BlacKkKlansman

Before Black Lives Matter and I Can’t Breathe became famous on the Internet, Spike Lee was directing movies about social justice issues and savaging common racism. “BlacKkKlansman” is his 2018 latest, and it is one of his best.

Several things are outstanding about this film, which won the Grand Jury Prize at 2018’s Cannes Film Festival and stars Denzel Washington’s son, John David Washington in the emotional true story of an African-American undercover cop who became a caretaking member of the Ku Klux Klan in 1978.

Kenneth Turan said in his review, “Perhaps most impressive is that the director, who’s made more than 20 features and documentaries since his debut feature, 1986’s “She’s Gotta Have It,” is not only still on fire but has found a story that allows him to be as excited and involved as he was when it all began.”

Turan continued, “And all that experience allows Lee to be as skilled a filmmaker as he is a committed polemicist, an artist as well as a provocateur who doesn’t want us to get too comfortable even as we are entertained.”

Here’s a fact: Lee, his writing partner Kevin Willmott and earlier writers Charlie Wachtel and David Rabinowitz have found a way to make this true story painfully related to what is going on currently.

“The biggest thing we wanted,” Lee said in an interview at Cannes, “was to put stuff in the script, very strategically, so it would not be a period piece.”

Lee and team have gifted this, and they have done it exactly his way. Working with longtime editor Barry Alexander Brown, the director heedlessly but fearlessly creates these issues, weighing tense satiric comedy, impenitent social commentary, believable danger, and even pleasing romance.

Turan said, “Also in the mix are random shots of classic blaxploitation movie posters and a gorgeous black-is-beautiful montage shot in 35-millimeter by cinematographer Chayse Irvin.” As Lee said Film Comment magazine, “It’s a Spike Lee joint. It’s not just one thing.”

At the center of it all, really, is that strange true story. Despite the film’s elements of violent danger and romance are not there in Stallworth’s autobiographical book (Black Klansman: Race, Hate and the Undercover Investigation of a Lifetime), the main story of a black man penetrating the KKK is as messing as it sounds.

However, before the film gets to that it creates the moment with two short elements: the famous “Gone With the Wind” crane shot of damaged Southern soldiers ending with a shot of the Confederate flag, and Alec Baldwin playing a huge bigoted Dr. Kennebrew Beauregard filming a racist PSA talking about mongrel countries and “our holy white Protestant values.”

It’s probably best where I say that “BlacKkKlansman’s” language is really bad and racist as you would think, possibly much worse than you think. Having the worst of it said on the phone to Klan members by a black undercover cop emphasizes the theme that racism is the meaning of strange and ridiculous as it is hateful.

When we meet Ron Stallworth, carefully adapting his great Afro before going in the Colorado Springs, Colorado police station, the Klan is the last thing he thinks of.

However, as played by Washington, who first acted for Lee as a child with his father Denzel in “Malcolm X,” Stallworth is thinking of doing the right thing by being the first black cop on the Colorado Springs force. Stallworth is hired, but he is given rookie tasks like the records room, where he has to repress anger at white coworkers who call the people of color “toads.”

Turan said, “Then fate intervenes and Stallworth gets a special assignment monitoring a local speech given by firebrand Kwame Ture (Corey Hawkins), the former Stokely Carmichael.”

That’s when he encounters Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver), the cop who will become his undercover partner, and Patrice Dumas (Laura Harrier), the honorable woman he falls in love with.

That speech, based on things Ture actually said, is one of the script’s main then/now parallels. Hearing Ture say “we are being shot down in the streets like dogs by white racist cops” sounds chillingly current.

Bored by his job, Stallworth sees an advertising for the Klan in a newspaper and at a spur of the moment calls the number (in real life, he wrote a note). He’s surprised when the Klan leader Walter Breachway, played by Ryan Eggold, answers the phone.

As he tells his boss, because he can speak the king’s English when he can, and because racist rants are easy for him, Stallworth really surprises the Klan boss that a face-to-face meeting before the membership is given.

Realistically, Stallworth can’t go himself, so the Jewish Zimmerman is said to pretend he is Stallworth and go in his place, which has fights with Breachway’s jerk colleague Felix, played by Finish actor Jasper Paakkonen, a strong racist who guesses Flip’s traditions and is not happy about it.

Turan said, “As for Stallworth, his phone prowess leads him to a long-distance friendship with David Duke (Topher Grace), the Grand Wizard of the Klan himself, which in turn leads to all kinds of complications when Duke makes a visit to Colorado Springs.”

