Kevin Hart: Laugh at My Pain

Film Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Concert Flick Features Highlights of Funnyman’s 90-City Tour

Kevin Hart has enjoyed a tremendous surge in popularity lately after having basically divided his time over the last decade between acting and making the rounds on the comedy club circuit. He’s played the second banana in dozens of films such as Not Easily Broken, Soul Plane, and Scary Movie 3 and 4 before landing a role as a leading man in 2011 in 35 and Ticking.
Also this year, the 5’4” funnyman embarked on a 90-city standup tour entitled “Laugh at My Pain” where he brought his unique brand of observational humor to venues all across the country. This concert flick of the same name ostensibly features his act at its best, as it was recorded on the last stop of the traveling show at the Nokia Theatre in L.A.
While undeniably hilarious in spots, the uninitiated ought to be forewarned that Hart’s delivery is peppered with plenty of curses and ethnic slurs. For example, in one bit about the children’s game “Duck, Duck, Goose,” he replaces “goose” with the N-word.
As for the subject-matter, most of the jokes are of the self-deprecating variety in which the diminutive complains about having to deal with his size and with being abused by various members of his dysfunctional family, especially his father. Via personal reflections, we learn that Kevin was left traumatized by his drug-addicted dad who never wore underwear (“You’re gonna learn what a long dick looks like today”) and who also threw him into 7 feet of water before he had learned how to swim.
Too bad the material is often needlessly raunchy, since Hart is colorful enough to entertain without needing to rely on so many salty adjectives. Better brace yourself to laugh as much at Kevin’s profane language as at his pain!

Good (2 stars)
Rated R for sexual humor, ethnic slurs and pervasive profanity.
Running time: 88 minutes
Distributor: CodeBlack Entertainment

Sanaa Lathan: The “Contagion” Interview

with Kam Williams

Headline: Que Sera, Sanaa!

Sanaa Lathan earned a Tony Award nomination for her Broadway performance as Beneatha Younger in “A Raisin in the Sun,” a role she later recreated in the highly rated and critically acclaimed ABC production, alongside Sean “Puffy” Combs. Sanaa most recently appeared in the title role in the comedy “By The Way, Meet Vera Stark” in an extended engagement at the 2econd Stage Theatre in Manhattan.
Written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Lynn Nottage, the play chronicles a 70-year journey through the life of a headstrong African-America maid and budding actress, as well as her tangled relationship with her boss, a white Hollywood star desperately grasping to hold on to her career. Lathan was previously seen on stage as Maggie in London’s West End in the critically-acclaimed, award-winning revival of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”
Currently, she lends her voice to the character Donna Tubbs on Fox-TV’s animated series “The Cleveland Show.” Her additional credits include Tyler Perry’s “The Family that Preys,” alongside Kathy Bates and Alfre Woodard; “A Wonderful World,” opposite Matthew Broderick; “Something New,” for which she received an NAACP Image Award nomination for Best Actress; and the FX Network series “Nip/Tuck,” for which she received another NAACP nomination.
Among Sanaa’s other feature film offerings are “Alien vs. Predator;” the thriller “Out of Time,” with Denzel Washington; the romantic comedy “Brown Sugar,” alongside Taye Diggs, Queen Latifah and Mos Def, which reunited her with Rick Famuyiwa, who also directed her in “The Wood.” And of course everyone remembers how she wowed audiences and critics opposite Omar Epps in Gina Prince-Blythewood’s romantic drama “Love and Basketball.”
She received her first NAACP Image Award nomination, for Best Actress in a Motion Picture, for the romantic comedy “The Best Man.” The film, co-starring Morris Chestnut and Harold Perrineau, received rave reviews and is one of the top ten highest grossing African American films in history.
Here, Sanaa talks about her new film, “Contagion,” an apocalyptic thriller directed by Steven Soderbergh and featuring an ensemble cast including Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law and Elliott Gould.


Kam Williams: Hi Sanaa, thanks for the time. I’m honored to have another opportunity to speak with you.
Sanaa Lathan: Oh, my pleasure, Kam. How have you been?

