Warning: Spoilers ahead.
'Knowing' (2009) ($187 million worldwide gross receipts/$50 million production cost) Scientist Nicholas Cage knows Earth will be destroyed by a solar flare. Fortunately angel-like aliens arrive to take two white children to another world where they can start over. The boy and the girl each carry rabbits as they run towards a large tree set in a field of alien wheat.
While there are other alien space ships hovering above this far-away world we don't see any other pairs of rescued Earth children. Have aliens only rescued white children? How easy for the film makers to show a collection of 'genetic lottery party favors' as additional pairs of Adams and Eves, but we don't see that.
Since this is a sci-fi retelling of the Garden of Eden it brings up the question of what race were Adam and Eve? Given the choice who would God or God-like aliens select as the starting material for a new society? The movie also brings up the question of whether our existence is simply a random event without meaning. Did we evolve from humanoids like Lucy to only end up looking like Lucy, equally unable to control our fate or to even give it much thought?
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'Taken' (2009) ($225 M world gross/$25 M cost) Liam Neeson's daughter is kidnapped for purposes of being sold into white slavery. Neeson the ex-spy then kills scores of blacks, Albanian Muslims and Arabs in the streets of Paris. He saves his daughter.
There is little done to mask the actual racial dynamics of crime in France. This bothered critics who are used to the American practice of obscuring or even reversing the actual color of crime.
Even at the start of the film Luc Besson, one of the writers and the person most responsible for the story, doesn't pull racial punches. Neeson is providing security for a popular singer at LA's Staples Center. A deranged man, obviously not white, perhaps Mestizo, lunges with a knife. He is quickly subdued. Once again, how very easy for the film makers to provide a correct racial angle, especially in light of what is to follow. Yet they resist the temptation.
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'I Have Loved You For So Long' (2008) This French-language movie's minor characters show the French attitude toward immigration. An Iraqi doctor, skilled and compassionate, is accepted as a friend and intellectual equal by his French neighbors. Meanwhile a black African is unable to pass his college courses, blames others, and is dismissed as both stupid and irritating.
A 'correct' scenario would have the black African overcoming racism to cure cancer and then jumping into 'Taken' to discipline Mr. Neeson.
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'Californication' David Duchovny goes to a movie. A Latino begins a loud cell phone conversation. Duchovny objects, breaks the cell phone and gets into a fight which he wins to the general approval of the movie theater patrons.
Later Duchovny gets into a fight with a black, wins that fight and goes to jail.
Duchovny's daughter performs at a music recital. The music of course is classic, as in The Ramones. Which is to say 'white'. Proper protocol requires homage to black music, which is generally known as being superior to anything four white kids from NYC could ever do. As proof there are precious few soundtracks that are not full of black music. Yet that may be changing.
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'The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman' Jackie gets drunk, plays with a leaf blower and says, 'Wow, this is fun. Now I understand why Mexicans like this sport so much.'
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'Stuck' (2008) (limited theater release of less than 2 months and $67K in receipts, then to DVD sales) Based on the true story of a Houston black woman, high on drugs, running into a white man with her car and his becoming stuck in the windshield. He died over several days yet the black woman and visitors to her house made no attempt to help.
Director Stuart Gordon is faced with a problem. No way is he going to get away with accurate racial casting. The 'Law and Order' series did the story and made the criminal into a white professional woman but did keep the victim as white. Solution: cast Mena Suvari and make her as black as possible. Corn rows, black boyfriend, junk food, casual drunkenness and drug use, casual dishonesty, flat hard stare.
Stephen Rea is the victim. A succession of people are going to exhibit perfect indifference to his problems.
1. At the employment center his file has been lost. The counselor there insists he fill out more forms and came back later. 'But I've lost my apartment. You see I'm even carrying my clothes with me.' 'Sorry, but here's a pen. And my card.' Name on card: Liebman
2. A boy sees the victim in the perpetrator's garage. He tells his parents. But the father, concerned about their illegal immigrant status, refuses to help.
3. A homosexual walks his dog. The dog gets into the garage and licks the injured man's compound fracture. The homosexual wonders what his pet has gotten into. 'Bad dog, what is this sticky red stuff you got all over my sweater. Let's go home to clean you up.'
4. 911. 'So you don't know where you are? Sir, how can we help you if you don't know where you are?'
5. The black boyfriend. 'Baby I've killed lots of people. In broad daylight.' Sadly, the black boyfriend is killed by a pen through his eye socket. Pushed right into the brain.
6. Suvari's character winds up being burned to death despite being assured she won't be reported to the police. Rea's character is able to save himself.
There are other nice touches. A bar frequented by the would-be murderer and her boyfriend is the 'High and Low'. There we see black and white couples in a dull and depressing 'club'. No glamor at all. The white girls are ugly sluts and the black boys are minor thugs. No Remy Martin Louis XIII cognac here.
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'Waitress' (2007) ($22 M world gross/$1.5 M cost) Nothing especially political about this movie. But the story of what happened in real life to the writer and director Adrienne Shelly (born Adrienne Levine) is tragic and entirely due to politics. Before the movie was released it won several awards at film festivals. It had a good cast including Keri Russell and Andy Griffith.
On November 1, 2006 an illegal alien from Ecuador murdered Shelly. She had caught him in her apartment stealing from her purse. He knocked her unconscious then hanged her, while still alive, in the shower to make it appear she committed suicide. He received a sentence of 25 years to life. Shelly's family is suing the illegal alien's employer.