While “BlacKkKlansman’s” script often connects today with the past, nothing prepares us for the power of the film’s last act, which uses news video to talk about the danger and death that occurred in Charlottesville, VA, almost exactly a year before the film was released.

Turan noted, “Especially shocking in the context of what we’ve seen is video of the death of Heather Heyer, killed when a car rammed into counter-protesters at a “Unite the Right” rally, and the presence of the real David Duke talking insistently about “taking America back.”” Lee tells us that this fight is not over by a long shot.

Turan said, “In fact, the last thing viewers of “BlacKkKlansman” see, as audiences of Lee’s films have always seen, is the motto of his 40 Acres and a Mule production company: By Any Means Necessary.” Despite being familiar, that saying has never felt so related, exactly to the point.

If you missed the chance to see this film in the theaters, see it now on Blu-Ray or Netflix or RedBox as a rental. This is a really powerful movie and it has some funny moments. You will really feel the weight of this film that is really relevant in today’s society. I give this a real recommendation.

Well everyone, thank you for joining in for this year’s “Black History Movie Month.” I hope everyone enjoyed this year’s review. There will be more next year. Until we get there again, stay tuned next month to see what I have in store for everyone.

Clear and Present Danger

For this year’s President’s Day, I will be looking at “Clear and Present Danger,” released in 1994. Rita Kempley started her review by saying, “In reality, intelligence agency may have become something of an oxymoron, but not in the clandestine universe of Phillip Noyce's "Clear and Present Danger," an absorbing, if overlong adaptation of Tom Clancy's bestseller. More a cerebral dilemma than an action-packed adventure, the film explodes from time to time, but mostly takes place in offices. It is probably also the first espionage thriller to climax in a mouse-to-mouse cyber-feud.”

Harrison Ford is in here as CIA’s scruffy agent Jack Ryan, who looks like every day is just another bad day at the office. Simply an analyst in “Patriot Games,” Ryan is now an acting deputy director of intelligence when Admiral James Greer, played by James Earl Jones, is hospitalized with pancreatic cancer. With Ryan’s boss soldiers through chemotherapy, Ryan looks at the murder of a famous businessman who has some connections with the president, played by Donald Moffat.

When Ryan and his people see the murder is related to a Colombian drug lord, Ernest Escobedo (Miguel Sandoval), the president ultimately authorizes the national security adviser (Harris Yulin) and a CIA deputy director (Henry Czerny) to research secret paybacks in South America. Clark, played by Willem Dafoe, a CIA field agent that has high-tech communications material, is in charge of a handpicked mission from his hotel room.

With help from hackers and other tech specialists at Langley, Ryan realizes that his bosses and maybe even the president are not only misusing their authorities but jeopardizing the lives of innocents in the presence of Escobedo, a drug lord who isn’t as much of a threat to American serenity than coffee advocate Juan Valdez. Similar to Ryan, Escobedo has a villain, a trusted counselor, played by Joaquim de Almeida, who plans to get rid of him and take over the cartel.

Kempley mentioned, “Iced coffee runs in the counselor's veins as played by Almeida, whose performance is nearly as strong as Czerny's as Ryan's steely-eyed CIA opponent, Moffat's wickedly funny chief executive and Dafoe's dashing Bogota-based operative.” Anne Archer and the rest of Ryan’s on-screen family that was in “Patriot Games” have cameos here (Alexander Lester and Thora Birch), but Ford must face this alone for everybody.

Kempley noted, “There's a little bit of Mr. Smith in Ford's Jack Ryan and there's a little bit of Capra in the techno-thriller as written and rewritten by Donald Stewart, Steven Zaillian and John Milius.” Sadly, this has a heated argument where a ticked off Ryan really calls out the chief. This has “how dare yous” shouts, which makes it more adult when looking at the real problems compared to “True Lies.”

Kempley ended her review by saying, “Noyce, who also directed "Patriot Games," manages to keep the complex story lines from snarling even though he relies heavily on crosscutting. The technique, which he uses ingeniously here, enlivens scenes that are technologically driven and potentially deadly.”

I don’t know how good this is compared to “Patriot Games,” because I haven’t seen that yet. I do plan on watching that, especially since it is part of the “Jack Ryan” franchise, which I feel like watching all of. However, this is definitely one that you should watch for today, seeing how political and action-packed it gets. You will really get into this one.

