He burned up TV screens with his performance as Pray Tell, Master of 1980s Drag Ball Ceremonies, in the first season of POSE on FX. Season 2 of the series that brings new layers of LGBTQ representation to television starts June 11th. The role fits actor/singer Billy Porter like a pair of velvet opera gloves. In addition to POSE, he's been giving new life to red carpets. For instance, there was his fierce and fabulous Elizabeth Taylor-as-Cleopatra entrance at this year's Met Gala at New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
His "Butterflies Are Free" outfit was to die for.
Billy Porter deserves every bit of success and spotlight exposure he's getting in his career right now. He has earned it. I want to share a short story with you. New Yorkers know Billy Porter as a stage veteran who's been in the game for quite some time. Back in the 90s, I saw him on Broadway in the revival of GREASE! He can also hit a homerun in movies when given a chance. Proof is a warm 2000 comedy about gay male friendships. This indie film a Pride Month recommendation from me. THE BROKEN HEARTS CLUB follows a group of gay buddies in West Hollywood. They're on a softball team sponsored by the paternal gay man who owns the neighborhood restaurant where they usually hang out to discuss the ups and downs of their lives. The team sponsor, a gay senior they can count on for sage advice, is in their group of friends. It's refreshing to see a group of young gay men welcome an older gay man into their group. The cast includes the late John Mahoney (of FRASIER), Dean Cain, Zach Braff, Tim Olyphant, Justin Theroux and Billy Porter.
When Billy's character has a romantic experience that's the biggest bomb since SHANGHAI SURPRISE, you will love the scene where he turns to the fellows for solace. It's a hoot.
Billy won the Tony Award for Broadway's big hit musical version of the British comedy film KINKY BOOTS. The 2013 show rebooted his career. His career was in a bit off a lull. I ran into Billy during the lull. I was in one also and we were at a networking event for show biz types. It was 2008. I'd been a regular on Whoopi Goldberg's radio show. Unfortunately the show was canceled. I attended the networking event with my buddy, Keith Price, and when I saw Billy Porter, I said to Keith "I can't believe he needs to be here -- as talented as he is."
But that's show biz. We chatted. Billy knew me from local New York City TV. He could not have been more gracious and wished us all luck. He'd get frustrated during down times in his career, but he never lost his faith. Then he sent a Facebook message that he got a gig for a show in workshop. He had a very, very good feeling about the project -- as his feeling was accurate. It developed into KINKY BOOTS. Billy lit up Broadway as the motivational drag queen who changes lives and careers.
The last time I saw Billy in person, I ran into him in Broadway's theater district. I had to tell him how good he was in an indie film I saw. He was surprised anyone had seen it. I don't think 2014's THE HUMBLING, directed by Barry Levinson and co-written by Buck Henry, got a major nationwide release. It probably played to a few arthouses. The middle-aged stage actor at the center of the story has experiences that moviegoers may have found similar to those Michael Keaton's character had in the Oscar-winning BIRDMAN released that same year.
Nevertheless, this little-seen indie comedy/drama had something I'd never seen in all my life. Someone stole scenes from Al Pacino, the star of the film. Yes. Al Pacino. That someone was Billy Porter. He is a sophisticated comedy highlight in THE HUMBLING.
Billy had a Tony Award. He made a film in which he stole scenes from Al Pacino and still he was not getting the on-camera opportunities that he wanted so he could transition from stage to film and TV.
Billy recently was interviewed by The Los Angeles Times and talked about his frustration after his Tony win. He told L.A. Times entertainment reporter Yvonne Villarreal on June 3rd that he was "not having a whole lot o' luck crossing over from theater to film and TV..." and there was a lot of "dismissive attitude" towards what he does and what he brings to a project."
He never lost his focus. He never diluted what makes him special. He added, "I'm a true believer in speaking into existence what you want." He wrote in his personal journal and prayed that he could work with Ryan Murphy. Billy continued in his quest to book the kind of work that he wanted. The day after he had a mini-meltdown reaction to hearing another chorus of "No, no, no," he got a call to audition for -- Ryan Murphy, creator and producer of POSE.
There should be an Emmy nomination in Billy Porter's future.
It's like hard punches to the gut. That's how WHEN THEY SEE US from director and co-writer Ava DuVernay hit me. I'm sure that you've heard it's about the 1989 case of the Black and Latino teens the press called The Central Park Five. They were wrongfully convicted and imprisoned as teens. Today, they are exonerated men. WHEN THEY SEE US is on Netflix. I had planned to binge-watch the entire mini-series over the weekend. After Part 2, I needed to take a break for a day and let my soul settle. The first two chapters shook me that deeply.
