At year end, organs of responsible cultural opinion devote much attention to the question of whether Hollywood has spent the year oppressing or empowering African-Americans. Yet, the movies actually made and watched by African-Americans themselves seldom get mentioned in these thinkpieces. So, it's worth stopping to notice what African-Americans will pay to see.
From the Los Angeles Times:
Although “Thor” hung on to the No. 1 spot at the box office this weekend, the big story was a stellar opening for “The Best Man Holiday,” which trounced all expectations to debut with a studio-estimated $30.6-million.
From Box Office Mojo on the opening weekend performance of TBMH, a sequel to the popular The Best Man from 14 years ago:
According to Universal's exit polling, an overwhelming portion of the audience was African American (87 percent). The audience also skewed older (63 percent above 35 years of age) and female (75 percent). They awarded the movie a rare "A+" CinemaScore, which suggests word-of-mouth will be strong. At this point, it seems safe to assume that The Best Man Holiday will earn at least $80 million by the end of its run.
Judging from the trailer above, The Best Man Holiday is not terribly different in setting from, say, Whit Stillman's Metropolitan: bourgeois friends gather in Manhattan for the end-of-year social whirl. (I suspect that the characters in The Best Man Holiday, however, spend less time than the characters in Metropolitan articulating their forebodings about how many more generations can this go on before the trust funds are dissipated.)
The upper half of African-American tastes in movies today tend to be pretty similar to the mass market's during the Depression: they like to watch rich black people. I like black bourgeois movies myself.
For example, last year's hugely profitable buppie hit, Think Like a Man, made $91 million domestically off a $12 million budget. Buppie movies make very little overseas, but they can be made for a moderate budget ($17 million for TBMH), so the profit potential is solid.
But, they generate minimal buzz among whites. From the Los Angeles Times last year:
For example, last year's hugely profitable buppie hit, Think Like a Man, made $91 million domestically off a $12 million budget. Buppie movies make very little overseas, but they can be made for a moderate budget ($17 million for TBMH), so the profit potential is solid.
But, they generate minimal buzz among whites. From the Los Angeles Times last year:
After “Think Like a Man” opened at No. 1, one studio president decided not to mention the film during the studio’s Monday morning production meeting, curious to see how long it would take to surface as a topic of conversation.
Fifteen minutes into the meeting, no one had mentioned the film. When the studio boss finally brought it up, asking who had seen it over the weekend, the room was silent. None of the all-white staff had bothered to go see it.
By the way, The Best Man series is written and directed by Malcolm D. Lee, who is said to be Spike Lee's more commercial cousin, although I can find no pictures of them in the same frame together, perhaps because at over 6'3", Malcolm must be much more than a foot taller than Spike.
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I talked all the way through 12 Years A Slave but all the black people there were too afraid to shush me.
So have you seen any of these movies, Steve?
It's possible [although highly unlikely, but possible] that they might be interesting flicks.
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2012/05/think-like-man.html
I've seen probably ten or twenty over the years. They tend to blend together in memory, as do romantic comedies with white casts.
Or a musical rom-dram from last year:
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2012/08/sparkle.html
"By the way, The Best Man series is written and directed by Malcolm D. Lee, who is said to be Spike Lee's more commercial cousin, although I can find no pictures of them in the same frame together, perhaps because at over 6'3", Malcolm must be much more than a foot taller than Spike."
He also owns the name Malcolm.
Spike must be very envious.
The best black movies are from the 70s. Not the trashy blaxploitation ones but ones like COOLEY HIGH, COTTON COMES TO HARLEM, FIVE ON THE BLACK HAND SIDE, CLAUDINE, SHAFT, and etc.
The early to mid 70s was truly a special time in American cinema.
Steve, the problem with Black movies are the non performance overseas. And lack of merchandising. You can buy Thor merchandise all over the globe and the movie amounts to a two hour commercial for the merchandise. That is where the serious profit is. Meanwhile Black films don't win Oscars or provide backscratching opportunities among White Hollywood. Black films don't star Clooney or Pitt.
