“RUNAWAY SLAVE” NEEDS YOUR HELP–

How’s that for a headline!

The folks behind “Tea Party: The Documentary Film” have started a new project with C.L. Bryant, a one-time NAACP leader who saw the light and moved to the right. The concept sounds fascinating:

Follow C.L. as he traces the footsteps of runaway slaves through the Underground Railroad.  He travels into the heart of Black communities across the US  from the slave ports of New Orleans to Chicago’s Cabrini Green to Martin Luther King’s birthplace, Atlanta, on to Jefferson’s Monticello; the film explores how 95% support of the Democratic Party has impacted the Black community.

You can learn more about the film, see the trailer, and choose to support the film here. Well worth a look.

–MICHAEL RAPAPORT TO STAR IN NEW HBO COMEDY–

For my money, Michael Rapaport is one of the most under-used and under-appreciated actors out there. He’s loaded with a personality that pops off the screen, has his own comedic sensibility, and is a very good actor.

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I don’t get why people hated The Green Hornet so much.  Granted, I’m no long-time fan of the character, my knowledge of The Green Hornet begins and ends with the fact that the mighty Bruce Lee played Kato in an incarnation on TV show.  So I can’t say I was horrified and filled with impotent geek rage over seeing Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg transform my favorite obscure superhero property into a goofball action-packed bromance with stoner-comedy appeal.

In The Green Hornet, a disturbingly svelte Seth Rogen plays Britt Reid, the spoiled, obnoxious playboy son of a newspaper mogul (Tom Wilkinson), whose sudden death leaves the irresponsible Britt in charge of his news empire.  In the wake of his father’s passing, he meets Kato, the family mechanic, played by show-stealing Taiwanese musician Jay Chou.  After a night of crazy hijinks, the two decide to become a crime-fighting duo that pose as master criminals with the help of propaganda courtesy of Britt’s paper, so their enemies can’t use innocents against them.  This attracts the attention of the violent-yet-insecure crime overlord Chudnofsky (Oscar-winner Christoph Waltz), and hilarity ensues.

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If you’re going to criticize the trailer, please watch your words carefully. Jay Chou co-stars as Kato, which means Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman might brand you a racist for not gushing over “The Green Hornet.”

Like college, Comic-Con was something I’d heard about but never planned on attending. My interest in the “graphic novel” faded sometime in the 70’s when Superman comics hit thirty cents and God created an endless supply of old movies on cable television. Besides, in my mind’s eye the picture wasn’t pretty.  I saw Comic-Con taking place in one of those dreary, sterile hotel banquet halls with off-white walls, harvest gold carpeting and long tables filled with dusty action figures surrounded by excited, pot-bellied fanboys speaking Klingon in homemade Spock costumes.

Which might have been how it was, and even how some purists wish it had stayed, but no more…

Uhm, I mean, No More! (more…)