KW: Great, thanks. I told my readers and editors that I’d be interviewing you, and they sent in so many questions I’d like to get right to them. Larry Greenberg says: Contagion has such an amazing cast, yourself included. Was there anyone in particular that you felt a strong affinity with whom you would like to work with again?
SL: Well, the truth is, I only worked with Laurence [Fishburne], because Steven Soderbergh kept each of the movie’s storylines separate, although they’re obviously intertwined cinematically. So, all of my scenes were with Laurence.

KW: What was Soderbergh like as a director?
SL: He was amazing! I would love to work with him again.

KW: The film struck me as very similar to Traffic except revolving around an outbreak instead of around drugs.
SL: Exactly! Here, the virus is the main character.

KW: Harriet Pakula Teweles says: Your role in 'Vera Stark' was a marvelous, breakthrough theatrical performance. It was a privilege to be in the audience. How does your preparation and performance change when you move from stage to screen?
SL: I feel that every role is different regardless of whether it’s on the stage or on the screen. The great thing about the stage is that you have a structured month-long rehearsal period where you’re going in every day. You have to have lots of run-throughs with theater because there are no second takes in front of a live audience. It’s very different with film. There, the preparation depends on the role and how much time I have. Each character speaks to me differently. I have to assess the demands of the role and what’s going to bring the character to life. So, I don’t have a set approach with film. But I’m always trying to get to a realization of truth with each character.

KW: Harriet also says: For 'Raisin in the Sun' and 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,' you took on parts that had been made famous by others. Did you study their performances in preparation?
SL: No, in fact, I made a point to not watch any of the movies. That is one of my rules. If someone has already done a role I’m about to do, I won’t watch the original until after I’m finished playing the role.

KW: Why is that?
SL: Because I believe the subconscious is very impressionable. At least mine is. Whenever I take on anything where I might be tempted to emulate a prior performance, I try to go off the text in order to ensure a fresh interpretation.

KW: Attorney Bernadette Beekman says: I just saw you in Meet Vera Stark off-Broadway recently. You are great on screen and in theater. How do you think growing up in show business influenced you during your formative years?
SL: Let’s see… I really don’t know, because I don’t know anything else. I was always around the arts. My mother [actress Eleanor McCoy] was in the original productions of Timbuktu and The Wiz on Broadway, and I was always in the way, running around backstage. And I was always taking art and dance classes. One good thing I do have is compassionate parents who understand my trials and tribulations because they’ve been through it before as well.

KW: Bernadette has a follow-up. Are you interested in directing?
SL: One day. I’m presently into producing. I have a partner with whom I’m developing some projects right now. Directing is something I might try further down the line. You never know.

KW: Editor/Legist Patricia Turnier asks: What African-American icon would you like to portray in a movie?
SL: I don’t think that way. I’m already living my dream having the opportunity to play Vera Stark, Maggie the Cat [in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof] and so many other wonderful characters. Instead of thinking about what icon I’d like to play, I am looking to be challenged. I want to be scared, I want to work with great actors and directors, and I want to tell stories about women that will inspire people. It’s more about the quality than any particular person I’d like to portray.

KW: Patricia also says: Many young people think they can make it in the movie industry without an education. You earned a master's degree at Yale University’s School of Drama. Was it helpful to you to have earned that degree?
SL: Many very successful people have made it without an acting background and some are even proud that they’ve never taken any acting classes. But I wanted to be the best that I could be for me which meant studying drama at Yale where I got a great education in theater after I was fortunate enough to be admitted. People may know me from films, but theater is my first love. I did about 35 plays before I even landed my first screen role. I’m very comfortable on stage, and theater is not something you can just wing.

KW: Patricia asks: What was the best career advice you got from your father?
SL: Early on in my career, when I was frequently frustrated while going out for auditions, my dad [producer/director Stan Lathan] told me, “Don’t be discouraged if you don’t get a job. And always give it your best because people in the industry talk, and even if you don’t get that role, someone might remember you and hire you later.”

KW: Is there any question no one ever asks you, that you wish someone would?
SL: No, I’ve been asked pretty much everything. [Laughs]

KW: The Tasha Smith question: Are you ever afraid?
SL: All the time! In fact, I believe that “fear” is an acronym for “False Evidence Appearing Real” and that when you have a fear, it’s almost a signal that you have to do whatever it is you’re afraid of. What makes you grow as a human being is stepping outside of your comfort zone.

