"So sweet/On Christmas eve/ With the snow set deep when we went walking through the pines": The Ref (1994)

I've got a new article up on Deadshirt, part of a feature on dark Christmas movies called Black Snow. My contribution is a bit on the 1994 dark farce The Ref with Kevin Spacey, Judy Davis, Denis Leary, and early-in-their-career appearances from B.D. Wong & J.K. Simmons.

Check it out!

Something to think about....

“MAKE YOURSELF BE BELIEVED. Dante in exile, walking in the streets of Verona—people whispered to each other that he goes to Hell when he chooses and brings back news from there.” - Robert Bresson

"I made the list of top 5 Hitlers of all time - real Hitler's not even on the list!"

As much as I find this new season of UNBREAKABLE KIMMY SCHMIDT overly broad, the bit where Titus earns the wrath of a bunch of bloggers has really rung true as of late.

First, io9 issued the breathless "Reminder: Rudyard Kipling was a racist f*** and the JUNGLE BOOK is Imperialist Garbage", written with the zeal and incompetence of a fourteen year old who just discovered Howard Zinn. I'm not really interested in arguing with this piece, other than to point out that any halfway decent point gestured at in the article was already made, in a more coherent and readable manner, by George Orwell, a man whose leftist bonafides and direct knowledge of the workings of imperialism are unimpeachable. At the very least, it is hilarious to read Bombast McGawker going into hysterics over "lesser breeds without the Law" as coded to represent the White Man's Burden over other continents, where Orwell points out that it was probably a dig at the Germans.

But let it not be said that Slate, with its delusions of grandeur evidenced by a paywall, is afraid to sally forth into the fray that Gawker Media has started with a mostly unmourned dead author in the public domain. "Not only was Kipling racist," Katy Waldman must argue, "but so was Walt Disney!" Which is probably true, but Waldman then picks the hill she wishes to die on.

But as far as pure and explicit racism goes, Kipling’s novel scores lower than Disney’s 1967 movie, which introduced a great ape called King Louie (after Louie Armstrong) who sang minstrel songs about his desire to get civilized.

*crickets sound*

I might have only been born in the mid-80s, but I do still remember a time when writers, before turning in an article, had to actually do some research. Waldman, who is apparently Slate's "words" correspondent, whatever that even means, has probably watched the 1967 animated Jungle Book at some point, but that appears to be where her knowledge and research ended.

Now, Disney and his studio certainly deserve criticism. But if you are going to attack Disney on racism, at least pick a time when he and the studio were intentionally racist. Because Waldman didn't bother to do any research.

King Louie in Disney's 1967 Jungle Book is voiced by Louis Prima. Louis Prima was an Italian-American band leader and singer who grew up in New Orleans. He is the one who sings "I Wanna Be Like You", which is not a minstrel song, but a swing/jazz song. Which is the type of music Louis Prima played.


A quick visit to Wikipedia's entry on The Jungle Book shows that Prima was suggested for the part early on. And the book the Wikipedia entry cites (accessible here) mentions that Prima brought down his entire band for his audition, and performed their regular Vegas act. Key point: "Some of the antics of Prima and his crew also found their way into the film".

So the 1967 King Louie was not meant to be a caricature of African-Americans. His image, attitude and mannerisms were inspired by the man who voiced him, a pop-culture icon, who was an Italian-American (!). If this can somehow be construed as racist, then the word has lost all meaning. Instead, this is an example of lazy research. A high school freshman writing an article on Disney's The Jungle Book using Wikipedia would have turned in a more accurate paper with better sources than Slate's own 'words" correspondent.

I e-mailed Ms. Waldman about this error yesterday, and the article has yet to be corrected. Slate, a site that posts clickbait about how Hamilton, a musical where the Founding Fathers engage in rap battles has *gasp* indulged in artistic license, apparently has lower standards for its own content than a Broadway rap musical. Why anyone would even pay for this elephant dung Slate calls journalism is beyond me.

Speak of the blogger and he shall appear!

So, once again, I am contributing to a Deadshirt retrospective, this time about Batman, in honor of
Coldstone Creamery, Turkish Airlines & Warner Brothers Presents Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Franchises.

My choice was The Dark Knight Rises. And it's still a flawed movie, but some of those flaws now seem kind of charming? Check it out here!

A Very Coen Brothers' February....

So the wonderful folks at Deadshirt asked me to write about one of my favorite Coen Brothers films (so far), MILLER'S CROSSING. You can find that here.

I'd like to thank Max Robinson, who has been an amazing, sympatico editor for the two articles I've written for them so far, as well as my lovely wife Terra, for watching the movie again with me and discussing it as I tried to articulate my thoughts.

My thoughts on STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS

Hey blog fans, sorry for the radio silence. I've been busy with moving to Seattle, starting a new job, having a baby and getting another dog.

However, I do have a new post on awesome pop culture website Deadshirt about THE FORCE AWAKENS. You can find it here. And it should be a different take than most of the stuff the blogosphere has been talking about.  So check it out and there might be more coming soon!