My Review of King in the Wilderness (2018) directed by Peter W. Kunhardt

 There have been a few docs that cover the late years in the life of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but this may be the lengthiest examination of it. These days we have the Santa Clause-version of MLK that even his enemies now invoke for their agenda. This documentary looks at the darkest time of his career from the vespers at Watts to his assassination in Memphis, Tennessee (1965-1968). He'd never been popular in his lifetime with a majority of white Americans, but he looses ground with the younger generations of black Americans as well when the Black Power Movement begins. When he come out publicly against the Vietnam War he looses much of the remaining support outside of his inner-circle. The doc has a lot of photos that I had never seen before and certain footage that I had seen, but from different angles. This is King at his lowest point, but also at his maturest morally and revolutionary. I definitely recommend this to people who aren't familiar to post-Selma MLK.

My Review of The Way of the Dragon (1972) directed by Bruce Lee

 Happy Birthday to Bruce Lee!

I decided to celebrate by reviewing his only movie as director and his most ambitious Golden Harvest film completed during his lifetime: The Way of the Dragon (1972). This movie takes place in Rome, Italy and stars Lee as a martial artists from Hong Kong who comes to Rome to defend the Chinese community there. It is the second movie after The Big Boss (1971) to find Lee's character acting in such a capacity. We see the action increased as the henchman are more dangerous (I mean it is the Italian Mafia) and they have recruited a deadly martial artist of their own (Chuck Norris). The climatic fight at the Roman Colosseum would be one of the most spectacular one-on-one clashes in Kong Fu cinema until Enter the Dragon (1973).

Besides the action sequences, the most notable (and noticeable) thing about this movie is Lee's involvement behind the camera. Besides co-production of Raymond Chow (the Run Run Shaw of Golden Harvest Studio), the cinematography of Tadashi Nishimoto (a veteran of Hong Kong cinema despite being Japanese), and be edited by Yao Chung Chang, all the major roles of the crew are by Lee himself. This really shows the contrast between a professional like Lo Wei and someone who gets the idea, but is not polished. Lee as a film director is a little rough, but he was fortunate to have Cho, Nishimoto, and Yao working with him. Luckily, his skills as action-director are more than able to compensate for his skills as a screenwriter and film-director. The truth is, the fight between himself and Norris is the pay-off for everything we have to sit-through leading up to that point. The stretching sequence of those two in the lead-up to their fight is the most intense warm-up I've ever seen on film. Even without Enter The Dragon, this movie would've made him an international superstar either way. This film and The Big Boss are at the bottom of my personal Bruce Lee list, but are still worth checking out. Happy Birthday to the Master.

My Goodreads Review of How To Be An Antiracist by Ibrahim X. Kendi

I am always weary of reading library books of non-fiction. It is tricky with ebooks, but because I was already trying to get through an even longer ebook I was going through this book at a very fast pace so I have not been able to give my whole soul over to this book but I have gave it at least half my mind. Consider this more a first impression more than a full review.

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi


"An antiracist idea is any idea that suggests the racial groups are equals in all their apparent differences—that there is nothing right or wrong with any racial group. Antiracist ideas argue that racist policies are the cause of racial inequities."

"The most threatening racist movement is not the alt right’s unlikely drive for a White ethnostate but the regular American’s drive for a 'race-neutral' one. The construct of race neutrality actually feeds White nationalist victimhood by positing the notion that any policy protecting or advancing non-White Americans toward equity is “reverse discrimination.” That is how racist power can call affirmative action policies that succeed in reducing racial inequities “race conscious” and standardized tests that produce racial inequities 'race neutral.'"


I was mildly-interested in this book even before BLM II kicked off this summer of 2020, but my interest in this book was definitely peaked a little. When I recently discovered my library got a digital copy of it I checked it out. This book is a semi-memoir, semi-essay/manual/history. It is modeled in the mold of books like We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates or more aptly Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil by W.E.B. Du Bois. Ibram X. Kendi uses his life to explain the concept in all it's dynamics of antiracism. As well as showing his journey from being a racist to an antiracist he documents this journey in W.E.B. Du Bois. It is an interesting book in seeing his personal stories, but the hype I had heard over the policy is one of those things where I am being told things simply which I had already learned the long way. Had I read this book between 2008-2012, it would've been my bible, my handbook. Unfortunately, I read it in 2020 after discovering a lot of these concepts that are antiracism on my own. If you don't want to spend so many years reading like me, this book is the cheat-sheet.