KW: The Columbus Short question: Are you happy?
SL: I am. I’m definitely a happy person in general, but I cultivate that happiness. I think that to a certain extent happiness is a choice.

KW: The Teri Emerson question: When was the last time you had a good laugh?
SL: This morning I was cracking up watching America’s Funniest Home Videos while I was jumping on my Rebounder, which is like my treadmill.

KW: Ola Jackson asks: What is your opinion of how reality-TV shows depict black women?
SL: I think there have been some positive portrayals as well as negative. One thing reality-TV is definitely providing for us is variety.

KW: What is your guiltiest pleasure?
SL: I love going to the movies and getting Raisinets, a big tub of popcorn and a Coke. That’s definitely a guilty pleasure because I can’t be doing that all the time.

KW: The bookworm Troy Johnson question: What was the last book you read?
SL: I just re-read a book about acting by Susan Batson called “Truth.”



KW: The music maven Heather Covington question: What music are you listening to?
SL: I’m really feeling Beyonce’s new album. I like that a lot.



KW: What is your favorite dish to cook?
SL: I don’t have a favorite dish, although lately I’ve been eating a lot of salad in preparation for the premiere. I can make a great gourmet salad like nobody’s business.

KW: The Uduak Oduok question: Who is your favorite clothes designer?
SL: Whatever looks good on me. [LOL] I have no loyalties in that department.

KW: When you look in the mirror, what do you see?
SL: It depends on the day, and on the moment in the day.

KW: If you could have one wish instantly granted, what would that be for?
SL: Wow! That question’s so good! That I could eat whatever I want and still be a size 4.

KW: The Ling-Ju Yen question: What is your earliest childhood memory?
SL: I don’t know exactly how old I was, but I remember my mother playing Stevie Wonder’s “Song’s in the Key of Life” while I was sitting on the floor in our New York apartment.



KW: The Judyth Piazza question: What key quality do you believe all successful people share?
SL: Never giving up.

KW: Dante Lee, author of "Black Business Secrets, asks: ”What was the best business decision you ever made?"
SL: I haven’t made it yet.

KW: The Tavis Smiley question: How do you want to be remembered?
SL: I want to be remembered as one who left behind a legacy of great art that entertained and uplifted the world.

KW: Thanks again for the time, Sanaa. I hope my questions weren’t too heavy.
SL: Not at all. They were a lot of fun.

KW: If you give me a good question to ask other celebrities, I’ll call it the Sanaa Lathan question.
SL: How about, “What excites you?”[Giggles]

KW: Excellent! I’m definitely adding it to the rotation. Best of luck with Contagion.
SL: Thanks for such a refreshing interview, Kam.