Look out this Friday for the finale of this year’s “Black History Movie Month.”

Dreamgirls

David Rooney started his review by saying, “Finally. After “The Phantom of the Opera,” “Rent” and “The Producers” botched the transfer from stage to screen, “Dreamgirls” gets it right. Bill Condon’s adaptation of the 1981 show about a Motown trio’s climb to crossover stardom pulls off the fundamental double-act those three musical pics all missed: It stays true to the source material while standing on its own as a fully reimagined movie. Driven by tremendously exciting musical performances, the Par/DreamWorks release should sing loud and strong through awards season and beyond.”

Rooney continued, “While it lost best musical in 1982 to “Nine,” the original Broadway production of “Dreamgirls” won six Tonys, ran for 1,521 perfs and returned director-choreographer Michael Bennett to the spotlight five years after “A Chorus Line.” Fittingly, Condon has dedicated the film to Bennett (who died of AIDS complications in 1987) and has echoed his original staging in savvy ways.”

As he did in his “Chicago” movie, Condon’s love of movie musical is supported by knowing how touch it is to make the genre work for audiences who don’t want to be familiar to characters just singing at any random moment.

In “Chicago,” the songs are all about the characters’ imaginations. Here, the first few songs are performances attached in narrative situation. Condon pulls the audience in before eventually bringing the tradition musical show – first with short, music video style put in during a montage and then with a complete song in dialogues as the emotions rise. Rooney said, “The mix not only blends seamlessly, it provides footing in the twin camps of movie musical and performance-based music biopic.”

From the amazing beginning, the film creates a huge energized, active visual style. The dark screen is broken by fast showing of color with heels, skirts, hair and gliding women at a 1962 Detroit talent show.

Backstage, the Dreamettes – Effie (Jennifer Hudson), Deena (Beyonce Knowles) and Lorell (Anika Noni Rose) – prepare their act. Curtis Taylor Jr. (Jamie Foxx), a rising wheeler-dealer sees the trio and gives them a job singing backup for famous singer James Thunder Early (Eddie Murphy). Condon skillfully works this much character introduction and story around the Dreamettes’ landmark performance of “Move.”

Extending the basic format of writer-lyricist Tom Eyen’s original book for the movie, the script puts the trouble of black singers against a familiarity of racism, difference and civil conflict. Rooney said, “Adopting conventions of the classic showbiz pic without cliche, it examines the casualties and compromises of fame.” However, the film’s main focus is family, showing bonds of shared experience that are made, broken and healed.

Cadillac salesman Curtis tires to keep his own reputation as a music producer by transcending R&B to take over the pop charts. Pushing Jimmy’s expert manager Marty, played by Danny Glover, away, Curtis sings the singer up in a high-profile Miami club. Rooney noted, “Flamboyant Jimmy’s sexualized style scares the ultra-white crooner crowd but Curtis perceives a marketable commodity in the Dreamettes.”

He makes them into headliners, renaming them the Dreams. Rooney said, “Going for a smoother look and sound, Curtis demotes zaftig Effie to backup, despite general acknowledgment she has the strongest pipes, and makes slimmer, more telegenic Deena the lead.” This puts the film’s main problem and its most powerful emotional moments.

Sidelined as lead singer and as Curtis’ girlfriend, Effie becomes really bitter and unreliable, making her replaced in the group. Sung by Curtis, the three original Dreams, Effie’s songwriter brother C.C. (Keith Robinson) and replacement Michelle (Sharon Leal), the song number argument, “It’s All Over,” is a powerful song. Rooney said, “Presented much as it was on stage, the complex number is cogent, dramatic and entirely unselfconscious in its pop-operatic language.”

The emotional peak is really brought up so high with Hudson’s innate, sad singing of “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going.” The song of real begging is always connected to Jennifer Holliday’s amazing original singing but Hudson creates her own, singing it on an empty stage with mirrors in an open tribute to Bennett.

An “American Idol” finalist without any film experience, Hudson comes complete to film. Rooney noted, “It’s the kind of galvanizing perf that calls to mind debuts like Barbra Streisand in “Funny Girl” or Bette Midler in “The Rose,” with a voice like the young Aretha. More fully developed here than onstage, Effie is the fierce, wounded, pulsating heart of the movie.” Her large song and second amazing one “I Am Changing” both extract audience cheers and applause.

