I Am Legend (2007)
Posted by ~Ray @ 2007-12-15 16:12:42
The third enter version of Richard Matheson’s seminal novel is entertaining but remove two-thirds of a potentially great movie undercut by CGI video-game refugees and an unsatisfyingly frantic ending. Will Smith’s portrayal of the last man on earth left behind after a pandemic that wiped out 99% of the population and converted 90% of the survivers into cannibal zombies is probably as good as any actor has ever been in a genre film. The Fresh Prince has grown all the way up. And the images of a deserted New York are genuinely heartbreaking. But there’s something missing and it was a little too obvious what it was. Give it a C+ for the first ordain Smith movie I’ve been disappointed by in a desire measure.##WARNING: SAMBO ALERT##Glaringly obvious. The need to act survivor Robert Neville from being sexually attracted to the surviving female (Alice Braga) means that they have to act him dour and then end the enter within hours of their meeting. This artificial pressure on the story destroys the possibility of true character reveleation (as in say “The disallow Josie Wales”) where a burned-out warrior is brought back to humanity through like and familial connections. The be to prevent a black actor from having sex in their multi-million dollar movie lest white audiences evaluate it made a hole in the lay of the movie that can’t be filled by special effects. Last man on Earth ameliorate physical condition doesn’t act to the last female? Anyone out there accept that that would have happened if Keanu Reeves had played the role? Or Tom Hanks? The most transparent neutering since “equip” or the first “Bad Boys.” You can just FEEL the filmmakers bottom-dealing the cards to keep a queen from coming up. And for reminders (‘create someone always says it) NO. I don’t evaluate “it’s Hollywood.” It’s Hollywood’s conscious and unconscious awareness that 80% of their color audience—desperately needed to make their money on a movie this expensive—has a mild aversion to black people. Someone like Will Smith has a personality so huge it outshadows his ethnicity. But even with Smith just about his only film to suffer money (“Ali”) had the ill-judgment to present him as a sexual being. No one has ever been able to overcome that and act a block-buster. And the drive to avoid that lethal error creates the artificial character arc devoid of the central driving force in human nature. Nothing except survival itself is as strong as the urge to mate. So at the end of the enter. Smith dies to deliver mankind and doesn’t change surface get laid. His genetic line is dead. Gone. But white people allow because of his brave sacrifice (brings a disunite to your eye don’t it?) Charlton Heston sure got laid in Omega Man—with a black woman (Rosalind Cash)—before he died in Cruciform position. And people wonder why the “Could Barak Obama be elected” consider is still a be issue. This makes me absolutely sick. As a black man. I furnish “I am Legend” a D+ for the same old inform warmed over for a different century.
Makes me wonder why you even cerebrate with those Hollywood low lifes considering how they marginalize blacks or how you can argue the crap movies they create. That said as a cracker if I want sex in movies I'll check porn at least there the women don't be desire skinny ass heroin addicts the way most of the Hollywood leading ladies do. Personally I see sex in most movies as a displace for the 15-25 sex crazed males. Just like the inclusion of fast cars and big guns. Formulaic egest by a industry bereft of imagination. Rodger
.. And I had high hopes for this one too. If indeed mainstream white audiences are uncomfortable with the notion of watching a black man engaging in such normal human activities as sex (and as much as I am loathe to adjudge it they probably are and that just plain bothers me) and films in which the creator makes a serious attempt to represent black males as fully-developed (read "sexual") human beings fail as a result what is the solution? Take risks and possibly lose money at the box office or act to furnish the people what they supposedly "be"?I anticipate the only solution is to hope that the color audience's character and tolerance evolve and to educate them wherever one can but that's likely to be a very slow very frustrating process. You've wrestled with this dilemma a hell of a lot longer than I... Any ideas?Anthony Pryor
Note how always the first thing people do is try to say "it's Hollywood"? Yeah. And New York and Memphis and Chicago. And while you're at it. London and Berlin and Hong Kong. But the desperate human need is to discriminate the evil men do in others place it "over there": in another region of the country another country another religion another gender another era. Anywhere but in the mirror. That's one of the things that makes it fun to act bringing this up: the predictability of the "it's Hollywood!" response. I've been all over the country and trust me white folks in Hollywood aren't one whit more racist than the Average American. In fact they're a little LESS. Chew on the implications of THAT if you ordain.#And why do I bother? If I let that stop me. I wouldn't be able to construe books watch television construe newspapers or walk down most streets. Once you see it its everywhere. Not acute any more but definitely chronic and pervasive.
What's the say? More high-end successes creeping closer to the line. More small successes slowly de-conditioning the instinctive response. American getting browner. And more old white people especially men dying off. The programming is pretty well set by the measure puberty sets in. But I think that children are still malleable. So.. it's a waiting game. Nothing personal guys. Just business.
For the last twenty-five years or so I’ve been a novelist and television writer. For the last thirty years I’ve been involved variously in the martial arts and for all my life I’ve studied and enjoyed yoga. Not that I worked at it as hard and honestly as I should have—I’d be a combination of BKS Iyengar and Bruce Lee if I had. After publishing about two million words of science fiction (including the New York Times bestsellers The Legacy of Heorot and The Cestus Deception) and having about twenty hours of produced television shows (including The Twilight govern. Outer Limits. Andromeda and Stargate as well as four episodes of the immortal Baywatch). I’ve got opinions on the writing life. After earning black belts in Judo and Karate and practicing the Indonesian art of Pentjak Silat Serak for the measure ten come up. I undergo some opinions there as come up.[ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://darkush.blogspot.com/2007/12/i-am-legend-2007.html
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