Contagion

Film Review by Kam Williams

Headline: A-List Cast Executes Soderbergh’s Apocalyptic Adventure

A decade ago, Steven Soderbergh won an Academy Award for Traffic, a multi-layered potboiler highlighting the hypocrisy and corruption permeating political bureaucracies entrusted with waging the war on drugs. With Contagion, the iconoclastic director has fashioned another international mindbender, although the focus this go-round is on the medical community’s attempt to allay the public’s fears about a fictional outbreak of a deadly virus bubbling into a global pandemic.
Soderbergh assembled an impressive ensemble to execute his apocalyptic vision, an A-list cast featuring a quartet of Academy Award-winners in Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard and Gwyneth Paltrow, as well as a trio of Oscar-nominees in Jude Law, Laurence Fishburne and Elliott Gould. Based on a sobering screenplay by Scott Z. Burns, the distressingly-realistic adventure paints a relentlessly-grim picture of the paranoia apt to accompany the rapid transmission of an inscrutable affliction imperiling the bulk of humanity.
As the film unfolds, we find corporate executive Beth Emhoff (Paltrow) fighting a cough as she flies back to Minneapolis following a business trip to Hong Kong. En route, she takes a phone call from an ex-boyfriend she apparently just shared a rendezvous with during a brief layover in Chicago.
Upon arriving home, Beth’s symptoms escalate to include a fever, seizures and finally foaming at the mouth before she succumbs to the disease in less than 48 hours. Her grieving husband (Damon) has to come to grips with his sudden loss while simultaneously worrying whether or not he and the kids (Griffin Kane and Anna-Jacoby-Heron) might have somehow caught the mysterious malady.
After performing a gratuitously-gruesome autopsy, the coroner identifies the cause of death as “MEV1,” a fast-acting pathogen they’ve never seen before. Retracing Beth’s route back to Asia, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) subsequently dispatches an epidemiologist (Winslet) to Hong Kong in search of answers, although that proves a little late as the infection rate has already escalated exponentially into a planetary plague.
Soon, folks are dropping like flies in every city with less than six degrees of separation from proverbial Patient Zero, and the authorities are tempted to participate in a cover-up to prevent mass hysteria. And it falls to an intrepid internet blogger (Law) to disseminate the truth about a readily-available herbal antidote, if only he isn’t discredited for a past indiscretion.
Contagion’s complicated storyline contains a plethora of additional plot points, ranging from an avaricious pharmaceutical peddling an ineffective vaccine to a renegade scientist (Gould) being pressured to destroy the fruits of his promising research to the ethical dilemma of a CDC official (Fishburne) inclined to use top secret information to direct a friend (Sanaa Lathan) stuck in a hot zone to a safe haven, while leaving thousands around her to perish.
Though paling in intensity to Soderbergh’s far more compelling Traffic, the convincingly-scripted and adroitly-acted Contagion nonetheless presents a chillingly-plausible peek at how quickly civilization might unravel in the face of a rapidly-accelerating, extinction-level, biological event. Not exactly a pleasant prospect to behold.

Very Good (3 stars)
Rated PG-13 for profanity and disturbing images.
Running time: 105 minutes
Distributor: Warner Brothers

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975

Film Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Black Revolution of the Sixties Revisited via Swedish Cinematic Collage

During the Black Power Movement back in the Sixties and Seventies, most folks only got to know its leaders mostly by way of sound bites disseminated by the mass media. Whether it was Stokely Carmichael’s demand “We want black power!” or H. Rap Brown’s appeal for riots via “Burn baby burn!” or Eldridge Cleaver’s assertion that “You’re either part of the problem or part of the solution,” the icons were mostly reduced to incendiary slogans for the purposes of entertainment masquerading as news.
But I bet you didn’t know that Stokely was also a momma’s boy born in Trinidad. Or that Angela Davis was from Birmingham, Alabama where her family was close friends with those of the four little girls slaughtered in the Baptist church bombing in September of 1963, a couple of weeks after the historic March on Washington.
These are the sort of intimate aspects of African-American luminaries’ lives explored in The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, an eye-opening documentary directed by Goran Olsson. His enlightening cinematic collage was culled from found 16mm film of vintage interviews conducted by fellow Swedish journalists with everyone from Black Panthers Bobby Seale and Huey Newton to radical attorney William Kunstler.
The archival footage has been augmented here with current-day voiceover commentaries by the likes of Danny Glover, Erykah Badu, Harry Belafonte, Melvin Van Peebles and Talib Kweli, and features an appropriately-sweet Hip-Hop/R&B soundtrack scored by Questlove and Om’Mas Keith. Nonetheless, what makes the movie so moving are the original tete-a-tetes probing the psyches of its freedom-loving subjects.
For example, when asked about whether or not she advocates violence, Angela Davis offers this heartfelt response: “When someone asks me about violence, I just find it incredible because it means that the person asking the question has absolutely no idea what we have gone through in this country since the first black person was kidnapped on the shores of Africa.”
An absolutely must-see for anyone interested in fully appreciating the mindset and motivations of the charismatic militants who emerged to capture the collective imagination of an impatient generation of African-Americans in the wake of the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King.

