Don’t Think Twice

Bantucinema
Don’t Think Twice 7.5/10
Released: July 22, 2016
By William Rivers

“Hilariously absurd; Touchingly human.”

Don’t Think Twice is a film about people. It epitomizes what friendship is, in a way that doesn’t sugar coat the hard times, nor stifle the easy ones. The film stars Mike Birbiglia (Miles), Gilian Jacobs (Samantha), Kate Micucci (Allison), Tami Sagher (Lindsay), and Keegan-Michael Key (Jack) as a tightly-knit improv team on the verge of losing their beloved theater due to lack of funds. Throughout the course of the film we see the struggles that they face when Jack moves on to become a cast member on an SNL-type show called Weekend Live. As they all forge the paths toward the rest of their lives, they begin to discover things about themselves in a way that we can all deeply relate to in one way or another.

The cast here is one of great chemistry. You really feel like these people are all friends and have been for many years. These are the unbreakable theater kids you knew or were one of in high-school, still following their dreams as best as they can. Their joint sense of humor is one that is remarkably refreshing, because it shines no matter what is going on in the film. Even during the worst of times, they are friends and they use their tried and true tactics to cheer each other up in a way that is often a bit confusing to the audience. This is by no means a criticism though. We all have those jokes that can only be told in a certain company. We all have those weird quirks that only come out when we are among our closest friends. Whether it’s sarcastic fun making or morbid jokes at the most inappropriate of times, it is clear that the writer here understands people and knows how to display to the audience a deeply believable bunch of companions.

Individually, the actors’ performances are good but not great. At times they seem to be a bit too awkward in a way that makes them seem like they are trying too hard to be dramatic. I know that these are very good actors, but at times it is clear that their hilarious television personas and the people they become on stage are the real stars here. Drama isn’t really their strongest suit, but when the film needs to grab you by the heart, it does so with masterful skill. Again, I chalk that up to the chemistry between the members of the group. Improv, as they explain, is not about one performer, it is about the entire team. The film itself and its characters display this truth very well and as a result, you are rarely too thrown by any cheesy lines or odd reactions.

I would definitely recommend this film to anyone who is or has been interested in stage performing. It is something that is heavily relatable and touching. All of that is supported brilliantly by the cinematography. Mike Birdiglia is the writer and director, and it shows. He makes very good use of the wide angle shots and the whole film in general really feels like a single vision, unlike many films that have a bunch of different people behind the camera. It all culminates in a glorious whole that makes you think about your own life and put yourself in the shoes of these characters. The road ahead is scary at times, and this movie doesn’t cover that truth up. It displays it with clarity and realism, but reminds us to take a break from the chaos every now and then, and just have a good laugh.

Bantu Thoughts- Why Spider-Man Could Be Black, but Tony Stark Could Not

Bantucinema
Bantu Thoughts- Why Spider-Man Could Be Black, but Iron-Man Could Not
By William Rivers

So this article comes to you because of the recent unsurprising outrage at the fact that Zendaya has been cast as Mary Jane Watson in the upcoming Spider-Man films. Of course we aren't going to mention the fact that Zendaya is half white and half Black and therefore by the same standards that white people have toward mixed Black people (Being that even a drop of Black blood makes you Black), Zendaya is just as white as she is Black, and could even be considered to be straight up white if she so chose to be. (Of course these dumb rules don't go both ways, but I can dream.)

The issue that I'd like to address today is the difference between white-washing a character of color and changing a typically white character into a person of color in film. In the case of white-washing, there is likely never a good reason for doing that simply because of the extended cultural status that whiteness holds in the world today. Changing any character of color into a white person for the screen, would not only be offensive to the person involved (Being the historical figure of the creator of the character in question), but would also be an offense toward the entire race. You in this case would be erasing all of the important elements of this character/person's backstory that are directly involved in their race. Furthermore, changing any character with multifaceted race related character traits to another creed would be detrimental to the character involved.

To all of you out there who seem to not understand that last sentence: There are very specific differences between people of different races both inside and outside of the United States, and those differences are not just skin deep.

For my examples I'm going to be using Spider-Man and Iron-Man; two originally white characters who are well known and from the same universe. To start out, the seminal gauge for whether or not you can change the race of the character is figuring out whether or not their character traits are directly related to their race. Peter Parker (Spider-Man) is described as a nerdy high school boy, living in New York City, who is picked on and has never felt strong. His Uncle was murdered due to his inaction, and because of this he is using his new found powers to protect the citizens of NYC. Tony Stark (Iron-Man) is described as a billionaire tech genius and weapons tycoon. He comes from a long line of rich and powerful inventors who revolutionized weapons technology. He was following in his father's footsteps until one of his own weapons was used to injure him, he was kidnapped and forced to build weapons for international criminals. Instead he used his skills to build himself a suit of robotic armor that would allow him to escape, and protect the world from the types of weapons he spent his life learning to build.