DuVernay's strength as a filmmaker is at its peak here. She has said that her films are her children. Ava DuVernay treats the story of Kevin Richardson, Korey Wise, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam and Raymond Santana -- the boys who were tagged The Central Park Five -- as if they were her children. She humanizes them in the beginning chapter, something several press reports did not do when the story broke. I remember it well. I lived in New York at the time and I was working on VH1. We see the boys with home lives in their neighborhoods. We see them with loving relatives. We see them just being kids -- which they were. Then the arrests happened.
As a film, a work that has actors and a script, what I have seen so far is excellent and moving. I feel that, if it was a theatrical release, it would be getting Oscar buzz for a Best Picture nomination. The punches to the gut are the way Ava DuVernay lets the crime against the boys reveal itself. She is not heavy-handed about it. You're watching this intense, infuriating action and then you find yourself saying "Dear Lord. They're just boys and they've been ruthlessly interrogated by cops for hours. One has been slapped repeatedly. No lawyers present. They've been separated from their parents for hours." Actor John Leguizamo plays one of the parents.
We saw that the boys wrongfully accused of rape were being raped themselves. Their spirits, lives and rights are being raped before our eyes in WHEN THEY SEE US.
I want to mention a couple of things that may not seem connected but they are.
My late partner was a white Southern Baptist. He was like a Son of the New South with his views on America's critical need for racial equality and other civil rights. When we met, he had a good job as a clerk in one of Manhattan's most famous department stores. A number of times, he mentioned to me something on the job that bothered him. During the school year, when classes were done for the day, nearby high school students would come into the store. He said that upscale white kids would be loud and bothersome. They'd pick up articles of clothing on display tables, look at them and drop them back down unfolded. Black and Latino kids would come into the store and be courteous. However, a security guard would follow them around and make them feel so unwanted that they'd leave the store. The security officer never approached or scolded the unruly white kids.
This was in 1992. Richard, my late partner, got so irritated seeing this happen on a regular basis that he reported the security guard seen intimidating the Black and Latino kids to the head of personnel. Although Richard's work record was stellar, he was fired for being a whistleblower. Why? He learned later that the security guard and the head of store personnel were close friends. About five years later -- Richard had passed away by that time -- there was a local TV news story. An investigation piece. There were complaints similar to the ones Richard had raised. A news crew went into the store with a hidden camera and a concealed microphone. What Richard had complained about had still been going on and it had been caught on camera by a news crew. The store was forced to make personnel changes.
A couple of weeks before America's presidential election, I grabbed a bite with a longtime buddy in New York City. He's white and financially well off and has other white friends who are also financially secure. He considers himself to be liberal. I was stunned to hear him say that he was voting for Trump. He said he was doing so because he didn't like Hillary Clinton and all the business about her emails. I told him my choice was Hillary. He felt Trump would be harmless and good for the country financially. I was stunned again when he leaned over the cafe table and said, "I don't think Trump's racist. Do you?"
I didn't answer immediately. My face was frozen.
I replied, "Yes. I do. He called Mexicans rapists and murderers. His comments about Muslims. The birtherism. Demanding to see Obama's birth certificate. His statements years ago about The Central Park Five."
"What statements?"
My middle-aged buddy was completely unaware of Trump's statements and newspaper ads about The Central Park Five. I explained it all to him as seriously as if I was a doctor telling him he needed to have a tumor removed before it was too late. He listened to me and softly replied, "Oh."
Trump's expensive full-page 1989 newspaper ads calling for the execution of the teens are mentioned in the first 20 minutes of Part Two. DuVernay lets Trump speak for himself.
My upscale white buddy, people like him and people like the former head of personnel at that famous mid-town Manhattan department store are exactly the ones who need to watch WHEN THEY SEE US. The people who do not understand why football player Colin Kaepernick took a knee on the field need to see this. He was not out to disrespect the flag and war veterans. He wanted to call attention to a critical condition in America. Not all citizens are treated equally in the Land of the Free. Look at the corruption of power, the racism and injustice that broke lives in WHEN THEY SEE US years before a real killer/rapist confessed to the crime. Such injustice continues because the mere sight of another person's color can make that person a second class citizen not seen worthy of equal rights, equal opportunities or equal respect.
All Black youths need to see this feature. Even if you're so light-skinned that your suburban folks have beguiled you into thinking that you're so light you haven't got skin in the game -- you are still Black and have skin in the game. You need to go to Netflix and watch this.