Excellent (4 stars)
Unrated
In English and Swedish with subtitles
Running time: 100 Minutes
Studio: Sundance Selects

Top Ten DVD List for September 6th

This Week’s DVD Releases
by Kam Williams


Headline: Top Ten DVD List for September 6th

Rebirth


Baseball’s Greatest Games: 1986 World Series Game 6


X-Men: First Class


Grey’s Anatomy – The Complete Seventh Season


The Arbor


Dressed to Kill [Blu-Ray]


Hanna


Babar: School Days


Everything Must Go


Scarface [Blu-Ray]


Honorable Mention

Assassination Games


A Cinderella Story – Once upon a Song


Baseball’s Greatest Games: 2004 ALCS Game 4


Blood Simple [Blu-Ray]


Olivia: Princess for a Day


Police Story – Season One


Tyler Perry’s Laugh to Keep from Crying [The Play]


The Dennis Woodruff Collection


Babar: Best Friends Forever


The Entitled


Triad Underworld


Meet the Browns - Season One


Clash of Empires


Baseball’s Greatest Games: 1991 World Series Game 7


Team Umizoomi – Journey to Numberland


A Horrible Way to Die


Care Bears: Share Bears Shines Movie


Henry's Crime


Straw Dogs


Jorge, El Monito Ciclista (3-DVD set featuring Curious George and other children’s stories in Spanish)
http://www.newkideo.com/scholastic/jorge-el-curioso-3-pk/

X-Men: First Class DVD

DVD Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Marvel Comics’ Mutant Prequel Released on DVD

X-Men: First Class is an origins episode devoted to the derivation of Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Erik Lehnsherr’s (Michael Fassbender) superpowers and to these archenemies’ emergence as Professor X and Magneto, respectively. The film opens during World War II inside a concentration camp where we find Erik being pressured at gunpoint by a Nazi scientist (Kevin Bacon) to demonstrate his ability to move a coin without touching it.
However, when he fails to comply, the sadistic Dr. Shaw callously shoots the boy’s mother to death right on the spot. Enraged, Erik is suddenly able to summon his superhuman magnetizing skills to kill a couple of guards but the perpetrator manages to escape. Understandably, the trauma of witnessing the murder leaves the kid obsessed with exacting vengeance on the perpetrator.
At the same time of Erik’s internment, 10 year-old Charles is growing up in New York City with a silver spoon in his mouth. There, the orphaned heir to a family fortune has been learning how to harness his own special gift, namely, mental telepathy.
Fast-forward a couple of decades and Erik is still trying to track down Dr. Shaw on a trail which is taking him from Switzerland to Argentina to Miami. Meanwhile, Charles is just returning to the States after earning a Ph.D. at Oxford where he majored in Mutantology.
Their paths intersect soon after the CIA seeks Dr. Xavier’s advice about assembling a top secret team of genetic anomalies to neutralize the efforts of an evil counterpart bent on world domination, who is none other than the diabolical Dr. Shaw. This initially makes pacifist Professor X and revenge-minded Magneto easy allies, until the former’s peaceful nature comes in conflict with the latter’s personal agenda.
Unfolding against the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis, X-Men: First Class takes considerable cinematic license with the truth, though very cleverly weaving myriad Marvel characters into factual events in a most entertaining fashion. The upshot is a fanciful, revisionist history suggesting that mutants might have played a pivotal role in the resolution of an infamous Cold War incident.
What’s next? How about a flick where the D-Day assault on the beach at Normandy is led by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?

Excellent (4 stars)
Rated PG-13 for violence, sexuality and brief profanity.
In English, French and German with subtitles.
Running time: 132 Minutes
Distributor: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
DVD Extras: “Children of the Atom,” an 8part, behind-the-scenes featurette.

Kam's Kapsules: For movies opening September 9, 2011

OPENING THIS WEEK
Kam's Kapsules:
Weekly Previews That Make Choosing a Film Fun
by Kam Williams
For movies opening September 9, 2011


BIG BUDGET FILMS

Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star (R for profanity, nudity, crude humor and pervasive sexuality) Coming-of-age comedy about a nerdy grocery clerk (Nick Swardson) who decides to move from the Midwest to Hollywood to follow in his parents’ footsteps after discovering they were once porn stars. With Christina Ricci, Don Johnson and Stephen Dorff.

