Child star Nathan Gamble landed his biggest part to date by charming a bottlenose dolphin.

Gamble’s audition for the lead in “Dolphin Tale” meant spending some quality time with Winter, the dolphin famous for her prosthetic tail.

“There so much like humans. They have to like you and be comfortable with you,” Gamble tells Big Hollywood. “You have to be very respectful, and calm, and do the hand signals [the trainers] tell you.”

“Dolphin Tale” casts Gamble as Sawyer, an introverted boy who strikes up a friendship with a wounded sea creature. The PG film, which co-stars Harry Connick, Jr., Morgan Freeman,  Ashley Judd and Kris Kristofferson, proved a surprise hit earlier this year, hauling in $71 million.

Gamble, already a screen veteran with credits including “The Dark Knight,” “Marley & Me,” “The Mist” and “Babel,” says “Tale” represented his most challenging assignment.

And he often didn’t have a line of dialogue to guide him.

“The funny thing about my character is that he leads you through the whole movie, and he says nothing in the first half. He’s a shy, emotional kid,” he says.

Gamble didn’t necessarily fudge his resume to snare the Sawyer role, but he neglected to tell the producers he had asthma before signing on. That mattered since he had to hold his breath in order to finish some underwater sequences.

He also wasn’t a strong swimmer, but some pre-shoot training took care of that – even when he had to perform scenes wearing weights to make sure he sank effectively in the water.

Gamble got his start performing in his church’s plays, but he says the role he gets the most attention for took only four days to shoot.

The youngster plays Commissioner Gordon’s son in “The Dark Knight,” a part which Gamble calls “almost like a vacation” since he flew to England for the bulk of his performance. Gamble’s character mourned the loss of his father mid-film, all part of a ruse the Dark Knight orchestrated to help flush out the Joker (the late Heath Ledger).

The “Dark Knight” connection proved frustrating only when he went out to spread the word about a “Dolphin Tale” scholastic book earlier this year.

“I went to a friend’s school and one kid kept asking questions about ‘The Dark Knight,’” he recalls. “He had these wonderfully intricate questions about that film.”

The young actor’s fans can follow his career via his own web site, NathanGamble.net, a site which lets him blog his reaction to his acting career and famous co-stars.

“It’s hard to communicate with actors,” he says. “It’s good to see what people thing so I can get better.”

Some actors, like Woody Allen, famously refuse to watch themselves on screen. For Gamble, it’s crucial to helping him track his professional progress.

“Some people don’t like watching themselves in their movies. I watch everything [I do],” he says. “What can I do better? I want to keep on progressing. I definitely think acting is a long process to be one of the greats like Morgan Freeman or Jack Nicholson. I’m sure they started out just like this … I hope.”

That’s an understatement in a genre teeming with impoverished acting, stale dialogue and atrocious direction. For every classic like ‘The Shining’ or ‘The Omen,’ there’s a dozen ‘Saw’ sequels to make horror fans want to run and hide.

AMC is currently running its second annual Fearfest programming, a horror movie marathon meant to scare us silly right through Halloween. It’s a wonderful gimmick, but you’ll need to be wary of the clunkers littering the lineup.

So, here’s a handy guide to help you make the most of this grisly movie marathon. Treats are always better than tricks this time of the year:

Monday Oct. 24 – ‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose’ (10 a.m. EST) – ‘The Exorcist’ casts an impossibly long shadow over any film that dares to deal with demonic possession, but ‘Rose’ manages to blaze its own intriguing trail. AVOID: ‘Dreamcatcher’ (5 p.m. EST) – The worst Stephen King adaptation committed to the big screen and the lowest point of writer/director Lawrence Kasdan’s otherwise brilliant career. Even Morgan Freeman looks ridiculous here, in part thanks to a pair of eyebrows gone wild.

Tuesday Oct. 25 – ‘Thinner’ (Noon EST) – This little-seen adaptation of Stephen King’s novella (written under the pen name Richard Bachman) tracks an obese man cursed to keep losing weight by a gypsy. Not first-rate King, but it bristles with unsettling thoughts and imagery.