I'll be watching the rest of WHEN THEY SEE US this week. Here's a trailer.
The story of The Central Park Five has also inspired an opera. The new work of music premieres this month, June 15th, at the Long Beach Opera in South California. For more information, click onto this link:
June is Pride Month. To salute it, I've got some movie recommendations for you. They're features you may have missed during their theatrical releases. Sandra Bullock got her first Oscar nomination for 2009's THE BLIND SIDE. Not only did she get a nomination, she took the Hollywood gold home. I still definitely feel that her first Oscar nomination should have come in the Best Supporting Actress category for her performance as the woman who wrote TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. Sandra Bullock played novelist Harper Lee in the 2006 Warner Bros. release, INFAMOUS. This smart, slick and sharp film about Truman Capote during his time writing his masterpiece, IN COLD BLOOD, got about a teaspoonful of promotion from the major studio. That was a major misstep.
Yes, it came out a year after CAPOTE starring the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman during the same exact period of Capote's life, INFAMOUS had a different tone, heart and viewpoint to it. CAPOTE took us to that dangerous intersection of celebrity, crime and journalism. INFAMOUS dove into truth versus fiction, self-deception versus authenticity. We see two best friends, both writers with keen minds and talent that will make them famous. Harper Lee took a shocking real life crime and used it inspire her novel, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. Truman Capote is taking a shocking real life crime and changing actual quotes to make them more dramatic or interesting. As a gay man, he lies to himself to cast off shadows of heartbreak from his childhood. Toby Jones is a knockout as Truman Capote. It's a fine performance. INFAMOUS is a fine film with a stellar cast. Click onto this link to see a trailer:
The Toby Jones Truman drops famous names with seeming spontaneity and pours out gossip like champagne. He does this, in a way, to feel accepted and special and to be treated with some regard. I know. To be honest, I've done the same thing many times over the course of my career. INFAMOUS features several actors as celebrated figures who knew Truman Capote.
Truman gets tripped up in his own self-deception when he think he's falling in love with one of the convicted killers he's writing about in his book. That's his conflict. Harper will notice. She'll try to help and advise as bet she can. She's having her own inner turmoil as she tries to come up with a novel to follow the huge success of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. Bullock gives a wise, graceful performance as the friend who will tell Truman the truth he doesn't want to hear but needs to hear.
In 2006, I was the weekly movie reviewer on Whoopi Goldberg's weekday morning radio show out of New York City. I saw INFAMOUS at a critics screening. I was so taken with that, after the film ended, I told a Warner Bros. publicist present that the studio should campaign for Bullock to get an Oscar nomination. I told the publicist I'd be saying she was Oscar nomination worthy in my radio review. Unfortunately, the studio gave INFAMOUS minimal promotion.
You may think a movie with the title THE SKELETON TWINS is a horror comedy. However, it's not. It does have some laughs but this is a good, touching drama starring two graduates of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. This 2014 indie film stars Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig. They play siblings working to repair a 10-year crack in their relationship after each one teeters on the brink of a tragedy. Hader is the heartbroken gay brother. Wiig is his straight sister.
Also in the film is Ty Burrell, known to millions as Phil Dunphy on the long-running sitcom, MODERN FAMILY. In THE SKELETON TWINS, Burrell gets to exercise his impressive dramatic muscles.
Some critics rightfully praised Bill Hader's performance as a hired killer on HBO's BARRY. They felt his dramatic work was a revelation. Those dramatic skills were a promise fulfilled if you saw THE SKELETON TWINS.
If you're up for seeing two men in a prison cell hold each other and dance romantically to a tape of Johnny Mathis singing "Chances Are," then I've got the film for you. Jim Carrey stars in a comedy/drama based on a real life character and a real life crime story. The movie is 2009's I LOVE YOU, PHILLIP MORRIS.
This is another film in which Carrey proved he can be serious and be effective in serious scenes. In a way, he takes his comedy type of guy from LIAR, LIAR and flips it to play the dramatic side. Here, the laughs come the absurdity of what life forces him to do to be with the man he loves. They met behind bars. The film opens with Carrey as a married man. He's got a sweet life, a sweet wife, a kid and a good job. He's regular in his church visits. An emotionally jarring encounter in his family life history understandably ignites his abandonment issues. That plus an accident force him to get real. He comes out of the closet, he tells his wife the truth about himself, leaves his marriage and lives it up with a hot Latino boyfriend in Florida.
In order to make ends meet and keep the romance afloat, he becomes a con man. A resourceful and tough con man. He'll need that toughness in prison … where he falls in love. His sweetheart is the wide-eyed, dear and sexually energetic Phillip Morris, played by Ewan McGregor.
