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Boo Movies for Halloween

any suggestions, please comment

Cat People 1942

The Seventh Victim 1943

The Uninvited 1944

The Picture of Dorian Grey 1945

The Picture of Dorian Gray - 1945 from Daniel on Vimeo.

Night of the Hunter 1955

Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1956

The House on Haunted Hill 1959

Eyes without a face 1960

The Innocents 1961

The Haunting 1963

Hour of the Wolf 1968

Night of the Living Dead 1968

MY THOUGHTS AND THE ARTICLE

well i read the article, the argument by tyree is dysfunctional, the book was written in 2001, tyree admits the strategem would had been successful in 2010, so... saying it isn't how the industry operates in 2024 is dysfunctional. This is about a moment in the usa, this is not meant to be how the usa was before or after, but this was a real scenario. I wonder why everett had nothing to say. And the argument from some blacks against "urban lit" is no different than italians against italian mob movies . having people look like you represented in a way you don't like doesn't define you, but doesn't make it unreal. Some black people were and are step and fetchit's this doesn't mean I am or any other black person is one of them. Cord Jefferson's question shows he is either ignorant of black history or in denial about black experiences in the usa. For anyone who reads up to this point, let me say something that it seems isn't common knowledge in the usa. Most black people in the usa have always been unhappy or miserable, always. Yes from the colonial times to now a minority in the black populace in the usa has been happy. But, an overwhelming majoirty 95% to 75% of black people in the usa have been terrorized by whites in the usa or by the system of government in the usa designed or ruled by whites. I don't see how anyone black, non black or other can not accept that simple truth. Yes, obama exist, yes, michelle obama exist, yes oprah and the william sisters and lebron james exists. Ok most black people in the usa are miserable, are in pain, are unhappy, have dealt with trauma and they come from a centuries line of black people who felt worse. Said negativities are not the only things we have to offer to culture and have never been the only things. We made negro spirituals that uplift people today before the usa was founded. we made lues music that is utilized in so many asian animated works to characterize strong thoughtful characters. we made jazz that is considered world music and one of the utmost signs of improvisation. Cord Jefferson suggested black people's stories of pain or suffering or anguish or anger are too large in quantity, are too present. what? We made brer rabbit, which was referred to in positive fantasy star trek to save a bunch of defenseless humanoids from corruptions in and out of the fantasy united nations institution called the federation , with earth itself as its usa .saundra and others in the article's great flaw is speaking of the now. They can't get out of the now in assessing the film. Many black people in the usa  like to say , black folk need to forget the past, but does that mean we are to lie about it, or judge all only in the modern? 

ARTICLE

Some urban lit authors see fiction in the Oscar-nominated ‘American Fiction’

BY HILLEL ITALIE

Updated 10:41 AM EST, March 5, 2024

NEW YORK (AP) — Omar Tyree, author of such urban lit narratives as “Flyy Girl” and “The Last Street Novel,” recently went to see the Oscar-nominated movie “American Fiction.”

“I loved the emotions of the family,” Tyree said of the comic drama starring best actor nominee Jeffrey Wright as the struggling author-academic Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, Leslie Uggams as his ailing mother and supporting actor nominee Sterling K. Brown as his troubled and unpredictable brother. “I love seeing how Monk tries to bring the family unit together and just seeing Black people trying to work things out.”

But when asked about the film’s featured storyline — Monk finds unexpected success when he publishes a crude novel under the assumed identity of ex-con Stagg R. Leigh — Tyree laughed and gave a nod to “creative license.”

“The whole idea that he’s going to sell a lot of books by keeping it raw, in real life it doesn’t work like that,” he said. “That kind of book would have been stronger in the early 2000s.”

“American Fiction,” nominated for a best picture Academy Award and in four other categories, was adapted from Percival Everett’s “Erasure,” a 2001 novel that came out when a genre alternately called “urban lit,” “urban fiction,” “street lit” or “hip-hop fiction” was peaking, especially among young Black readers. Novels like Sister Souljah’s “The Coldest Winter Ever,” Shannon Holmes’ “B-More Careful” and Teri Woods’ “True to the Game” were selling hundreds of thousands of copies while major publishers, who had initially ignored the genre, were offering large advances in search of the next hit.

The urban lit genre dates back at least to 1967, and the release of the memoir “Pimp,” written by Robert Maupin, who was in jail when he began writing under the name Iceberg Slim and built a large word-of-mouth following. He inspired another street lit pioneer, Donald Goines, author of the Kenyatta urban crime series and other works from the 1970s that influenced such hip-hop stars as Tupac Shakur, who would famously declare, “Machiavelli was my tutor, Donald Goines my father figure.”

