I had a nice ‘Politics Make Strange Bedfellows’ moment recently…

In my travels, I recently met this young cat who is openly gay.  I did my naturally polite thing at first, but he was guarded and I’m not the type to force myself on anyone.

Some time passes and we find ourselves in a more social setting.  Being ‘the guy who’s not drinking’ opened the door to me being revealed as a Muslim.  And in that moment, there was that mutual smirk of recognition: ‘You’re not passing judgment on me because you’re clearly not a product of the ultra conservative wing of the church.’

Which is a nice segway into Pariah, which is available now on Netflix.  As the excellent title implies, the film is about a black teenager whose struggling in embracing her homosexuality in large part because she knows her church going parents will…not react well.

First thing I noticed about this film: It looks GREAT.  I’ve heard the same about Restless City, but I loved how well the mostly dark skinned cast was photographed.  I know from experience it’s easier said than done.

Second thing I liked about Pariah is how the story unfolds.   In the 60s, even the 80s and 90s I guess, you could beat the audience over the head with the message you wanted to get across.  Today the audience is respected enough to be given the message in a more subtle way; Pariah excels at letting us live through the experience of the main character.  By the time she officially comes ‘out’, the reactions of the people around her are very predictable but no less heart breaking.

So, assuming you’re comfortable watching a film with this subject matter, I recommend this film.

And on that note, enjoy the Memorial Day holiday!

Reblogged from My Pen and My Paper:

Some of you know better than others I’m a closet Beatles junkie.  Without looking I can tell you my IPod easily goes at least 20 deep with their catalog, the Cirque de Soleil ‘LOVE’ show in Vegas was one of the best birthdays I’ve ever had.  On the list of things I hadn’t experienced was the film ‘Yellow Submarine’.  Sure I’ve seen it in bits and pieces courtesy of YouTube, but not in its uninterrupted 90 minute glory.

So I was immediately in when I heard about the ‘restoration.’  I was sufficiently warned by my fellow film buffs that it’s not ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ (and it’s not), but the snob/completionist in me was just going in for the experience.  In one of those ‘only in L.A.’ experiences, the two guys who were directly responsible for restoring the negative were introduced before the screening (and got their deserved applause) and away we went…

As expected, the film itself is very dated.  The voices of the characters aren’t the actual Beatles (who do make a nice real life cameo at the end), and the animation seems stiff.  Having said that, it’s hard to watch ‘Yellow Submarine’ and not see a million other things it influenced (the most obvious being Monty Python and the Electric Company).  And musically, I mean come on.  It is cool to see “Hey Bulldog”, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”, and “All You Need is Love” (among other songs) used in some type of context, however loose.  Along those lines…

Maybe it was since I was able to experience it on the big screen, but I wouldn’t advise watching this in an, um, ‘altered’ state.  If nothing else, I can say this was one of the trippiest movies I’ve ever watched.  Pun completely intended.  The color schemes and editing were flying at times; I don’t know if they did the ‘may cause seizures’ warnings in the 60s, but this film could use one.  Just saying.

Anyway if you’re a Beatles snob and can find a theatre still showing it, worth seeing.

]]> http://malikaziz.com/2012/05/17/yellow-submarine/feed/ 0 malikaziz 220px-TheBeatles-YellowSubmarinealbumcover http://malikaziz.com/2012/05/09/the-chase/ http://malikaziz.com/2012/05/09/the-chase/#comments Thu, 10 May 2012 03:25:53 +0000 malikaziz http://malikaziz.com/?p=1907 ]]>

This is not a political post, but before I start, I have to acknowledge today’s events…

For my non-black friends and readers who mistakenly believe ‘all’ black folks fall on the the same spot on the political spectrum, you are about to see EXACTLY how conservative and/or liberal black folks can be when certain ‘issues’ are brought to the forefront.  I’ll stop there for now since, again, this isn’t a political post, and if we do need to have that discussion, we have from now until November.

As far as you’re concerned Obama, you genuinely surprised me today.  I never doubted where you stood, but I know you’re smart enough to know taking a stand now would alienate and polarize one of your key demographics.  In an election year!  But you did what any any real leader is supposed to do, you chose to take a stand on the right side of history at the possible/probable expense of some popularity in the here and now.  So, Salut Mr. President.

Now where was I?  Oh yes…

So my favorite TV show ever is The Wire.  Once a year since it’s stopped airing, I’ll watch all five seasons in succession just because I still enjoy it that much.