Wednesday Oct. 26 -’Slither’ (4 p.m. EST) – Combining horror and comedy sounds easy, but it takes a special elixir to get it just right. The genre’s standard bearer remains ‘An American Werewolf in London,’ but ‘Slither’ deserves credit for fusing the genres with an assured touch.  Plus, we get a young Elizabeth Banks battling an alien invasion as well as a heroic turn by genre fave Nathan Fillion (‘Firefly’).

Thursday Oct. 27 -’Halloween III: Season of the Witch’ (8 p.m. EST) – Noteworthy for being the only ‘Halloween’ feature not to focus on killing machine Michael Myers. An evil company is manufacturing Halloween masks which will explode and kill their young wearers. Hardly a classic, but the sing-song chant introduced in the film will burrow into your brain until Thanksgiving.

Friday Oct. 28 - ‘House of Wax’ (11 a.m. EST) – This competent remake is known more for an appearance by Paris Hilton than any signature scares. But it’s an example of a competent horror movie that hits the spot when you’ve seen ‘The Shining’ and ‘The Exorcist’ too many times. AVOID: ‘Survival of the Dead’ (4 p.m. EST) Horror maestro George A. Romero keeps cranking out zombie films, but his latest undead affair is DOA.

Saturday Oct. 29 - ‘Bride of Frankenstein’ (8:15 a.m. EST) – You’ll have to get up early to enjoy this hair-raising classic, but ol’ Boris Karloff and Elsa Lanchester will make it worth your time. If only Frankenstein’s Monster had access to Match.com or eHarmony.

Monday Oct. 31 - All ‘Halloween,’ all the time. AMC trots out five films from a franchise that refuses to die. The best, of course, is the original ‘Halloween’ (9:30 a.m. EST, 8 p.m. EST). The film set the template for the slasher movie genre, but we’ve yet to meet one that rivaled director John Carpenter’s shock classic.

Late last month, Oscar winner Morgan Freeman blamed racism on the Republican party’s eagerness to see President Barack Obama defeated.

This week, Jackson told a reporter from New York Magazine (after said reporter used the scurrilous Washington Post story on Rick Perry’s so-called racist rock) that the reason Tea Partiers want Obama out because of his skin color, not his policies.

“The division of the country is not about the government having too much power. I think everything right now is geared toward getting that guy out of office, whatever that means,” he said, echoing Freeman. “It’s not politics. It is not economics. It all boils down to pretty much to race. It is a shame.”

Their collective proof is so poorly constructed even a half-asleep Chris Matthews could swat it aside without eyeballing a teleprompter.

Both claim that since the Tea Party is hell bent on removing President Obama from office it must be because he’s black.

That’s it. No swarm of protest signs at Tea Party events trumpeting racist slogans. No quotes from major Tea Party darlings like Sarah Palin that indicate hatred or disdain for people of color. No new proposals designed to specifically injure people of color.

And where were Jackson and Freeman when President George W. Bush called the White House home? The entertainment industry was obsessed with removing him from office. We saw a film detailing Bush’s assassination, read fiction tackling similar themes and watched documentary after documentary imploring us to vote for anyone but Bush.

Was that about race, or did Bush’s critics simply want someone else leading the country?

So, that puts the ball squarely in the media’s court. They’ve got a hot story to work with, one that’s topical and touches on the third rail of our culture – race. And they’ve got two actors ready and willing to plug their latest projects. Freeman is out promoting the surprise hit “Dolphin Tale,” while Jackson is making his Broadway this month in “The Mountaintop.”

Here’s betting both are up for a press phoner or two, maybe more. Will any intrepid reporter ask them to back up their claims? How about asking either fine actor their thoughts on comedian George Lopez calling black Tea Party favorite Hermain Cain “whiter” on the inside?

Via Tea Party Brew:

Dear Mr. Freeman,

My name is Ali Akbar. I’m a 26 year-old African-American small business owner and a tea party activist. I’m not writing to rake you over the coals in the way that many conservatives have done in the last 48 hours. Heck, I wrote a passionate open-letter refuting many of your claims already, but this is not that. This is an honest and standing invitation. I do believe that you are wrong in what you said about the tea party, but I would rather prove it to you than castigate you for your comments.