Urban lit is still around, but no new releases approach the heights of 20 years ago. According to Circana, which tracks around 85% of the print retail market, the genre sold around 380,000 copies in 2023, far less than the total sales for “The Coldest Winter Ever.” Many leading urban lit authors these days are either independently published — among them Black Lavish and Mz. Lady P — or released through Kensington Publishing Corp., which still has cut back over the past decade.

“At one point, the majority of the books on our list that were written by Black authors would have been categorized as urban or street lit,” says Vida Engstrand, Kensington’s director of communications. Because of changes in the “retail landscape and reader interest,” Kensington now offers a much broader selection, with “very few front list titles that fall squarely in the category of urban lit,” she says.

Everett, an award-winning author whose novels include “The Trees” and the upcoming “James,” was unavailable for comment, his publisher said.

Monk is inspired to write his pseudonymous book after looking through a bestseller titled “We’s Lives In Da Ghetto” and reading such sentences as “Momma says I be the ’sponsible one and tell me that I gots to hold thing togever while she at work clean dem white people’s house.” After failing to catch on as a literary author, he is offered a six-figure book deal and seven-figure movie deal for his profanely titled novel.

Stagg R. Leigh is praised by critics and even wins a prestigious literary prize. But few were calling Teri Woods or Shannon Holmes likely Pulitzer winners. The publishing community debated whether urban lit should be condemned for reinforcing stereotypes about Black life — stereotypes parodied by Everett in his novel — or welcomed for its blunt portraits of crime and poverty and for attracting new audiences.

“I’ve heard a lot of people within the Black community who have that viewpoint, that urban lit doesn’t reflect all of us,” says author Porscha Sterling. “And while it’s important to show the Black community in multiple ways, I do think it’s important to have a well-rounded view that includes everyone.”

“In my opinion, it was wrong to characterize these books as different from other Black literature,” says Malaika Adero, an author, agent and executive editor for AUWA, a Macmillan imprint led by Questlove. “We’ve had all kinds of classic books that dealt with the underground economy and the ghetto and weren’t classified as hip-hop lit.”

Monk’s novel has some parallels to a bestseller from the 1990s, Sapphire’s “Push,” an acclaimed and controversial novel about a pregnant teen from Harlem that begins in broken English, but becomes more traditional as the girl learns to read and write. At the time, Sapphire (a pen name for Ramona Lofton) was a little-known poet who received a large advance and attracted the interest of Hollywood. The book became the Oscar-winning movie “Precious.”

“American Fiction” director Cord Jefferson, nominated for best adapted screenplay, has said that reading “Erasure” reminded him of conversations he had with friends over the years.

“Why are we always writing about misery and trauma and violence and pain inflicted on Blacks? Why is this what people expect from us? Why is this the only thing we have to offer to culture?” Jefferson often wondered, he told The Associated Press last fall.

One urban lit author, Saundra, said she found “American Fiction” funny, but “a tad bit overdramatized,” adding she doubted a novel like the one Monk wrote would be so welcomed now. Sterling, whose novels include the series “Gangland” and “Bad Boys Do It Better,” said she identified with Monk’s frustration at not being understood and recognized, but also said the satire in “American Fiction” left her feeling “misunderstood”

“I don’t know any people who write like that in the urban lit genre,” she said.

Author K’Wan Foye, known as K’Wan, says he related well to the movie, even if it was “poking fun” at urban lit. He remembers being encouraged 20 years ago to write “something really ghetto,” what became his popular “Hood Rat” series, and showing up for a meeting at St. Martin’s Press wearing a Biggie Smalls-style suit.

“They thought it was some kind of persona, the way Stagg R. Leigh is in the movie,” K’Wan said. “And I was like, ‘No, this is who I am.’”

If “Erasure” had been published now, the protagonist would likely have chosen a different kind of book to parody the commercial market, authors and publishers say. Tyree thinks he would have been writing nonfiction, maybe working on a celebrity confessional like Jada Pinkett Smith’s “Worthy.” Shawanda Williams, who oversees the Black Odyssey imprint of Kensington, cites the 2022 bestseller “The Other Black Girl,” the surreal tale of a Black editorial assistant at a publishing house.

Saundra, whose novels include “Hustler’s Queen” and “It Ain’t About the Revenge,” says the urban lit market has faded enough that she’s trying a different kind of book. In 2025, Kensington will publish “The Treacherous Wife,” which she calls “domestic suspense.”

“Times are changing,” she says, “and I think readers are looking for suspense, something everyone can relate to.”

