The Projectors

Out of Time (2003)

It’s our final stop for BODY & SOUL and our penultimate drop before our extended break. January of last year we discussed Carl Franklin’s “Devil in a Blue Dress” starring Denzel Washington and it was so good that we decided to revisit that director/lead pairing with Carl Franklin’s 2003 thriller “OUT OF TIME” starring Denzel, Eva Mendes & Sanaa Lathan. A police chief in the Florida keys (Denzel) got honeypotted so hard that he’s got his fingerprints all over a double murder with more than enough motive to put him away for multiple life sentences. His hottie soon-to-be ex wife is a fed who has come down from Miami to work on the case. Can this throughly honeydicked police chief track down the people who have screwed him over before they leave the country with gobs of evidence money he passed off because he thought his side pice was dying of cancer? It’s not as good as their previous film, a bit more cluttered, but there’s some domestic thrills and some ham-fisted fun to keep you going just enough in this deeper cut Denzel feature. Yes, Bob does sing that Hall & Oates song in this episode. We found a link to the flick right here: https://archive.org/details/OutOfTimeFilm
 
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Black Panther (2018)

We’re in our last stretch of BODY & SOUL and we’re discussing a bonafide BILLY of a movie. A “Billy” is a movie that made a billions dollars. There’s more than a few (20? 30something Billys out there?) and since today’s theme is all about Black Directors and Black Lead Actors there’s one prolific box office smash that catapulted a longstanding character into the mainstream pop culture zeitgeist. Only our third Marvel Studios movie discussion, we’re talking Ryan Coogler’s 2018 superhero film “BLACK PANTHER” starring the late Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira and plenty plenty more including Forest Whitaker who we forget to even mention in this episode. Coogler’s flick stands as a prolific monument to the notions of Afro-Futurism and the villain of Killmonger has understandable notions even if the movie stumbles over some pretty layered philosophical implications. Also there’s fighting and car chases and South Africans with soundwave blaster gun hands and the CGI is decent about 80% of the time. The successful immersion of the techno-utopian concepts of Wakanda helped launch the first ever black superhero deeper into the consciousness of black culture all over the world. It really helps that the villain is good. That really stinks up most of these Marvel movies. Let’s revisit this iconic flick and see how it holds up. 
 
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Widows (2018)

BODY & SOUL month has given us a week of worthy modern noir and today is no exception in this discussion of British director Steve McQueen’s web of Chicago crime and politics. Three women are forced to pay back some money stolen by their husbands in a heist that led to them, and the money, going up in flames. The blackmail leads to them picking up where their men left off and plotting a heist that one’s husband mostly already laid out. They just gotta figure out where this money is before a month is done or they could be in the ground next to their husbands. That’s just one layer to all this wicked mess and the reveals go heavy in McQueen’s 2018 heist noir “WIDOWS” starring Viola Davis and quite an extensive ensemble that includes Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, Liam Neeson, Colin Farrell, Brian Tyree Henry, Daniel Kaluuya, Robert Duvall, Lucas Haas and even more. Hear us talk of this crime film that stands out quite nicely from the last ten years. Not one loaded hot dog or gooey slice of stuffed pizza in this whole Chi-Town joint but we do get a mention that the Bears won the Super Bowl in 1985. A requirement for any Chicago film set after that point. Walter Peyton. Solid guy. RIP.
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Belly (1998)

It’s Neo noir week for this month’s theme of BODY & SOUL (black directors, black leads) and we hit up a very stylish feature film that was popular amongst the teens and college aged crowd when Bob was a youngster so many years ago. Hype Williams only feature film was paved the way by a plethora of rap, hip-hop & R&B music videos that he directed throughout the 90s. Hype expanded all of his visual knowledge into a what is essentially a long rap video. That’s not a bad thing as it feels distinct amongst crime films to this very day. Of course we’re talking about the 1998 film “BELLY” starring Nas, DMX (RIP), T-Boz, Taral Hicks, Louie Rankin and many more. This one takes us back to when MTV would actually inform us of things and we’d all sit around getting high and watch “Gummo”. Buns and Sincere are a lot like us putting aside the robbing and killing of website managers of nightclubs. Are they forever trapped in the Belly of the Beast? (Omaha Nebraska) Can they get out and get to Africa before the Jamaican ninjas come? Will they gain knowledge and inspiration represented through spectacles? We will see but I do think that if you went to church near midnight on New Years Eve in 1999 then that is definitely weird as hell. 
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Deep Cover (1992)

BODY & SOUL all February. Black directors with black leads and today’s discussion is of a dripping Neo noir that is sometimes insane and funny but always entertaining. Actor/Director Bill Duke dropped this crime drama in the wake of the success of films like “Boyz in the Hood”. While not as prolific as those, Duke’s 1992 film “DEEP COVER” starring Laurence Fishburne, Jeff Goldblum & Clarence Williams III has earned it’s place among film appreciators as a worthy Neo-noir full of style and all the hard boiled film tropes that still hit. Fishburne goes by “John” he’s a cop deep undercover trying to take down some drug kingpins and with the help of a flashy lawyer who seems very comfortable on the streets, “John” becomes quite successful at criminality. The lines blur on every level and the politics of the war on drugs makes doing the right thing practically impossible. Is he a cop pretending to be a drug dealer or a drug dealer pretending to be a cop? Some great lines in this one. We happened to find a link to this one: https://archive.org/details/deep-cover_202404
 
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The Photograph (2020)