I read about I LOVE YOU, PHILLIP MORRIS being screened at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2009. Come January 2011, the film still had not been released nationwide.
I think the boldness and frank sexuality scared the film company. Just like with the greatly under-publicized KISS KISS BANG BANG from Warner Bros. in 2005, here was a film with a star in the lead role as an all-the-way out gay man who was a steely, masculine character. He wasn't a victim. (In KISS KISS BANG BANG, Val Kilmer played a gay Hollywood private eye, one of the best in the business.) In I LOVE YOU, PHILLIP MORIS, Jim Carrey doesn't go for laughs. His performance stays rooted in growing from the heartbreak of the character. He commits to the character. If only the film company had committed to this movie.
Now let's look at sex in cinema. Or try to.
A 2006 documentary has a bunch of show biz figures -- actors and directors. They are all united in wondering "What the holy heck is up with the Motion Picture Association of America and who exactly is on that ratings committee?" If you love films, this feature will make you angry and make you laugh. The ratings board seems to love violence more than lovemaking and gay sex makes their heads explode like the evil space creatures hearing Slim Whitman music in MARS ATTACKS! Because we do not know who the members of the ratings board are, the documentarian hires a lesbian private eye to smoke out the mysterious and conservative figures. She is absolutely fabulous. A movie character should be based on her. Click onto this link to see a trailer for THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED:
Muscle-bound superheroes in action fantasies have such profitable popularity in cineplexes that it can be hard for smaller films to squeeze in for some attention. Folks can miss entertaining smaller films due to being dazzled by caped characters and special effects. I've got recommendations for your weekend home entertainment. These are features you may have missed in their original release. Let's start with a revenge comedy starring and directed by Jason Bateman. It's called BAD WORDS.
Did you see the current feel-good news story about the historic win in the 2019 Scripps National Spelling Bee? There were 8 winners. BAD WORDS takes us into a similar competition.
When I saw the trailer for BAD WORDS, I was positive I'd hate the movie. Why? Bateman's grown-up character was verbally insulting in the presence of a child. I had to see the movie because I was slated to review it on TV. I saw it with a friend. We both liked it a lot. Jason Bateman got big belly laughs from us. BAD WORDS is rude, crude, funny and heartfelt. It's a surprising and witty revenge story that employs a spelling bee championship as its mode of revenge.
A middle-aged man and a little boy with a big I.Q. are both contestants in the same national spelling bee. They're booked in the same economy hotel on the same floor. Bateman's character finds a legal right for competition entry. He has a love-starved female reporter pal who helped him with that. Obnoxious Guy Trilby (Bateman) calls to mind Ebenezer Scrooge in A CHRISTMAS CAROL or Jack Nicholson's romance novelist character in AS GOOD AS IT GETS. He pushes people away with his rude attitude because there's a pain inside he doesn't want to reveal. Little Chaitanya, played by Rohand Chand, is his rival and the object of his sharpest verbal zingers. You're stunned at Guy's juvenile behavior towards the conservative and competitive 10-year old. Karma will balance things out. Guy eventually gets his comeuppance for that behavior.
Director Bateman skillfully shows his 40-year old character change and grow. The revelations of the hurt behind his eyes and other changes are subtle and simple. Bateman and his young co-star are good together. Kathryn Hahn is a hilarious hot mess as the smart, love-starved reporter. This movie is about the power of words, the strength we give them and what we choose to do with them. It's also about moving on with one's life. A sweet emotional depth comes through in this 90-minute comedy. Give 2013's BAD WORDS a try.
Go back to the 1999 Scripps National Spelling Bee in a fascinating 2002 documentary called SPELLBOUND. We meet 8 kids who made it to the competition which will put them in a national TV and print spotlight. This feature, like BAD WORDS, runs about 90 minutes. It packs an unexpected punch because it's not just about correct spelling and making it to that big contest. It becomes a look at social class, race, manners, privilege and the press. There's a Black girl from a tough low-income neighborhood who is about as sweet and polite as she can be. There's a Caucasian boy from an upscale family who got on my nerves when he kept acting like a Jerry Lewis character from the early 1950s. Both kids qualify for the competition. Guess which kid gets press attention.