URL

https://apnews.com/article/american-fiction-urban-lit-oscars-9a6d0c044bc2bd94fe7e98217171973b?utm_source=copy&utm_medium=share 

MOVIES THAT MOVE WE : CROOKLYN

Have you seen the coming of age tale Crooklyn? Do you know its position in the timetable of spike lee joints or its developmental background?  All this and more on the Crooklyn episode of Movies That Move We with Nike Ma 
 

Response and Articles 12/19/2023

At the end of the war between the states: louisiana, south carolina, mississippi had majority black populaces, but the governments of said states had no black officials. One of the problems with some Black people in the usa is they speak very neutrally when it comes to humanity. Being verbose is a long thing, can be fatiguging, but is usually more descriptive and being more descriptive is needed when you speak of the past in humanity anywhere. The palestinean people had the majority in palestine when the zionist came but the government was completely run by members of the british empire. so... 
I think a valid question exist. Beyond the law, did the 14th or 15th amendment's make the Black Enslaved or former enslaved citizens? What makes a citizen? is it the law? or is it, the communal context? I argue the history of the native american in the usa+ the black enslaved or descended of enslaved in the usa, refutes the idea that citizenry comes from the law. 
The authors states tremendous progress for the black populace in what is commonly callted reconstruction in the usa, but i argue that is erroneous. First, most black people in the usa, 90% were still financially dead, no savings, no money, no land, n opportunity to gain financially.  Tremendous progress I thought represented a lifting of a majority in a populace, not a financial stagnation from a majority that never had financial betterment. 
The biggest problem with Black people in the usa, is the lie we tell ourselves about the commonly called Great Migration, which I call the Black fleeing. Black people flew from the south cause black people were being killed/murdered/incarcerated absent criminal activity/assaulted through the entirey of reconstruction, ask Ida B Wells and flew to the northern cities to be treated better. Most black people did not think they were going to financial betterment outside the south. I wonder where that myth comes from. Yes, some black people sought financial betterment but most wanted away from whitey. 

The firs thing he said that is truth, Black people always flew back to the south.  But the reason was always simple. Thew white governments of the  exosouth [north or west] was no better than the white governments of the south. Remember, Tulsa, which wasn't majority black like NYC, Chicago, Los ANgeles, had a government that aided in the bombing and looting of the black community in tulsa by the white community. To be blunt, NYC, Chicago, Los ANgeles were not haven cities for blacks, that is a myth. But the fact that they were not is why black people flew back. 

Now what is missing. Many years ago, during Obama's first campaign I suggested Black people in the usa needed a black party of governance in the usa to focus on places where the populace of black people is largest. He speaks of Black Power in government locally in the southern states but doesn't suggest a black party of governance in said states? why? I always find it strategically silly that any community is unwilling to support organizations strictly to their benefit when they have numerical advantage. 
Why do the black towns and counties of the south have representatives of andrew jackson or abraham lincoln when both have proven to be useless in being effective to making or administering legal policy to Black benefit.

I emailed him my thoughts, you can do the same
chblow@nytimes.com

Some post where I spoke on this

https://aalbc.com/tc/blogs/entry/194-richard-murray-creative-table/page/5/?tab=comments#comment-496

https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/9211-the-black-community-in-the-usa-need-an-alternative-to-black-officials-from-the-party-of-andrew-jackson-or-abraham-lincoln/

https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=1945&type=status

This photo is part of the problem. Most black people didn't own a car. This black family is financially the black one percent. This black family is looking for financial betterment but most black people owned nothing. I know for certain. Most Black people fled the south , walking, taking the train, fleeing white violence. But the narrative whites like to hear, ala magical negro is it was a simple financial move. 

Charles M. Blow on reversing the Great Migration
sunday-morning
BY CHARLES M. BLOW

DECEMBER 17, 2023 / 10:25 AM EST / CBS NEWS

Our commentary is from New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow, whose new HBO documentary "South to Black Power" is now streaming on Max:

At the end of the Civil War, three Southern states (Louisiana, South Carolina and Mississippi) were majority Black, and others were very close to being so. And during Reconstruction, the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution made Black people citizens and gave Black men the right to vote.

This led to years of tremendous progress for Black people, in part because of the political power they could now access and wield on the state level.
But when Reconstruction was allowed to fail and Jim Crow was allowed to rise, that power was stymied. So began more decades of brutal oppression.

In the early 1910s, Black people began to flee the South for more economic opportunity and the possibility of more social and political inclusion in cities to the North and West. This became known as the Great Migration, and lasted until 1970.

But nearly as soon as that Great Migration ended, a reverse migration of Black people back to the South began, and that reverse migration – while nowhere near as robust of the original – is still happening today.

In 2001 I published a book called "The Devil You Know," encouraging even more Black people to join this reverse migration and reclaim the state power that Black people had during Reconstruction. I joined that reverse migration myself, moving from Brooklyn to Atlanta.

Last year, I set out to make a documentary which road-tested the idea, traveling the country, both North and South, and having people wrestle with this idea of Black power.

Here are three things I learned from that experience.