Now you will notice that neither of those characters had any parts of their story that had to do with them being racially profiled, or discriminated against. This is because race having a direct influence on a character isn't something that can be easily seen by just anybody. There are nuances to every group of people that have to do with history and culture and the problem with the majority of white writers is that when they try to write for POC, they simply write for a white character, add in a few anecdotes about having been stereotyped by white people, or having family members on drugs or in prison, and call it a day. They don't know that there non-stereotypical nuances to the speech patterns, experiences, and thoughts and actions of every different race of people. Hence why Peter would be a great Black character and Tony would not.

Brought to my attention about a year ago while watching a video by Tim E. Kish, Peter Parker's story would be greatly enhanced if he were a Black character instead of the traditional white character that he always was. See the problem with characters that were created a long time ago is that most of them were white because most writers were white and whiteness in America is a default trait. It is one that isn't even mentioned. The value in that is that Peter's character has no overt nor subtle references to his whiteness. Peter Parker being an extremely intelligent, nerdy Black high-schooler in 2016 would be a very compelling character. He would have to deal with not being looked at as cool by his fellow Black classmates who don't talk like him nor show interest in the things he likes that aren't traditionally "Black" things. He would be an outcast both in his own community and in the community of whites in his school because he would be too "Black" to fit in with them and too "White" to hang out with the Black kids. Outside of school would be even worse because while being on the up and up, hew would be constantly stereotyped and treated as a criminal by the outside world. On TV he would see images of fellow Black men and women being shot down in the street by fearful police officers. If he was trying to do some good in the world, people still wouldn't trust him simply based on what he looks like. He would truly be the outcast that 50s white Peter Parker apparently was simply being a nerd. Peter's only salvation would be from having been blessed with super-human powers, because when he puts on that mask, nobody can see what he looks like underneath. For the first time, he would be judged for his actions rather than his skin. He would be loved by all people regardless of race. The only down side would be that people would still assume he was a white guy underneath. 

I don't know about you, but that seems like a very compelling character journey that I would love to see play out. As I said the 50s nerdy white kid thing doesn't work anymore. That's why people like Toby Maguire as Spider-Man and fewer people liked Andrew Garfield. I personally like Andrew Garfield's performance more because it feels real and less like the 90s geek stereotype that Maguire was. The only way to make that believable would be to make Peter another stereotype of a fat card game playing nerd of today, which wouldn't be pleasing for today's audience to watch. Being an intelligent, non threatening Black male in America is to be an outcast. Making him Black would not only not hurt the character but would enhance the character greatly.

Tony on the other hand makes considerably less sense as a Black person. Tony Stark comes from a long line of successful business owners and inventors. He was a billionaire before he even grew up and rode on his father's success until he finally made a name for himself with his Iron-Man armor. Yes anybody can be as intelligent as he is, but it is a lot less likely that a POC, specifically a Black man, would have such a long line of American business owners. It's just not quite something that most people would be able to buy because of the nation's history so far. If it were to work out, you would need to drastically change his backstory, which wouldn't be very respectful to the creators of the character.

As you can hopefully see, if the change will aid in the character's already existing theme, then any such change should be welcome. This isn't specifically against white people nor white characters, the way that many people seem to believe as they rant about Zendaya on Twitter. Representation is a good thing in any case, and there have always been an abundance of cultures that could have been pulled from over the years. Honestly, writers in the past have caused this shift on their own. If they had written their white characters to have a deeper and more culturally involved character arch, then they wouldn't be able to be changed. It is because of them that whiteness is seen as the default trait in any character created in this country. "White" isn't a trait connected to Peter or Tony because people already expect him to be just "white". That word doesn't honestly mean much of anything, but without diving into Tony's roots, we will never know what depth could have been captured. The tragedy of this country is the Europeans come here and become just another white person, where as everyone else (who may want to just become one of the many) come here and are never allowed to forget their differences. Differences are a good thing, at least it seems that more and more filmmakers are striving to utilize this fact.

Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor

Bantucinema
Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor 4/10
Released: March 29, 2013
By William Rivers

“Don’t cheat, or else you’ll get HIV”

I really don’t think Tyler Perry should be writing relationship movies. It’s not that I don’t respect him as a filmmaker or as an entertainer. I fully respect him as I respect any black man or woman who creates art. I simply feel that his films featuring family drama are great, but the ones focused on a single relationship the whole time, suffer from overdramaticized finger wagging.