I grew up in South Central L.A. My parents divorced during my high school years. I attended a high school in Watts just a few years after the nationally-covered Watts Riots of the 1960s. In high school, proving my love of classic films, I got myself on a movie trivia TV quiz show taped in Hollywood. It was a syndicated TV show with celebrity guests on every show. I had two celebrity teammates, Phyllis Diller and Hugh O'Brian. I was the show's first Black contestant. Also, its youngest at the time. I was the first Black winner on THE MOVIE GAME. This all happened over a summer vacation in 1970. Mom drove me to the studio and sat in the audience. She saw me win. The episode aired months later when school was back in session. My classmates, teachers, neighbors and grandparents in New Jersey got to see it.
I didn't get any press attention for it at all. There was no mention in a local newspaper. Mom remarked to a family friend, "If he had robbed a liquor store, he'd be in the paper."
In SPELLBOUND, the single working mother of the studious Black girl who qualified for the competition makes an on-camera remark of similar sentiment. Her child was overlooked by the press. That moment pierced my heart. SPELLBOUND got an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary of 2002.
He's suave, subtle and successful. He's portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson. Yes, you read that correctly. The Broadway and film veteran delivers a smooth performance with the luxury of playing a different type of character in a 2009 indie drama written and directed by Rodrigo Garcia. The film is called MOTHER AND CHILD. The Tony Awards will be handed out in June and Annette Bening is a nominee for Best Lead Actress. Bening is a lead actress in this drama, another feature that shows us the power of words.
In Southern California, we meet the complicated middle-aged married woman who was an unwed mother in her teen years. She gave the baby up for adoption. Her husband coaxes her to write a letter to her unknown daughter and leave it with the Catholic agency that arranged the adoption. Bening plays this married woman. Naomi Watts plays the emotionally guarded lawyer who writes a letter to her biological mother and leaves it with the adoption agency. Kerry Washington stars as the young wife who can't get pregnant. She and her husband want to adopt a baby. Samuel L. Jackson plays the lawyer's boss. Cherry Jones is a blessing as the nun at the Catholic adoption bureau. She's never had a child. She's not a mother. She is a modern-day nun who's a nurturing force in the intersection of these three non-virgin women.
Maybe it does get a tad melodramatic here and there in its 2 hours. I can deal with that thanks to excellent actors in fine form playing out a story of life questions and mature feelings that need to be acknowledged. I was moved. Again...the power of words. I recommend MOTHER AND CHILD.
Before I express how new findings on the lack of gender inclusion in film criticism have ticked me off again, let me promote the fact that director/producer/writer Ava DuVernay will own this weekend. Her new work, WHEN THEY SEE US, lands on Netflix May 31st. It takes us into the lives of the Black and Latino teens tagged by U.S. media as "The Central Park Five." Allegedly, they raped and beat a white female jogger in Central Park and did serious prison time for it. However, the press pretty much left out the words "allegedly" and "alleged" while covering the story, a story that made international headlines. In 2002, a known rapist/killer confessed to the crime. The Central Park Five, now grown men, were free. New York City never apologized. Neither did Donald Trump who, in 1989, took out full-page newspaper ads calling for the execution of the Black and Latino teens. Ava DuVernay directed and co-wrote this mini-series.
The Washington Post review calls it "a powerful, overdue telling of the injustices endured by the Central Park Five."
Critic Carla Renata wrote: "WHEN THEY SEE is excruciatingly hard to watch, but necessary. Hard to watch because it is yet another instance in which people of color in this country are continually victimized, polarized and disrespected....The cast is beyond stellar, but two performances permeated my mind well after the credits rolled -- Niecy Nash as Delores Wise and Jharrel Jerome as Korey Wise."
Follow Carla Renata on Twitter @ TheCurvyCritic. Here's a trailer for WHEN THEY SEE US.
On Saturday, June 1st, Ava DuVernay is back on TCM in her current co-host spot with Ben Mankiewicz as they present "The Essentials." This weekend's pick from Ava is the 1961 classic WEST SIDE STORY. See Ava present it on TCM at 8p ET on Saturday.
I love WEST SIDE STORY. To me, the film is a work of art. True, neither Natalie Wood nor George Chakiris, both cast to play Puerto Ricans, were Latino but they were right for this project at that time. They help deliver what the film wants to say. If you watch it on Saturday, pay close attention to the blunt racism from the cop, Lieutenant Schrank (played by Simon Oakland). He's anti-immigrant and feels his police badge gives him the right to be racist towards Puerto Ricans. WEST SIDE STORY was released during the Civil Rights movement. Today, elements of it still feel timely.