First, Black people are tired of marching and appealing for the existing power structure to treat them fairly.

Second, young Black voters respond to a power message more than to a message of fear and guilt.

And third, many of the people I talked to had never truly allowed themselves to consider that there was another path to power that didn't run though other people's remorse, pity, or sense of righteousness.

I don't know if Black people will heed my call and reestablish their majorities, or near-majorities, in Southern states. But sparking the conversation about the revolutionary possibility of doing so could change the entire conversation about power in this country, in the same way that it has changed me.

URL
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/charles-m-blow-on-reversing-the-great-migration-south-to-black-power/

Different Tribes of Black people slowly becoming one takes too long to retain gains or start new gains

Alabama

Black Descendent of enslaved leaders guided the majority populace of said people to do what Maher says the palestinean should do. Based on the history of said people my advice is for the palestinean to keep fighting for the river to the sea. Yes, it may lead to a termination of palestineans. But, look at the native american in the usa. Look at the black descended of enslaved in the usa. 
Two peoples who in overwhelming majority, not all, chose the path Maher suggest the palestinean choose. What did it lead to? 
Whites in the USA got what they wanted, they got to win a blood feud absent having to kill the rivals in the feud, and then use that as a symbol of usa greatness. The black descended of enslaved plus native american became idolters, mostly ranked by people who are completely infatuated to the culture of those who enslaved them, completely impotent populaces concerning what can only come from collective force, beggers or crawlers in the system designed by rivals in a blood feud. 
Maher is correct, as someone in this community said to me the same as other black people said many times in earshot in my offline life, the past can not be changed. But, how you plan for the future does not have to suggest the past didn't happen. And that is what Maher truly wants, what the native american of the usa did, what the black descended of the usa did,   for the palestinean people to eat the crow of accepting the system of their opposer and embrace said system. Then they can have a palestinean president of israel. They can have dancing jolly musicals about the fiscally poor palestineans abused by the tyrranical israelis hurting each other for relief. They can mate with israelis and have a bunch of loving palestinean-israeli mulattoes. Yeah, I know what Maher is suggesting to the palestinean. If the palestinean is wise,better for the community to die than to become the native american of the usa.

Maher on palestineans

Maher on netanyahu

IN AMENDMENT
The problem with netanyahu is like so many , he is unwilling to embrace the truth of his country,this is what hitler did that many leaders are unwilling to do. Embrace the power and violence of their government as power+ violence. The Statian empire teaches all governments that power must always be wielded as benevolence, this comes from the british imperial tradition that create the usa. But I oppose that, if you are a bully be a bully. You want to push the palestineans out, then simply do it. Trying to suggest you are legal or pure or a good person or some other thing to make a false narrative in a history book or to assuade your descendents of how they got their wealth is to me a true sin. Maher says Israel is powerful , well it is time for israel to embrace that position. And to embrace that the zionist chose this location. If the zionist were wise they would had chosen somewhere in europe but they were not, they assumed they could chose a muslim place and convert it through influence of their big brother who was started the same way, the usa. But they underestimated that not all peoples are the native american + black descended of enslaved who are weak peoples. So the zionist made the bed, the israeli has to live in it, israel will always be the enemy of its neighbors, that is the zionist legacy, netanyahu needs to embrace it and kick the palestinean out and live surrounded by enemies. 

What DAvid Alan Grier said is correct, and in the situation of candy cane lane holds truth but the reason it isn't industry wide must be discussed.  The problem with the narrative is, who owns is irrelevant . Grier says all need to see themselves, and he isn't wrong but black people don't see themselves in media in the usa cause black people don't own the media. Many black people in the usa seem to think not owning sports team, not owning film studios, not owning music labels, not owning car companies, not owning gun manufacturers, not owning cement makers, not owning real estate , not owning mass produce producers[corporate farms], is not a factor. Black people in the usa don't own any industry. That is why Black people are not present as we will like in any industry in the usa. IT is very simple. But the reason black people don't own is because of our history under this government , historically white, that placed us in a negative financial state where whites disallowed us from owning. Yes, starting in the 1980s, it can be said that the black populace in the usa finally was free from the yoke of the whites to grow as individuals BUT it matters when whites in the usa have opportunities to take native american land, when whites have the opportunity to rip natural resources from the earth, when whites have the opportunity to have a gilded age making fortunes for bloodlines off of acts today deemed illegal. MErit isn't unimportant. I am not knocking down merit. But merit isn't more important than opportunity but opportunity in the usa comes from ownership not merit. And ownership in the USA 99% of the time comes from advantage through an ancestor using arms, guns,  or inheriting wealth from an ancestor who used arms, guns. 
...
 This situation reflects my point, ownership is more important than merit or equality. eddie mruphy is an owner/a producer and makes the choices, if eddie murphy didn't put grier or someone black as santa that is his choice. My point is ownership is superior to merit. Black culture/storytelling has always been present to support black people feeling apart of anything. And I know cause growing up as a kid I never felt deprived of black presence in media or in any season cause of my parents.