Temptation is a film about many things. It is about how bad it is to cheat on your spouse. It is also about how getting married too soon can be a terrible choice. It is also about how a man should treat his wife as a queen and not forget her birthday. It could also be about not falling for the man who openly lies to you about his intensions because once you do, you will immediately spiral out of control and end up cursing at your mother, becoming addicted to drugs, getting HIV and dying alone and ugly. There are a lot of messages in this movie, and many of them contradict one another. Worse than that, they are all very forced.

Where should I begin?

Temptation stars Jurnee Smollet-Bell(as Judith), Lance Gross (Brice), and Robbie Jones (Harley). Judith and Harley were two down-home, southern kids who fell in love at an early age. They knew each other the better part of their lives and got married just in time to move to the big city. Brice soon becomes boring, (I guess) and because of this, Judith is increasingly tempted by Harley, a rich and handsome tech genius, akin to Mark Zuckerburg without the weird face. The problems with this film are not due to poor dialogue or poor direction (Although those aren’t the best either). The issues mainly come from the conflicting plot elements and overly extreme explanations for character choices.

One of the problems that Judith sees with her marriage is that her husband doesn’t stand up for her. They encounter some men who rudely cat-call her on the street, and Brice simply pulls her to the car telling her not to get upset. He seemed more worried that the men may have been armed than about defending his wife’s honor. Her answer to all of this is Harley, who turns into a psychotic gorilla, threatening a man who accidentally crashed into Judith on his bike. Judith was running without looking ahead of her, so it was her fault in the first place. After Harley attacks this man, Judith has to jump in and stop him. This is just one of a plethora of extremes Tyler Perry throws our way expecting us to understand and make the right choices. Yeah, her husband should stand up for her, but should he have gone straight to attacking innocent bicyclists? Later on, Harley continues to make passes at Judith in his home, and she calls him on his crap by pointing out that he has high heeled shoes and earrings left behind from previous female guests. She sees straight up and early on that he is a player who will say anything to get what he wants, and later she goes along with it anyway.

This woman is way too easily influenced. Harley tells her that sex should be spontaneous, so she immediately goes home and jumps her husband, hitting him in the face to try to arouse him. It is treated as a negative when he refuses to go along with this nonsense, as if he is boring because he doesn’t like getting smacked in the face out of nowhere. Later, when Harley literally sexually assaults her on a plane, she shoves him away screaming for help, he says “Now you can say it wasn’t your idea,” and then she goes ahead and has sex with him. Is this what Tyler Perry thinks is a good way to have sex? If Brice was boring, then what is Harley? We all know that Harley is the bad guy, but do we really? Throughout a good portion of the film, Brice seems to be the only one doing anything wrong as we see Judith and Harley have long conversations filled with real chemistry. It really isn’t until the end, when he gets her strung out on drugs and shoves Judith’s mother to the ground that the film actually expresses that Judith made the wrong choice. After one night with Harley, Judith is wearing dark makeup out of nowhere, has an uncaring demeanor and is now cursing at her mother and turning from the Lord! Since when does one night of infidelity totally change your personality?

I believe that the seminal issue here is that Tyler Perry likes having a number of characters to bounce ideas off of. Films like “Why Did I Get Married?” are very good because he has a lot of different relationships going on and a lot of different messages that pertain to each situation. Relationships are definitely complex and the right thing isn’t always what you’d expect. This film would have worked if there was one couple who had a boring marriage and the wife ended up cheating on her husband, but finding a man who treated her right and was exciting in all the right ways. It would have worked if there was also woman who fell for a man who was a player, and in doing this was enticed to do things she hadn’t previously been comfortable with and fell into a hole she couldn’t easily climb out of. These are both real situations that occur, and if done right, this film could have expressed them both properly. Instead we get a mashed up combination of the two that doesn’t make sense, and instead becomes almost offensive.

(Spoiler Alert! Not like you’d actually be missing out on a worthwhile experience) In the end, Judith is a sad and lonely woman. She now wears ugly plaid blazers and giant 80s secretary glasses. Through a confusing subplot that was supposed to be a twist, Harley gives Judith HIV, and she is seen buying medication from a now happily remarried Brice. She walks down the street in misery while the final credits role.

WHAT???

This movie shows us two men who are both not completely right for her, and a woman who listens to everybody right off the bat, causing her to lose her marriage, relationship with God, health and fashion sense basically after one night. What kind of screwed up message is that? These two had legitimate marital problems, but instead of even bringing up the possibility of forgiveness and marriage counseling, Tyler Perry just punishes her for falling for the trick that he even had us believing in for a while. No one in life is inherently good nor bad, but when your messages are so openly shoved down your viewer’s throats, you sort of have to pick some basic conventions that will express what you are trying to say with each character. Nobody ended up being likeable here. We didn’t even really feel happy for Brice in the end because his happiness was staged on top of Judith’s misery!