In her closing cohost segment when she and Ben presented Vincente Minnelli's 1943 musical CABIN IN THE SKY, they addressed the outstanding Black talent in the film. Not just Ethel Waters, Lena Horne, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. Ava also acknowledged the talented dancers, bit players and background actors. All of them would be frustrated by Hollywood's limitations when it came to hiring people of color and giving them upscale assignments to equal their skills. If you saw the superb Ken Burns documentary called JAZZ, you learned that Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington were musical geniuses of the 1920s who'd toured in Europe by the 1930s. Hollywood didn't start to treat them with that kind of respect until the 1950s. Ethel Waters had been a recording star since the 1920s and a Broadway star since the 1930s. She was in the original 1940s Broadway cast of CABIN IN THE SKY. After she recreated her Broadway role in the 1943 film adaptation, Hollywood didn't have another script opportunity for her until 1949's PINKY.
DuVernay mentioned that she's attended events to see talented white women like Cate Blanchett who got way more opportunities than extremely talented women of color. I know what she means. Rita Moreno is an example. Ms. Moreno won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for WEST SIDE STORY and then didn't have any Hollywood work for the next seven years. She turned to TV for steady employment and income. So did other women of color who got one Oscar nomination. Women such as Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Angela Bassett, Rosie Perez, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Taraji P. Henson, Gabourey Sidibe and Jennifer Hudson all have one Oscar nomination to their credits (so far). They too turned to TV for employment after that nomination because there were no Hollywood script offers. Viola Davis needed to turn to prime time TV after she got her historic second Oscar nomination. When Viola Davis received her third Oscar nomination, for FENCES, that made her the most Oscar-nominated Black actress in all Hollywood history.
Compare that to the rich Jennifer Lawrence, a talented white actress in her 20s, who has won a Best Actress Oscar and has a total of four Oscar nominations to her credit. She gets opportunities that actresses of color do not.
What Ava DuVernay said also applies to people of color in the film criticism and entertainment reporter business. It applies to female film critics.
A recent study sponsored by the CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF WOMEN IN TELEVISION AND FILM found that "men comprise 66% and women 34% of film reviewers working for print, broadcast and online outlets in the U.S."
This aggravates me because, as a Black man, I know how that exclusion feels. It's high time we call people out on it. I started my professional broadcast TV career as a weekly film critic and entertainment contributor on Milwaukee's ABC affiliate in 1980. I did that for four years until I got a job offer from New York City. I reviewed movies on-camera on the ABC affiliate and I also did print reviews for local publications. In New York City, from 1987 to 1990, I was a daily veejay on VH1 and had my own weeknight celebrity talk show. In the 1990s, I accepted offers from local NYC morning news programs to be a regular contributor. I always felt an invisible wall go up when I wanted to do film reviews. Keep in mind that, from my youth in Los Angeles to my many years in New York, I never saw a person of color on national TV as a weekly film critic. Never.
From 1993 to 2006, I consistently got these questions from white broadcast producers and executives when I sought to do film reviews:
a) Do you know anything about movies?
b) Have you ever done any entertainment pieces?
None of them had ever looked at my demo reel or read my resume/bio before asking me those questions. Here's a short look at some of my work before the year 2000 when I got an entertainment editor spot on an ABC News network production.
I pushed and pushed to get an audition for the ABC News job as a film reviewer in 2000. There was reluctance to give me a shot. A network producer asked "Do you know anything about movies?" I pushed my way into the job. Here's a clip.
What pissed me off about that question is that white network producers and TV executives did not see me, a Black man, as someone who'd have knowledge of new and classic films. Those opportunities did not come my way easily and frequently in New York City. Ben Lyons, the young son of movie critic Jeff Lyons, got a national TV job as half a movie critic duo. He and Ben Mankiewicz were on the 2008 syndicated weekly show, AT THE MOVIES. It was another film review show with two white men. I could never score an audition for a gig like that. Ben Lyons was born when I was the weekly film critic on WISN TV in Milwaukee.
In my New York years, I saw and met many men and women of color who were film critics and they expressed the same frustrations. Film criticism, especially on TV news programs and syndicated shows, seemed to be the exclusive province of white males regardless of their experience and knowledge. TV producers and executives knew that we Black critics existed and they knew we were available for hiring but they only tapped us to come on TV and talk for these occasions:
a) Black History Month
b) When a Black celebrity died or got jail time
c) To discuss diversity issues.
I did a pilot for a film review/interview show back in 2012. I was booked and auditions were held for my Black cohost. A top PBS station was interested in seeing our pilot. I auditioned with a Black woman who not only reviewed film but taught film at Vassar. She was absolutely fabulous. I wanted her as my cohost. However, the TV exec who wanted to see our project said that we had to have a male duo. I fought him on that point. I said, "Name how many Black women you've ever seen on TV as film critics." We tried to make a racial breakthrough in film criticism on TV with that pilot, but then we crashed into a wall of sexism.