A while ago the Onion had a video spoof about Tyler Perry marketing his movies to Asians:
http://www.theonion.com/video/tyler-perry-expands-his-fan-base-with-new-films-ab,27165/
Add to the list of things Whiskey doesn't understand at all: opportunity cost
http://youtu.be/3AyR7DnlWrM
Children of Tobacco - Malawi's shocking plantation exploitation
There was a little brouhaha when USA Today described "Best Man" as a "race themed" movie.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/sns-usa-today-draws-fire-backs-off-racethemed-headline-on-boxoffice-story-20131117,0,2771310.story
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNEFigjmLvY
Great Vibritain.
http://gothamist.com/2010/05/03/patti_smith_suggests_finding_anothe.php
The Godmother of Punk recalled coming to New York in 1967 when she was broke and the city was "'down and out,' and you could get a cheap apartment and 'build a whole community of transvestites or artists or writers.'" But today, she says, "New York has closed itself off to the young and the struggling. But there are other cities. Detroit. Poughkeepsie. New York City has been taken away from you. So my advice is: Find a new city."
------------
Maybe not such a bad thing. She sucked.
And RICH transvestites have no problem hanging in NY. It's just the poor ones who can't afford to live in NY.
Btw, what did NY gives us during its down-and-out days? Andy Warhol? New York Dolls? No thank you.
A movie about St. Nicholas and Zwarte Piet is in the offing. It is rumored Spike Lee will enlist the services of Quinsy Gario, who, as the NYT puts it, came to Amsterdam in 2002 to study television and theater. If he's been a fully subsidized couch potato ever since, is left to the sagacity of discerning readers.
It appears Netherlands is unaware of the worldwide scandal which followed this New York State Assemblyman's blackface appearance.
welp, at least this movie is pushing some decent values...
>>"The upper half of African-American tastes in movies today tend to be pretty similar to the mass market's during the Depression: they like to watch rich black people. "
Steve, are you suggesting this is an escapism aspect among blacks? (Since very few blacks themselves are wealthy). Unlike the Depression, there are some key notable differences in film goers tastes.
1. Unlike the real life audiences going to see these films, In black-centric films, the on-screen couples generally are married and seem to not display the sociopathic behaviors commonly associated with their real life counterparts of color (high crime rate, drug rate, etc)
While during the depression the audience members could only dream of the amount of amazing wealth on display, the vast majority of impoverished adult Americans were married and relatively crime free (specially when compared to today's black audiences
2. As you just stated, in contrast to the relatively low interest oversees in viewing black films, the films during hollywood's golden age were generally watched far and wide by audiences as diverse as Hitler (huge fan of Chaplin) to Japan's future filmmaker Akira Kurosawa (huge fan of cowboy westerns and John Ford).
It is highly unlikely (unless the person is of African origin) that someone living in Manchester, UK or Lyons, France or Seoul, Korea are huge fans of Spike Lee's films or of the black film "barbershop".
After all, why would they be? They wouldn't and they're not.
The question is, as they were big fans of classic hollywood's films of the 30s, 40s, and 50s, how come they aren't major fans of black hollywood films of today? (Of course, few white Americans could care less about these second rate films either. Bernie and Goldie Bloomberg aren't salivating to see Barbershop part 4. They might invest in it, but not actually go watch it.
>>"I like black bourgeois movies myself."
Ewwww, why? What can be possibly learned from these films, aside from the curiosity factor?
Steve, have you been following the Bitcoin news? It's insane. If you had started accepting contributions in Bitcoins like you were thinking about, you'd be a millionaire today.
Steve, have you been following the Bitcoin news? It's insane. If you had started accepting contributions in Bitcoins like you were thinking about, you'd be a millionaire today.
It's literally been going up by a hundred or so dollars every few hours.
This unsuccessful nam director is rightfully disgruntled with the country which has been so unfair to him and his brother.
For some reason I thought this post was going to be an analysis of big-screen black markets as portrayed in such classic Hollywood films as Casablanca and The Third Man.
Older black women:
* Drive the surprise audience tallies for black movies
* Show up in droves to re-elect a black President.
And...
?
It just literally dropped $250 in the past 15 minutes.
"It is highly unlikely (unless the person is of African origin) that someone living in Manchester, UK or Lyons, France or Seoul, Korea are huge fans of Spike Lee's films or of the black film "barbershop".
After all, why would they be? They wouldn't and they're not."
