It's hardly news that the entertainment industry is rife with unacceptable elements by today's standards. You'll be hard-pressed to find a movie without casual racism, homophobia, sexism, or xenophobia. It's an unfortunate reality. People either didn't know or didn't care about the insensitivity.
I'll readily admit that many old favorites of mine are morally questionable. Or even beyond question. John Hughes touched on feelings of young people in perceptive and sensitive ways, but some aspects of his films don't hold up very well. Bawdy comedies are filled with hurtful stereotypes. Action movies glorify violence in unrealistic ways.
I look back at the movies and even books, and I feel bad, but on the other hand, I can't turn my back on them. They are as much a part of me as my own DNA. Like everything else in life, from jobs to relationships, to our neighbors, we take the good along with the bad. As long, that is, there is forgiving virtue to counterbalance the negative parts.
Things were far from perfect in my youth, and despite some positive advancements, they aren't so great in today's socio-political climate.
I don't for a minute believe the old movies should be altered to be less offensive. We have to learn from the past, and I strongly feel that art should stand as it was created. Disclaimers and trigger warnings are fine, but let the truth, warts and all, be seen.
I'm back in full movie-watching mode. Every morning I watch something. Often it's new, or new to me movies. Other times I watch an old movie I loved, or at least one that recaptures old memories.
Here are two I watched in the past week. Movies that, with maturity, I see problems. It didn't help that I was almost always drinking when I watched movies in my past.
The Substitute is a high school action movie starring Tom Berenger as a mercenary-with-a-heart. America the Beautiful turned its back on him and his team after a successful mission. He looks for work, but refuses to be involved in the drug trade. Meanwhile, his girlfriend is a teacher who stands up to some bullies in school and later gets kneecapped while she is out jogging. A brief investigation into the school reveals drug connections and corruption in the city of Miami.
Berenger pulls a Drillbit Taylor and goes undercover to avenge his girl and to punish the guilty.
It's a classic White Savior story in which a pale knight in shining armor goes in to do what the ineffectual or corrupt people of color cannot handle.
If you can overlook all that, The Substitute is a pretty good action yarn. Berenger is good in the lead, and his decades in the business give him a credibility you don't always see in these kind of movies.
The Substitute gets points for a late nineties movie in how it does not try to be a Tarantino clone. The movie is a lot closer to something Charles Bronson would have made ten years earlier.
This is a good, old-fashioned hero versus villains story, with a lot of reasonably smart dialogue and scads of action. The story was from Roy (Street Trash) Frumkes and Alan (Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things) Ormsby.
The Substitute was successful enough to yield three sequels, with Treat Williams in the Berenger role. I've seen the fourth movie, tantalizingly called The Substitute 4: Failure is Not an Option. In this one the Substitute battles white Neo-Nazis, so the franchise redeemed itself to some degree.
I first saw Which Way is Up? at the drive-in, when it was on a bill with Cheech and Chong's Next Movie. It was a great night, and while we got pretty wasted, I distinctly remember seeing a naked woman jump out of a van and hop into another one right next to it. This was in the front row. Those were the days, my friends.
Cheech and Chong's Next Movie is uproarious, and we were pretty loaded by the time Richard Pryor hit the screen with Which Way is Up? I didn't remember a lot about it, other than we thought it was funny.
Which Way is Up? is a much more awkward experience today. Pryor is Leroy Jones, an orange picker who becomes an unwilling and highly unlikely union leader. It's more of a series of sketches than any sort of real story.
Richard Pryor is one of the funniest comedians of all time, and he is energetic and very capable in his role, but Which Way is Up? was not a particularly enjoyable experience this time. Pryor shuffles around, lying, philandering, conning everyone. There is sexism galore, and some wildly homophobic moments that are decidedly not funny. Good lord, if you are going to be offensive, maybe at least try to be humorous. It's just ugly.
It also doesn't help that Which Way is Up? makes light of the labor movement.
I did laugh a few times. Richard Pryor plays three roles, one of which is Leroy's course-tongued father. Everything he says in the character is absolutely hilarious. Another role as a preacher is played a little too broadly for me.
I was shocked to see that Which Way is Up? is a remake of, get this, Lina Wertmüller's The Seduction of Mimi. Wertmüller was an acclaimed Italian director best known for the arthouse classic Seven Beauties. I'm curious to see similarities with Which Way is Up?
There is a degree of redemption in Which Way is Up? Leroy's deceptions and shenanigans cost him his family, his job, and his friends, but in the end he salvages his dignity. Which explains the title. Leroy drove himself to the bottom, and no matter which direction he turned from there, he would be heading up.
