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Critic’s Notebook: Sidney Poitier Rewrote the Book on Screen Representation

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Critic’s Notebook: Sidney Poitier Rewrote the Book on Screen Representation

No other Black actor in midcentury Hollywood did more to shift perceptions than Sidney Poitier, expanding representation beyond the degrading stereotypes that had long prevailed. His smolderingly charismatic screen presence provided a non-militant but arguably no less forceful argument for Black personhood and humanity, just as the civil rights movement was starting to gain traction.

Poitier, whose death at 94 was confirmed Friday, became the first Black performer to win a best actor Oscar for his role as an itinerant handyman who helps a flock of Central European nuns build a chapel for the impoverished Mexican American townsfolk of an Arizona desert farming community in 1963’s Lilies of the Field.

The inherent saintliness of that role and others played by Poitier prompted some Black cultural commentators to criticize the actor for portraying characters that reassured rather than challenged the white hegemony that marginalized their existence.

But representation for any minority is inevitably an incremental process, and the compassion, the proud self-possession, the moral fortitude, even the forgiveness in the face of racial injustice shown by Poitier’s legacy characters made his work a key foundational building block for more dimensional treatment of Black characters in Hollywood.

Poitier’s only predecessor among Oscar winners was Hattie McDaniel, who won best supporting actress as the devoted house servant Mammy in Gone With the Wind, a character widely derided as the perpetuation of the restrictive domestic stereotype. The advancement in the 24 years that separated their wins — embodied with such resolute strength of character by Poitier — is incontestable.

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My own formative impressions of Poitier and his pivotal importance in the rocky history of Hollywood representation were formed above all by one film. As a kid growing up Catholic in a white Australia that was only beginning to reckon with its brutal crimes against the country’s Indigenous peoples, watching Lilies of the Field on TV hit me with an emotional force that still summons tears when the movie turns up on TCM.

But so too, perhaps on a more subliminal level, did my first encounters with films like No Way Out, Cry the Beloved Country, In the Heat of the Night and — a personal sentimental favorite — To Sir, With Love, in which Poitier played, respectively, a doctor, a South African clergyman, a Philadelphia detective and a teacher determined to make a difference in a tough London high school.

Poitier led by example, choosing parts that significantly broadened the view of professional roles Black men could fill in an intolerant white society, often confronting virulent racism with a contained anger that spoke volumes. That he brought to the equation matinee-idol looks, ineffable elegance, a velvety speaking voice and piercing intelligence made him all the more persuasive an advocate for awareness and change.

The film that made him a star and earned him his first Oscar nomination was 1958’s The Defiant Ones, in which he played an escaped prisoner in the American South, inconveniently shackled to Tony Curtis’ white racist fellow convict — because “the warden had a sense of humor.”

Poitier’s performance as Walter Lee Younger in the 1961 screen adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry’s now-classic play about a Black family looking to improve their circumstances in the changing residential landscape of south Chicago, A Raisin in the Sun, was another milestone. That drama brought candor and emotional insight to its reflections on housing discrimination and the complexities of assimilation, even within one African American family.

In 1965’s A Patch of Blue, he played an educated man whose friendship with Elizabeth Hartman’s illiterate, blind 18-year-old encounters hostility in a racially divided America.

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One of the biggest eye-openers of Poitier’s landmark 1960s films was Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. In the 1967 Stanley Kramer drama, he again played a doctor, this time bumping up not against unveiled hatred but the more latent racism stirred up when his white fiancée invites him home to meet her wealthy liberal parents — played by longtime screen partners who were an institution of worldly white Hollywood, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn.

The film’s depiction of an interracial relationship was groundbreaking at a time when it was still illegal in many U.S. states, and in capturing the resistance of educated, ostensibly open-minded parents — both white and Black — to the central union, it forced many people to re-examine their own attitudes toward questions of race and equality.

The back-to-back commercial successes of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, In the Heat of the Night and To Sir, With Love made Poitier the top box-office star of 1968, an achievement unthinkable a decade earlier.