I also understand that your reflexive comments came from experience. You grew up in a different America than the one that I was blessed to be born into. We both grew up in the south, but I never saw ‘White Only’ signs. I’ve been called a name or two in my three decades, but racism has always been the exception in my life, not the rule, as it probably was in your youth. I understand your suspicion of conservative political movements. It is rooted in pain and fear and memory, and though I never saw the horrors of segregation that you did, we share that cultural heritage.

I’ve been a fan of yours all my life. From “Driving Miss Daisy” to “Lean on Me” to “The Shawshank Redemption,” I idolized you as a boy. Growing up without a father, you were one of the strong black men in my life who gave me a model to follow. Each of the characters you played had dignity and confidence. I tried to emulate the strength you projected. While many of my friends headed down the all-too-familiar path of drugs, unwed pregnancies and crime, I’ve striven to live a life with dignity, be an example for my brothers and make my mother proud.

My favorite of your movies was “The Power of One.” I must’ve watched it a hundred times, crying every time when your character Geel Piet was killed by the racist South African. Geel Piet was brave and heroic, even in the face of death, because he knew that the hate that killed him was a trifle in comparison to the love that PK’s anti-apartheid movement was spreading. It is with that spirit that I’m writing to you this morning.

I’ve attended dozens of tea party events. I’ve helped organize them, and I’ve even spoken at a few. The tea party is not what is often depicted in the news. It is people of all colors who are terribly concerned about the direction that America is heading. We don’t trust big government to make decisions for us. And we fear that the present administration’s spending is going to lead our country down a path to insolvency, much like what Greece is currently facing.

Read full piece here.

—–

Herman Cain wins a GOP straw poll by a wiiiiiide margin the day after actor Morgan Freeman describes the Tea Party as racist.

No doubt the corrupt MSM is just as confused.

We don’t dislike Obama because of the color of his skin, we dislike Obama because he’s utterly failed as president — unless his goal was to addict more people to the federal government, spend us into oblivion, and tank the economy … again.

That’s the concept those screaming ”racism” can’t get their mind around. It’s a psychological thing. Morgan Freeman and those who populate the corrupt media agree with and approve of what Obama is doing to this country. And so any rejection of Obama they take as a personal rejection. Given a choice between coming to terms with their own failed ideology and lashing out childishly with name calling, they will always choose the latter.

The Tea Party rejection has to be especially galling because it’s a grassroots, citizen-driven revolution. The People are rising up against everything Morgan Freeman holds dear.

My guess is that Freeman won’t visit a Tea Party because he’s the bigot and doesn’t want to be around “those people.” He’s also terrified his bigoted preconceptions won’t hold up with actual contact. Better to hold on to the fantasy than face the reality.

Hollywood never fails to disappoint:

Sorry Morgan, Obama’s a failure and a loser and the color of his skin has nothing to do with that. And whenever you’re ready to reconcile Tea Party love for Herman Cain and other non-Caucasians and your childish “racist” tantrum, we’d love to hear it.

—–

The story follows Sawyer (Nathan Gamble), a quiet kid whose cousin and only real friend (Austin Stowell) has just shipped off to the military. During a visit to the beach, Sawyer finds a dolphin, Winter, tangled in a crab trap and helps the team from Tampa Bay’s Clearwater Marine Aquarium to rescue her. When the injury requires Clearwater director Dr. Clay Haskett (Harry Connick Jr.) to amputate Winter’s tail, Sawyer and Haskett’s chatterbox daughter Hazel (Cozi Zuehlsdorff) are there to help Winter learn to swim again. But Winter’s new swimming style puts pressure on her spinal cord and threatens to paralyze her.

Meanwhile Sawyer’s cousin returns home after being wounded in an explosion during his tour of duty. While visiting him at a veteran’s hospital, Sawyer runs into prosthetics specialist Dr. Cameron McCarthy (Morgan Freeman). In a race against time, Sawyer convinces the doctor to create a prosthetic tail for Winter while financial concerns threaten to close Clearwater permanently.

