscar for a good but not great (by his lofty standards) performance in Training Day. Another example of this rule in action is that in 1990 Martin Scorsese was nominated but did not win for Best Director for his time-less classic Goodfellas. Instead the Academy gave the Best Director award to…GULP…Kevin Costner for Dances With Wolves. This is maybe the most egregious and embarrassing of idiotic mistakes the Academy has made in recent history. But, a decade and a half later, the Academy made it "right" by awarding Scorsese a Best Director Oscar for his rather underwhelming work on The Departed. The Academy can be pretty maddening in its choices, and slow to recognize true genius but…this is how the Academy works, and as Denzel Washington and Martin Scorsese and Al Pacino can attest, it works this way regardless of race.

THE STATISTICS

DEMOGRAPHICS AS DESTINY?

African-Americans have long been a marginalized minority group here in America. Black history is littered with one heinous struggle after another, from slavery to Jim Crow to civil rights and beyond. The African-American community's perception of racially motivated slights, or outright racism, is strongly grounded in historical precedence, so one can't blame that community's thought from taking the shape of a hammer and seeing every problem as the nail of racism. In the case of the Academy Awards though, that perception does not perfectly align with reality.

According to the US Census, in 2014 African-Americans made up 13.2% of the general population of the United States, and, rather interestingly, according to a 2014 study by the Motion Picture Association of America, they made up 12% of the movie ticket buying population. In contrast, Latinos only made up 17.4% of the general population but 23% of the movie ticket buying population.  Asians/others made up 8% of the general population and 11% of the movie ticket buying population. Non-hispanic Whites made up 62.1 % of the general population (not to be confused with European-Americans, who make up 72.4% of population) but only made up 54% of the movie ticket buying population. What does this have to do with Oscar snubs and potential racism? A closer look at Oscar history and statistics reveals that the Academy's choices may not be as racially biased as some perceive them to be.

THIRTY YEARS

In the last 30 years, since 1986, there have been 120 Oscar winners in the acting categories, and there have been 12 Black actors who have won Oscars. Which means that 10% of all acting Oscar winners have been Black, which is 24% below the percentage of African-Americans in the general  U.S. population and 17% below their percentage in the movie ticket buying population.

An even closer look at this 10% number shows us that while it is roughly 24% below the national population percentage of African-Americans, it is actually above the percentage of the African-American population in the state of California where the film industry is centered and one can assume it is also where the majority of the Academy members either live or have lived. In California, African-Americans make up 7% of the general population, and more specifically to the movie industry, in Los Angeles County make up 8.7% of the general population.  Even more specifically to Hollywood, African-Americans make up 9.6% of the general population of the city of Los Angeles. So, the 10% win rate of Oscars for Black actors mirrors back to Academy members almost exactly the general population of the city in which most of them have lived and worked.

Another number of interest is the population of english speaking countries with vibrant film industries, as those countries would more than likely have members in the Academy. So if you add up the total populations of the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Ireland, the Black population combined comes to 9% of the total overall population in those countries. Meaning that according to this metric, Black actors are over-represented by 10% in Oscar wins over the last thirty years. If you add Canada's total population to the U.S., U.K., Australia and Ireland grouping, and add Canada's black population to those countries Black population, the numbers turn out exactly the same, with the Black population being 9% of the overall population. If you reduce the metric to just the U.S. and Canada's populations together, then their overall Black population is 10.9%, showing a small under-representation in terms of Black actor Oscar wins.

When you expand the numbers over the last thirty years to look at Oscar acting nominations and not just wins, the numbers thin, as there have been 600 acting nominees since 1986 and 44 of them have been Black. That is 7.3% of the nominees, which is slightly higher than the percentage of African-Americans living in California, and slightly lower than the Black population in Los Angeles, L.A. county and in the general population of the U.S., U.K., Ireland and Australia combined.

TWENTY YEARS

If you look at Oscar nominations and wins over the last twenty years (1996-2015), Black actors have been nominated 33 times out of 400 nominations and have won 10 Acting Oscars out of 80. That means from 1996 to 2015 (the Oscar ceremony is in February but it awards films from 2015), Black actors have a nomination rate of 8.25% and an Oscar win rate of 12.5%. The win rate is a 25% increase from the thirty year rate (10%) and gives Black actors 24% wins over their population rate in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland and Australia. The 12.5% win rate is also 4% higher than the Black percentage of the movie ticket buying population. The nomination rate has increased 11.5% from the thirty year rate and has reduced Black actor under-representation in nominations from the thirty year mark of 19% to 8.3%.