While his legacy as a game-changing representational force was later shared by others like Cicely Tyson and Harry Belafonte, Poitier, more than any other Black actor, led the charge. His journey from a kid on a tomato farm in the Bahamas to a beloved Hollywood elder statesman, expanding into directing with comedies like Uptown Saturday Night and Stir Crazy, was unparalleled. There’ll never be another like him.

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Review: SAMARITAN, A Sly Stallone Superhero Stumble

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Review: SAMARITAN, A Sly Stallone Superhero Stumble

Hitting the three-quarter-century mark usually means a retirement home, a nursing facility, or if you’re lucky to be blessed with relatively good health and savings to match, living in a gated community in Arizona or Florida.

For Sylvester Stallone, however, it means something else entirely: starring in the first superhero-centered film of his decades-long career in the much-delayed Samaritan. Unfortunately for Stallone and the audience on the other side of the screen, the derivative, turgid, forgettable results won’t get mentioned in a career retrospective, let alone among the ever-expanding list of must-see entries in a genre already well past its peak.

For Stallone, however, it’s better late than never when it involves the superhero genre. Maybe in getting a taste of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) with his walk-on role in the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel several years ago, Stallone thought anything Marvel can do, I can do even better (or just as good in the nebulous definition of the word).

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The property Stallone and his team found for him, Samaritan, a little-known graphic novel released by a small, almost negligible, publisher, certainly takes advantage of Stallone’s brute-force physicality and his often underrated talent for near-monosyllabic brooding (e.g., the Rambo series), but too often gives him to little do or say as the lone super-powered survivor, the so-called “Samaritan” of the title, of a lifelong rivalry with his brother, “Nemesis.” Two brothers entered a fire-ravaged building and while both were presumed dead, one brother did survive (Stallone’s Joe Smith, a garbageman by day, an appliance repairman by night).

In the Granite City of screenwriter Bragi F. Schut (Escape Room, Season of the Witch), the United States, and presumably the rest of the world, teeters on economic and political collapse, with a recession spiraling into a depression, steady gigs difficult, if not impossible, to obtain, and the city’s neighborhoods rocked by crime and violence. No one’s safe, not even 13-year-old Sam (Javon Walker), Joe’s neighbor.

When he’s not dodging bullies connected to a gang, he’s falling under the undue influence of Cyrus (Pilou Asbæk), a low-rent gang leader with an outsized ego and the conviction that he and only he can take on Nemesis’s mantle and along with that mantle, a hammer “forged in hate,” to orchestrate a Bane-like plan to plunge the city into chaos and become a wealthy power-broker in the process.

Schut’s woefully underwritten script takes a clumsy, haphazard approach to world-building, relying on a two-minute animated sequence to open Samaritan while a naive, worshipful Sam narrates Samaritan and Nemesis’s supposedly tragic, Cain and Abel-inspired backstory. Schut and director Julius Avery (Overlord) clumsily attempt to contrast Sam’s childish belief in messiah-like, superheroic saviors stepping in to save humanity from itself and its own worst excesses, but following that path leads to authoritarianism and fascism (ideas better, more thoroughly explored in Watchmen and The Boys).

While Sam continues to think otherwise, Stallone’s superhero, 25 years past his last, fatal encounter with his presumably deceased brother, obviously believes superheroes are the problem and not the solution (a somewhat reasonable position), but as Samaritan tracks Joe and Sam’s friendship, Sam giving Joe the son he never had, Joe giving Sam the father he lost to street violence well before the film’s opening scene, it gets closer and closer to embracing, if not outright endorsing Sam’s power fantasies, right through a literally and figuratively explosive ending. Might, as always, wins regardless of how righteous or justified the underlying action.

It’s what superhero audiences want, apparently, and what Samaritan uncritically delivers via a woefully under-rendered finale involving not just unconvincing CGI fire effects, but a videogame cut-scene quality Stallone in a late-film flashback sequence that’s meant to be subversively revelatory, but will instead lead to unintentional laughter for anyone who’s managed to sit the entirety of Samaritan’s one-hour and 40-minute running time.