Our pilot project did not get picked up.
In the late 90s, I had a local nighttime cable talk show in New York. One episode was devoted to film talk. I told my producer that I wanted race and gender diversity in my group of film critics. And I got it. It can be done. Here's an example.
People of color and women of all colors need to find the names of those who do the hiring. Find the names of those producers or executives who hire and book film critics/entertainment reporters to be on the air. Ask them why their hires and why their bookings are so, if you will, segregated.
I will close by high recommending a radio show that champions race and gender diversity every Friday. The NPR-related station is KPCC out of Southern California. It's a news/talk station that has a weekday show called AIRTALK with a terrific host named Larry Mantle. The last hour of every Friday show is called FilmWeek. This hour starts at 11:00am PST. It is one hour of lively knowledgeable, non-snarky film reviews and discussions with noted male, female, Caucasian, Black, Latino, Asian-American film critics. It is thrilling to hear and it is proof of what I wrote earlier -- it can be done.
FilmWeek usually airs live on Fridays at 11am California time. Due to special programming, it will air at Noon only on Friday, May 31st.
You can find AIRTALK with FilmWeek hosted by Larry Mantle on the KPCC website. Just go here: www.scpr.org.
Los Angeles. The early 1970s. My younger sister is in her Catholic high school years. I have movie soundtracks, Broadway original cast albums and Motown albums in the my record collection. Betsy has albums by Simon & Garfunkel, Neil Diamond and Elton John. Betsy, my sister, hears about the upcoming Elton John concert at The Forum in Inglewood. She and one of her best friends from school want to go to the Elton John concert at The Forum. Teen girl squeals of joy were heard when they get tickets to the concert.
I didn't go. When Betsy got home from the show, I heard these words announced in our living room: "Wow! What a concert! That was so much fun. Look! I've got confetti in my hair!"
Those peppy words came not from my sister, not from her classmate friend, but from our mother who purchased the tickets on the condition that the girls would be chaperoned -- and she would be the chaperone. Mom purchased three tickets. I am positive my sister was the only girl in her high school class who went to a rock concert...with her mother.
I have a special place in my heart for Elton John music. I loved hearing his music come from my sister's record player. In 1976, when I was fresh out of Marquette University in Milwaukee, I landed my first professional job in what had been my major, Broadcast Arts. I read news on a popular local FM rock station and I felt exactly like the young and naive journalist following a rock band on tour in the 2000 film ALMOST FAMOUS. That film is as precious as gold to me. It brings back memories of happiness, heartbreak, confusion and career goals inside the satiny wrapping of 1970s rock. I knew a girl like Penny Lane, the character Kate Hudson played so radiantly. In ALMOST FAMOUS, I consider the tour bus scene while Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" plays to be a true classic movie scene.
Another thing I love about ALMOST FAMOUS is Frances McDormand as the formidable, free-thinking, no-nonsense, devoted, single working mother. If you saw the movie, remember how the mother confronts the oldest daughter with the Simon & Garfunkel album? She goes mom-cop for a moment to uncover if those two young guys on the record LP cover are slipping drug references into their lyrics.
I lived a variation of that moment in South Central L.A. when our single working mother held up the same album and asked my sister what the deal was with that singing duo. "Aren't these those 'Hello, Darkness, my old friend' singers?"
I wasn't hit with that kind of contemporary music drama from mama. I got "Robert, can you please turn FUNNY GIRL down? Mother's on the phone!"
Back to the concert night in the early 1970s. Mom was so animated and she did, indeed, have confetti in her hair. She loved the Elton John concert. Betsy was standing next to her. She also loved the concert but she wasn't smiling. Instead, she looked like the teen version of Bea Arthur as MAUDE.
Such was the expression on her face.
When I got Betsy alone, she said that the concert was wonderful. She and her classmate were thrilled to be there. However, Mom would sing along to some songs -- and she did not know the lyrics.
"Mom kept singing 'Get back, funky cat' instead of "Get back, honky cat.' And she sang out loud."
This made my sister want to put a brown paper bag over her head like she was Sylvester the Cat, Jr. in the vintage Warner Bros. cartoons.
Over the weekend, there was a TV segment on ROCKETMAN, the biopic about Elton John that has critics raving. I was at my sister's apartment when the segment aired and asked her, "Do you remember going to an Elton John concert when we were kids?"
