Wesley Gibson said...
Fighting a strong desire to light this movie up. Denzel is clearly the best actor in the world. White supremacy and inability to identify with a black character caused them to ruin what would have been a truly amazing movie by creating yet another white superman...- Denmark Vesey said...
LOL. My man. I feel you Gibson. I knew I could count on you to tell the truth. (Many of us decided to "like" this movie before we even saw it).- You are right. Crowe's character was gratuitous. The whole movie should have been about Frank Lucas. Who was "the cop" in Godfather? Who was "the cop" in Goodfellas?
- But fear of focusing on a black character and the need to create a white superman ... is not the product of "White Supremacy". It is the product of "White Inferiority".
- That's something I am having a hard time getting Fisher and his crew to understand and accept.
- (Ultimately they are as scared of Black Supremacy as are racist whites. Which is a twisted story in and of itself.)
Damn. I agree with you Wesley. Denzel acted circles around Crowe. Circles! The cop was most certainly unnecessary. Denzel played the character so well, I didnt even hate him when it was over. I didnt think he should have been subject to any consequence. But I still liked the movie, DV. It sounds like you didnt.
6 comments:
Damn. I agree with you Wesley. Denzel acted circles around Crowe. Circles! The cop was most certainly unnecessary. Denzel played the character so well, I didnt even hate him when it was over. I didnt think he should have been subject to any consequence. But I still liked the movie, DV. It sounds like you didnt.
First of all, whoever compared this movie to The Godfather, Scarface, Goodfellas, or any other classic of the gangster genre needs their behind whipped. Hoodlum was so much better than American Gangster. This movie was bootie on so many levels, it took us five hours to finally stop finding shit wrong with it. It was an incredibly bad job of directing, the screenplay was completely unbelievable, and possibly only Denzel's magnetic presence saves it from being one of the worst movies of the year. I almost want to say this movie is New Jack City redux, but that would be insulting to New Jack City. They did follow the same formula of following the cops and the robbers almost equally, except this time they tried to offset the Black crook with a white cop. The formula worked in New Jack. It didn't work at all for me this time.
Now, having agreed with the general consensus on the sorry ass movie (which I caught a matinee so at least I didn't get robbed for it), I'd like to take DV up on an offer he made a little while ago. Why don't you take this opportunity to Present this "hypothetical" Black Supremacy to me, and explain why you think I would have a problem with it, if in fact it exists. Because honestly brother, this is the very first time I have been made aware of such a thing as a rational conceptualization.
I was going to catch a matinee today (as I'm sure many in Atlanta are...LMAO @ the Falcons blackout...PETA where ya at?), but I started snapping my green beans for dinner and I just wasn't pressed anymore, then I see this post and I'm certain now, I can see it another day. Crowe wasn't even remotely impressive in the trailors, but Denzel was just so impressive, that I wanted to absorb a brilliant 70's period piece that would shine light on this underground industry that black America is entertwined with. And I wanted to see what Jay-Z was inspired by when I finally got a hold of his CD. LOL
@MJB, Jigga is inspired by the opportunity to piggy back off a huge run of publicity associated with this flick, to sell some records that ight otherwise stay on the shelf. He picked a buster movie to associate himself with, but maybe he put together a buster ablum to go along with it.
But lest I be accused of harboring hate in my soul, from a businessman's perspective, it is an extremely shrewd marketing move on Shawn Carter's part. He manages to conflate his own checkered past to the mystique of this movie and to replay, yet again, his same old story into even more financial gain. Outstanding!
@ Exodus Mentality...
From a business perspective...no doubt...Shawn is absolutely stellar at creating synergy across industries.
Bumpy Johnson's wife says Frank Lucas is full of shit. 93-year-old Mayme Johnson, widow of the infamous Harlem gangster Elsworth “Bumpy” Johnson and the man Lucas says was his mentor and who taught him everything he knows, is pissed about what she deems graphic inaccuracies about her husband and Lucas’ relationship. “Frank wasn’t nothing but a flunky, and one that Bumpy never did really trust. Bumpy would let Frank drive him around, but you’d better believe that he was never in any important meetings or anything. Bumpy figured Frank as a liar, and he would say you can trust a thief quicker than a liar, because a thief steals because he needs money, while a liar lies for the hell of it.” Miss Mayme is particularly upset about Lucas’ claim that Bumpy died in his arms. Lucas, she says, was nowhere around the night that Bumpy died from a heart attack while dining at the famous Wells Restaurant on Seventh Avenue in Harlem. She says Lucas probably thought he could get away with the lie because he figured everyone who was around Bumpy at the time is now dead. “Junie Byrd’s gone, Nat Pettigrew’s gone, Sonny Chance is gone, and Finley Hoskin’s gone. Frank would never have said any garbage like that if one of them were alive because he’d know they’d come after him…I bet he thought I was gone, too, but I’m not. I’m 93, and I don’t have Alzheimer’s or dementia, and I’m not senile. Frank Lucas is a damn liar and I want the world to know it.”
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