TEN YEARS

If you look at the last ten years, 2006-2015,  Black actors were nominated for Oscars 18 times out of 200 nominations, and won 5 Oscars out of 40. The ten year nomination rate is 9% and the win rate is 12.5%. Compared to the twenty year rates, the nominations have increased by 5.8%, and the win rate has stayed exactly the same. The win rate of 12.5% is still 24% higher than the Black percentage of population in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland and Australia and 4% higher than the movie ticket buying population in the U.S.. The nomination rate is exactly the same as the population rate of Blacks in the U.S., Canada, U.K. Ireland and Australia general population combined. This is a pretty fascinating statistic.

CASTING

Another argument by the #OscarsSoWhite movement is that Black actors are under-represented in the casting of roles, so they have fewer opportunities to be nominated for Oscars. According to a study by the Annenberg Center for Communications and Journalism, this is simply not the case. Black actors were cast at a rate of 12.6% from 2007 to 2013 (the last year of the study) which is exactly proportional to their percentage of the U.S. population in the 2010 Census, which is 12.6%. When you expand the casting rate of Black actors to the wider english speaking film industry, they are over-represented by 28.5% in proportion to their 9% population percentage in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland, and Australia over that same time period. 

According to the Screen Actors Guild, Black actors are 12% of their membership, which is roughly equivalent to their percentage of the U.S. population in the 2010 Census, and to their Oscar win rate percentage over the last twenty years. Another SAG study from 2007-2008 (the most recent year that study results are available) shows that Black actors are slightly over-represented in casting of film/TV roles, snagging 14.8% of total roles. Black actors were cast in 13.2% of lead roles and 16% of supporting roles.  Black actors being cast in 14.8% of total roles is 10.8% higher than the black percentage of the U.S. general population and 19% higher than the Black actor percentage of the Screen Actors Guild population. Also, it is 39% higher than the Black percentage of the U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland and Australia general population. Black actors being cast in 13.2% of leading roles is perfectly in line with the Black percentage of the U.S. population, which according to the U.S. Census information from 2014 is 13.2%.

In addition, the Economist Magazine did their own study and found that Black actors get 9% of the top roles in films (they define "top roles" as the top three names on the cast list at IMDB, in films with a 7.5 rating or higher, an American box office gross of at least $10M, and which were neither animated nor foreign-language). Interestingly enough, The Economist claims this shows that Black actors are under-reopresented in "top roles" as compared to the U.S. population, but what it really shows is that The Economist misinterprets their own study by ignoring the vital data of the populations of Canada, U.K., Ireland and Australia in addition to the U.S.

A QUICK REVIEW 

A quick review shows a steady progress for Black actors over the last thirty years in regards to Oscar nominations and wins. The Oscar nomination rate has gone from 7.3% (30 yrs.) to 8.25% (20 yrs.) to 9% (10 yrs.). The Oscar win rate for Black actors has gone from 10% (30 yrs.) to 12.5% (20 yrs.) and held steady at 12.5% (10 years). This seems to be in stark contrast to the claims made by the #OscarsSoWhite people.

The statistics also show that Black actors were cast in roles from 2007-2013 at a rate of 12.6% which is in identical proportion to the black percentage of the general U.S. population over that same time period (2010 Census: 12.6% African-American population percentage). The numbers also show that Black actors are cast in "top roles" 9% of the time, which is in direct proportion to their 9% population rate in the wider english speaking film industry nations of the U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland and Australia.

PERCEPTION AND REALITY

As the statistic show, Black acting Oscar winners are under-represented when compared to the African-American population in the U.S. but are slightly over-represented in regards to the wider english speaking industry, and are right in line with or slightly higher than the African-American population in California, L.A. and L.A. County. But the perception remains that somehow they are dramatically and unfairly under-represented, why is that? I think part of the answer to that question is that Black people are massively over-represented in other media and entertainment fields when compared to the general U.S. population. For instance, on the Forbes list of the most powerful people in entertainment, seven of the top ten people on the list are Black. That is pretty extraordinary considering it is 6 times greater than the African-American representation in the general U.S. population.

The same can be said of the Black percentage of players in professional sport. 74.4.% of all NBA players are Black as opposed to the 23% that are White. That means that Black players in the NBA are over-represnted by roughly 82% when compared to their general population percentage in the U.S. 68% of all NFL players are Black as compared to the 28% who are White, which means Black NFL players are over-represented by 80.5% in relation to their percentage of the U.S. population. These numbers are wildly out of sync with the general population numbers and can give a distorted perception of the demographic reality of the Black population here in the U.S. 

