Race 2 Download Filmyzilla
Enrique Fats
No I'm not Captain Diversity or the inclusion police. I don't walk into movies with an angry look wiped across my face, RACE-O-METER in hand, hungry to judge and critique the color, ethnicity and class decisions made by production companies. While representation matters to me, as an artist, I believe that people should be able to create whatever they want. The need to see myself in a cartoon may be outside of your priority list, and I can live with that.
Black parents intentionally have to prove to their kids that they are good enough to be read in books, seen on television and in films, not just as extras but as superheroes, mermaids, doctors, lawyers and Spider-Man.
Peter Parker was white my whole life, and I did not care; actually, Tobey Maguire did a great job in those early films, but now that Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore) the new Spider-Man, or at least one of the many from the Spider-Verse is my complexion, I find myself behaving as childish as my three-year-old while cheering throughout the film.
Thankfully she did not bombard us with these thoughts, but even as a three-year-old, our daughter has already dealt with racism, and had questions about racism, even though she doesn't know what the word means. "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" left no questions.
Issa Rae plays Jess Drew, a Black Spider-Woman who is pregnant: Win. Daniel Kaluuya plays the coolest Spider-Man, Hobie Brown aka Spider-Punk: Win. Karan Soni is Pavitr Prabhakar, Spider-Man India: Win, win, win. The story is still centered around Miles Morales' Brooklyn universe, and thankfully the film looks and feels like Brooklyn. There are no sorry distractions based on racial sensitivity, or the desperate need to create what could be considered a Black movie (as if we aren't Americans), that may only draw interest from a Black demographic. The film offers diversity in class, in race, perspectives, body types and ideas that exist within the Black and White and Latino community in a highly authentic way. People aren't present for the sake of checking boxes; they just get a chance to exist like in the real world. I watched the whole movie and didn't think about race, inclusion, or diversity once. Just action, fun, and a brilliantly crafted storyline. The way it should be. And my daughter did the same. Other filmmakers who struggle with race should take notes. "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" is a master class.
A "TO BE CONTINUED?" This isn't a weekly TV show; it's a film. At least in TV shows we can pick up on the action next week, how long are we away from the next Spider-Man installment? A viewer should not have to leave the film, wondering what is going to happen in Part 3, 4, 5 and 6. Sequels are necessary because we are fans who want more; however, we deserve to be complete, to be whole at the end. All I heard around me was "What the hells?" and "How could they leave us in the middle of an incomplete scene?" kinds of comments when I exited the theater. That is not cool, and clearly, I'm not alone.
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If anybody has to be the last man in the world, I suppose it might as well be Charlton Heston. At least we know we're in good hands. He outmaneuvered the apes in "Planet of the Apes" (1968), so why not send him up against the ghouls in "The Omega Man"? They're not a whole lot smarter. Also, if God should decide to start the human race again, Heston could always be Moses. Or God.
The ghouls, by the way, have been produced as a side effect of biological warfare between China and Russia. They can't stand light, they all have nasty bruises over their left eyebrows, and they wear the costumes of medieval monks. Why? Because that's what ghouls wear, I guess.
Heston is immune to the plague, thanks to a vaccine he was working on just before things broke loose. He barricades himself in a Los Angeles penthouse with floodlights outside to scare away the ghouls and puts in a 20-year supply of the best imported Scotch. Prudent of him. Even if biological warfare doesn't break out and leave him marooned with a city full of ghouls, at least he can have a drink while thinking about his close call.
The ghouls, alas, are a little too ridiculous to quite fulfill their function in the movie. They make all the wrong decisions, are incompetent and ill-coordinated, and speak in an elevated "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here" sort of English. Wouldn't you like to hear a little slang from a ghoul for a change?
The others in the movie are more interesting, however. Heston is the only truly immune man, but he stumbles across a band of survivors who haven't yet fallen to the plague, and provides them with a serum that will save the human race. This band includes Rosalind Cash, who is engagingly brash and rescues Heston from cremation. Then there's an obligatory motorcycle chase (well done) and a creepy interlude in a ghoul-infested wine cellar before the movie sort of bogs down. Not even a shot of Heston in the obligatory crucifixion pose can quite mend things.
"The Omega Man" is based on an uncredited novel by Richard Matheson. I wonder if it was I Am Legend, a very good work about the last normal man left in a world of vampires. He held them off with mirrors, crosses, and garlic--the usual mixture -- and did very nearly as well as Heston with his spotlights.
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