And yet, people in Manchester, Lyon, and Seoul are highly interested in black music.
Wheres ever theres some money to be made the Black Maket is right there
I, for one, thoroughly enjoyed the token white guy in that trailer.
Seems he's dating one of the black chicks. Odds of him ending up with her?
Ehhhhhh, slim. Not that I'll ever see that movie to find out.
Now in a white ensemble rom-com, if a black guy is dating a white chick, odds of her ending up with him? 100%.
Cultural suicide in action.
I talked all the way through 12 Years A Slave but all the black people there were too afraid to shush me.
Really? I did as well but all the black people were like, "Shhhheeeeeeiiiitttt."
So, blacks like to watch idealized images of black people being black. Honestly, I have many criticisms of black folk, but this isn't one of them. It's only human.
I am one of the few white Tyler Perry fans out there. Several times I have been the only white person in the audience. I enjoy his films. Broad humor, very enjoyable. It's like very low-class British humor.
I think Idris Elba was in a Tyler Perry movie and he was insulted at the "stereotypes." What does he think he is, an Englishman?
I have a feeling Steve is going to hear about 'should've accepted bitcoins..would've been a millionaire' thing on every post of his from now on.
Steve, have you been following the Bitcoin news? It's insane. If you had started accepting contributions in Bitcoins like you were thinking about, you'd be a millionaire today.
Steve, ya' coulda been a contenduh.
There was a good documentary about the basist of the New York Dolls a few years ago: New York Doll
Just think about it Steve. Had you accepted Bitcoins, you'd be a millionaire today and you could retire from blogging and and you could shut down the blog and tell all of us to shove it. How sweet would that have been.
I thought you meant people taping movies in theaters and then selling copies to their friends, coworkers, etc. This happened to me. The movie "Soul Plane" opened on a Friday. The next Monday, a co-worker asked me if I wanted to buy a copy. NO.
I thought you meant people taping movies in theaters and then selling copies to their friends, coworkers, etc. This happened to me. The movie "Soul Plane" opened on a Friday. The next Monday, a co-worker asked me if I wanted to buy a copy. NO.
Where do you work? Denny's? Walmart?
>>"Now in a white ensemble rom-com, if a black guy is dating a white chick, odds of her ending up with him? 100%."
And she doesnt even speak Ebonics, imagine having to overcome the standard English barrier.
But lets talk about real life. In real life, the black guy is most likely in between furloughs or out on parole. So when he goes back to the pen he already has some others to choose from while the white girl is knocked up.
But of course you mean in the movies, the sanitized Diff'rent Strokes version of reality where everyone's all ever after, etc.
"And yet, people in Manchester, Lyon, and Seoul are highly interested in black music."
Music is addictive in the same way cigarettes are. Repeated exposure makes us like it more. That doesn't work with books and rarely works with movies. I bet that music does not engage the higher cognitive functions to the same extent as other art forms. Its mechanism of action is simpler (mere repetition has a role). Mere repetition (practice) will also make you a better musician. Practice won't make you a better writer. Music has such a large mechanical, unthinking component in it that it can be successfully taught. You can't teach people to write well anymore than you can teach them to think for themselves or be original. Movies are somewhere in-between.
Maybe, but there are plenty of photos of Spike Lee with his wife, Tanya, who is also taller than he is. I would suspect some sort of other sibling problem that keeps them apart.
By the way, have you noticed how light-skinned and fair-haired Tanya Lee is?
Are they all hypocrites, or is it just me?
"And yet, people in Manchester, Lyon, and Seoul are highly interested in black music.”
I don’t know about Seoul and Lyon, but Manchester is all about techno -- the days of ‘Northern Soul’ are long gone.
Northern soul centred around Wigan and other small, not-very-distinguished towns near Manchester, but wasn't really a Manchester phenomenon per se. Manchester as you say is more oriented to rechno and other forms of electronic dance music. And of course indie rock (Oasis, Stone Roses, Smiths), though this well seems to have dried up recently.
In Love Actually, a black man (the slave from that film out at the moment) marries pretty white girl (Keira Knightly, in a scene that doesn't look even remotely believable) but then loses him - emotionally at least - to his agreeable white best man. It's pretty inconclusive - we don't see best man decisively winning her, so perhaps uber-liberal softy writer Richard Curtis couldn't stomach cuckolding the black character. Anyway, the film ends with an attractive blonde throwing herself at another black male, so all's well that ends well.