If it feels like you’re watching “Free Willy” (1993) or any number of 1990s animal-themed movies, that’s because the minds behind it were responsible for some of those films. Director Charles Martin Smith directed “Air Bud” (1997) and one of the screenwriters, Karen Janszen, wrote “Free Willy 2” (1995). Janszen co-wrote the story with first-time writer Noam Dromi. Their end product is sometimes corny, sometimes moving. To maximize the 3D, Smith uses long montages of Sawyer swimming with Winter, and a goofy chaotic scene where Hazel loses control of Sawyer’s model helicopter and crashes it. These scenes differentiate this generally enjoyable family film from classics of the genre, since they’re fun for the kids but generally pointless.

The story also takes a long time to set up. Half the film has passed before the Clearwater team even begins to think about using a prosthetic tail on Winter. That’s when Freeman comes along, and his presence gives the story needed momentum.

The acting is solid throughout. Gamble and first timer Zuehlsdorff as homeschooled Hazel are both strong young performers. Their supporting cast, including Sawyer’s mother (Ashley Judd) and Hazel’s grandfather (Kris Kristofferson), are genuine, though not likely to win any awards like Sandra Bullock from Alcon Entertainment’s hit “The Blind Side.”

As a whole the story’s pretty PC. Clearwater is struggling financially because of lost government grants, and they are fighting to keep a real estate mogul from buying up the property. For Winter – a disabled animal that no other marine hospitals or zoos want – this means she will have to be put down once her home is bought out from under her. (SPOILER) In the end the real estate mogul saves the day, buying Clearwater and funding it instead of building another hotel in its place. But whether this is supposed to be an anti-corporate or pro-philanthropic message is debatable. Also, young Hazel prays once for help from above – but she prays to her mother who has passed away. It’s a scene that’s kind of distracting and unnecessary.

The biggest take away though comes from the more obvious theme: all life is precious. And I’m not just talking about the dolphin. It’s the veterans that the film dwells on, the handicapped that it portrays not just sympathetically but vibrantly. In one scene a mother brings her obsessed daughter to Clearwater to see Winter. Only as she helps her daughter out of their van do we realize why her daughter has been so caught up with this particular dolphin. The little girl is disabled herself. The film later closes with documentary footage of Winter’s rescue and rehabilitation, along with visits from disabled children and adults who come to be inspired by an animal that beat the odds.

While there’s a good deal of added plot and montage 3D for the kids, “Dolphin Tale” is a feel-good film that’s enjoyable and inspiring for all ages.

That’s an interesting comment coming from one of America’s best actors.

Morgan is a craftsman’s craftsman. I believe he represents the best of classic American acting since Henry Fonda. With similar aesthetics and discipline, both he and Henry Fonda have shown young American actors how to do “more with less” but do it with sharpshooting accuracy.

 I can honestly say that I’ve never seen him give a bad performance. Either on stage or in film.

I, along with the hundreds of others less disciplined, certainly wish we could say that for ourselves.

Morgan seems to be congenitally incapable of substandard work. Plus he carries what Fonda carried and what the great English director, Sir Tyrone Guthrie said was the rarest gift among actors: “nobility”.

Morgan and I once discussed, briefly I must add, getting “pissed off”. It was in relation to why Morgan hasn’t performed Othello in a big venue. He generally indicated that the rage within Othello was out of his reach.

Hmmm …

Now, I know he doesn’t want Barack Obama to be tearing the Presidential seal to tatters as Laurence Olivier might be prone to, but Morgan does want the President “pissed off”.

Much of America, as I am sure Morgan Freeman is aware, is very “pissed off” with Obama.

Morgan, please ask Representative Allen West of Florida and Presidential Candidate Herman Cain if we, who are “pissed off” with our President, are unjustified in being “pissed off”.

I’ll try to maintain my own calm as I write this.

President Obama promised Americans a “fundamental transformation of the United States of America.”

We are learning, however, that to “transform America,” the President must first help to transform the Middle East.

“The Arab Spring” – which President Obama, through his own private sources, obviously knows more about than his CIA advisers – is nitroglycerin in the trumpets of a mariachi band.

The ultimate, long term leadership of Egypt is still in question.

Now with Muammar Gaddafi in hiding, Libya’s future has massively dire possibilities, alternatives that could prove quite catastrophic to not only America but the entire Free World.

Isn’t it clear, though, that the “fundamental transformation of the Free World’s Freest Nation” would necessitate an equal and earth-shattering transformation of Freedom itself?

