Black Dynamite
"First Lady, I'm sorry I pimp slapped you into that china cabinet."
The once proud movie parody (Airplane!, Top Secret) is now the most debased of all film genres thanks to that horrible cycle of films from the inept, beneath-contempt team of rolex replica Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer (Date Movie, Epic Movie, etc.)
Attempting to restore comic dignity to the form, director Scott Sanders lovingly recreates the blaxploitation film -- including baffling editing, visible microphones, make-it-up-as-you-go plotting, gratuitous nudity and even more gratuitous martial arts.
On that last score, the movie stars real martial arts star Michael Jai White (Spawn) doing an excellent impersonation of '70s martial arts star Jim Kelly in the title role (why yes, his name is Black Dynamite). Mr. Dynamite is an orphan-turned-CIA agent-turned-ghetto avenger, investigating a shipment of drugs apparently meant to be consumed by neighbourhood orphans. ("Not the orphans!") and a toxic brew of malt liquor.
Blaxploitation films are frequently the targets of parody (I'm Gonna Git You Sucka!, Undercover Brother), but this one may be the most deadly accurate, even if it does veer towards the downright ludicrous by the conclusion.
Pity it didn't get a better theatrical release. Any two minutes of its running time is funnier than the entire collected works of Friedberg-Seltzer.
I blame The Man. '''1/2
Amreeka
NOT a lot of films could boast dividing their shooting locations between Israel's West Bank and Winnipeg.
Just don't expect much mention of Winnipeg (doubling for small-town Illinois) in this directorial debut from writer-director Cherien Dabis, who elegantly syncs those worlds-apart landscapes.
Muna (Nisreen Faour) is a single mother living an unsatisfactory existence in her occupied homeland. Between dodging the sight of her ex-husband and enduring the indignities of negotiating her way through Israeli checkpoints on her way to and from work, life is tough.
It seems a golden opportunity when Muna and her son Fadi (Melkar Muallem) unexpectedly receive confirmations of long-forgotten green card applications allowing them to move to the United States.
They arrive in the U.S. to live with Muna's replica breitling sister Raghda (Hiam Abbass of The Visitor), her doctor husband and their Americanized children.
Unfortunately, the move comes as America is invading Iraq (a sign outside a restaurant bears the prescient prank message "Support Our Oops") and anti-Arab sentiment is high. Raghda's husband is losing his patients, and the family is receiving death threats. (The Jordan-born Dabis herself grew up during the first Gulf War and her family experienced similar hardships.)
It's a setup for melodrama, but the movie has lots of humour, mostly due to the sweet screen presence of Faour.
On the DVD extras is a whole episode of a British movie series titled The Fabulous Picture Show in which Dabis is shown doing a Q&A on the film at an Arab film festival, discussing how her own adolescent experience during the first Gulf War inspired this film. Elsewhere, there's straight B-roll interviews with the cast and crew in which production designer discusses how the construction of a bogus White Castle restaurant in Winnipeg actually succeeded in attracting would-be customers. ''''
Law Abiding Citizen
Other articles:
http://www.wushubbs.com/Girlfriend-your-style-ha.html
http://www.ejproperties.com/Hello-Year-of-the-Tiger.html
http://www.glamareus.com/blog.php?user=mywatches&blogentry_id=149
http://www.srblogs.com/blog.php?user=mywatches¬e=5669
http://www.umefriends.com/blog/view/id_260/title_peadar-more-of-a-hero-to-irela/