My favorite black movie is 'Soul Plane', a/k/a 'Mumbo Jumbo Jet.'
;D
Quote: "Practice won't make you a better writer."
Wha? When I started writing, I was TERRIBLE. Now, fifteen years later, I've almost finished my first NOVEL.
Looks like vapid shit.
This is less Stillmanlike and more sexandcitylike. or blax and city like.
"And lack of merchandising. You can buy Thor merchandise all over the globe and the movie amounts to a two hour commercial for the merchandise..."
Have you seen a "We're the Millers lunchbox" somewhere?
"By the way, have you noticed how light-skinned and fair-haired Tanya Lee is?
Are they all hypocrites, or is it just me?"
Is she "light-skinned" enough for you to marry? OK then, shut the fuck up.
" Anyway, the film ends with an attractive blonde throwing herself at another black male, so all's well that ends well."
Oh, "Love Actually?" I was Creative Consultant. Strangest thing, the director didn't ask questions, he just wanted to follow me around for a few days...
Whatever happened to Black music anyway. It used to be quite the thing.
There's a new Madea Christmas movie coming out. I believe it is called A Madea Christmas.
It is about Madea. At Christmas. It will make $80 million, no problem, and I won't be surprised to see it well north of $100 if is done well and hits the right notes (Like Madea Goes to Jail).
The thing the critics miss about things like the Ernest movies, the Madea movies, the Generic movies (Date Movie, Epic Movie, Disaster Movie, Vampires Suck, etc.) is that they are exactly what the moveoisie claims is impossible to do: model individual film with actual business targets built in.
These "formula" films are formula for a reason: they bank. In order to do that, they overtly go for the audience buttons, and they do it cheap. No one has ever gone to a Madea movie and left complaining about a curveball twist that made no sense. They've never left a Generic challenged to contemplate the dangerous political ramifications of populism. They've never left an Ernest...thinking a single thing.
And that's good.
I'm never going to be a successful movie reviewer. I'm doing a ten minute video on the recent black movie "Red Tails" about the Tuskegee Airmen. I've been studying Wikipedia and I read three books. I've been at it for three weeks. If I'm going to fault the movie's history I want to be sure to get the dates right myself.
George Lucas claims he had to self finance because no one in Hollywood believed that the public would pay to see an all black cast. That seems to be true. With promotion expenses his flic cost close to $80M and only took in $50M. Epstein warns about the many pitfalls in understanding Hollywood finances, but even so "Red Tails" seems to have been an expensive flop.
Lucas in effect blames 'white racism'. I think there something to this. Bruce Lee was denied the lead in the TV series 'Kung Fu' because the money men thought the viewing public wasn't ready for the 'Asian Face'on their living room TV screens. They were obviously wrong as Jackie Chan, Jet Li and Chow Yun Fat have shown. The same is true for Samurai movies - at least for period pieces, Americans will pay to watch an all Japanese cast chop one another up for two hours. Americans also like black male stars as leads or principal supporting actor. Samuel Jackson, Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington get plenty of work. But I haven't watched a mostly black movie since "Cotton Come to Harlem". I can't imagine watching a Tyler Perry movie. I had trouble with "Red Tails". Too many black faces.
Steve has complained before about too many white male characters in a movie. He gets lost. Unknown black actors with their faces partly obscured by oxygen masks is much worse. They don't all look alike. You can discern differences if you concentrate, but I had to sit through it twice before I got them all straight.
I think the problem is that many black performers adopt a person of being extra black. They are crude and obnoxious - loud and attention seeking. A little of that goes a long way. Denzel Washington is able to underplay a scene but Sam Jackson isn't. For him it's always about the snakes on the plane.
Maybe I'm wrong but I can't think of a black Steve McQueen. So I can't think therefore of any black lead who is really 'cool'. A little black 'scenery eating' works well in a lot of action oriented films. But too much leads to viewer fatigue.
Albertosaurus
Oh, "Love Actually?" I was Creative Consultant. Strangest thing, the director didn't ask questions, he just wanted to follow me around for a few days...