Eyen’s story of “Dreamgirls,” this adaptation released in 2006, was loosely based on the Supremes. Diana Ross became the leader from original singer Florence Ballard, who unlike Effie, died in poverty at 32. The Diana-Deena matching is really shown here, with Knowles’ clothing, hairstyles and even singing sound different moments of Ross’ career.

Rooney noted, “Despite the further parallel of Beyonce’s emergence as the superstar soloist of Destiny’s Child, Deena does not monopolize the film. Chief concession to spreading the spotlight is Deena’s new powerhouse ballad, “Listen.””

After some failure film roles, Beyonce has been really used here by Condon. As fitting a character described at one part as “a product,” Deena is more controlled than self-driven, but Knowles is balanced, quietly determined and beautiful awe-inspiring, growing from innocent teenager to self-confident singer.

Playing a nasty manager with sings of Berry Gordy Jr. and Ike Turner, Foxx looks like he’s holding back. His natural charm is lowered behind Curtis’ cool fluency and he doesn’t look right in the songs.

However, Murphy is the highlight. A combination of James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Somkey Robinson, Jackie Wilson and some of his own singing façade, his Jimmy jumps out of the screen both in his amazing songs (his rap is the best) and dialogue scenes. It’s his best work in movies.

The character has been given a really different look here, making Murphy start hilarious and beautiful and end mournful and broken. Jimmy gets another of the film’s best new songs in the social protest song “Patience.” Rooney credited, “Murphy’s dead-eyed stare and subsequent reaction after Curtis nixes the release is among the film’s most piercing moments.”

Rooney continued, “There’s fine supporting work from Glover, Robinson and especially Rose, a bewitching stage performer (“Caroline, or Change”) who shows equal assurance on film and terrific comic instincts.”

Despite her role being trimmed, the only real loss is Lorell’s livid “Ain’t No Party” shout, one of composer Henry Krieger’s better songs. Loretta Devine, the original Broadway Lorell, also makes an appearance singing “I Miss You Old Friend.”

Rooney said, “There are some narrative ellipses that were unclear in the stage show and remain so — Curtis’ mob connections and legal hot water are dealt with too perfunctorily — and Condon makes an odd choice in cutting mid-conversation to Deena and Effie’s reconciliation after years of bitter silence. Not sharing their encounter from the start undersells a key emotional moment.” However, the storytelling as a whole is nice and confident.

It was a smart choice to have Broadway pros Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer power the performance scenes, the amazing execution done by Tobias A. Schliessler’s great, moving camera. Rooney noted, “In the title number in particular, in which the trio members emerge as restyled stars, the widescreen camerawork is luscious, picking up an elbow-length glove, a fishtail skirt, an elegant choreographic move. And the trend toward machine-gun editing is refreshingly resisted by Virginia Katz, who creates a rhythm both kinetic and graceful.”

The film has amazing and different color thanks to Sharen Davis’ showy costumes and John Myhre’s detailed production design. Rooney ended his review by saying, “Matching Condon’s achievement in marrying naturalistic showbiz drama with old-fashioned musical, the retro stylings of both sets and costumes expertly brush period-specific reality with subtle touches of fantasy.”

Another musical that fits right with the month and also one that should not be missed at all. If you haven’t seen this adaptation, don’t miss your chance to watch it. I think everyone will enjoy it, regardless of whether or not they are familiar with the play. I became familiar with it when Will Smith lip-synced “And I’m Telling You” to Uncle Phil at the end of one episode, which was one of the funniest moments from “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.” Still, see this movie; you will fall in love with it.

Look out next week for not only the finale of this year’s “Black History Movie Month,” but also for my yearly “President’s Day Review.”

Ella Enchanted

Alright everyone, time for another yearly “Valentine’s Day” review. This year is a good one because I’m going to look at “Ella Enchanted,” released in 2004. As the title says, this is an enchanted movie. Roger Ebert started out his review by saying, “Based on the beloved novel by Gail Carson Levine, it's a high-spirited charmer, a fantasy that sparkles with delights. A lot of the fun is generated because it takes place in a world that is one part "Cinderella," one part "Shrek," and one part "The Princess Bride." It even stars the hero from "Princess Bride," Cary Elwes, who has grown up to become evil Prince Regent Edgar, who killed his brother the king and now has his sights on the king's son, who will inherit the throne. So make that one part "Hamlet" crossed with one part "Macbeth."”