Obama’s idea of a Presidency, however, and government involvement in almost every walk of life, defies the very meaning of individual freedom and responsibility.

Why?

The President’s economic policies are not merely Keynesian, they’re Marxist.

His idea of State-controlled Capitalism benefits the government’s most cooperative businesses which are, as he describes them, “too large to fail”. He shuts out his political competitors, the individually free small businesses which are always a challenge to the large, fat and generally lazy “Bigs”.

Obama is a Marxist ideologue and the intensity of his commitment to ending a totally free market is disturbingly fierce.

And you want him to get “pissed off”?!

You who have been the “coolest” of professionals on any set in the world. The calmest. The most assured, and on the set of Along Came A Spider, the most helpful to other actors.

Is the “Arab Spring” filled with similar “intensity” as that of President Obama? What percentage of the “Arab Spring” is Marxist as well as radically Islamic? What message would a “pissed off” Marxist President be sending to the Marxist troublemakers involved with the “Arab Spring”?

The following comments and conclusions in the Walid Phares interview indicate that President Obama’s cool and his distance from the action, his delays at entering the political nightmares still growing in Egypt, and virtually on fire in both Libya and Syria, are exactly what invites terrorists and radical Islamists to take power in all three places.

Is that what you want, Morgan?

Walid Phares says that the chance of Jihadist presence in Libya is “50/50”.

He says, “Libya could become another Iran.”

He also made perfectly clear that Obama’s hesitation to act is allowing the terrorist element within Libya (as well as Egypt and Syria) is helping the Jihadists to flourish. Because America has failed to act, the “Islamist radicals” have a foothold. It is fairly clear why President Obama is not getting “pissed off” with the Middle East. He seems to love and approve what is happening there.

However, Morgan, it’s not the Middle East you want Obama “pissed off” about. It’s the Republican opposition which is filled with increasingly “pissed off” Americans.

The consistently “coolest” thing to be, or to have ever been since the 1960’s, is to be a Marxist. And you were one of the coolest actors I’d ever met.

That is what you were when we met for the first time at the Charles Street Playhouse in 1970, performing in the very Marxist creation, Jungle of Cities, by that most Marxist of playwrights, Bertolt Brecht. I was a dizzily ambitious young actor who didn’t really give a damn about the political philosophy being sold. The Boston Globe critic gave me a positive review largely because he must have mistook me for a young Marxist. That same critic later murdered my Richard III because of my very un-Marxist idea within it: link Shakespeare’s vision of bottomless and over-the-top evil to Napoleon Bonaparte and that first glimpse of Marxist/Communist Revolt: the French Revolution.

Who knows? I was not an intellectual when we first met and have learned since then that I’m not one now. I’m rolling through ideologies and ideologues looking for the savage poetry in all of it. Having found it, I’m a very “pissed off” American exile watching the United States from Canada.  I cringe in dread as the United States drowns itself with the Marxist/Maoist philosophy running throughout most of the Obama Nation.

Performing in Jungle of Cities is one stage of Marxism. However, hanging Mao Zedong on the White House Christmas tree is much more eloquently “Red” than even singing Kurt Weill’s music … which I happened to do in a college production of Brecht’s Three Penny Opera.

We are obviously over the McCarthy days and Joseph’s Irish name, in addition to my own moniker, goes down into the bowels of a recent Marxist’s fantasy, Karl’s atheistic prayers for a Tea Party Inferno.

Elia Kazan was thrown with McCarthy under the same Marxist bus when he testified before the House On Un-American Activities Committee. All the Marxists in America were really “pissed off” then, weren’t they?

Now with New York, Chicago, Washington and Hollywood virtually owned by mini-Marxists and hypnotized by Maoist daydreams, you, sir, want President Obama “pissed off”?

With Obama, Marxists, full-blown Communists and the Arab Spring have reached goals none of them could have imagined. And why did they reach them? Because of Barack Obama’s eloquent cool that won him the Presidency.

And you want him pissed off?

You must know yourself, Morgan, that you reached success by being one of the coolest actors in the history of Hollywood. Staying cool is how you stay a star in both Hollywood and Washington, D.C.

Getting “pissed off” would get both you and Obama fired.