Adding together the inordinate amount of Black entertainers at the top of their fields and Black athletes populating professional sports, it is easy to see where the perception of racism in regards to the Oscars can take shape. By awarding only 10%-12.5% of the acting awards to Black actors, the Oscars seem to fall horrendously short in recognizing Black people when compared to other areas of public life. But the reality is that the Oscars aren't greatly under-representing Black artists, but rather that the other areas, be they music, TV or sport, dramatically over-represent Black people.

The movie business is a business and so these demographic numbers tell us the real story. Racism isn't behind the Academy or the industry and their relationship to blacks, but money is. Blacks make up 13.2% of the U.S. population and 12% movie going population, but according to the MPAA study they only make up 10% of the multiple movie going population (people who see more than one film in a theatre in a given year). In purely business terms, the Black audience is stagnant at best and at worst, shrinking. So not trying to appease or chase the Black audience is not about racism, but it is about the bottom line. Add to these numbers the perceived reluctance of foreign markets, particularly the Chinese market, the holy grail of every studio executive in Hollywood, to embrace Black actors (whether this perception is based on facts is a discussion for another day, but I find it dubious), and you have a recipe for the Black minority to be even more marginalized by Hollywood than they are by their demographic reality in America. Hollywood may be a lot of things, but the one thing it is without question…is a cut-throat, bottom line business. The powers that be in Hollywood do care a great deal about color, but that color is green.

This may not be a pleasant reality, but it is the reality. It is easier to be emotionally swayed to  accuse the Academy and film industry as being "racist" rather than actually looking at and digesting the facts and figures. Black actors are being treated and rewarded right in line with their perceived economic usefulness to the film industry's money lusting overlords. You can rightly blame capitalism, corporatism, globalization or demographics, but you'd be unwise to blame racism, because then you'd be ignoring reality, no matter how cold and hard it may be. 

A DRY WHITE SEASON

If, as the #OscarsSoWhite people seem to be arguing, you believe that the racial breakdown of the U.S. population should be mirrored by Oscar nominations and wins, then there is another group of people who are under-represented in Acting Oscar nominations and wins over the last thirty years….White Americans. Since 1986, there have been 362 nominations for White American actors, which is a percentage rate of 60%. White American actors have won acting Oscars 65 times in this same time period which means they win 54% of the time. Non-hispanic White Americans are 62% of the general U.S. population, which means that White American actors are under-represented in nominations by 3.2%. If you also include Canada in with the U.S., the amount of under-representation slightly grows, as the White population is 67% in the combined countries and the Oscar nomination and win rate stay the same, meaning American/Canadian Whites are under-represented by 10.4% in nominations and 19.4% in wins.

Over the last twenty years White-American actors have a 56.75% nomination rate (227 nominations out of 400) and a win rate of 42.5% (34 wins out of 80). This means that White-American actors are under-represented over the last twenty years by roughly 8.5% in nominations and roughly 31.5% in wins when compared to the White population percentage in the U.S.

Over the last ten years, White-American actors have a 65% nomination rate (144 out of 220) and a 37.5% Oscar win rate (15 out of 40). This means that White-American actors are over-represented over the last ten years by roughly 5% in nominations and under-represented over the same time period by roughly 40% in Oscar wins when compared to the percentage of Whites in the general population of the U.S.. 

When you take nationality out of the analysis, things get even more interesting. If you combine all of the White American actors and the white Canadian, British, Irish and Australian actors to have been nominated in the last thirty years, it comes to 520 nominations. 520 nominations is 86% of all of the acting nominations and the white populations 96 wins are 80% of all Oscar wins over this same thirty year time period. This seems to back up the argument that White actors, regardless of nationality, are massively over-represented. The White population of the U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland and Australia is 66% of the overall population of those countries combined. Which means that White english speaking actors are over-represented by 17.5% in Oscar wins and 23% in Oscar nominations. Although, if you only count the White and Black populations, and eliminate all other races and ethnicities, in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland and Australia, then things align a bit more in that Whites make up 87.4% of the population and have been awarded 86% of acting Oscar nominations and 80% of wins, and Blacks make up 12.6% of that population and have been awarded 10% of acting Oscar wins and 7.3% of nominations over the same time period.