I agree with pretty-much 90%-95% of what Kendi articulates in this book. Most of it is pretty didactic straight-forward telling you how to be antiracist. I do get annoyed at that very common new-intelligentsia habit of trying to rename certain academic terms ad hoc. I was not totally convinced at his arguments concerning institutional racism, but he makes an interesting argument when he says: "Policymakers and policies make societies and institutions, not the other way around. The United States is a racist nation because its policymakers and policies have been racist from the beginning." Beyond that he tries to give antiracist advice on every conceivable issue and he leaves almost no stone unturned. It is fascinating and I was impressed at how relatively simple he makes it (I wish he could have made it more simple, but this is the best you'll get out of these Gen Xer academics). Towards the end he gives his antiracism credo:

It happens for me in successive steps, these steps to be an antiracist.
I stop using the “I’m not a racist” or “I can’t be racist” defense of denial.
I admit the definition of racist (someone who is supporting racist policies or expressing racist ideas).
I confess the racist policies I support and racist ideas I express.
I accept their source (my upbringing inside a nation making us racist).
I acknowledge the definition of antiracist (someone who is supporting antiracist policies or expressing antiracist ideas).
I struggle for antiracist power and policy in my spaces. (Seizing a policymaking position. Joining an antiracist organization or protest. Publicly donating my time or privately donating my funds to antiracist policymakers, organizations, and protests fixated on changing power and policy.)
I struggle to remain at the antiracist intersections where racism is mixed with other bigotries. (Eliminating racial distinctions in biology and behavior. Equalizing racial distinctions in ethnicities, bodies, cultures, colors, classes, spaces, genders, and sexualities.)
I struggle to think with antiracist ideas. (Seeing racist policy in racial inequity. Leveling group differences. Not being fooled into generalizing individual negativity. Not being fooled by misleading statistics or theories that blame people for racial inequity.)

I had not expected this book becoming available to me as fast as it did so I have rushed through it and have not had time to really sit more with it to give a deeper analysis here. I read this as a library borrow on my Kindle, but because it temporary I have not made my notes and highlights from it public. If I buy the book then I'll give a more thorough breakdown of this book. I can't tell other people how essential this book will be to their development, but it was not as essential to me as I thought it would be. It is a fundamentally idealistic book which may put more realist/pessimistic-leaning people off. In the end, what it teaches is fundamental.

"I represent only myself. If the judges draw conclusions about millions of Black people based on how I act, then they, not I, not Black people, have a problem. They are responsible for their racist ideas; I am not. I am responsible for my racist ideas; they are not. To be antiracist is to let me be me, be myself, be my imperfect self." – Amen Brother Kendi, amen.

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My Review of...The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) directed by Brian Henson

 Never been a big fan of musicals, but growing up as a child in the 1990s meant that they were inevitable and I would tolerate them. Of course if the quality of the musical as a whole is good than there is no complaint from me. This adaptation of A Christmas Carol is one of the most beloved for a lot of reasons. For one thing it was the first movie made by Jim Henson Productions after the death of The Muppets creator Jim Henson. There had been talk of disbanding the company, but Disney stepped in and this movie would be the first project of The Muppets' Disney era and would be directed by Jim Henson's son Brian. 

On a personal level, this was my favorite adaptation of A Christmas Carol as a child and one of the hardest to watch. I was two years old when it premiered and the 1990s was still a long way out from the video-on-demand/streaming era, So if I didn't catch it on TV or find it in a Blockbuster store than I just didn't see it. I can remember watching it one year and not being able to watch it for another two. Those days made one very appreciative of today when one can see these films on our computer screens. I don't watch this show anywhere near as much as I did over 20 years ago, but it is nice to revisit it every once-in-a-while.

I probably should've talked more about the film itself, but I felt a more personal look was warranted here—there are plenty of people better equipped to sing this film's praises. As it is this is the best "all-ages" telling of A Christmas Carol you are bound to find.