So keep those cards, letters and headlines coming in!

1992:

“Unforgiven” – Yes, yes, yes. This is a great movie. Spot on. Finally, some recognition for Clint, who by this point had been awesome for, oh, twenty some odd years — but welcome to the party, Academy.

“The Crying Game” – Oh. Okay. It’s a good movie, kind of defined by the twist. I liked the movie, but the marketing campaign — in which Miramax told us there was a big twist — was egregious and perhaps evil.

“Howard’s End” – Oh, dear Lord I hate Merchant-Ivory movies. Not my cup of tea, but right up the Academy’s collective alley. Wikipedia says it was the first film to be released by Sony Pictures Classics, so named because Sony Important and Destined to Be Remembered Forever Films sounded too presumptuous.

“A Few Good Men” – Really loved this back then, the dialogue, the speech, and Tom Cruise’s performance. And while I still enjoy it, it’s not as good as I thought it was.

“Scent of a Woman” – Ugh, are you serious, Academy? Obviously I’m not the first to point this out, but this was the turning point for Pacino, when he decided to start sentences in his normal, gravelly voice and then to SHOUT THE REST OF THE SENTENCE LIKE THIS. It’s really annoying but he was RE-WARDED! WITH AN OSCAR!

What Should Have Been Nominated:

“Glengarry Glen Ross” – Pacino didn’t do that as much in this adaptation of Mamet’s play. He did the short. Bursts. Of. Inflection. But without as much shouting. And when he did raise his voice, it seemed to fit the material. As in his response to Ed Harris’s query, “What does that mean?”

“It MEANS, Dave, you haven’t had a good one IN A MONTH. None of my BUSINESS. You wanna PUSH ME. To ANSWER YOU.” He’s great, Harris is great, Spacey’s at his weaseliest, Alec Baldwin’s at his slimiest, and Lemmon’s at his vulnerablest. Great. Movie.

“Reservoir Dogs” – Oh, dear Lord, I love Quentin Tarantino movies. Sure, there was the controversy, that he stole the plot and some shots from “City On Fire.” I will concede that he’s a total talentless loser when you produce a scene from “City On Fire” in which the characters discuss Madonna, which then leads to a discussion of “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia,” and another scene where, oh, I don’t know, a cop posing as a criminal tells a phony story that includes the line, “I’m trying to watch ‘The Lost Boys!’”

“Malcolm X” – Seriously, I thought of this movie when George Clooney accepted an Oscar for “Syriana” and bragged about how forward thinking the Academy is.

“One False Move” – I expected greater things from Carl Franklin after this, an absorbing crime thriller starring Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton, the latter of whom co-wrote the script. You can do it, Carl. Make another great movie. Please.

“Unforgiven” – It’s a hell of a thing, killing a man. You take away all he’s got. And everything he’s ever gonna have.

The genius of Eastwood’s film is that its characters have the same misinformed awe for the outlaws and lawmen of the American west that led to the genre’s dominance. In my last column, I attributed the greatness of “The Silence of the Lambs” to its focused point of view. “Unforgiven,” on the other hand, takes multiple points of view in telling the story of several prostitutes who put a bounty on a couple of cowboys who scarred one of their friends for life because she giggled at the size of the bigger cowboy’s, um, manhood.

When William Munny (Eastwood) meets the so-called Schoefield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett), the story behind the bounty has already taken on a life of its own. “Hell, they even cut her teats,” Schoefield, a legend in his own mind, tells Munny. Munny needs the bounty. A widower, he struggles to run a hog farm with his kids. He enlists the aid of his old running buddy, Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman), and in doing so further exaggerates the extent of the damage done to the prostitute.

Ned and Munny were bad boys. Outlaws. Cold blooded killers. And so was Little Bill (Gene Hackman), the gun control crazy Sheriff of Big Whiskey, the town where the cowboys cut up the woman. Little Bill makes quick work of English Bob (Richard Harris), the first bounty hunter to show up in Big Whiskey, and steals English Bob’s biographer, a scared little weasel named Beauchamp (Saul Rubinek) to boot.

