Dis N' Dat....

Yeah, I know, spotty posting. What can I say? If I was paid to blog in a real way, I'd blog every day...I just don't have the wherewithal like someone like The Black Snob...I'm a slacker and semi-proud of it!

For terrific movie news, join Tambay Obenson at the "Obenson Report", which had a veeery interesting dustup on Black Film Festivals HERE (be sure to read the comments), or hop on over to the great Black Cinema blog "Black Film Academy" which also faithfully lists calls for submission for filmmakers and screenwriters.

Onward....

Some of this you probably heard already, but you know I must always add my two cents.

Y'all know how I feel about Bey, so there is nothing more I can add to that. But Beyonce as Angela Davis? Just plain wrong. And Stupid with a capital "S".

What I do want to see is Wesley as James Brown in Spike's bio-pic. Me no likey Mr. Snipes for the past few years, but I am extremely intrigued to see what he and Spike will come with.

A friend of a friend of mine Cheo Hodari Coker, who wrote "Notorious", is now penning the bio-pic for Run DMC. Hmmm...all I know is that going to Stanford University seems to open a lot of doors, no matter what you choose to do in life.

This just in from Planet Duh: Will Smith is now officially the most valuable and highest paid actor in the business, in the world. Who woulda thunk?

Saw this clip of Gabourey Sidibe's audition for the movie"Push", by Lee Daniels, and thought it was interesting. What I don't find interesting, however, is that the film is being fought over by Lionsgate and the infamous Weinsteins. Just give it to Lionsgate you greedy fuckers and let us see a decent Black film for once!



I have been on deck to interview one of the film's producers and Lee's partner, Lisa Cortes, for some time now...I guess I'll have to wait for the final verdict to do it.

Am trying to stay out of the Rihanna/Chris Brown fray, but there is a lot of personal emotional involvement on the part of the general public. Should women be allowed to go ballistic on men with no consequences? How many breaks do you get being famous, even beating someone with the whole world watching? And so on. All I know is that this is just another sad case in Black male/female relationships, where there is already plenty of anger on both sides. Speaking of which, I will be reviewing "Diary Of A Tired Black Man" this weekend.



And speaking of relationships, lovely reader Ms. Lady Deborah (email me your address, girl) wins a copy of "A Good Day To Be Black And Sexy" (I will be interviewing the Director Dennis Dortch very soon so stay tuned). She thought the best Black Cinema love scene was Angela Bassett and Wesley Snipes love scene just holding each other all night after meeting in a hotel was terrifically romantic. She said: "When I think of what scene in a movie provided me with a realistic satisfying moment-it was in Waiting to Exhale. When Wesley and Angie met, cuddled and did not have sex. I believe that came across that way because the real need they had at that moment was being met."

I would tend to agree that sometimes the best sex is sexless. On second thought, maybe just rough and dirty talk sex. Ummm...Ms. Invisible will investigate and report back, haha!


Speaking of Angela Bassett, saw this on Obenson's blog:

Angela Bassett will be stepping behind the camera for the very first time, as director of a film based on a book by Percival Everett called Erasure, stating, "I always thought that I had a third eye, but it's frightening and I always wonder if I can pull it off... It's a good story. I've had opportunities in the past to direct smaller, independent movies and television shows. I never want to do it just for the heck of it."

Erasure has been sitting in my ever-growing pile of books to read for about a year now. It's about an African-American writer who "overcomes" his intellectual tendency to "write white" and ends up penning a parody of ghetto fiction that becomes a huge commercial and literary success.

From IW: Sounds great to me, with a tad of "Bamboozled" in it, it seems....now maybe Angie can give that strong jaw a rest for a while, lol.




thanks black market index and c&d for the bey, wesley pix

Weekend B.O.

I'm going to be posting random thoughts over the course of the day---if you missed me, you won't mind, if you didn't--roll with it anyway!

First up is the weekend box office:

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE (thanks Sergio!)

August 29–31, 2008

Studio Estimates

1) Tropic Thunder P/DW $11,500,000 Total; $83,834,000

2) Babylon A.D. Fox $9,700,000

3) The Dark Knight WB $8,750,000 Total: $502,421,000

4) The House Bunny Sony $8,300,000 Total: $27,851,000

5) Traitor Over. $7,900,000 Total: $9,401,000

6) Death Race Uni. $6,228,000 Total: $23,078,000

7) Disaster Movie LGF $6,170,000

8) Mamma Mia! Uni. $4,418,000 Total; $131,509,000

9) Pineapple Express Sony $3,390,000 Total: $79,773,000

10) Vicky Cristina Barcelona MGM/W $3,003,000 Total: $12,787,000

11) Star Wars: The Clone Wars WB $2,900,000 Total; $29,808,000

12) Mirrors Fox $2,825,000 Total: $24,893,000

First of all, I saw "Tropic Thunder" while on my hiatus. Come on people, has it really come to this? We are definitely in a Code 10 Man Down Situation about losing our humor.....the whole blackface thing was a complete non-issue for me, as well as any other offenses one could have taken viewing this movie. People that are worked up over anything in Tropic Thunder need some real hobbies, or some really good sex, or lots and lots of both--I'm just sayin'.