No, that wasn't for "Love Actually." That was for the RuPaul movie.
All I know is, loud, rude blacks were the main reason i stopped going to theatres to see movies.
Isn't being a black artist great? Since you are the low man on the IQ totem pole no other race will not NOT "get" your jokes, every race recognizes the references, metaphors, etc... On the other side of the IQ spectrum, to name a more "G-loaded" comedian at random like Steve Coogan's Alan Partridge When he substituted a d for a t then calling Dave Clifton a "Dwad, dosser, dalendless shid" How many blacks would see and hear tumbleweeds roll through their mind's eye during those gags? or when he said the time was "just coming up to six hundred and fifty to 12" What's the matter "CONE" they take a joke?
"...like Steve Coogan's Alan Partridge When he substituted a d for a t then calling Dave Clifton a "Dwad, dosser, dalendless shid" How many blacks would see and hear tumbleweeds roll through their mind's eye during those gags?"
Here's one
Oh, I thought this was gonna be about the $2.00 pirated DVD clones I buy in my nearby street market.
" I like black bourgeois movies myself."
I kind of do too. But unless Spike is involved they don't tweak the fly-over-land-whites enough apparently.
Too bad for blacks who wanted to see something other than degredation.
Adam Sandler's production company has made 32 films; and only three haven't made a profit. The niche market seems to produce a nice living.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2510219/Ancient-humans-rampantly-interbred-Neanderthals-mystery-species-Lord-Of-The-Rings-style-word-different-creatures.html?ico=sciencetech%5Emostread
So, interracialism swallow up the Neanderthal DNA in the Cro-magnon DNA? In that case, interracialism destroys diversity and unique races by having the DNA of one race become absorbed into that of another group.
Or did Cro-magnons attack and kill most Neanderthals but then rape the female captives? In that case, interracism has a long sordid history of being associated with imperialism, war, conquest, plunder, and rape.
" I like black bourgeois movies myself."
As a genre, I hate it. If an honest film was made about wealthier blacks , no problem. I liked THE INKWELL, for example.
But most of these black bourgeois movies are bogus. They try to flatter black middle class that they are so classy and intelligent. They try to flatter white folks with images of blacks they can 'admire'. It's all about calculation and audience appeal than anything about reality or truth.
It's really like watching Oprah or Cosby Show, PG-13 version.
"All I know is, loud, rude blacks were the main reason i stopped going to theatres to see movies."
But they are balanced by the neat and intelligent blacks on screen.
America in the 21st century in a nutshell. You sit in a theater where blacks taunt and rob you while you stare at noble black characters saving helpless white folks from KKK and Nazis.
"George Lucas claims he had to self finance because no one in Hollywood believed that the public would pay to see an all black cast."
But if you have an all black male cast doing an all white female cast, plenty of people will come and see.
I believe SAVE THE LAST DANCE was a big hit among white girls.
White girls wanna watch blacks bang white girls, not black guys fighting a war 70 yrs ago.
NBA is almost all black, but plenty of whites go see that.
"I'm never going to be a successful movie reviewer. I'm doing a ten minute video on the recent black movie "Red Tails" about the Tuskegee Airmen. I've been studying Wikipedia and I read three books. I've been at it for three weeks. If I'm going to fault the movie's history I want to be sure to get the dates right myself."
I'm sure RED TAILS sucks and has nothing to do with reality, but that's been normal operating procedure in Hollywood filmmaking. I mean who watched the Charles Lindbergh movie with James Stewart for historical reality?
Did Gone with the Wind have anything truthful to say about the Ole South?
Most war movies have been myths.
The reason why RED TAILS failed was because Lucas made it in the dated Negro mode than in the racy 'ni--a' mode that is so hip nowadays. Why was DJANGO UNCHAINED a hit? Because it had a badass ni--a. RED TAILS sounds like one of those G-rated Disney movies from the 1960s. Negroes as credit to their race movies. Even so, such movies turn out to be big hits once in a while, like the Jamaican bobsledding movie(but then it was a comedy).
Anyway, holding movies to standards of historical accuracy is usually beside the point. I mean who watches LAST SAMURAI to learn anything about old Japan? Who watches Hollywood biblical movies to learn something about the ancient civilizations?