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Samaritan is now streaming worldwide on Prime Video.

Samaritan

Cast
  • Sylvester Stallone
  • Javon ‘Wanna’ Walton
  • Pilou Asbæk

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Matt Shakman Is In Talks To Direct ‘Fantastic Four’

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According to a new report, Wandavision’s Matt Shakman is in talks to direct the upcoming MCU project, Fantastic Four. Marvel Studios has been very hush-hush regarding Fantastic Four to the point where no official announcements have been made other than the film’s release date. No casting news or literally anything other than rumors has been released regarding the project. We know that Fantastic Four is slated for release on November 8th, 2024, and will be a part of Marvel’s Phase 6. There are also rumors that the cast of the new Fantastic Four will be announced at the D23 Expo on September 9th.

Fantastic Four is still over two years from release, and we assume we will hear more news about the project in the coming months. However, the idea of the Fantastic Four has already been introduced into the MCU. John Krasinski played Reed Richards aka Mr. Fantastic in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The cameo was a huge deal for fans who have been waiting a long time for the Fantastic Four to enter the MCU. When Disney acquired Twenty Century Fox in 2019 we assumed that the Fox Marvel characters would eventually make their way into the MCU. It’s been 3 years and we already have had an X-Men and Fantastic Four cameo – even if they were from another universe.

Deadline is reporting that Wandavision’s Matt Shakman is in talks to direct Fantastic Four. Shakman served as the director for Wandavision and has had an extensive career. He directed two episodes of Game of Thrones and an episode of The Boys, and he had a long stint on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. There is nothing official yet, but Deadline’s sources say that Shakman is currently in talks for the job and things are headed in the right direction.

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To be honest, I was a bit more excited when Jon Watts was set to direct. I’m sure Shakman is a good director, but Watts proved he could handle a tentpole superhero film with Spider-Man: Homecoming. Wandavision was good, but Watts’ style would have been perfect for Fantastic Four. The film is probably one of the most anticipated films in Marvel’s upcoming slate films and they need to find the best person they can to direct. Is that Matt Shakman? It could be, but whoever takes the job must realize that Marvel has a lot riding on this movie. The other Fantastic Four films were awful and fans deserve better. Hopefully, Marvel knocks it out of the park as they usually do. You can see for yourself when Fantastic Four hits theaters on November 8th, 2024.

Film Synopsis: One of Marvel’s most iconic families makes it to the big screen: the Fantastic Four.

Source: Deadline

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Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase Star in ‘Zombie Town’ Mystery Teen Romancer (Exclusive)

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Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase have entered Zombie Town, a mystery teen romancer based on author R.L. Stine’s book of the same name.

The indie, now shooting in Ontario, also stars Henry Czerny and co-teen leads Marlon Kazadi and Madi Monroe. The ensemble cast includes Scott Thompson and Bruce McCulloch of the Canadian comedy show Kids in the Hall.

Canadian animator Peter Lepeniotis will direct Zombie Town. Stine’s kid’s book sees a quiet town upended when 12-year-old Mike and his friend, Karen, see a horror movie called Zombie Town and unexpectedly see the title characters leap off the screen and chase them through the theater.

Zombie Town will premiere in U.S. theaters before streaming on Hulu and then ABC Australia in 2023.

“We are delighted to bring the pages of R.L. Stine’s Zombie Town to the screen and equally thrilled to be working with such an exceptional cast and crew on this production. A three-time Nickelodeon Kids Choice Award winner with book sales of over $500 million, R.L. Stine has a phenomenal track record of crafting stories that engage and entertain audiences,” John Gillespie, Trimuse Entertainment founder and executive producer, said in a statement.

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Executive producers are Trimuse Entertainment, Toonz Media Group, Lookout Entertainment, Viva Pictures and Sons of Anarchy actor Kim Coates.  

Paco Alvarez and Mark Holdom of Trimuse negotiated the deal to acquire the rights to Stine’s Zombie Town book.

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