Denzel Washington To Star in New Movie.The Hughes Brothers will direct 'Book of Eli'

Oscar winner Denzel Washington will star in the post-apocalyptic drama "Book of Eli."Set to be produced by Alcon Entertainment and distributed by Warner Bros., "Book of Eli" will be directed by Allen and Albert Hughes ("From Hell").In addition to starring, Washington will also produce along with Joel Silver, Susan Downey and Alcon's Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson. Gary Whitta wrote the original story, with rewrites by Andrew Peckham.Washington will play a hero traveling across the devastated American landscape.According to the industry trades, "Book of Eli" will begin shooting in January.Last seen in "American Gangster" and "The Great Debaters," Washington has a remake of "The Taking of Pelham 123" set for release next summer.

MEVLIN VAN PEEBLES" GODFATHER OF MODERN BLACK CINEMA"

Most of those familiar with Melvin Van Peebles know him as the driving force behind the incendiary 1971 film Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. While that revolutionary picture earned Van Peebles the title “godfather of modern black cinema,” the film’s impact extends far beyond blaxploitation genre conventions—Sweetback has proven to be a landmark in both American and independent cinema. Much like the film’s iconoclastic hero (played by Van Peebles himself), a street-smart hustler who single-handedly topples the white Establishment (a.k.a. the Man!), Van Peebles functioned as a virtual one-man studio to make Sweetback. Besides starring in the title role, Van Peebles financed, produced, wrote, directed and scored the picture, which grossed more than $10 million, making it the most successful independent film of its time. What few realize, however, is that filmmaking is but a small part of Van Peebles’ remarkable life. The same dogged, DIY persistence that enabled Van Peebles to make Sweetback is evident in every project he undertakes, artistic or otherwise, and his achievements have in turn inspired legions of like-minded creators, from rap pioneer Gil Scott-Heron to filmmaker Spike Lee. Naturally, by insisting on doing things his way, Van Peebles has stepped on some toes, yet he consistently refuses to back down. “My politics is to win,” Van Peebles declares at the beginning of How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It), a documentary that explores the life and work of this maverick, modern-day Renaissance man. Whether making guerrilla-style films, flying Air Force sorties over the Pacific (ferrying the atom bomb, no less), studying astronomy in Amsterdam, writing novels in self-taught French, composing music (by means of a self-devised notation system), writing musical stage plays (for which he received nine Tony nominations), recording seminal rap albums or trading options on Wall Street, Van Peebles has blazed his own path, making a mark in each endeavor he’s pursued.In How to Eat Your Watermelon… the events of Van Peebles’ life are vividly recounted through interviews with colleagues, contemporaries, critics, family and friends. The film also takes advantage of remarkable archival footage culled from all corners of Van Peebles’ diverse life—ranging from rare interviews on French TV to a hilarious series of opinion pieces culled from his brief foray as a financial-news analyst—to paint a sharp portrait of this unique personality. But How to Eat Your Watermelon… doesn’t merely enumerate Melvin Van Peebles’ artistic glories, nor does it plot a static hagiography of accomplishments; by virtue of original cinema vérité footage shot over the past eight years in the U.S. and France, it constructs a gripping narrative of a restless artist in an often unforgiving world, and reveals that Van Peebles, at age 74, is still a vital creative force who shows no signs of slowing down.How to Eat Your Watermelon… is structured as a conversation, in which an improbably varied cast of characters weaves together a story that constantly builds in intensity and surprise. It’s as if they can’t all be talking about the same person, yet in the absence of a narrator, the audience is repeatedly left to wonder how such dramatic plot turns in the story of one man can be possible. First he’s a grip man on a San Francisco cable car, next he’s writing a book about working on a cable car; then he’s an astronomer in Amsterdam before teaching himself French and publishing five French novels; before long he’s the director of the official French entry in an American film festival—and eventually authoring a book on how to trade stock options on Wall Street. All of these disparate moments coalesce into a story that is nothing short of astonishing. The film comes together gradually as it introduces the “connective tissue” of each episode in Van Peebles’ life: His comfort with the unknown; his ability to create his own working system out of complexities ranging from musical notation to financial analysis; his boundless determination to say something important no matter what the vehicle of expression; his artistic “jujitsu,” by which he confronts the Establishment by using its power against itself.As the story unfolds, a visual mystery is played out as well. At the film’s beginning, we see an unidentified man, his head encased in a massive blue bubble of polyurethane. As the events of Van Peebles’s career unfold, the film periodically returns to two sculptors who are creating a lifelike figure of Melvin for part of an art exhibition paying tribute to blaxploitation cinema. The creation of the sculpture functions as the film’s narrative spine—a vivid metaphorical transitional device linking the distinct chapters in Van Peebles’s life and career. One of the central themes of How to Eat Your Watermelon… is that determination (coupled with talent) trumps adversity every time. As an African-American artist, Van Peebles puts forth a powerful notion about how the battle for true racial equality should unfold, were it to be honest and sincere. In his song “Just Don’t Make No Sense,” Van Peebles takes aim at the presumptions black men in America must face every day: “Frown, you hostile / Smile, you a Tom / Look tired, you on junk / Stumble, you drunk.” Van Peebles typically uses humor to convey his themes, as when he tells the story of how he would spray his office with a watermelon-scented fragrance just before the arrival of “liberal” friends: “They would walk into the office and say, ‘Gee, Mel, what’s that smell? It smells like umm…umm…cantaloupe!’ They were too afraid to say watermelon!”Humorous, serious and incisive, How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It) is ultimately a story about the power of fearlessness.