"Yes," she and firmly and immediately. "Mom went with me. She stood up and sang 'Get back, funky cat' instead of 'Get back, honky cat.'"
Once again, my sister had that Bea Arthur as MAUDE expression on her face. After all these years.
I am still giggling.
ROCKETMAN, the Elton John biopic, opens nationwide this coming Friday. Here's a trailer.
Actress/Producer Michelle Williams has four Oscar nominations to her credit. One of those was in the Best Actress category for playing Marilyn Monroe in MY WEEK WITH MARILYN.
The story focused on the time the late Hollywood screen legend was in London to shoot THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL co-starring and directed by Laurence Olivier.
Now, Williams has dazzled us for weeks with a riveting, revealing performance as a Broadway star who once worked as a dance coach to Marilyn Monroe when she was shooting the musical comedy, GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES. Gwen Verdon had worked in front of and behind the Hollywood cameras before Broadway put her in the spotlight where she became a show-stopping star. Here's Gwen Verdon as dance coach in rehearsals with Marilyn Monroe for GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES. Both women have now been portrayed by actress Michelle Williams.
On Broadway and in the film version of Broadway's DAMN YANKEES, Verdon was choreographed by and danced with Bob Fosse. Offstage, they married, they collaborated, they fought, they collaborated, they separated and they collaborated.
If Michelle Williams does not get Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for her performance on FOSSE/VERDON, there will be riots in the streets of West Hollywood. She's absolutely sensational in a TV mini-series that also gives us juicy, intelligent work from Sam Rockwell as Bob Fosse and Norbert Leo Butz as writer Paddy Chayefsky.
The hit revival of CHICAGO is still running on Broadway. The revival opened in 1996. In FOSSE/VERDON, we learn that Gwen Verdon was not only the star of the original production but also the engine of the whole vehicle.
With the conclusion of FOSSE/VERDON airing this week, I just wanted to give some space to celebrating the talents of both artists.
DAMN YANKEES was a big hit for Gwen Verdon. She was the witch who was well over 100 years old and transformed into a hot baby by her old devil boss. Lola will vamp men into behaving badly so her boss can have another soul for down below. Lola, pretending to be a Dominican beauty pageant winner, tries to vamp a wholesome baseball phenom by singing "Whatever Lola Wants." This is from the 1958 Warner Bros. adaptation of DAMN YANKEES directed by George Abbott and Stanley Donen. Choreography by Bob Fosse. Click on this link and watch the number featuring Gwen Verdon with Tab Hunter.
Like Gwen Verdon, Bob Fosse had movie credits before he became a heavyweight on Broadway. In the early 1940s, Rosalind Russell scored with the comedy MY SISTER EILEEN. The film earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. In the 50s, an original screen musical remake was done with the same title. From the 1955 musical, here's Bob Fosse in a bow tie with the terrific Tommy Rall. They're two of Eileen's suitors. Fosse did the choreography.
One of Gwen Verdon's biggest Broadway hits was SWEET CHARITY. Universal released the film version starring Shirley MacLaine. The movie version gave Bob Fosse his first opportunity to direct a film. During summer vacation, Mom let me take the bus to Hollywood Blvd to see it. I think society and dark news of the times worked against Fosse's first film, a colorful musical with a "chin up-carry on" hopeful ending. SWEET CHARITY opened a year after American was paralyzed with grief yet again when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and, two months later, presidential candidate Sen. Robert F. Kennedy were shot and killed. Fellini's 1957 masterpiece THE NIGHTS OF CABIRIA was the basis for the Broadway musical comedy, SWEET CHARITY. However, unlike the classic Fellini film, the female lead character was changed from tender-hearted, uneducated prostitute in Rome to a tender-hearted, high school educated Times Square dance hall hostess. The same movie season of SWEET CHARITY's release, moviegoers were paying the see the young, not-too-smart male prostitute in MIDNIGHT COWBOY. MIDNIGHT COWBOY, THE STERILE CUCKOO starring Liza Minnelli and THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY? starring Jane Fonda and EASY RIDER were dramas with a vibe that connected to movie audiences. SWEET CHARITY took about $20 million to make and made less than $10 million at the box office.
What I loved most about SWEET CHARITY was the Bob Fosse choreography coupled with how Fosse opened up the action with his staging and direction of some sequences. Not many folks talk about this number, but I love what the director/choreographer did with the "I'm a Brass Band" number. Here's Shirley MacLaine in Fosse's 1969 film.
Fosse's next film would be -- 1972's CABARET. It was a big hit with critics and a big hit with moviegoers. Bob Fosse would win the Oscar for Best Director.