On another note, maybe Hollywood will get the message about the raw sewage they've been pumping out to the general public. After massive amounts of advertising, Babylon AD and it's monotone "star" Vin Diesel, only made 9 mil. Hopefully the folks that make the hot garbage like "Disaster Movie", "Date Movie", "Epic Movie" et. al. will finally, FINALLY go away. Did anyone really expect "The House Bunny" to make any real money? I mean, we've all seen "Legally Blond" by now, why see it again with a minor twist?

Another stinkbomb was "Deathrace". I saw the original one, "Deathrace 2000", which was a satire on the state of America and it's fan obsession and consumerism. Remakes almost always lose the point, replacing the messages with special effects. All I can say is Hollywood is completely brain dead and run by robots not to know by now that that formula does not work!

"Mirrors" is a certified flop-wasn't Robin Thicke's wife Paula Patton in that? Can we officially lay the Japanese to American horror flicks to rest? If you've seen one, you've seen them all. I watched the opening three minutes; the DVD was popped out, never to see the inside of my player again.

Poor Don Cheadle. I think it was Sergio who said that The Cheadle was in no way a leading man, and would never be able to carry a hit movie. Sadly, based on the returns of "Traitor", he might be right. Oh, and a short sidenote--Dear George Lucas: the well has run dry...move on!

btw, "anonymous" left a comment on my blog saying the cheadle was on the "down low", and can't understand why everyone can't see that. i say: what sucessful black man haven't they said was gay (excluding obvious hoecakes denzel and samuel jackson)?

Today In B'Days....

The always lovely Whitaker is 47.

The usually annoying Eddie Griffin is 40.

Their birthdays were actually over an hour ago, but this is the first chance I had to post. I also wanted to post a related story....

Remember that debacle Eddie had about a year ago at the ultra boo-jee Black Enterprise 14th annual Golf and Tennis Challenge? If not I wrote about it HERE.

Well, Afro Nerd posted this story about the new version of this with the Bernie Mac/Obama function, and I could not agree more. Don't expect champagne when you buy Colt 45, I'm just sayin'!:

Must everything relate to Senator Obama? I think for the moment, the answer will be a resounding, "yes!" First off, please excuse the expletive laden stand up routine as performed by the incomparable Bernie Mac. It appears that Senator Obama's staffers were unaware or had a lapse in judgment by hiring a blue comedian such as Mac and then expecting Walt Disney corporate humor-don't let his recent work on the family friendly, Bernic Mac Show fool you! Eddie Griffin received a similar comeuppance last year when hired to perform in front of the Boule/Jack & Jill set (Black Enterprise members/supporters, more specifically) and his microphone was snatched from him by Enterprise publisher, Earl Graves. This time it was Obama coming to the "rescue" and denouncing. Word of advice to the good Senator-you can't denounce everyone. Check out this excerpt, courtesy of the Huffington Post:

CHICAGO (AP) _ Comedian Bernie Mac endured some heckling and a campaign rebuke during a surprise appearance Friday night at a fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Toward the end of a 10-minute standup routine at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Chicago, the 50-year-old star of "The Bernie Mac Show" joked about menopause, sexual infidelity and promiscuity, and used occasional crude language.

"My little nephew came to me and he said, 'Uncle, what's the difference between a hypothetical question and a realistic question?'" Mac said. "I said, I don't know, but I said, 'Go upstairs and ask your mother if she'd make love to the mailman for $50,000.'"

As the joke continued, the punchline evoked an angry response from at least one person in the audience, who said it was offensive to women.

"It's not funny. Let's get Barack on," a man shouted from the crowd, which paid $2,300 each to support the Illinois senator.

About 15 minutes later, Obama tried to smooth things over with a joke of his own.

"We can't afford to be divided by race. We can't afford to be divided by region or by class and we can't afford to be divided by gender, which by the way, that means, Bernie, you've got to clean up your act next time," Obama said. "This is a family affair. By the way, I'm just messing with you, man."

From IW:

A) I thought that ish was hella funny (I know Obama did too) and wasn't offended at all.

B) Ummm....Obama; you might want to calm down with the "denouncing", homes.

How Bernie probably side-eyed this foolishness