Will Smith to play The Last Pharoah

Will Smith to play the Nubian Pharaoh Taharqa in THE LAST PHARAOH

Hey folks, Harry here... Michael Fleming over at Variety is reporting that Randall Wallace (BRAVEHEART guy) is writing a script for Will Smith and Columbia called THE LAST PHARAOH based upon Taharqa's life as pharaoh of Egypt from 690 BC to 664 BC. His father was a Nubian king that conquered Egypt.
According to Fleming the film is focussing on the battles with Esarhaddon, who ruled the Assyrians at the time. It'll be interesting to see how the film is played out, as historically - Taharqa did defeat the Assyrians on their first battle 677, but just a few years later the Assyrians defeated and conquered Egypt causing Taharqa to flee into lower Egypt, where he caused trouble before ultimately being defeated by Esarhaddon's son Assurbanipal before again fleeing and ultimately dying in his homeland of Nubia. The basic structure is there for a BRAVEHEART style story, but this will be a very challenging role for Will Smith - who will need to shed his very modern feel. But this is exactly the sort of project that I'd like to see him stretch to do! Very interesting project!

How Media Portrays Black Men!

"The Black Image in the White Mind" - a wonderful book and multiple award winner, written by Robert M. Entman and Andrew Rojecki, discusses the effects of life in a segregated society. It offers a comprehensive look at the intricate and subtle racial patterns in the mass media and discusses how these powerful images play a significant role in shaping the attitudes of Whites toward Blacks. White Americans, they show, learn about African Americans not through personal relationships, but through the images shown by the media. In addition, they reveal a subtle pattern of images that communicates a racial hierarchy (with Whites on top) and promotes a sense of difference and conflict. Entman and Rojecki illustrate how the television news focus on black poverty and crime is grossly out of proportion with the reality of black life, how use of black 'experts' is limited to 'black-themed' issues, and how 'black politics' are often distorted in the news. In short, they conclude that although there are more images of African-Americans on television now than ever, these images are often harmful to the prospect of unity between the races. A brief summary of some of their findings are listed below:
A mug shot of a Black defendant is 4 times more likely to appear in a local television news report than of a White defendant
The accused is 2 times more likely to be shown physically restrained in a local television news report than when the accused is White
The name of the accused is 2 times more likely to be shown on screen in a local TV news report if the defendant is Black, rather than White
"Telegenic" figures aren't always the most representative leaders though they are presented as if they were. Some statistics from 1994:
40% of Black adults stated that Jesse Jackson represents Black people "very well"
Only 11% of Black adults stated that Louis Farrakhan represents Black people "very well"
22% of Black adults stated they had "never heard of" Louis Farrakhan
Stories about, or soundbites from, Jesse Jackson on ABC World News: 13 versus stories about, or soundbites from, Louis Farrakhan on ABC World News: 25
The media sowed discord during the affirmative action debate of the 1990s despite the considerable common ground between Blacks and Whites. Reporters often predicted affirmative action would be one of the key issues in the 1996 election because of the "rage" among Whites.
A mere 1% percent of survey respondents named affirmative action as their top priority in voting against a presidential candidate
61% percent of White men ("angry" or not) favored affirmative action programs as is or with reforms
76% percent of White women favored affirmative action programs as is or with reforms
Somehow only 12.5% percent of White "persons on the street" were shown to support affirmative action in a sample of network news, while the percentage shown to oppose was 87.5%
While Black actors are now more visible in films, it is an open question as to how well they are being represented. Compare, for example, how Blacks and Whites are portrayed in the top movies of 1996.
Black female movie characters shown using vulgar profanity: 89%
White female movie characters shown using vulgar profanity: 17%
Black female movie characters shown being physically violent: 56%
White female movie characters shown being physically violent: 11%
Black female movie characters shown being restrained: 55%
White female movie characters shown being restrained: 6% Research findings are reprinted with permission. Copyright notice: 2000 by Robert M. Entman and Andrew Rojecki. This text appears on the University of Chicago Press website by permission of the authors. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of U.S. copyright law, and it may be archived and redistributed in electronic form, provided that this entire notice, including copyright information, is carried and provided that Robert M. Entman and Andrew Rojecki and the University of Chicago Press are notified and no fee is charged for access. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text (or the rest of the text on the website) on other terms, in any medium, requires the consent of Robert M. Entman and Andrew Rojecki.

