First off, thank you to all the Big Hollywood readers who had so many nice things to say the past few months about our new documentary film, “Fear of a Black Republican.”  Your comments were so inspiring and so many folks wanted to know where they could see our film – that we took a step back to think about how (with limited means) we could get our little movie “out there.”

Our first Theater-Size (27x41) poster - "hot off the presses." (Actually - hot off Kinko's large-format printer.)

Well, in the spirit of “Colonel” Tom Parker and THE POLICE – ’78 Tour of America (in a cargo van), we have gone ahead and put together our own “Southern Tour – 2011″ for FEAR OF A BLACK REPUBLICAN.  After driving twelve hours or so, we will be having our World Premiere in Atlanta GA tomorrow at 7 PM at the Landmark Theatre – Midtown Arts Cinema.  Two days later and four hours up I-85, we’ll be screening in Charlotte NC on June 25th (Blumenthal Performing Arts Center) and then in Greensboro NC on June 26th(Carousel Cinemas at Battleground) .   These will be the first public screenings ever for our little film.  We did hope to add another city or two, but as this is our first foray into “Movie Touring”… we figured short and sweet would be smarter and safer.  

In order to make this tour happen, we are “four-walling” (renting out) two movie theaters and are renting and sharing space in a “black box” theater running a stage play.  Luckily, the space can project films and do stage plays in the same venue.  Pretty convenient, but if you ever want to do something like this, here are a few things to think about ahead of time:  Insurance and advertising.  In booking our theaters, we learned that you now have to have some type of “Event Insurance” to screen your film as an Independent filmmaker.  Ouch.  Enough said.

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These days, big-city philistines posing as cultural elites call it “flyover country.” From the comfort of a private jet, it looks like a vast ocean of emptiness. And yet, every election day, media newsrooms find themselves grudgingly painting that part of the map red — blood red.

To them, the American hinterland is part Deliverance, part Raising Arizona. Toothless gas-station attendants. Frumpy diner waitresses. Motor-home brothels hedging the highways. In the Heat of the Night racist police officers on the prowl, yee-haw! Ignorant picnicking churchgoers spewing toxic barbecue fumes into the pristine blue sky. Country-music lovin’ high school students destined to grow up into unwashed, uncouth, uneducated truckers.

Coast-bound libs fancy the South as kinda like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, but with Wal-Marts. Flyover country. A nightmare realm.

Well, back in the summer of 1977, flyover country was pissed. The nation they loved was being run into the ground by the jet-setters. Skyrocketing inflation. Rampant unemployment. Plummeting GDP. Crushing misery index. Multiple oil crises. Vanishing trade surpluses. A wretched President. Ordinary people were scared and angry, looking for — what’s the word? — oh yeah, “change.” Spare or otherwise. (more…)

In March of 2007, two police officers in Atlanta, Georgia filed a hostile work environment complaint against a work of art that went up in Atlanta’s City Hall East where, among other things, the city police headquarters and Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs are located. Atlanta’s chapter of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers called for the immediate removal of the art. The artist was called a “racist” and the art a work of “hate.” 

The people who spread the word “racist” were those in the media eager for headline grabbing attention, but the only reason it became a city-wide controversy was due to the fact the art show took place in a public building, not in a gallery. For this reason, local conservative radio also added fuel to the controversy. 

I should add that no taxpayer money funded any of this. All of the participating artists installed their own work, took it down themselves, removed it when the show ended and no work of art was bought by the city.   (more…)

Tyler Perry is the king of the Hollywood box office for Academy Awards weekend. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes To Jail (Lionsgate) debuted with just 2,032 playdates on Friday and scored a monstrous $14.65M for a Per Theatre Average of over $7,000. The final weekend take could be $41.12M.

The box office king....err....queen of Oscar weekend

Although I am not necessarily a fan of Tyler Perry movies, I am a Tyler Perry fan. He traveled the country for years doing live stage shows in order to fine-tune his act, and he identified an under-served audience – African Americans, and more specifically black, Christian women. Now he makes two movies a year, and he has two television series’ on TBS – House of Payne and Meet the Browns. He built a multi-million dollar studio in an under-served area in Atlanta, taking advantage of tax credits for building in a blighted neighborhood. Now he is building a mini-empire. He produces, writes, directs and stars in his projects, and he even helps to finance them.

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Filmmaker Tyler Perry, with Oprah Winfrey as a role model, has consistently outsmarted Hollywood moguls since his debut feature Diary of a Mad Black Women. That Gospel-infused “fat-suit-in-drag” comedy was made for a mere $5.5M and scored an opening weekend of $21.9M, ultimately generating $50.6M in domestic sales.

The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well with Tyler Perry

At only 39, Perry is building an empire. He officially christened Tyler Perry Studios last October in Atlanta with a star-studded event. The multi-million dollar project is a sprawling 30-acre working production facility in southwestern Atlanta, and the opening night party featured appearances by legendary African American actors like Sidney Poitier, Cicely Tyson, Ruby Dee, Lou Gossett, Jr. and Will Smith.

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