Happy Valentines Day, folks! Hope you’re out there getting freaked now if not sooner. Today’s lovely selection is a silky smooth flick about generational flaws made easier by very attractive people getting together.   Stella Meghie’s 2020 romance “THE PHOTOGRAPH” starring Issa Rae, Lakeith Stanfield & Chanté Adams has the feeling despite it being a story about emotional unavailability. But you know that emotional unavailability is gonna break right? It’s valentines Day! Sure, it would not be unusual if Bob picked some fucked up shit on the holiday but, nah, we want to feel the love. Also, this film is remarkably relaxing and, yes, people do get freaked in it. There’s also a conversation about Hip-Hop stars that seems as though it would be very different in today’s world. More on that inside. They not like us, I heard. Canadiens, I think. I believe we caught this on Freevee so put it on with your love buddy and feel the love on Love Day. 
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Cuties / Mignonnes (2020)

Today’s discussion for February’s theme, BODY & SOUL (black directors black leads), comes from France by way of Senegal and was available in the US in 2020 on Netflix until several very well known and high ranking pedophiles in government decided that this film belonged in the culture war sphere of nonsense. Maimouna Doucouré’s coming of age film “CUTIES (MIGNONNES)” is an obvious critique of the oversexualization of young people through online & social media in particular. It’s obvious if you’re not stupid or some ultracynical political ghoul. That’s not to say that Doucouré’s film doesn’t provoke. She wields discomfort throughout the movie unless you’re a creep, and this film acknowledge the existence of those creeps. Creeps such as those who criticized this movie and called for its banning. Creeps like alleged pedophile Senator Josh Hawley who likely is driven in this quest by dark feelings he may have deep down inside. First generation French Senegalese girl “Amy”, played by Fathia Youssouf, is desperate for some friends outside of her traditional upbringing. She ingrains herself into a dance obsessed clique in her school and secretly navigates the online world (on a phone she stole from her cousin who never turned it off) to find ways to fit in with her boy obsessed peers. This movie has been taken down on US Netflix (company choice) so it is rather difficult to find. Good luck. Maybe you saw it five years ago? Watch out for pedophiles in your government. There are A LOT. They often complain about art. That’s a sign to watch for. 
 
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A Wrinkle in Time (2018)

Black Directors & Black Leads for February’s theme we call “BODY & SOUL” and today we hit up a movie that has the distinction of being the highest budgeted movie by a black female director. While the movie did break even, it didn’t give Disney the sign to drain this property of all life ad nauseam. Ava DuVernay, director of “Selma” and the documentary “13th” has her praise out there but her 2018 adaptation of the Madeline L’Engle kids novel “A WRINKLE IN TIME” is a bizarre and stumbling feature film. We don’t mean bizarre in the way you might expect from this particular story. It stars Storm Reid, Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling and Levi Miller. The young lead does well and the kids are innocent in this but everybody else doesn’t have any excuse. This movie might have one of the most annoying characters we’ve ever discussed for the show. Oprah sucks (more on that inside), Witherspoon sucks in this and incessant cuts and half assed displays of imagination overwhelmed what fleeting moments of quality we see pass quickly by. Seriously, who ever selected and wrote those quotes for Mindy Kaling, that entire concept, you should absolutely be embarrassed. Admittedly this would be a challenge to adapt well and it’s already a red flag to see it under the Disney banner. It takes a village for all things great and terrible. We’re lucky enough to find a lot of quality when we explore movie themes. We’ve got some solid quality this month already but sometimes a movie comes along and demands that you be underwhelmed. Hear us talk all about it.
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Losing Ground (1982)

BODY & SOUL. Black Directors & Black Leads and today’s discussion is among the early works for full length feature films directed by a black woman or at least the first in a while. There is a lot of Black Hollywood history lost to time as we discuss in this conversation about Kathleen Collins true life inspired independent film about the dissolving of a relationship. What the 1982 film “LOSING GROUND” lacks in budget it makes up for in great characterization and some nice experimentation. A convincing look at the personalities & lives in the orbit of arts and academia. Sadly, Kathleen Collins passed away less than a decade after the film was released. She was just in her late 40s. The movie stars Seret Scott, Bill Gunn and Duane Jones wearing a bowler hat and a cloak. Yeah, the guy from “Night of the Living Dead” is rocking a cloak, totally unironic, and actually pulling tail with it. Fucking legend. This really seems like what middle aged black men should do. Wear cloaks and spit game. I think they could get away with it. Bill Gunn’s performance as a himbo painter feels very real. We’ve all known some Victors. Maybe you were a Victor once? Painting your abstract landscapes and wiggling your hips at Puerto Rican women. Leila, though. Shit…I get it. I’d be dancing like a fool too but I would also be wearing a cloak so I definitely would have sealed the deal way faster than Victor. We found “LOSING GROUND” on KANOPY and I think it’s on Criterion Channel as well. Seek it out for a cornerstone in independent cinema history. 
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Hollywood Shuffle (1987)

February is BODY & SOUL. That means Black Directors and Black Leads and we’re anxious to get back into it after last week’s “white Jamaican” debacle with an influential independent comedy featuring the beginnings of certain writers, directors and actors in prominent black comedies over the years. After maxing out credits cards and timing out film equipment rentals just right over the span of two and a half years, Robert Townsend hit independent success upon the release of his 1987 directorial debut “HOLLYWOOD SHUFFLE”. A comedy that examines the pitfalls of trying to be a working black actor in Hollywood. There’s the core story of Bobby (Townsend) who must figure out how to live between his desire to be an actor and his personal belief in what he wants to be as a black actor. This underlines several skits involving rotating players such as Keenan Ivory Wayans, Anne-Marie Johnson, John Witherspoon, Damon Wayans and many more. Hollywood Shuffle is considered a significant cult hit with broad influence. It’s worth checking out for the “Black Acting School” bit alone. Find it, watch it and let’s talk about it.
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