Antoine Fuquas Youth Film Program

Antoine Fuqua, director of Training Day and Shooter, distributed HD cameras to four young people from the Van Dyke housing projects in Brooklyn on the set of his current production Brooklyn’s Finest. The Van Dyke Youth Film Project, a mentorship program designed to inspire kids to make films, is a joint initiative between Fuqua and producer John Langley. The presentation took place on Monday, June 16 at the Van Dyke Community Center in Brooklyn during a break from the production. Fuqua grew up in the projects in Pittsburgh and wanted to give something back to kids growing up in a similar situation.
The youths were chosen from a pool of fifty who submitted essays on why they wanted to make films and tell stories. The four selected – Tyrell Brown, Bryan Martin, Lea-Sym Feyjoo, and Marcus Underwood - range in age from 16 to 19 and will be mentored by Fuqua and the crew of Brooklyn’s Finest over the next three months as they write, shoot, and edit their own films. Also participating in the program is the film’s screenwriter, Michael Martin, a former transit worker. Martin will help mentor the kids on the scriptwriting component of their projects. Brooklyn’s Finest stars Richard Gere, Don Cheadle, Wesley Snipes, Ethan Hawke, and Michael Kenneth Williams.

Hollywood Gets Muslims Wrong, Again!

Traitor: one who betrays another's trust or is false to an obligation or duty.
Like the protagonist of the movie, Traitor exists with conflicting loyalties and a fleeting sense of fidelity to its honorable yet ultimately porous intentions. The Don Cheadle-headed action/thriller co-written by comedian Steve Martin and director Jeffrey Nachmanoff inelegantly attempts to combine cardboard, blockbuster plot mechanics with the important, philosophical musings of a complicated post 9-11 world.
If anything, this mainstream movie should be commended for having a practicing, religious, African American Muslim as its hero -- one portrayed by a major Hollywood celebrity, no less. Unfortunately, both due to the plot constraints of the movie and today's geo-political realities, this character must reactively and proactively define himself though his actions within yet another "us vs. them" narrative. As such, the quest for a multi-faceted, dynamic Muslim character that is neither a terrorist nor a cab driver continues.
The Muslim and titular "traitor" in question is Samir Horn [Don Cheadle], a Sudanese born, American agent so deep undercover as an Islamic extremist bomb maker that only one government supervisor (Jeff Daniels in a cameo role) knows his true identity. He infiltrates the ranks of a radical movement headed by the mysterious "Nathir," a terrorist group hell bent on striking against infidels (basically, everyone but them). Their mission? To activate sleeper agents -- seemingly ordinary Americans but in reality (gasp -- heartless Muslim terrorists) -- and carry out massive, simultaneous suicide bombings on 50 separate buses.
Is Samir driven by his loyalties to his "brothers" in Islam and so thoroughly entrenched in his covert identity that he will carry out the attacks? Or, will he be loyal to an American government which is simultaneously pursuing him as a high priority terrorist and is also complicit in racial profiling and violence towards the Muslim world?
These timely questions could make for an introspective and layered movie that resonates with the fears and hopes of an international audience. Unfortunately, the filmmakers, or perhaps their Hollywood producers, jettison these aspects of the movie for a streamlined "catch the terrorists before they terrorize us" plot that was already beaten to death by Showtime's Sleeper Cell and every single season of Fox's 24.
Although Traitor aims for a The Departed meets Paradise Lost setup, it fails to work as both a cat-and-mouse thriller and a reflective identity drama. Cheadle underplays his role with a somber anguish that emphasizes Samir's turmoil as he falls rapidly into his "role" as bomb maker and "jihadi" recruiter. But an actor can only work with the solid, creative foundation a director and a script can provide.
The characters in the movie, particularly Muslim ones, become less human as the film progresses and morph into Wikipedia sound bites. You know the type too well: characters who randomly and unrealistically interrupt their speeches with info-tainment, such as explanations of jihad, translations of Quran verses, botched Islamic prayers and inopportune vernacular. This is Hollywood's casual way of placating a skeptical, progressive audience. "See! We did our homework and rented some Muslim advisors! We know all about Quran and Hadith and Sunnah! Right? Great! Ok, let's continue and show Muslims blow up stuff!"
