There have been two major films about the Black American experience released in 2012, 12 Years a Slave and The Butler. The former is about a particularly interesting moment in American history when the North saw blacks as equal citizens while the South still viewed them as slaves, property, second class citizens. It’s a powerful and moving film with an extraordinary performance by Chiwetel Ejiofor as the enslaved Solomon Northup. The Butler is more recent history, focused…Read More
Review: I Am Number Four
Imagine the cast of Beverly Hills 90210 being dropped into Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters from the X-Men movies and you’ll have a sense of the uneven pastiche that is I Am Number Four. The film starts out with an exciting action scene where we see creepy aliens chase and kill Number Two in a lush jungle. After being outed as “some kind of freak”, we cut to teen John Smith (Alex Pettyfer) and his guardian Henri (Timothy Olyphant)…Read More