And why in all holy Hell is Kim Kardashian in this movie??

Temptation had too many ideas for two people to experience in one film. I would recommend this movie only to people who would like to laugh at the absurdity of it all, and at how quickly characters will give up on who they are inside. The only saving graces in this film are actors who know what they are doing, but are unfortunately stuck to read from a script that severely limits their talents, and a single scene of exposition that isn’t just somebody telling us about a character. At least, I was able to sit through it, so there’s that.

Bantu Thoughts- In Bob We Trust: The Great Wall

Bantucinema
Bantu Thoughts- In Bob We Trust: The Great Wall
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJDtBLCT6hY
By William Rivers

For some future context, Bantu Thoughts is a segment where I give quick responses to articles and videos about the film industry or about films themselves, or just share a few original thoughts of mine of the sort. Today, I watched a video from a Youtuber that I highly respect, who goes by the name "MovieBob". Please go watch his video for the context of the following article, and please check out his channel. I have been following his stuff for a while now and anyone who is deeply interested in film will greatly benefit from hearing what he has to say.

While I do understand what Bob is trying to say, I think that the main issue that I have stems from the idea of what America is, as a concept that is pitched to the rest of the world, as opposed to what the product actually looks like. When Chinese filmmakers want to create a movie and they cast white actors, that is their decision to do so, and this explanation of why is a legitimate one. The problem lies in the fact that for over a century, the US has produced movies solely staring white actors despite have literally always having a diverse set of local cultures. From nearly the beginning, this country has been considered to be a "melting pot", so all sorts of people can all be considered to be American. When an Indian film company produces a movie, they use Indian actors, unsurprisingly. Therefore, when an American company produces a movie, they are expected to use American actors as well. The issue is that "American" in the eyes of the world, and even Americans themselves is far too often connected to "White", rather than the mixture of many races and cultures that the word has always been said to represent. (For instance the fact that once many generations of Europeans have been in this country for a time, they tend to refer to themselves as simply Americans, where as POC are never expected to be separated from their hyphenated origin culture: I.E. African-American. I rarely hear my white friends refer to themselves as Irish-American or Italian-American unless their family just got here in the past couple generations.)

We have Asian-American actors and actresses that would be available to any movie, and many who likely audition for these sorts of roles, yet we don't cast them in our own productions. There have ALWAYS been POC who could have lead movies, yet they were rarely given their shot and are thus now considered to not be as legitimate and note worthy as white actors. (I.E. If any given person of color was given a shot at staring roles on a regular enough occasion, with well known filmmakers, they too would be big stars. The excuse that there are no widely known Asian-American actors to use that would make the film in question profitable enough, wouldn't be valid at all. If you put people in the limelight, they will become big names)

The production quality that we as Americans are used to, and that the rest of the world is used to seeing from us, is just that: Production Quality. The race of the actor has never been important and never will be as long as we try to challenge that idea. The reason a good portion of the world expects movies that feature their own people to not look as stunning, is because the US spent a century building that facade. That is just another way that white supremacy has altered the world as a whole. For instance, Black people expect very little from "Black Movies", myself included at times. (Which is why I review Black movies just as harshly as I would any other) We can say "See, Black people don't expect the same depth and quality from their films, so it's okay if we don't cast Taye Diggs in a big budget film because he's not as legitimate in actor". The problem is that a statement like that is all too often followed by, "Black actors aren't as SKILLED as white actors and THAT is why we won't cast Taye Diggs." (Taye Diggs being simply an example of a VERY skilled actor who is nearly only featured in movies that are panned as being ONLY for Black audiences and are thus not judged in the same manner as other films.)

Black people settle for movies that aren't the same quality as movies staring white actors, not because we can't make good films, but because we have been trained to believe that any movie made by or starring a Black person, WON'T be the same quality. That is false, and is a problem that would have been solved a long time ago if Hollywood had used any of the many POC available all these years and shown the world (China included) that the skin of the actor, does not a good movie make.

No, this doesn't really get us anywhere in the discussion, and no there is nothing that can be done about this issue that isn't being already done by companies like Marvel, (Much to the joy of fans such as myself) but I find it important to acknowledge such things when discussing the state of the world and the ideas that fuel the actions of its people. There are many reasons why things are the way that they are, and while it is true that many people in other parts of the world don't seem to have a problem with the belief that movies that come from their own people aren't as legitimate as movies starring white Americans, we can't forget to acknowledge that this idea isn't a good one, and should be challenged.