One of Traitor's tragic flaws is Hollywood's century old myopia, placing a shining minority citizen amidst a sea of his depraved brethren. The "Good Darkie" then battles for the souls and minds of the "Evil Darkies." Cheadle's Samir is a devout Muslim whose religious discipline is displayed continuously and even admired by other characters. He prays five times a day; he fasts; he abstains from alcohol and so forth. Meanwhile, every other Muslim character seems transplanted from dated 80's action movies and True Lies.
You have the English speaking, well-coiffed terrorist who poses as an elite aristocrat in Europe, but whose sole purpose is the destruction of the infidels. Then there's the terrorist henchmen, a classic Hollywood staple, which is basically a United Nations coalition of mute, scary looking Middle Eastern, Persian and South Asian men. A young, good-looking French kid eagerly and quickly embraces the jihadi cause after a clichéd and uninspiring recruitment speech. And another major supporting character, Omar (played by perennial "go to terrorist actor" Said Taghmaoui), is a European educated, chess-loving jihadist, who Samir befriends in Yemen.
The beginning of the movie, which focuses on Samir and Omar's friendship while doing hard time in a Yemeni prison shows glimpses of what could have been before the movie became buried under an avalanche of clichés. Omar and Samir discuss theology and spirituality, bouncing off each other's philosophical outlook on life, all while playing chess. They are excellent foils for one another and the movie has fleeting scenes building on their friendship, even though it is eventually uprooted by Samir's betrayal. Instead, Omar becomes yet another substitute terrorist plot device as the movie lapses into "Muslim Bourne Identity" territory.
Speaking of foils, talented actor Guy Pearce portrays an FBI agent named Clayton, who is hot on Samir's trail. In an attempt to show balance, the filmmakers portray Clayton as a Texan (one with a really bad Southern accent), and a highly educated son of a Baptist preacher who studied Arabic and religious studies in college. Aside from giving the movie its necessary cop-who-hunts-terrorist role, Clayton is also a metaphor for the tolerant American who is willing to see beyond race and religion. Clayton's nemesis is his partner Archer, a Dirty Harry, shoot-first ask-questions-later" FBI agent, who lacks cultural awareness and appreciation for the nuances of Islamic traditions.
This is all well intended, but characters need to be independent, living creations, not just convenient messages. When Archer says or does something politically incorrect, Clayton calmly educates him. When Archer lambastes Islam as a religion of terrorism, Clayton reminds him that the Klu Klux Klan rationalized their abhorrent behavior with the Bible and that extremist minorities don't define a religion. And then they continue with the stereotypical plot, hunting down enraged Muslim terrorists. The message of the film is lost due to its inability to define its good intentions with realistic characters and meaningful dialogue, substituted instead with tense chase sequences. This point is highlighted by what is the film's most egregious and unintentional characterization: the depiction of the sleeper agents. For a movie that tries to have its tolerance cake and blow it up as well, the filmmakers dangerously depict an America that is heavily infiltrated with assimilated Muslim American citizens who -- at the drop of a dime -- are ready to carry out suicide, terrorist missions. From a South Asian government official to an unassuming, light-skinned college student to an Arab husband and father to an African-American businessman -- all magically jettison their lives, careers and loved ones as soon as "Nathir" contacts them for a mission.
For those in America ignorant about Islam and Muslims, it reinforces paranoia and mistrust, making it seem like your harmless Muslim neighbors, teachers, friends and lovers are all [cue drum roll and melodramatic music] terrorists! The film's supporters will likely argue that the sophisticated characterization of Cheadle's Samir counteracts this evil.
But is Samir the shining Muslim definitive of the moderate majority, or merely an aberration that exists within the confines of a Hollywood narrative? Traitor aims for the former but unintentionally delivers the latter. Much like the character Samir, it loses itself in an unfulfilling dual identity, one that betrays its noble intentions and refuses to fully commit to its convictions -- either as a mindless action thriller or a thought provoking drama.