David Alan Grier on Why His Surprise Cameo as Black Santa in ‘Candy Cane Lane’ Reminded Him of ‘Black Panther’
The film reunited him with his 'Boomerang' collaborators Eddie Murphy and director Reginald Hudlin.

BY CHRIS GARDNER

Plus Icon
DECEMBER 9, 2023 11:15AM

As the Candy Cane Lane premiere red carpet heated up Nov. 28, two publicist elves worked their way down the press line to remind journalists not to spoil the big reveal from the Reginald Hudlin-directed holiday adventure.

The Prime Video release, penned by Kelly Younger, stars Eddie Murphy as a recently unemployed man on a mission to win his neighborhood’s annual Christmas home decoration contest. The hush-hush surprise happens late in the film when David Alan Grier crash-lands in an ultra-slick sleigh as (the lifted embargo permits us to announce) Black Santa Claus.

“Reggie called and told me what his idea was and I was overjoyed, man. He let me flow and egged me and Eddie on,” explained Grier of reteaming with Hudlin and Murphy with whom he teamed for the 1992 romantic comedy Boomerang. “That was over 30 years ago and all we talked about were cars, clubs, big houses, like ‘Where y’all going tonight.’ This was different because Eddie is so chill. He has kids, grandkids. He seemed really, really happy.”

As far as the significance of playing an iconic character as a Black man, Grier said the opportunity reminded him of Black Panther. “When you see yourself represented in movies or stories, it’s an affirmation that you exist, that you belong, and that you’re legitimate. That’s what people forget about to see ourselves, not just us, everybody. There’s room for all of us at the table. This is the first Christmas movie I ever did so it’s got to last a long time.”

Who knows, there may also be a sequel. Prime Video announced last week that following its debut, Candy Cane Lane quickly became the No. 1 movie worldwide on Prime Video, the most-watched am*zon MGM Studios-produced movie debut ever in the U.S. and among the top 10 worldwide film debuts ever on the service. 

“The sensational debut of Eddie Murphy’s first-ever Christmas movie, Candy Cane Lane, is a true demonstration of how joyful, family-oriented stories can touch the hearts of viewers around the world,” offered Courtenay Valenti, head of film, streaming, and theatrical at am*zon MGM Studios.

Grier is also counting his blessings this holiday season. “I’m going to tell you right now, I’m 67 years old. I did not think that my career would be here at my age. I have more work than I can even say yes to. My career is booming and I feel like I finally figured out what I’m doing, so I’m only getting better and better. We’ll see what happens.”

url
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/david-alan-grier-surprise-cameo-black-santa-candy-cane-lane-1235714766/

the american society of magical negroes trailer
For centuries, there has been a society hidden in plain sight, working in secret to protect Black people from harm. It’s called THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MAGICAL NEGROES.
A new satire from writer/director Kobii Libi and an official selection of Sundance 2024. Only in theaters March 22.

guiliani as mayor of new york made policy intentionally harming the black populace in nyc, that being the selling of nyc properties that black people lived in, properties nyc owned because the real estate industry failed which many forget... is his actions toward two black female poll workers a shock to black new york city dwellers? The answer is no.

kamala harris broke the record on tiebreak votes but is the quality of her tiebreaks showing she is thoughtful or functional?
https://www.blackenterprise.com/kamala-harris-200-year-record-tiebreakers-cast/

Question, should black people in the south look to reboot the majority of historical black colleges that went under?
For example the Conroe Normal and Industrial College faculty (c. 1903)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conroe_Normal_and_Industrial_College
referal

Mandela on a Black countries government
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5TiUhhm7cQ

or

Please read MEdical Apartheid by Harriet Washington
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/medical-apartheid
the referral
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/smithsonian-targeted-dc-s-vulnerable-to-build-brain-collection/ar-AA1lukXG

Google's New AI Text-to-Video Tool Is Fun to Look At. But What Next?

Story by Lisa Lacy • 38m

Google has teased an AI-based video generation tool, but it's not clear when — or if — anyone outside the search giant will be able to kick the tires. It's certainly fun to look at, though.

On Wednesday, Google's Research arm released a video highlighting this new text-to-video model, which is called Lumiere.

In a LinkedIn post, team leader Inbar Mosseri said the tool "generates coherent, high-quality videos using simple text prompts" that New Atlas says run up to five seconds. Sample inputs include, "A fluffy baby sloth with an orange knitted hat trying to figure out a laptop" and "An escaped panda eating popcorn in the park."