Anne Hathaway, who made her film debut back in “The Princess Diaries,” plays Ella, who was given a curse when she was born from her fairy godmother Lucinda, played by Vivica A. Fox. Sadly, everyone gets a curse by a fairy in this land, but Ella’s is a real bummer: She is given the curse of obedience, where she must do whatever she’s told. When she grows up, this is a huge burden, especially after her father Sir Peter (Patrick Bergin) remarries to her evil stepmother Dame Olga (Joanna Lumley) and her two jealous stepsisters, Hattie and Olive (Lucy Punch and Jennifer Higham).

This is the Cinderella story, but has a twist, because Ella is a medieval civil rights crusader, and thinks it’s wrong that Prince Edgar, played by Cary Elwes, has banished every non-human from the land and into the forest. They include giants, the ogres and elves.

Ella is in the forest one day when she sees ogres, who tie her above a hot cauldron and prepare to cook her for lunch. Ebert mentioned, “An ogre asks her, "How do you like to be eaten? Baked? Boiled?" I like her answer: "Free range."”

Ella tells them that she supports them, and she wants to end their segregation, she packs with her a talking book named Benny. The front cover is a hologram showing Benny, played by Jimi Mistry, whose body was sadly taken by a willful spell. Open the book, and he can show you anyone you want to see, but Benny’s powers are restricted and he can’t tell you where to find them.

She meets up with Prince Charmont three different times, played by Hugh Dancy, and instantly falls in love with him at every encounter, throwing Ella into the middle of palace conspiracy. Edgar wants to murder his nephew and seize the throne, and despite Ella seeing this plan, her stepsisters know about her curse and use it to keep her away from Charmont.

The movie actually looks beautiful. Ebert said, “Special effects create a picture-book kingdom in which the medieval mixes with the suburban (there is a mall). I like the casual way that computer-animated graphics are used with real foregrounds; sure, it doesn't look as convincing as it did (sometimes) in "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring," but a certain artifice adds to the style.”

Every cast member is really funny, especially the family fairy Mandy (Minnie Driver), who is not good when casting spells, Slannen the Elf (Aiden McArdle), Ella’s brave partner, a narrator played by “Monty Python” alum Eric Idle, who sings a few songs, and an evil snake named Heston, who is Edgar’s right-hand man. Her best friend is played by Parminder K. Nagra from “Bend It Like Beckham” who sadly doesn’t really play that big of a role since she’s gone for about an hour, until she comes back looking on with glee at the end.

Ebert credited, “One of the charms of the movie is its goofiness, which extends to the songs, which verge on sing-along chestnuts; what else would the elves sing, after all, but "Let Us Entertain You"?”

Anne Hathaway lights up in this film. She has a big smile and expressive face, and here she’s in a clever and evil story, instead of with the breathless plot of “The Princess Diaries.” She looks like she’s having fun, along with every cast member, including the snake. This must have been one of the best family films of that year.

If you like Cinderella and any kind of spin on the story, this one is definitely for you. Especially if you have little girls, they will definitely get into this one. Don’t skip this one. I know this one didn’t get good reviews when it was released, but I actually enjoyed it when I saw it.

Happy Single Awareness Day to everyone. Look out tomorrow when I look at the next review for “Black History Movie Month.”

Hairspray

“If you remember the ‘60s, you weren’t there.” This is a quote from the late Dennis Hopper, but he’s talking about the late ‘60s. Everyone remembers the early ‘60s, which was a time of purity when someone named Chubby Checker was a famous person. The early ‘60s were before the Beatles, LDS, Vietnam and hippes. It was very similar to the late ‘50s, besides the cars being not as fancy and people enlisting in the Peace Corps, and every town with a huge population tuned in to a TV station that had something called “The Hop.” Roger Ebert admitted, ““The Hop” was the name of the show on Channel 3 in Champaign-Urbana, where I grew up. It had other names in other towns, but it always had the same format: a studio full of pimply faced teenagers in ducktails and ponytails, pumping away to midstream rock music under the benevolent supervision of the local Dick Clark clone.”

Ebert continued, “Everybody I knew watched “The Hop.” Nobody I knew ever appeared on it. Where did they get these kids? Did they hire professional teenagers from other towns? Nobody I knew dressed as cool or danced as well as the kids on “The Hop,” and there was a sinking feeling, on those long-ago afternoons in front of the TV, that the parade had passed me by.”