My Review of Oliver Twist (1948) directed by David Lean

 This movie is one of the best and controversial adaptations of Charles Dickens. Dickens was a writer who was stage actor at heart, so he wrote works that were designed to be easily adaptable to the stage and consequently have been easily adaptable to the screen. This adaptation was after David Lean's blockbuster 1946 adaptation of Dickens' Great Expectations. Lean reassembled the actors and crew from that production for this one and did a similar streamline of the plot for cinema. This movie was a forerunner of the very new style of film noir that was more popular stateside, but had some admirers in the Old World. This movie employed the camera-style...unfortunately a very ill-timed faithfulness to the illustrations of the source material. 

The acting in this film is phenomenal. Everyone gets into their roles emotionally and really makes you feel like you are in the story. Despite the substantial cuts to the story, much of the social realism of Dickens' novel remains and it feels almost like watching a documentary—almost...

Suppose we have to talk about it. One of the controversies of the original novel was the antisemitism around the character Fagin. Dickens was certainly not known for his sympathy towards non-white gentiles, but the outcry over his portrayal of Fagin in Oliver Twist caused him to revise descriptions of Fagin later editions/printings of the novel. But he kept the illustrations by George Cruikshank. When Alec Guinness makeup for his role as Fagin was shown it caused outrage throughout the US and Europe. Given that the Holocaust had ended only three years earlier the anti-Semitic depiction of Fagin's physical features (the particularly the nose) was in poor taste. A shame as Guinness does a great job in acting the character in my opinion and the movie never makes reference to Fagin being Jewish (seriously, I did not know myself the first time I saw this that Fagin was Jewish until I looked the story up for myself). Still if you can overlook this flaw of the film than it is a good introduction to this story and Dickens (and there are of course other adaptations–not as well acted, but with more of the original story–with much less offensive Fagin makeup).

I have to say the ending of this movie is one of the craziest action sequences I have seen since the ending of Throne of Blood. That sh*t was wild!

My Review of Fist of Fury (1972) directed by Lo Wei

 Possibly the greatest action star of all time. This is the greatest achievement (to me) of Bruce Lee. Equal parts actor and martial artist, Lee's movies from The Big Boss (1971) thru Enter the Dragon (1973) (or Game of Death (1978) depending on how you count it) changed the game for Chinese Martial Arts cinema and set the tone for the genre up to the current day. Until Lee's collaboration with Golden Harvest, most martial arts films were in the wuxia-style of Shaw Brothers or the Japanese swords-style of films like Sanjuro or the Zatoichi movies. Bruce Lee, who had spent his time in the United States developing Jeet Kune Do and being marginalized by Hollywood, traveled back to Hong Kong and hooked up with Shaw Brothers Studio's upstart rivals Golden Harvest. Instead of using the wuxia genre, Lee and director Lo Wei went for realism and raw aggression. Curiously, Lee decided not to display his Jeet Kune Do style, but to use Wing Chun style that he was taught by his mentor Ip Man. 

Fist of Fury (1972) was made of the times, revolution in the air. The setting is the colonial period in turn-of-the-20th-century China and sees a martial arts school in Shanghai be harassed by a rival Japanese bushido school. Lee's character Chen Zhen returns from abroad to Shanghai just after the death of his teacher under not-so-mysterious circumstances and the naked racist antagonism from the Japanese school basically makes Zhen go on a revenge mission against the Japanese. The dueling escalation leads to the colonial powers placing a bounty on Chen Zhen's head, but he makes sure the Karate school will not survive no matter what happens to him.

The righteous fury of his anger, the super-speed of his kicks, and the electrifyingly brutal use of his num-chuks makes this my favorite Bruce Lee film. It may not have the incredible backdrop of Rome like The Way of the Dragon (1972) or the Hollywood production and budget of Enter The Dragon, but the story and the action is perfect for me. I obviously empathized with the story here and seeing that sign being kicked still makes me nod my head yes. Fist of Fury (1972) is Kung Fu cinema at its purest. Also the director Lo Wei (who also directed Lee's previous film) plays the police inspector.