In the year or so that generative AI has been the hottest technology going, much of the attention has been focused on tools like ChatGPT that produce text answers to prompts, or those like Dall-E that create still images. Video creation from text prompts is arguably the next frontier, so if Lumiere really can "demonstrate state-of-the-art text-to-video generation results" as Google says, we may already be evolving beyond the "grotesque abominations" of the AI-generated images of 2023.

As the video illustrates, Lumiere's capabilities include text-to-video and image-to-video generation, as well as stylized generation — that is, using an image to create videos in a similar style. Other tricks include the ability to fill in any missing visuals within a video clip.

That includes the ability to animate famous paintings, like Van Gogh's Starry Night ("A timelapse oil painting of a starry night with clouds moving") or Da Vinci's Mona Lisa ("A woman looking tired and yawning"). While the Starry Night example works almost flawlessly, Mona Lisa looks far more like she's laughing than yawning.

And while many of the animals — such as "a muskox grazing on beautiful wildflowers" and "a happy elephant wearing a birthday hat walking under the sea" — look realistic, there's something off about some of the dogs. Both a toy poodle riding a skateboard and a golden retriever puppy running in the park are close to passing as real, but their faces — and perhaps their eyes specifically—betray the fact that they're CGI.

Nevertheless, the video editing tools hold a lot of promise. Using a source video and prompts like "made of colorful toy bricks" or "made of flowers," users can purportedly change the style of the subject completely. And with inputs like "wearing a bathrobe," "wearing a party hat" and "wearing rain boots" to add said items to an image of, say, a baby chick, Lumiere may very well make fiddling with videos more accessible to those of us who didn't major in graphic design.

Though the assets shared so far certainly make Lumiere seem like it's user-friendly, the description of how it works isn't. (Google didn't respond to a request for additional comment.)

A project page < https://lumiere-video.github.io/  > describes Lumiere as "a space-time diffusion model," which sounds like something Doc Brown was working on in Back to the Future. Google Research said this means the text-to-image model learns to generate a video by processing it in multiple space-time scales, which helps create videos that "portray realistic, diverse and coherent motion."

According to Google, this is superior to existing models, which "synthesize distant keyframes followed by temporal super-resolution." 

Jason Alan Snyder, global chief technology officer at ad agency Momentum Worldwide, explained it this way: "It's like the difference between watching a puppet show and experiencing a ballet at Lincoln Center."

That's because Lumiere "doesn't just focus on snapshots, it crafts smooth, flowing motion for every frame," he added.

In other words, if you think about the traditional method of making a movie, you'd have to build key scenes and fill in the gaps later.

"Lumiere is different. It sees the whole movie in its mind, understanding how characters move, objects interact and everything changes over time," Snyder said. "It's like drawing the entire flip book simultaneously, ensuring every page flows perfectly."

So this "space-time thinking" helps Lumiere create videos that feel real, which, he added, means no more jumpy transitions or robotic movements. (Except maybe for puppy eyes.)

Time will tell.

In the meantime, as fans of Beauty and Beast will know, Lumiere is French for "light."  

Editors' note: CNET is using an AI engine to help create some stories. For more, see this post. < https://www.cnet.com/ai-policy/#ftag=MSF491fea7 >

URL

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/googles-new-ai-text-to-video-tool-is-fun-to-look-at-but-what-next/ar-BB1hgBUi

Man cleared in a 1996 Brooklyn killing said for decades he knew who did it. Prosecutors now agree

By Associated Press New York State

PUBLISHED 9:36 PM ET Jan. 18, 2024

NEW YORK (AP) — A man who served 14 years in prison for a deadly 1990s shooting was exonerated Thursday after prosecutors said they now believe the killer was an acquaintance he has implicated for decades.

“I lost 14 years of my life for a crime that I didn’t commit,” Steven Ruffin told a Brooklyn judge after sighing with emotion.

Although Ruffin was paroled in 2010 and has since built a career in sanitation in Georgia, he said that getting his manslaughter conviction dismissed and his name cleared “will help me move on.”

“If you know you're innocent, don’t give up on your case — keep on fighting, because justice will prevail,” Ruffin, 45, said outside court. “That’s all I’ve wanted for 30 years: somebody to listen and really hear what I’m saying and look into the things I was telling them."

Prosecutors said they were exploring whether to charge the man they now believe shot 16-year-old James Deligny on a Brooklyn street during a February 1996 confrontation over some stolen earrings. Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said after court that charges, if any, wouldn't come immediately.

“You have to be able to convict someone beyond a reasonable doubt, and we have to make sure that that evidence is sufficient to do so,” said Gonzalez, who wasn't DA when Ruffin was tried. “You have a lot of factors working against us procedurally, but also factually — unfortunately, this is 30 years ago.”