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Wajahat Ali is a playwright, essayist, humorist, and Attorney at Law, whose work, “The Domestic Crusaders” is the first major play about Muslim Americans living in a post 9-11 America.

Birth of an Industry

In 1915, D. W. Griffith dropped a blockbuster on America - "Birth of a Nation." Considering the primitive, one-dimensional movies that had been released to that point, the film was an absolute masterpiece; some of the techniques Griffith invented for the film are still in use today. The film cost $110,000 to produce in 1915, with ticket prices of two bucks a head at the box office. It was more than three hours long, compared to the 15-minute shorts most people were used to.
Comparatively speaking, it was all three "Lord of the Rings" films at once with a ticket price of $20. It was the most vile, disgusting racist propaganda piece put together outside of Nazi Germany.
In the film, the "good" blacks were those who stayed on the plantations; the rest were out wandering around jobless, beating up white men and raping white women. The Northerners were happy they did this and encouraged it. The Southerners put together a team of masked Zorros to fight only for what was fair and right for the downtrodden Southern whites. They were called the Ku Klux Klan.
To this day, there are people who hold that this was a semi-historical representation of the acts of the Klan. Bunk.
The first Klan mentioned in the link above is the one that Griffith romanticized; it was made illegal by the federal government as a terrorist group. The rise of the second one mentioned could be directly attributed to the romantic picture Griffith painted of the lost institution.
Not unexpectedly, the black community was alarmed and disgusted by their portrayal in Griffith's film. The almost immediate renewal of violence towards blacks that accompanied the film made it clear that the message of "Birth of a Nation" had to be countered.
Emmett J. Scott, former secretary to Booker T. Washington, took it upon himself to get the opposing view onto celluloid. Raising more than half a million dollars - five times Griffith's budget - partially by selling stock in the venture, Scott envisioned "Birth of a Race." It would be an impassioned cry for tolerance and understanding, a film that would show that there was no difference between blacks and whites, and the suffering of one was the same as the suffering of the other...
Well, that was the idea, anyway.
What idealist Scott didn't realize was that the people who ponied up all that money wanted their money back, and they weren't all that hot on the box-office possibilities of noble black folks. As inevitably as any blockbuster made today, legions of share-owning idea men chimed in with their two cents, with nearly every one of them shying away from controversy that might cost them dollars in the box office. By the time "Birth of a Race" was finally released, the film was the equivalent of a three-hour school play about the history of the world, completely void of hard edges. It died a quick and inoffensive death, and of the three hours of original footage, only ten minutes remain today - usually seen only as a cheap add-on to the video release of the film that inspired it.
On the bright side for Scott, his idealism served him well. When WWI rolled around he was appointed special assistant to the U.S. Secretary of War in charge of Negro Affairs, making sure that the black men in the service got a fair shake. Afterwards, he held positions as secretary, treasurer and business manager at Howard University. He wrote "Scott's Official History of the American Negro in World War I," a reference still used today.
Which is very good and well, but Scott still blew the chance to rebut "Birth of a Nation." Fortunately, there were others who came after to take up the slack.
If "Birth of a Race" did not start - or empower - black cinema, it did mark the point at which black cinema was widely recognized as a necessary extension of the black American community. With no high-flown expectations of changing whites' attitudes or fighting the Hollywood machine, black cinema began to serve the black community in the same way Hollywood served the whites - by providing drama, comedy and entertainment to serve their respective audiences