The story in John Waters’ 1988 film “Hairspray” revolves around that era and the youth with that same feeling. The time is set in 1962 in Baltimore, where a show called “The Corny Collins Show” is really popular among every teenager who wants to be on it. Ebert described, “The kids on Corny’s show are great dancers with hair piled in grotesque mounds atop their unformed little faces.”

They are “popular.” Ebert said, “They are on the Council, a quasi-democratic board of teenagers who advise Corny on matters of music and supervise auditions for kids who want to be on the show.”

One girl really wants to be on the show is Tracy (TV show host Ricki Lake), who is overweight, but can dance better than Amber (Collen Fitzpatrick), who is slim. Tracy dances in front of her TV and knows every step and is abided in this dream by her parents, played by Jerry Stiller and Divine (the late singer and drag queen).

The story is all about Tracy trying to win a talent show so she can be a part of the Council and how Amber and her motivated parents (Sonny Bono and Debbie Harry) try to stop her. Ebert noted, “It is some kind of commentary on the decivilizing ‘80s that Stiller and Divine and Bono and Harry, who would have qualified as sideshow exhibits in the real ‘60s, look in the context of this movie like plausible parents.”

The supporting cast has so many different eccentrics, like Pia Zadora as a “Beatnik Chick) (which it was she was listed as in the credits). Ebert said, “If nothing else is worth the price of admission to this movie, perhaps you will be persuaded by the prospect of Zadora reading from Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl.”” The movie has a very important message in it: “The Corny Collins Show” is racially segregated, and Tracy and her black friends help to integrate it, breaking into Corny Collins day at their local amusement park. Ebert said, “But basically the movie is a bubble-headed series of teenage crises and crushes, alternating with historically accurate choreography of such forgotten dances as the Madison and the Roach.”

Ebert continued, “The movie probably has the most to say to people who were teenagers in the early ‘60s, but they are, I suppose, the people least likely to see this movie. It also will appeal to today’s teenagers, who will find that every generation has its own version of Corny Collins, and its own version of the Council, designed to make you feel like a worthless reject on the trash heap of teenage history.” If there is a moral here, is that John Waters, who probably could not get a spot on the Council, actually did, and made it through to release the movie.

The 2007 remake of “Hairspray” is actually fun. Ebert credited, “There's a lot of craft and slyness lurking beneath the circa-1960s goofiness. The movie seems guileless and rambunctious, but it looks just right (like a Pat Boone musical) and sounds just right (like a Golden Oldies disc) and feels just right (like the first time you sang "We Shall Overcome" and until then it hadn't occurred to you that we should).” It starts right away with Tracy Turnblad, played by Nikki Blonsky, an overweight spirited girl, whose solid joy is a pleasure to watch throughout. Good morning, Baltimore! She sings, as she hops all around town where she’s very popular and loved, even the garbagemen who give her a lift when she misses her bus. Ebert describes, “She's like a free-lance cheerleader.”

At school she joins with best friend Penny Pingleton, played by Amanda Bynes, whose name looks very similar to Penny Singleton, who played Dagwood’s Blondie. They really want school to end since time seems to drag really slow to dismissal time, so they can rush home and watch “The Corny Collins Show,” the popular teenage dance show. Back then, every channel had a show like that. Ebert noted, “Eventually Dick Clark plowed them under with "American Bandstand." I miss their freshness and naivete.”

Corny, played by James Marsden, is rightly named, as he controls a group of Popular Kids who call themselves his Council. Tracy wants to be on the Council. The center stage and leader of the Council is Amber Von Tussle (Brittany Snow), whose mother Wilma (Michelle Pfeifer) controls the channel and pushes an all-white rule for the show, except for the monthly Negro Day captained by Maybelle (Queen Latifah), owner of a record shop.

All of this is from the original 1988 John Waters film, which skyrocketed Ricki Lake’s career, and from the Broadway musical made from the Waters movie, but it’s still a joy to watch the third time. It’s a little more innocent than Waters would have made it, but he plays his part by making a cameo appearance as a flasher (look fast and you will spot Ricki Lake and Pia Zadora). The story is about Tracy’s automatic courtesy as she fights to integrate the show, damaging her chance to get on the Council.

As usual, Edna, Tracy’s mother, needs to be played by a man in drag: Divine in the original, Harvey Fierstein in the musical, and this time, John Travolta, who is wearing a fat suit but still dances like his character in “Saturday Night Fever.” Wilbur, Edna father, is played by Christopher Walken, who must be wearing a wig that he got from his store, named “Hardy Har Har,” and sells pranks and trinkets. Ebert admitted, “Oh, how I miss the Whoopie Cushion.”