Ruffin's conviction is the latest of more than three dozen that Brooklyn prosecutors have disavowed after reinvestigations over the last decade.

Over a dozen, including Ruffin's, were connected to retired Detective Louis Scarcella. He was lauded in the 1980s and ‘90s for his case-closing prowess, but defendants have accused him of coercing confessions, engineering dubious witness identifications and other troubling tactics. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Prosecutors said in their report on the Ruffin case that they “did not discover any misconduct by Scarcella" in the matter. A message seeking comment was sent to his attorney.

Prosecutors said the police investigation — and their office's own at the time — “were wholly inadequate” and tunnel-visioned, failing to look into the person they now believe was the gunman.

The mistaken-identity shooting happened as Ruffin and others were looking for a robber who had just snatched earrings from Ruffin’s sister. In fact, Deligny wasn't the robber, authorities say.

Tipsters led police to Ruffin, then a 17-year-old high school student, and the victim's sister identified him in a lineup that a court later deemed flawed. Scarcella wasn't involved in the lineup, but he and another detective questioned Ruffin.

The teen told them, twice, that he saw but wasn't involved in Deligny's shooting, according to police records quoted in prosecutors' report.

Then Scarcella brought the teen's estranged father — a police officer himself — to the precinct. The father later testified that he told his son to “tell the truth,” but Ruffin said his father leaned on him to confess.

And he did confess, saying he fired because he thought Deligny was about to pull something out of his jacket. Ruffin told the detectives they could retrieve the gun from his sister's boyfriend, and they did, prosecutors' report said.

Ruffin quickly recanted to his father, who didn't tell the detectives his son had taken back his confession, according to prosecutors' report. The teen went on to testify at his trial that he didn't shoot Deligny but saw and knew the killer — his sister's boyfriend, the one who'd given police the gun, broken up into parts and stuffed into potatoes.

Jurors at Ruffin's trial heard from the boyfriend, but only about his relationships with the defendant, his sister and others in the case. When the jury was out of the room, the boyfriend invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and declined to answer other questions, including where he'd been on the night of the shooting.

Prosecutors didn't release the boyfriend's name Thursday, and the names of lawyers who have represented him weren't immediately available. He told prosecutors during their recent reinvestigation that he had nothing to do with the shooting and didn't give detectives the gun. He also said he never confessed to anyone, though prosecutors say Ruffin's stepfather, sister and late mother all have said he made admissions to them.

Asked Thursday about the boyfriend, Ruffin's lawyers noted that the prospect of any prosecution now is uncertain.

“We only wish that in 1996, Detective Scarcella and others had performed the investigation they should have and been able to get this right the first time," attorney Garrett Ordower said, noting that Deligny's family may now never have the finality of a conviction in his death.

As for Ruffin, he's focused on his future, including promotion opportunities at his job in Atlanta. His now-voided conviction, he said, “never defined me.”

“This never really spoke of the person I was or the man I was going to become,” he said. “So this, to me, is a great closure of a chapter my life, but my life is still going up.”

URL

https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/ap-top-news/2024/01/19/man-cleared-in-a-1996-brooklyn-killing-said-for-decades-he-knew-who-did-it-prosecutors-now-agree

Beloved (1998) reviewed by Movies That Move We
 

Video Link

MY THOUGHTS WHILE I VIEWED

3:44 ahh it came out a bad week. Ants/Rush Hour/Bride of Chucky/Practical Magic all were hits. Ants is animated. Rush Hour is funny and with jackie chan a global hit and rush hour was his finest usa based film. Chucky for the horror addicts, chucky is a superstar. PRactical magic had nicole kidman and sandra bullock in a women's empowerment film about new england witches... beloved

12:35 good point, I want to add, the multitude of stories is the problem. I argue the problem is, the truth is complex right. Some people were violent, some suffered, some had good fortune. it is a blend of stories. Blend of stories make the end of the civil war /13th amendment/end of slavery complicated

15:16 yes, this is a poltergeist. But i concur, the message is, what is more frightening is the human activity, the enslavement of  whites onto blacks. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Garner
I think it is an important story change from morrison that is carried in the film is that the real life garner was mulatto. she had a white parent. and all her children were from her owner.
I find it also interesting that most of the people they fled, with, the historical garner made it to canada. they didn't stay in the usa but most made it. supposedly seventeen in total with nine making it to canada. And i find it historically compelling that the Garner's  owner/former owner/owner in moving the garner's  around kentucky to escape  an extradition order for murder from ohio  which was going to lead to a pardon, he had to leave kentucky and on a boat to take the garner's to new orleans the baby child was thrown into the water by margaret and died. And then in the end, margaret lived, telling her husband never to marry and bring forth life into the world of slavery. I argue, margaret never let her black enslaved husband bed her or at least bed her in good time for pregnancy. I think margaret hated the idea of being pregnant. Only know have I did any research concerning the true story, thank you Nike,  I have more thoughts for a story I am composing myself now. 