Little Bill eviscerates Beauchamp’s work, pointing out that his writing is filled with inaccuracies. Like a man nicknamed “Two Guns” didn’t carry two guns at all, but was simply well-endowed. And he died for it. It’s ironic, then, that the inciting incident was spurred by a man who was not so lucky to be well-endowed. His buddy, who did no cutting, but held the woman down, tries to give the victim a peace offering, but the other women won’t have it. It’s very obvious that they don’t speak for the victim; she appears touched by the gesture, but says nothing.

The movie asks if a man, more to the point, a killer, can change and can he outrun his past? Yes, and no. Ned freezes after firing a shot that maims the more sympathetic cowboy, leaving Munny to finish him off. But Ned quits, and heads home, only to be caught by Little Bill’s posse. As they torture him, The Schoefield Kid confirms our suspicions: he’s a liar and a fraud, a normal person who is desperate to have the reputation of a killer. He goes through with the murder, but it takes a toll on his soul. Finally, he reasons, “They had it coming,” to which Munny replies, “We all got it comin’ kid.”

It all leads to a confrontation between Little Bill and Munny, during which Munny takes out half of Big Whiskey. Only one man can survive and, for the time being, outrun his past.

Had this published in Newsweek a few months ago, my guess is that the magazine would’ve sold for 50 cents instead of a dollar.

I think it’s possible that a slightly more obvious, disturbing reason could be behind Undercovers’ failure, and it’s pretty familiar: race. Prime-time audiences just weren’t ready for “super-negros” on the small screen. And that’s exactly what Undercovers was: a show about black people doing very “unblack” things. Before anyone gets upset, let me explain. “Super-negro” was a term my family often used while watching old Sidney Poitier movies back in the day. In Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (our favorite), Poitier portrays a black doctor in love with a white, wealthy young socialite during the ’60s. Pretty early in the film, you begin to realize that Poitier’s character is not just any black doctor (an accomplishment in itself for most people then, and now); he’s a black doctor with degrees from several Ivy League universities, an internationally known scholar behind cures of dozens of diseases in Africa and elsewhere. Overkill. But Poitier portraying a “regular negro” was simply not good enough during those times, so the “super-negro” was born. The same could be said of his character from In the Heat of the Night, a Philadelphia cop with highly decorated awards.

Fast-forward 40 years, and it’s plain to see that Hollywood still hasn’t figured out a way to move beyond that absurd premise. It still can’t just fit us in. Yes, we often appear as sidekicks or backup characters in an array of popular shows in prime time, but rarely do we carry a show as the star or let the viewers come home with us.

For starters, this premise is just factually wrong. Unless Ms. Samuels is going to push her already laughable theory to the breaking point of splitting the fine hair between movies and television, it’s just a cold truth that Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman and Will Smith not only qualify as her “super negroes,” but also happen to be three of the most universally popular and beloved actors in America today. Furthermore, only 6 million people tuned into “Undercovers” in a country where 42 million Black Americans currently reside. With those numbers you don’t need anyone of the Caucasian persuasion to create yourself a hit television show.

If NBC can’t win 20% of that particular demographic, how is the failure of “Undercovers” a race issue? Well, Ms. Samuels has an even more outrageous theory to answer that one. Be sure to pay extra special attention to what’s in bold [my emphasis]:

[I]t appears that the powers that be in Tinseltown feel quite comfortable relegating us to reinforcing every negative stereotype known to humanity in low-grade, embarrassing reality shows like Flavor of Love and Basketball Wives. So exactly how does the television audience (black, white, or other) make the gigantic leap from those constant images of foolery to a show like Undercovers? It doesn’t.

Wow.

Taking Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington and Will Smith off the table as though they alone don’t already completely dismantle this thoughtless line of thought, what Ms. Samuels is saying is that television has so socialized Black America that even Black Americans can’t deal with seeing themselves in fictional roles that don’t fall under her definition of “foolery.”

Of course, there is one exception to this theory; someone uniquely capable of seeing through all of this, someone whose superior intellect can’t be fooled, someone who possesses the otherworldly ability to retain a sense of self-worth even in the relentless face of all this pop cultural racism — ONE incredible human being with the strength and insight to sit back and enjoy “Undercovers” unlike anyone else…

And that someone is, of course, Allision Samuels.

If “elitist” ever becomes a race, I’m becoming a racist.