My Review of A Christmas Carol (1938) directed by Edwin L. Marin

 This is not one of the better adaptations of the novella for me. It is way too 1930s Hollywood hammy for my taste. The script takes too many liberties with the dialogue and changing the plot, one of the worst Americanizations of a foreign work for my taste. This movie was originally supposed to star Mr. Potter himself, Lionel Barrymore, but injury forced Reginald Owen to step in. I don't think Barrymore would've made this movie any better—the whole production is wrong for me. The only thing this movie has going for it is that it is not the 1935 version with Seymour Hicks. This movie also ties with the 1984 adaptation for worst Tiny Tim.

My Goodreads Review of Henry V by William Shakespeare

This is one of my better early reviews and a Shakespeare one to boot! I was always hit-or-miss with these early reviews, but this one came out well-enough.

Henry V by William Shakespeare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

We are often told war is hell, in this play Shakespeare shows us it is cruel too. While you would do good to have some background info on the actual people being portrayed blah, blah, blah, you also would do good with a little guide of Shakespeare's last historical plays Henry IV, Part 1 & Henry IV, Part 2. But even without it you would never the less see how torturous a campaign as Henry V's into France was. This is one of the Bard's better war plays mainly because he is doing it for his patrons the court of Elizabeth I and because it was not as far past as it was now. It would be something akin to the American Civil War in distance and as Henry V of Lancaster was thought to be a direct (dynasty-wise) ancestor of the Tudors this put a real source of patriotic pride in the play.

Henry, who was unruly in his youth, was found to be a very determined, steely, and pragmatic commander-in-chief and he ruthlessly enforced discipline in his small, disorganized, but fanatically determined army.

The French had the advantage of a better organized and armed military, home-field advantage, and well earned degree of confidence. What they did not have was Henry V and they would pay dearly for that.

Like many a Shakespeare play if you do not pay attention closely you miss the subtle contemplations and debates on the ethics of such things as war, will, even if Henry truly has the right and divine grace to challenge for the French crown

"But if the cause be not good, the King himself hath a heavy
reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopp'd
off in a battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all,
"We died at such a place"; some swearing, some crying for a
surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the
debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard
there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they
charitably dispose of anything, when blood is their argument?
Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter
for the King that led them to it; who to disobey were against
all proportion of subjection."
(And this is his own army asking these questions and making these statements. I never cease to admire a Shakespeare play for that.)

The Battle of Agincourt is the centerpiece of the play. After a soul-rousing speech reminding everyone that the day itself is a feast day (a day of commemoration of a particular saint i.e. St. Valentine, St. Patrick and is usually the day that person died) of saints Crispin and Crispinian and bringing home the point that if they die it will be for country, but he would not ask for even one more man to fight with him and if they DO survive generations will read (and watch) of their heroics on the day not to mention bragging rights and showing up those who were not there (truly awesome speech). He has the whole of the English Army ready for battle. The battle is a hellish and nasty one as per the rules of a 15th century battle and every violation of a rule of war and human rights is very meticulously broken,
"Kill the poys [young boys who accompanied armies in those times] and the luggage! 'Tis expressly against the
law of arms. 'Tis as arrant a piece of knavery, mark you now,
as can be offer't; in your conscience, now, is it not?"
They win miraculously, in part because of the over-powering use of long bows (something they can thank William Wallace for) and a peace treaty that gives the French king's daughter to Henry and makes his heir King of France (spoiler alert it doesn't happen that way thanks to his death, his son's folly, the War of The Roses, and a woman named Joan of Arc).

In hindsight this could be viewed as a tragedy because despite all this hard work, despite all the effort, in-the-end England will never conquer all of France, and the Norman conquest will always dwell in the collective unconscious of the English as the one time (okay second if you include the Romans...) a country subjugated Britain and they never avenged (and no, sports and singing contests do not count nor does D-Day). So, I couldn't help but feel a little bit of pity, as I'm sure the contemporary audience did, for the after knowledge that all of these gains will be wasted by the War Of The Roses, which Shakespeare covered in Henry VI, Part 1.

For reference the visual adaption I saw was Kenneth Branagh's 1989 version so yeah...the battle scene was quite brutal. This movie adaption is a pretty close second for most bloodiest and grittiest adaption of a Shakespeare play in my opinion (with Akira Kurosawa's Ran coming at number one).