While this proves that U.S., Canada, U.K., Irish and Australian White actors are over-represented in regards to the total population, our earlier analysis shows that this over-representation does not come at the detriment of Black actors. So who is getting left out and why?

THE SILENT MINORITIES : LATINOS AND ASIANS

In terms of America, the answer is pretty obvious, Latinos are dramatically under-represented in the acting categories in relation to their percentage of the U.S. general population. As previously stated, Latinos make up 17.4% of the U.S. general population, but with just 5 acting nominations in the last 30 years, make up .008% of the nominated actors. The only Latino American actors to have ever been nominated are Edwards James Olmos (Best Actor), Andy Gracia (Best Supporting Actor), Benicio del Toro (two Best Supporting Actor nominations), and Rosie Perez (Best Supporting Actress). Del Toro represents the lone Latino American acting Oscar win for his work in Traffic, which brings the Latino American win rate to .008%. Even when taking into account the expansion of the Latino population in America over the last thirty years, this statistic is pretty shocking and oddly consistent.

If you expand the search criteria to actors who speak Spanish as a primary language then the numbers mildly soften. There have been 11 actors nominated from majority Spanish speaking countries over the last 30 years, with 5 nominations coming from Spain, 3 from Mexico, 2 from Argentina and 1 from Columbia. There is only one win, that being Spaniard Penelope Cruz for Best Supporting Actress for her work in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. The percentage of nominations for Hispanic/Latino/Spanish speaking actors over the last thirty years is roughly .027%. The percentage of wins is roughly .017%.  Even if you expand the U.S. Latino population into the "English Speaking, vibrant film industry" countries of the U.S., U.K., Ireland and Australia, the U.S. Latino population is still 3.5%, well above their Oscar nomination and win rate.

Another group of people seriously under-represented in Acting Oscar nominations and wins are Asians-Americans. Asians make up 6% of the U.S. population, yet an Asian-American actor has not been nominated at all in the last thirty years. When you expand the search to Asians across the globe, there have been just two nominations, one best Supporting Actor nod for Japanese actor Ken Watanabe in The Last Samurai and a Best Supporting Actress nomination for Japanese actress Rinko Kakuchi for Babel. That equals a .002% rate for Asian nominations and a 0.0% win rate over the last thirty years, both of which are obviously drastically below the Asian-American U.S. population percentage and so small as to nearly incalculable in regards to the global Asian population.

If we are trying to understand why the Latino and Asian communities are under-represented, we have to make a bunch of assumptions that I don't have the data to confirm or deny. The main assumption is that language is a big barrier to foreign-born Latino and Asian actors. Acting in your primary language is one thing, but the difficulty of acting in a second language cannot be over estimated. Knowing how to speak a language is one thing, and knowing the rhythms, nuances and intricacies of it are entirely another. Also, the Academy is more likely than not, made up of english speakers, so films in foreign languages may get less of a viewing opportunity from members who don't want to read subtitles, and the subtlety of performances may be lost to those not fluent in the language being spoken on screen. Those may be some of the reasons why Latino and Asian actors are so under-represented, but frankly, this argument holds little to no water in regards to Asian-Americans and Latino-Americans, as it assumes that Latino-Americans or Asian-Americans are recent immigrants who are not entirely assimilated into the culture and language, which based on my own personal experience, is an extremely weak premise at best and totally absurd at worst.

It should be noted though that Japan, China, Korea and India all have thriving film industries in their own right, so there would be less of a pressing want or need for success in Hollywood coming from those areas. That said, Asian and Latino directors have still found some success in the Academy where Asian and Latino actors have not. In fact, the last three Best Director Oscar winners have been Latino or Asian, with Mexican directors Alfonso Cuaron and Alejandro Innaritu winning in 2013 and 2014 respectively and Taiwanese director Ang Lee winning his second Best Director Oscar in 2012. Innaritu is nominated again this year for The Revenant (his third Best Director nomination) and may be a favorite to win the award. The relative success of Latino and Asian filmmakers in recent years is a positive for the film industry and for diversity of artistic vision, even if it hasn't yet translated into more Asian and Latino actors gracing our movie screens.