The plot moves forward while fixing one part of Baltimore racism, and what the best thing is is that some of the large problems get talked about in their soundtrack. Ebert said, “Tracy is sent to detention one day and learns a whole new style of dancing from the black students there, and takes it to TV, reminding me of the days when TV preachers thought Elvis was the spawn of Satan. Now they look like him. Call in today for your "free" healing water.”

However, the point is not the story but the energy. Ebert said, “Without somebody like Nikki Blonsky at the heart of the movie, it might fall flat, but everybody works at her level of happiness, including her teen contemporaries Zac Efron, Taylor Parks and Elijah Kelley (the last two Maybelle's children), and the usual curio-shop window full of peculiar adults (Jerry Stiller, who played Wilbur in the 1988 movie, and Paul Dooley).”

You know the story, you’ve seen the original and heard everything about the musical, and you think you know what will happen. However, the movies looks like it is happening at the precise time, and its only problem as a movie taking place during a serious time is that there aren’t enough Studebakers in it.

Definitely check out the original and the remake. I like the remake better. I actually think this movie was better for Travolta and Pfeiffer, who starred in the “Grease” movies, which I’m not a fan of. We’ll get to that eventually. However, still, these movies are right for Black History Month and really tell about a time that really did happen. It was based on a true story, but I don’t recall the entire story it was about. Don’t miss your chance to see these movies.

Look out next week where we look at more reviews in “Black History Movie Month.”

To Kill a Mockingbird

Welcome back to “Black History Movie Month,” where I will start this month off with the 1962 classic directed by Robert Mulligan, “To Kill a Mockingbird.” The screenplay by Horton Foote was based on the 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name by Harper Lee.

A Pulitzer Prize winner when it was published in 1960, Harper Lee’s first book, To Kill a Mockingbird, ended up selling more than 30 million copies.

However, most Hollywood studios weren’t interested in adapting Lee’s story of racial prejudice in the Deep South to the big screen. According to Robert Mulligan, who directed the film for Universal, “the other studios didn’t want it because what’s it about? It’s about a middle-aged lawyer with two kids. There’s no romance, no violence (except off-screen), there’s no action. What is there? Where’s the story?”

Marc Lee said in his review, “Well, as Mulligan so deftly demonstrates, the story is in the characters, their failings and fragility, their heroism and nobility of spirit. It's in the depiction of heart-breaking cruelty and heart-warming humanity. It's in the innocence of a child's world overshadowed by the evil that adults do.”

The two kids are six-year-old Scout, the narrator of the story, and her 10-year-old brother Jem. They live in a dusty, withdrawn Alabama town, where their father Atticus Finch is a lawyer.

Lee noted, “In the long, hot summer of 1932, Scout and Jem scamper around town, getting into scrapes and playground fights, and becoming increasingly fascinated by the dilapidated house at the end of the street and its scary unseen occupant.”

However, the happy tone darkens when Atticus has to defend a black man (Brock Peters) wrongly accused of raping a white woman (Collin Wilcox). Lee said, “The courtroom scene, witnessed by the children from the gallery, is one of the best in the movies, as Atticus demolishes the prosecution case with thrilling ingenuity - not that what happens subsequently reflects any kind of justice.”

Gregory Peck won an Oscar for his performance as the inflexibly decent and smart Atticus. Just as amazing are Mary Badham (who had no acting experience) as Scout and Phillip Alford as Jem. Their sincerity and honesty in the roles are the best. The film won two other Academy Awards and was nominated for eight, including Best Picture.

On February 3, 2015, Harper announced that Go Set a Watchman, a novel the Pulitzer Prize-winning author completed in the Fifties and never published, was going to be released July 14. Found again the previous autumn, Go Set a Watchman is basically a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird, despite that it was finished earlier. The 304-page book was Lee’s second, and the first new work in more than 50 years.

If you have read the book, then you should definitely see this adaptation. If you haven’t read the book, then you should still this movie. It’s one of the most powerful pieces of cinema ever. You just have to see it to believe what I’m talking about. I never read this book and I saw this movie not that long ago and I loved it. At first, you won’t know how everything ties together, but once you get through the movie, you’ll understand.

Stay tuned next week for the next installment of “Black History Movie Month.” We’re going to be getting into some good stuff later on in the month, so just sit back and wait.