Contagion (PG-13 for profanity and disturbing images) International thriller, directed by Steven Soderbergh, chronicling the medical community’s race against time to stem the spread of a deadly virus imperiling all of humanity. A-list cast includes Oscar-winners Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard and Gwyneth Paltrow, nominees Jude Law, Laurence Fishburne and Elliott Gould, as well as Sanaa Lathan, John Hawkes and Bryan Cranston.

Creature (Unrated) Cajun Country horror flick about an ex-Navy Seal (Mehcad Brooks) who vacations with a group of friends in a backwoods region of Louisiana in the face of local folklore about a fabled swamp monster that’s half-man and half-alligator. Ensemble includes Sid Haig, Dillon Casey and Serinda Swan.

Inside Out (PG-13 for violence and profanity) Crime drama about a recently-paroled ex-con (Triple H) forced to protect his best friend’s (Michael Rapaport) family from a crime boss (Bruce Dern) bent on revenge for an accidental shooting. With Parker Posey, Julie White, Michael Cudlitz and Jency Griffin

Warrior (PG-13 for profanity, mature themes and intense fight sequences) Sibling rivalry saga about an ex-Marine (Tom Hardy) haunted by a tragic past who returns home to be trained by his retired boxer father (Nick Nolte) for a big showdown with his estranged brother (Joel Edgerton) in a mixed martial arts tournament. With Noah Emmerich, Denzel Whitaker and Kevin Dunn.


INDEPENDENT & FOREIGN FILMS

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (Unrated) Cinematic collage culled from found 16mm footage of vintage interviews conducted by Swedish journalists with leaders like Stokely Carmichael, Bobby Seale, Huey Newton, Angela Davis and Eldridge Cleaver at the height of the Black Power Movement. With current-day commentary by Erykah Badu, Harry Belafonte, Melvin Van Peebles and Talib Kweli, and featuring a soundtrack scored by Questlove and Om’Mas Keith.

Echotone (Unrated) Cultural portrait of Austin, Texas as painted by members of the city’s creative class, struggling musicians balancing artistic integrity against the idea of making concessions to the demands of commercialism.

Kevin Hart: Laugh at My Pain (R for sexual humor, ethnic slurs and pervasive profanity) Stand-up comedy flick featuring the funnyman’s N-word and expletive-laced brand of observational humor as performed during his recent 90-city concert tour.

Main Street (Unrated) Urban revival drama revolving around several residents of Durham, North Carolina whose lives are changed by the arrival of a mysterious stranger (Colin Firth) with a controversial plan for saving their decaying hometown. With Patricia Clarkson, Ellen Burstyn, Orlando Bloom, Amber Tamblyn and Andrew McCarthy.

Mere Brother Ki Dulhan ( Unrated) Bollywood romantic comedy about a bachelor (Imran Khan) who arranges a marriage for his brother (Ali Zafar) living in London only to find himself falling in love with the free-spirited bride-to-be (Katrina Kaif). With Tara D’Souza, Kanwaljit Singh and John Abraham. (In Hindi and English with subtitles)

Shaolin (R for violence) Martial arts action flick about a Chinese warlord (Andy Lau) who temporarily becomes a monk to atone for his sins before returning to a life of violence to avenge the murder of his entire family by a rival gang. Cast includes Nicholas Tse, Bingbing Fan, Bing Bai and Jackie Chan. (In Mandarin and Cantonese with subtitles)

Tanner Hall (Unrated) Coming-of-age drama examining the teen angst of four students (Rooney Mara, Georgia King, Brie Larson and Amy Ferguson) at an all-girls boarding school located in rural New England as they deal with emotional issues like lovesickness, depression, sexual-confusion and discomfort about sleeping with a married man. With Chris Kattan, Tom Everett Scott and Michael Kelly.

We Were Here (Unrated) AIDS retrospective taking a long look back at the impact of the epidemic on the gay community in San Francisco where the disease claimed the lives of over 15,000 people in the early Eighties. With appearances by Paul Boneberg, Ed Wolf and Eileen Glutzer.

Where the Soldiers Come From (Unrated) “God, mom and apple pie” documentary about five childhood friends from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula who volunteered to serve in Afghanistan.