i just finished watching shut up, little man, a documentary about two drunk men who argued loudly and the two young men who secretly recorded them & circulated the tapes. i have a few thoughts:

1) the movie is 89 minutes long. that might have been overly ambitious. at 45 minutes, i was saying, “i think we’re good, right?”

2) i will admit to a touch of voyeurism, but the idea of recording someone’s private conversations - and LAUGHING at them - upsets me on a deep level. when i was 19, i dated a young man who shared a house with two other guys. one night the boyfriend played me a tape (this was ‘91-‘92 - around the same time as the “shut up” phenomenon) of one of his roommate’s post-coital conversations with a one night stand, recorded from outside his closed bedroom door. as boyfriend cracked up, my blood ran cold; it was disturbing and unsettling. i’ve never forgotten that feeling. so i’m sorry if i don’t get the joke.

3) back in 1995, two different guys (not even the OG dudes) tracked down peter, the originator of the “shut up, little man!” line. they were both trying to get his story, either for a movie or for a written piece. the meeting was videotaped. when that videotaped clip was shown to the various talking heads/super fans, the fans didn’t seem to like it. it wasn’t the same, they said. it was too real. only then did they seem to realize that they had been fetishizing a couple of PEOPLE, people with actual problems, problems that possibly led to their weird existence of living together in a seedy apartment, drinking and fighting.

4) also, quit twisting yourselves into knots trying to justify your “art,” fellas.

5) after seeing so many other attempts at capitalizing on these recordings flounder & fail, this documentary feels like a last-ditch effort to lock in a legacy.

6) wow, that last thought was extremely cynical, even for me. i’m going to bed.

i get it, guys. red tails. i need to see it - the fate of black cinema rests on me going to see a movie about a subject i have no interest in. [That doesn’t matter. Go see it. - Blackness Barometer Ed.]

i’m not hating to be hating. when george lucas went on the daily show and bluntly stated that all of the hollywood studios turned him down because they didn’t know what to do with a black movie, i admired his moxie. i wasn’t surprised by the news, since i’m a black person who follows pop culture, but i liked that lucas was fired up about it.

that said, i didn’t necessarily agree with the whole “if you don’t see this, then nobody will make a movie with black people ever again!!” scare tactic. i mean, what are studios going to do, cancel all of the movies with 2 or more black people coming down the pike? nobody paid to see soul plane in the theaters and somehow precious got made. also, that studios said no to george lucas seemed to blow his mind the most. thirdly, jar jar binks.

but whatever - good on him for letting everyone know how hollywood gets down…

until i realized that lucas isn’t the director. this guy is. anthony hemingway. this is his first feature film. before this he directed episodes of CSI:NY and treme. (also the episode of community where shirley and chang hook up, which, come on now…)

why did i not find out that the director of red tails was a young black man making his directorial debut until the day the movie came out? why has it only been george lucas’ big shiny mug all over the place? if he cared so much about the future of black cinema, why didn’t he have hemingway do some of the press with him, introduce him to the world?

(other questions: how does someone who has only done relatively sedate television shows suddenly get a big budget action movie dripping in special effects? did lucas basically hire a figurehead? UH, YA THINK?)

and don’t get me started on aaron mcgruder working on the screenplay.

whatever. the beat is hot, though.

i’ve been in the mood for movies lately, so i pulled a double feature today, young adult and the artist. i guess i have feelings & opinions on both, but right now i want to talk about one of the stars of the artist, jean dujardin. so great. he had the perfect face for this movie. where did they find him? [France, you idiot. The director is French & he’s done a number of comedies with Dujardin as his leading man. Don’t you retain anything from those articles you read? - Grumpy Ed.]

even though he was supposed to be a silent film star, dujardin was giving me a serious case of the gene kellys. here’s dujardin…

… and here’s g.kells.

now, jean dujardin is no dancer - don’t let the stiff tap dancing fool you - but he still had a good bit of kelly’s grace, which is tough to duplicate. you either have it or you don’t. he also looked good in high-waisted trousers and that was gene’s whole steeze.

so, among other things, the artist made me want to watch gene kelly clips all night.

to recap, jean dujardin:

gene kelly:

gene kelly dancing:

danielleh:

is for Quentin Tarantino to realize he’s not African American and stop writing us into his movies as if he is.

LET THE CHURCH SAY “AMEN.”

my fall fashion inspiration is long duk dong’s sexy american girlfriend.

hanging out with the delightful rob haze at the laughing skull friday night and talk turned (as it has been lately) to those back to the future 2 marty mcfly joints that nike just released to benefit the michael j. fox foundation. during the conversation, i admitted that i have not seen the second back to the future movie. rob was shocked. “what?!? how have you not seen it? what about that line?”

“what line?” i asked.

he quoted the last line of part one: where we’re going, we don’t need roads. “didn’t you want to see what doc was talking about? they DIDN’T NEED ROADS. didn’t you want to know?”

it was then that i realized that although that last line was definitely powerful - i vaguely remember getting goosebumps when christopher lloyd uttered it - i always thought it had more of a PHILOSOPHICAL meaning. like, “ah, young grasshopper. does one always need roads?”

i watched a documentary on the clash last night. uh, why didn’t anyone tell me how dreamy paul simonon was?

and he was the bass player? and the one who was really into reggae? c’mon, guys. that’s right up my alley. research your selling points.

i’m feeling current-era simonon, too. this makes me want to see the gorillaz again and watch him.

saw the michael rapaport documentary about tribe called quest last night. it was pretty good. not exactly mind-blowing, but extremely enjoyable. if you’re a fairly serious tribe fan, it certainly gives you warm & fuzzy memories of the first time you heard bonita applebum or electric relaxation. and watching the relationship between q-tip and phife is interesting, especially when you consider what’s been floating around about them.

(i kinda fell in love with phife a little bit. he said two things that will stick with me. one, when describing something q-tip did that was upsetting, phife referred to tip as “duke” - i’m currently trying to work that into my everyday vernacular. it’ll probably replace “chief.” two, phife compared tribe to diana ross & the supremes, with q-tip as diana. he then said, “so what, that means ali is mary wilson and I’M florence ballard?!? pphhhffftt.” still laughing at that. so astute.)

but i gotta be honest - as much as i love tribe (and i do), my heart belongs to de la soul. my heart raced when they appeared on the screen. i’d much rather see a doc on them.