Director Michael Schultz made much better films than Which Way is Up? I recently watched Cooley High, which is a smart, wistful, and important milestone in the history of black cinema. Unlike Leroy Jones, Schultz went even lower after Which Way is Up? His next movie was the universally despised Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Written by Mark Sieber
I'll readily admit that many old favorites of mine are morally questionable. Or even beyond question. John Hughes touched on feelings of young people in perceptive and sensitive ways, but some aspects of his films don't hold up very well. Bawdy comedies are filled with hurtful stereotypes. Action movies glorify violence in unrealistic ways.
I look back at the movies and even books, and I feel bad, but on the other hand, I can't turn my back on them. They are as much a part of me as my own DNA. Like everything else in life, from jobs to relationships, to our neighbors, we take the good along with the bad. As long, that is, there is forgiving virtue to counterbalance the negative parts.
Things were far from perfect in my youth, and despite some positive advancements, they aren't so great in today's socio-political climate.
I don't for a minute believe the old movies should be altered to be less offensive. We have to learn from the past, and I strongly feel that art should stand as it was created. Disclaimers and trigger warnings are fine, but let the truth, warts and all, be seen.
I'm back in full movie-watching mode. Every morning I watch something. Often it's new, or new to me movies. Other times I watch an old movie I loved, or at least one that recaptures old memories.
Here are two I watched in the past week. Movies that, with maturity, I see problems. It didn't help that I was almost always drinking when I watched movies in my past.
The Substitute is a high school action movie starring Tom Berenger as a mercenary-with-a-heart. America the Beautiful turned its back on him and his team after a successful mission. He looks for work, but refuses to be involved in the drug trade. Meanwhile, his girlfriend is a teacher who stands up to some bullies in school and later gets kneecapped while she is out jogging. A brief investigation into the school reveals drug connections and corruption in the city of Miami.Berenger pulls a Drillbit Taylor and goes undercover to avenge his girl and to punish the guilty.
It's a classic White Savior story in which a pale knight in shining armor goes in to do what the ineffectual or corrupt people of color cannot handle.
If you can overlook all that, The Substitute is a pretty good action yarn. Berenger is good in the lead, and his decades in the business give him a credibility you don't always see in these kind of movies.
The Substitute gets points for a late nineties movie in how it does not try to be a Tarantino clone. The movie is a lot closer to something Charles Bronson would have made ten years earlier.
This is a good, old-fashioned hero versus villains story, with a lot of reasonably smart dialogue and scads of action. The story was from Roy (Street Trash) Frumkes and Alan (Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things) Ormsby.
The Substitute was successful enough to yield three sequels, with Treat Williams in the Berenger role. I've seen the fourth movie, tantalizingly called The Substitute 4: Failure is Not an Option. In this one the Substitute battles white Neo-Nazis, so the franchise redeemed itself to some degree.
I first saw Which Way is Up? at the drive-in, when it was on a bill with Cheech and Chong's Next Movie. It was a great night, and while we got pretty wasted, I distinctly remember seeing a naked woman jump out of a van and hop into another one right next to it. This was in the front row. Those were the days, my friends.
Cheech and Chong's Next Movie is uproarious, and we were pretty loaded by the time Richard Pryor hit the screen with Which Way is Up? I didn't remember a lot about it, other than we thought it was funny.
Which Way is Up? is a much more awkward experience today. Pryor is Leroy Jones, an orange picker who becomes an unwilling and highly unlikely union leader. It's more of a series of sketches than any sort of real story.
Richard Pryor is one of the funniest comedians of all time, and he is energetic and very capable in his role, but Which Way is Up? was not a particularly enjoyable experience this time. Pryor shuffles around, lying, philandering, conning everyone. There is sexism galore, and some wildly homophobic moments that are decidedly not funny. Good lord, if you are going to be offensive, maybe at least try to be humorous. It's just ugly.
It also doesn't help that Which Way is Up? makes light of the labor movement.
I did laugh a few times. Richard Pryor plays three roles, one of which is Leroy's course-tongued father. Everything he says in the character is absolutely hilarious. Another role as a preacher is played a little too broadly for me.
I was shocked to see that Which Way is Up? is a remake of, get this, Lina Wertmüller's The Seduction of Mimi. Wertmüller was an acclaimed Italian director best known for the arthouse classic Seven Beauties. I'm curious to see similarities with Which Way is Up?
There is a degree of redemption in Which Way is Up? Leroy's deceptions and shenanigans cost him his family, his job, and his friends, but in the end he salvages his dignity. Which explains the title. Leroy drove himself to the bottom, and no matter which direction he turned from there, he would be heading up.
Director Michael Schultz made much better films than Which Way is Up? I recently watched Cooley High, which is a smart, wistful, and important milestone in the history of black cinema. Unlike Leroy Jones, Schultz went even lower after Which Way is Up? His next movie was the universally despised Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Written by Mark Sieber
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