The baby in the film was played by Shelly's daughter Sophie, who we see in the final scene being carried by Keri Russell's character.Edited by: Charlie
'Knowing' (2009) ($187 million worldwide gross receipts/$50 million production cost) Scientist Nicholas Cage knows Earth will be destroyed by a solar flare. Fortunately angel-like aliens arrive to take two white children to another world where they can start over. The boy and the girl each carry rabbits as they run towards a large tree set in a field of alien wheat.
While there are other alien space ships hovering above this far-away world we don't see any other pairs of rescued Earth children. Have aliens only rescued white children? How easy for the film makers to show a collection of 'genetic lottery party favors' as additional pairs of Adams and Eves, but we don't see that.
Since this is a sci-fi retelling of the Garden of Eden it brings up the question of what race were Adam and Eve? Given the choice who would God or God-like aliens select as the starting material for a new society? The movie also brings up the question of whether our existence is simply a random event without meaning. Did we evolve from humanoids like Lucy to only end up looking like Lucy, equally unable to control our fate or to even give it much thought?
--------------------------------------------------------------------
'Taken' (2009) ($225 M world gross/$25 M cost) Liam Neeson's daughter is kidnapped for purposes of being sold into white slavery. Neeson the ex-spy then kills scores of blacks, Albanian Muslims and Arabs in the streets of Paris. He saves his daughter.
There is little done to mask the actual racial dynamics of crime in France. This bothered critics who are used to the American practice of obscuring or even reversing the actual color of crime.
Even at the start of the film Luc Besson, one of the writers and the person most responsible for the story, doesn't pull racial punches. Neeson is providing security for a popular singer at LA's Staples Center. A deranged man, obviously not white, perhaps Mestizo, lunges with a knife. He is quickly subdued. Once again, how very easy for the film makers to provide a correct racial angle, especially in light of what is to follow. Yet they resist the temptation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
'I Have Loved You For So Long' (2008) This French-language movie's minor characters show the French attitude toward immigration. An Iraqi doctor, skilled and compassionate, is accepted as a friend and intellectual equal by his French neighbors. Meanwhile a black African is unable to pass his college courses, blames others, and is dismissed as both stupid and irritating.
A 'correct' scenario would have the black African overcoming racism to cure cancer and then jumping into 'Taken' to discipline Mr. Neeson.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
'Californication' David Duchovny goes to a movie. A Latino begins a loud cell phone conversation. Duchovny objects, breaks the cell phone and gets into a fight which he wins to the general approval of the movie theater patrons.
Later Duchovny gets into a fight with a black, wins that fight and goes to jail.
Duchovny's daughter performs at a music recital. The music of course is classic, as in The Ramones. Which is to say 'white'. Proper protocol requires homage to black music, which is generally known as being superior to anything four white kids from NYC could ever do. As proof there are precious few soundtracks that are not full of black music. Yet that may be changing.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
'The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman' Jackie gets drunk, plays with a leaf blower and says, 'Wow, this is fun. Now I understand why Mexicans like this sport so much.'
------------------------------------------------------------------
'Stuck' (2008) (limited theater release of less than 2 months and $67K in receipts, then to DVD sales) Based on the true story of a Houston black woman, high on drugs, running into a white man with her car and his becoming stuck in the windshield. He died over several days yet the black woman and visitors to her house made no attempt to help.
Director Stuart Gordon is faced with a problem. No way is he going to get away with accurate racial casting. The 'Law and Order' series did the story and made the criminal into a white professional woman but did keep the victim as white. Solution: cast Mena Suvari and make her as black as possible. Corn rows, black boyfriend, junk food, casual drunkenness and drug use, casual dishonesty, flat hard stare.
Stephen Rea is the victim. A succession of people are going to exhibit perfect indifference to his problems.
1. At the employment center his file has been lost. The counselor there insists he fill out more forms and came back later. 'But I've lost my apartment. You see I'm even carrying my clothes with me.' 'Sorry, but here's a pen. And my card.' Name on card: Liebman
2. A boy sees the victim in the perpetrator's garage. He tells his parents. But the father, concerned about their illegal immigrant status, refuses to help.
3. A homosexual walks his dog. The dog gets into the garage and licks the injured man's compound fracture. The homosexual wonders what his pet has gotten into. 'Bad dog, what is this sticky red stuff you got all over my sweater. Let's go home to clean you up.'
4. 911. 'So you don't know where you are? Sir, how can we help you if you don't know where you are?'
5. The black boyfriend. 'Baby I've killed lots of people. In broad daylight.' Sadly, the black boyfriend is killed by a pen through his eye socket. Pushed right into the brain.
6. Suvari's character winds up being burned to death despite being assured she won't be reported to the police. Rea's character is able to save himself.
There are other nice touches. A bar frequented by the would-be murderer and her boyfriend is the 'High and Low'. There we see black and white couples in a dull and depressing 'club'. No glamor at all. The white girls are ugly sluts and the black boys are minor thugs. No Remy Martin Louis XIII cognac here.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
'Waitress' (2007) ($22 M world gross/$1.5 M cost) Nothing especially political about this movie. But the story of what happened in real life to the writer and director Adrienne Shelly (born Adrienne Levine) is tragic and entirely due to politics. Before the movie was released it won several awards at film festivals. It had a good cast including Keri Russell and Andy Griffith.
On November 1, 2006 an illegal alien from Ecuador murdered Shelly. She had caught him in her apartment stealing from her purse. He knocked her unconscious then hanged her, while still alive, in the shower to make it appear she committed suicide. He received a sentence of 25 years to life. Shelly's family is suing the illegal alien's employer.
The baby in the film was played by Shelly's daughter Sophie, who we see in the final scene being carried by Keri Russell's character.Edited by: Charlie