In looking at the numbers what strikes me the most is that people like Jada Pinkett-Smith, Spike Lee and the #OscarsSoWhite movement are mostly directing their outrage at only Black actors being "snubbed" and under-represented and not about Latino and Asian actors being overlooked. I suppose this makes sense in the case of Lee and Pinkett-Smith since both are African-American. In contrast, what is fascinating to me is that the Latino and Asian communities are not up in arms and claiming racism over their obvious exclusion from the Academy Awards like the Black community has been. Why that is I don't know, but it is very striking nonetheless since the Asian and Latino communities have a much more solid argument. There is a much more compelling case to be made for Benicio del Toro to have been nominated this year for Sicario than there is for any of the previously mentioned Black actors to have been nominated. But the question becomes, was del Toro not nominated because he is Latino? Since Del Toro has been nominated and won an Oscar before, that is a difficult argument to prove.

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

Which brings us to another uncomfortable question, namely, when race, religion and ethnicity comes up in regards to under-representation, slights and snubs, what group is being over-represented? The "safe" answer is to say "Whites". Of course, not all Whites are the same, or created equal in terms of Hollywood. What does that mean? It means that the thing you aren't supposed to say is something you need to say if you want to have an honest discussion. Namely, that another minority in America, Jews, who make up 1.2% of the general population, are massively over-represented in the film business. This is an easily observable fact. Look at the heads of many of the studios and agencies, Brad Grey at Paramount, Bob Iger at Disney, Michael Lynton at Sony, Les Moonves at CBS/Viacom, Ronald Meyer at Universal, Ari Emanuel at William Morris and Harvey Weinstein at the Weinstein Company, these are just a few of the Jewish movers and shakers in Hollywood.

In regards to Acting Oscar nominations and wins, in just the Best Actor category alone, Jewish actors have won nine times in the last thirty years, for a win rate of 30%, and have been nominated 23 times for a rate of 15.3%. Both the Best Actor win rate and nomination rate are well above the 1.2% Jewish population rate in the U.S. But the question becomes, is that a problem? Is it bad that Jews make up the majority of Hollywood power brokers and a disproportionate amount of Oscar nominees and winners when they are a tiny minority in the population at large? If #OscarsSoWhite thinks Blacks are under-represented than they should have the courage to say that Jews are massively over-represented. This is an extremely uncomfortable topic for obvious historical reasons, but it needs to be brought up if we are saying that the Academy is racist, since the Academy, like Hollywood, is likely populated by many Jews.

In my opinion the answer to the question of Jewish over-representation is…what difference does it make? Just like with Blacks being the overwhelming majority of players in the NBA and NFL, or being 7 of the top 10 most powerful people in entertainment, it is entirely irrelevant. Making it in professional sports requires not only inordinate talent but an immense amount of hard work. So it is with entertainment in general and the film industry in particular. If you succeed in any of these fields it is not because of your race, religion or ethnicity, it is because you are just plain better than the competition and/or have worked harder. In all bottom line businesses, be they sport, entertainment or any other, if you don't get better results than your competition, you won't be around very long. There is no room for ethnic, racial or religious loyalty when victory is the only goal.

CONCLUSION 

Hollywood is an awful, awful place. The film industry is brutal and dehumanizing. Women in particular, of all ethnicities, are treated absolutely atrociously. All people, regardless of color, are seen as little more than opportunities for the powerful to exploit for their own profit. The business is next to impossible to break into, and even when you do break in, you basically have to sell your soul just to get in the room to have the opportunity to audition for a part that might lead to another audition that might lead to another part that might actually get you somewhere. But there is always someone else, someone better looking, someone more interesting, someone better connected, someone 'newer' and 'fresher', or someone just plain better. This is life in Hollywood and entertainment….regardless of color, religion or nationality. The callous gauntlet of Hollywood could not care less about your race, religion or ethnicity, it just wants to know what you can do for it, not what it can do for you.

In the final analysis, the Academy Awards are a pretty ridiculous endeavor, where wealthy, famous and powerful people congratulate one another on how fantastic they think they all are. It is a narcissism measuring contest held by the Narcissism Society of America in the Narcissism Capital of the World (well…it is in the top three with Wall St. and Washington D.C.). The Academy is many things...stupid, sentimental, cowardly, myopic, greedy, but to blindly and emotionally call it racist would be to reduce the power of that charge and diminish the needed impact it would have in areas where the diabolical curse of racism is real and at times deadly. #OscarsSoWhite is a misguided meme that unwittingly endorses emotionalism over rationalism, feelings over reason and a distorted but understandable perception over reality. People would be more accurate, and better served, to say #OscarsSoSHITE than to say #OscarsSoWhite. Regardless, if someone says the Oscars are racist because there are no Black acting nominees this year, be sure to tell them...#DontBelieveTheHype!!!

©2016