Anyway I’m midway through Season 3 and I get to the sequence of Avon’s coming home party in the nightclub.  (trust me, that’s not a spoiler)  I was reminded that one of my dreams when I was going through my Carlito Brigante phase was to own a nightclub.  That’s the part of my personality that loves going out and being around people.  A conversation with one of my frat brothers reminded me though, I did ‘own’ a nightclub in college.  I just got out of the Game before all the bad things went down.  People got shot, huge gang fights, brothers got subpoenaed to appear in court.  Yep, in college.  I’m not crazy about the concept of ‘luck’, but I do acknowledge that I’ve been pretty good over the course of a lifetime at cashing out my chips before things turn really sour.  Some of my female friends have also told me they consider us a microcosm of my personal life (all the perks, none of the drama).  I can’t print my response to that on the interwebs because my family reads this space, but let’s just say I strongly disagree with that assessment.

I do think though the nightclub metaphor has a lot of value.  It’s ‘the grass is greener’ philosophy, but taken to 11.  I don’t know how much of this is built into ‘the American Dream’, but most of adulthood seems to be basically chasing…something.  Money.  Sex.  Love.  Career.  But sometimes you get so caught up in ‘the chase’, you don’t see or acknowledge that what you want is right in front of you.  I’m as guilty of not recognizing what’s in front of me sometimes as anyone else.

So the moral to the story is don’t forget once in a while to stop, close your eyes, take a deep breath, stop thinking about what’s ‘over there’ and look at what’s ‘here’.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I plan to have the grand opening of ‘Twisted Steel’ in downtown L.A. around Spring 2013, so I have a lot of work to do.

What can I say?  ”You know, I’m just a gangster I suppose…”

]]> http://malikaziz.com/2012/05/09/the-chase/feed/ 2 malikaziz Avon-Barksdale http://malikaziz.com/2012/05/06/the-size-of-a-mustard-seed/ http://malikaziz.com/2012/05/06/the-size-of-a-mustard-seed/#comments Mon, 07 May 2012 03:33:36 +0000 malikaziz http://malikaziz.com/2012/05/06/the-size-of-a-mustard-seed/ ]]>

Late last year, a friend told me I should check out a book called ‘The Size of a Mustard Seed.’  I finally had time to read it and think it’s worth recommending.

The story is of a young Muslim sister named Jameelah Salih.  As the novel begins, she finds herself engaged to a well established, older Imam she is not completely in love with.  Told over the course of the month of Ramadan, the arc of the story is if she should marry this established man who she has reservations about, or should she keep the faith that there is a man out there who she will genuine excitement about starting a family with.

While the story takes place exclusively inside an American Muslim community in New England (and there  is a value in getting a point of view you rarely see or hear), the major themes of the book: family, love, career; all completely universal.

Good read.

A thousand different points I could get to with this one, but let’s start with the most important one: I’m not a Marvel guy at all; I hadn’t heard of the Avengers until 2 years ago when a comic book buddy of mine (Hi V!) demanded I read some of the comics when I had NO idea who Samuel L. Jackson was at the end credits of the original Iron Man.  We have all summer now to get to the comic book character I’m most closely attached to; this weekend (at least) is about the Avengers so let’s get to it…

As a non-fan/casual fan, I thought it was a really fun movie.

Most of the heroes have had their own individual movies leading up to this one, but here’s a quick breakdown based on the poster: Iron Man is like an even more smart ass Bruce Wayne, Thor is a Norse God, Captain America has been um, ‘transported’ from World War II times, the Incredible Hulk, come on, you’ve come across him in some TV show, movie, or cartoon before this, and Scarlett Johansson is the seductive Russian chick in the catsuit.

The action sequences are what you need out of a summer blockbuster, what really set this film apart was that it was genuinely laugh out loud funny more often than you would expect, and finally, finally, FINALLY we got an above average Incredible Hulk movie.  One of my all time favorite movie going stories (which isn’t even mine) is of a kid yelling ‘Dammit turn into the Hulk!’ while sitting through one of the slow paced ‘reboots’ that we’ve gotten in the past 10 years.  I won’t ruin any of the Hulk’s moments in this film, but he was the definite scene stealer.

The Avengers is already breaking records, so no need for a recommendation here.  But truth be told, not bad.  Not bad at all.

]]> http://malikaziz.com/2012/05/04/the-avengers/feed/ 2 malikaziz 220px-TheAvengers2012Poster http://malikaziz.com/2012/04/30/catching-up/ http://malikaziz.com/2012/04/30/catching-up/#comments Tue, 01 May 2012 06:20:42 +0000 malikaziz http://malikaziz.com/?p=1893 ]]>  

I know, I haven’t written anything here in more than a week.  I’m in the middle of one of those ‘A lot of things happening at once’ phases.  A couple big hurdles down, a couple big ones left to go.  This shouldn’t be the only time I write this week though (I think).