Usually, film-makers have something to say and they use historical events or realities as base material to get their ideas and messages across.
What Billy the Kid or Jesse James movie was based on factual history? Penn, Peckinpah, and others has personal statements to make and they merely used the basic outline of the Billy the Kid story as a vessel of their own views on freedom, individuality, power, and American values.
Fiction has always been like this.
And even history has been written in this way. Much of the Founding Myth of America is just that. A myth that would have us believe that free men rose up against a tyrannical king when reality was quite different. If anything, the King was a rather generous guy, and the real hotheads were the American rebel leaders who were not men of the people but aristocrats in their own right.
"But I haven't watched a mostly black movie since "Cotton Come to Harlem"."
SOLDIER'S STORY? COLOR PURPLE? FRIDAY? HOUSE PARTY? NUTTY PROFESSOR? DO THE RIGHT THING? MALCOLM X? MENACE II SOCIETY?
BOYZ IN THE HOOD?
Nia Long, the brown-skinned woman the token white guy dates in the movie, wouldn't pass as black outside of the USA.
She looks as biracial as Barack Hussein Obama (which is a true biracial by the way). True 1st generation biracials tend to have more Caucasoid face/body, curly hair and dark yellow to kind of brown skin tone.
Most Asians and European guys would guess her as half-white/half black or half-Asian/half black. Definitely mixed (brown). Not black at all.
"You sit in a theater where blacks taunt and rob you while you stare at noble black characters saving helpless white folks from KKK and Nazis."
Dude, you've been robbed in a movie theatre? You must have 'chump' tattooed in a visible place.
"Nia Long, the brown-skinned woman the token white guy dates in the movie, wouldn't pass as black outside of the USA."
So Nia Long wouldn't pass as black in Europe? You have 'stupid' tattooed across your forehead, I can see it.
This doesn't look very good. Truth -- who's commenting a lot on this post -- cited Richard Curtis and the black holiday flick above is probably not THAT awful, smarmy, and unfunny; though I really doubt Steve enjoys this genre of movies and isn't merely fronting, as usual (e.g. when after catching 15 seconds of BET for pretext he composes a 500-word blog reminiscing on his childhood devotion to the Apollo Theater, breakdancing, collared greens, etc.) I was impressed by the studio ad department shoehorning a lewd hummer reference into the non-cable daytime commercial they've been running for it--thank FCC Almighty we're free at last.
Sailer claims MOR black auteurs are the new acknowledged masters of turning in profitable, under-budget, warm, soul-stirring cinema, sort of like claiming Indian tribes have revolutionized modern gambling. But with the exception of Tyler Perry none are producing out of their own studio infrastructure--these releases all arrive via Universal's or Paramount's or Sony's black imprint, script attached after they've secured an attractive cast who look great on magazine covers and talk show appearances, so that the all-important publicist industry gets its cut. The one steadily-working black director who's actually attempted unconventional things throughout his career (Spike Lee) Steve naturally loathes. If black Hollywood is so clever how come they haven't closed the gap in reality-based "Paranormal Activity" series of their own? All you need is some pots & pans & security cameras, and repeat until bazillionaires. Instead they are trying to mimic an obsolete Coming Attractions date-movie format. And just because black audiences are OK with buying a ticket to watch reasonably competent Tonier Urban movies, as a predictable gratifying pastime with a small time investment, doesn't mean anyone will remember those shlock plots five years from now, tony urban viewers included.
@Truth - "Nia Long, the brown-skinned woman the token white guy dates in the movie, wouldn't pass as black outside of the USA."
So Nia Long wouldn't pass as black in Europe? You have 'stupid' tattooed across your forehead, I can see it.
You're the stupid one with the biggest idiot tattoos on the forehead.
Nia Long looks like a REAL biracial woman. The one who have Black fathers from African with White mothers from Europe.
Google biracial actresses, models and singers such as Freema Agyema, Ida Corr, Georgina Kwayke, Haddy N'Jie, Vicky Boateng, Megalyn Echikunwoke, Annie Ilonzeh, Magali N'Diaye and others.
There's also Ethiopian women, who are notoriously mixed with Arab in their cultural and ethnic heritage, e.g. models Liya Kebede and Sara Nuru.
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