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My Review of Henry V (1989) directed by Kenneth Branagh

Mars touches France

This play adapts the last of William Shakespeare's plays on the Wars of the Roses and the Henriad. This is also the first feature film directed by one of the greatest Shakespearean actors of all time Kenneth Branagh. After years acting and directing at the Royal Shakespeare Company, he finally got his way to Hollywood on the start of his run of Shakespeare films. He uses this star-studded cast to tell the story of Henry V using scenes from Henry IV, part 1 & Henry IV part 2 (both which had been adapted by the BBC Television Shakespeare and would be adapted again by the BBC for their Hallow Crown series). This was the first major adaptation of the play since Laurence Olivier's WWII era pro-war adaptation.

This movie comes at the end of the Cold War and unlike Olivier's adaptation is of a distinct anti-war character. We begin the play with the decision and scheme to lay claim to more French land as we were still in the middle of the 100 Years War between England and France. This movie covers England's greatest success in the war (Shakespeare's first and second plays covers England losing that war). It is not an easy victory and it seems every step forward the English make is at great cost and the movie is always questioning and interrogating if this was all worth it in a way that Olivier did not dare do in 1944. Even the climactic St Crispin's Day Speech is delivered by Branagh (playing King Henry) with a sorrow and exhaustion that even the triumphal background music could not hide (this was that late80s-90s era of Hollywood movies being afraid of any scene not having incidental music). The speech made the night before the St Crispin's Day Speech by a soldier to King Henry is the one that I think about a lot: "But if the cause be not good, the King himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopp'd off in a battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all, "We died at such a place"; some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of anything, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the King that led them to it; who to disobey were against all proportion of subjection." 

One has to be truly amazed at this movie. Shakespeare films marketed towards a wide audience are always risky (as Branagh himself would find out in his latter Shakespeare adaptations), but Branagh nails it here and it would do to great acclaim in the the early to mid 1990s. This play is near the same level as Ran (1985) in the depiction of war in a Shakespeare movie adaptation—Edwin Starr would certainly agree that war is as brutal. The fact is, you can't call yourself a Shakespeare movie fan if you have not yet seen this movie yet.

My Review of Parasite 기생충 (2019) directed by Bong Joon-ho

 Every so often there comes a work of art that taps into a universal feeling of the human condition.The last few years has seen the growing stratification of society along class lines and almost astronomical levels of wealth inequality. This is a problem throughout the world, but South Korea has the fastest growing rate of  economic and social inequality in East Asia. Furthermore, the economic juggernaut that is the K-Pop industry (which is partly subsidized by the state) pushes a culture of absolute consumerism in line with the late-stage capitalism of the times. While the overall poverty rate in South Korea is low, the country has the among the highest poverty rate for the elderly in the world. The myth of the "American Dream" has been super-charged in South Korea . Out of this environment, Bong Joon-ho ('Bong' is his surname) decided to make a movie…

Parasite is a tale of two families, one at the bottom and one at the top of the stairway to heaven (Bong described it as a upstairs/downstairs movie). There are no heroes in this movie—everyone is a parasite in this movie because they live in a system that rewards them for being so. When the small parasites  get a chance to prey on big parasites, we see it all unfold in hilarious then tragic ways. As a satire, Parasite reminds me of Four Lions (2010) in the way it uses comedy and tragedy to tell a story about society. The way Parasite keeps revealing twists and making you question what you are seeing till the bitter-end is amazing. The old neo-Confucianism combined with the economics of modern capitalism to make the idea of empathy and modern welfare almost in illusion in this society according to this movie. The film's ending was almost a foregone conclusion when such an extreme imbalance is allowed to go uncheck for so long; all pretense to morality is easily tossed out the window very fast like in Bresson's L'Argent (1983), though the true spiritual predecessor to this film is Akia Kurosawa's High and Low (1963) which Parasite takes a lot of visual and plot references from (the most obvious being the position of the wealthy house to that of the slums).

This movie won nearly 60% of the awards it was nominated for. No matter what demographic you are from, this movie touched a nerve. There seems to be quite a few people who are fed-up (including myself, naturally) and this movie spoke to them—spoke to us. I get the same feeling from this film that I got when watching Charles Burnett's The Final Insult (1997). That movie and this one deal with the raw intensity–and offer a strong critique–of wealth inequality. All of us feel like we are in the basement trying to signal for help.