And I probably would have taken tonight off, but if you know me at all, you know I was reposting this.  The only thing I have to add is I’m only half joking when I say I was so hyped when I first saw this I contemplated wearing my cowl to the Avengers midnight screening later this week…

Later…

So how did Think Like a Man succeed where Red Tails came up short?  In retrospect, a lot of obvious factors added up:

1. Drama win awards, but comedies do better box office. That’s not a black or white thing, that’s a green thing.  There’s a reason we all know Adam Sandler but only film geeks would immediately recognize Michael Fassbender.

2. Catering to the audience vs. pandering the audience.  Both films threw out the ‘we NEED you to support us’ line (which is very true, but that’s an argument/post for another time).  There were drastically different tones though: George Lucas proactively used his publicity tour to passive aggressively shame us into going (because Hollywood wouldn’t make the film).  The group behind Think used the conceit of the book (relationship advice) to offer their own relationship advice everywhere.  Which leads me to…

3. Unavoidable promotion.  Between the TV show Scandal, and Think Like a Man, I can never remember, ever, two projects with black leads so heavily promoted.  I wasn’t the only one to joke about it but this is true, whether we had interest going in for either project, there was NO doubt we knew they were coming.  As an aside, now that I have watched the first few eps of Scandal, I dig it.  But the point being, the marketing groups behind both projects are the real stars.  I speak from experience, the number one goal isn’t ‘Do you think this is good?’ That’s number two.  Number one (especially in the time we live in) is ‘Are you aware/have you heard of our product?’ Having said that…

4. It’s not bad.  The general consensus for Think Like a Man in the reviews I’ve read and the texts I got over the weekend were the movie was good to great.  At worst, it reminded people of the black comedies that came out in the 90s.  Films that weren’t Hall of Famers, but fun for a couple of hours.  In other words, the audience loved it because it stayed in its lane.  There’s no crime in that.

So there’s a lot to learn from this weekend, and personally I don’t think any of it has to do with the film itself.  Marketing, casting (which I didn’t get to, but I mean, look at that poster), expectations.  Time will tell on who will build on this and who will treat this (yet again) as an anomaly…

]]> http://malikaziz.com/2012/04/22/why-think-like-a-man-did-well/feed/ 0 malikaziz think-like-a-man http://malikaziz.com/2012/04/16/behind-the-scenes/ http://malikaziz.com/2012/04/16/behind-the-scenes/#comments Tue, 17 Apr 2012 03:48:45 +0000 malikaziz http://malikaziz.com/?p=1878 ]]> A lot going on right now.  Some I’m hyped about but can’t talk about (yet) due to Confidentiality Agreements, other stuff I can at least ‘tease’ without revealing too much…

A lot of what’s been happening lately has related to acting, and I love doing it, and as I’ve said before, that’s almost always the most ‘fun’ part.  But I got into this Game by working behind the camera, and I’ve been doing more of that than usual as of late.

This weekend I was apart of one of the smoothest, most laid back sets I’ve been apart of to date, working as an A.D. in this case.  So for those of you who enjoy seeing the crusty, unshaven, hoodie version of me more than the cleans up nice version, you should like this little photo diary.  Shots taken by young brother Major Latimer, who has a great eye for composing shots himself.

I’ll talk more about what we were shooting when the time comes.  You should know by now discretion is one of my strong suits…

Today was a fun day for me so I’ll tell a lighter story this go round…

For the first time in a little while I found myself driving through Hollywood at night.  Even though I’m more or less retired from being on the Strip, one of the things I’ve always enjoyed about living here, especially with summer coming up, is just cruising through the city with no particular place to go with a laid back song coming out of the stereo. As gas prices continue to go up, you don’t really go anywhere you don’t have to go as much as you used to, but you get my point…

I did a double take last week when one of my best friends in a conversation referred to me as a ‘romantic’; not to say I was offended, I just rarely see myself like that.  But when the right song comes on at the right time, I admit I go in.  Sometimes it’s an MJ ballad. Sometimes it’s one of many beautiful versions of ‘One for My Baby (and One for the Road).’  Tonight on the drive home, my IPad had the nerve to surprise me with this one, and if I didn’t have prior commitments, I might have driven straight to Vegas.

Enjoy.