20:30 great point, i agree, from the beginning I saw this film as the poltergeist while present, while dangerous is not as dangerous as the white slave owners, not really. The poltergeist is easier to handle and is handled easier than white folks.

21:53 yes, we don't talk about the truth in the black community. because black parents can not guarantee black chidren will react positively to whites or the usa with knowing it. I have always felt most black parents in the usa, are frightened of the truth because all black parents know, 100% of black children will not reach positive conclusions to whites or the usa with the truth. And I think black parents in majority just don't want that risk so they lie. 

22:44 how can the movie be better in your view Nike?

24:09 I can tell you I know black people were not dancing about based on knowing about my mother's father's mother's life. I do not go into my personal.

24:38 yes, trauma 

25:02 i think the black community in the usa made an effort to kill the life of that past in the black community in the usa, even while white people keep it alive with their actions. and i think, those black people succeeded in killing it. The modern black community in the usa, to be blunt, does not reflect a community that used its most historically relevant or elemental era in the usa, that being when enslaved to whites, as a root element of a heritage to empowerment. The Black community in the usa , is a community that reflect a discarding of its most historically relevant or elemental era in the usa. Which has been beneficial. The USA today would not be the country it is if the Black community or the Indigenous community didn't at some point do what both did and that was, start at day one when at day 99.  Black people talk about fighting in world war II and owning homes in the antebellum south. Enslavement was Black folk in the usa  300 year old epoch in the usa, that predated the usa itself.  Our forebears who wanted that reboot, got what they wanted. at the price of it was the gullah language or culture like other unique cultures in the black community in the usa that predate the end of slavery, high john the conqueror and a horde of fiction fantasy that black people had created during slavery/the black free towns no one recalls today. Black people like henry louis gates jr and others like to emphasize the time after slavery cause , like frederick douglass, they want the black community in the usa to be statian, of the usa. The problem with black enslavement to whites being alive is the question of the usa itself. it has to live as well and when you question the country you live in, again the resulting answer may not be positive or convenient or majority. And I think many black people in the past have always feared and some today still fear that possibility in the black community in the usa.  thus why said black people adore modern black immigrants who have more in common with whites when it comes to their initial relationship to the usa than DOSers. 

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
What did you think of this film the first time you saw it? 
I didn't like the whites, which says little to nothing. but, I enjoyed the end. Maybe cause I was raised in a home with two loving parents. I enjoyed the resolution at the end, between d and sethe.

Did you know at the time, about Margaret Garner? 
No, I did not. I never thought to research this until now. I think the true story is very compelling, about many issues of mulattoes, of black children in the usa,of the end of slavery or as I like to call one of the mutations of slavery. cause the truth is, slavery simply changed, it did not die. But I always remind people, new orleans was the las vegas of the usa in the 1800s and all the top female prostitutes of new orleans claimed black ancestry. why? white men had created a media myth, like modern day Black women behinds or white women breast. that mulatto women was the sexual best. And I even see the lustful logic. You have a white woman/a light black woman/a luscious black woman all in one white man's house. he is married to one, the white one. her role is to make heirs, she owns nothing. he uses one for general labor and mating for more produce<meaning aside black men>, the luscious black woman. but who is the best of both worlds. it is the light black woman, the mulatto. She is publicly owned by the white man. he has no worry of legal problems with anything he does to her, like the luscious black woman but she may in appearance look no different or more similar to a white woman. So, it is to a white man in a position of total power, the best of both worlds. Most mulattoes look like a thandie newton or halle berry where it is clear, they are a mix, but some look like Christina Cox <she was in chronicles of riddick> or rebecca hall <the director of passing>who in my view can attempt to pass in the old environment in the usa way better than ruth negga or tessa thompson. And I use myself as the proof. I never doubted ruth negga or tessa thompson or halle berry have black ancestry but christina cox or rebecca hall i did not know. and this is powerful. Remember twelve years a slave. paul giamatti's character pointed to the mulatto daughter of the luscious black woman, whose tears and constant crying in light of margaret garner is well balanced, and said, i paraphrase, that little girl is worth all of the rest.. to cumberbatch. In latin america, they are called Alvino's meaning. this is someone with known black ancestry but who does not look black. That is priceless to a white man with money back in slave times.
Thanks again Nike, In cheap retrospect, I Would had went another way than Morrison story wise, plot wise. But morrison being a woman, i think she wanted to redeem the black mother more than anything. I think beloved, as a poltergeist, was betrayed a little bit. I daresay, beloved is more a wraith than a poltergeist. A poltergiest for me acts wildly as a spirit but doesn't necessarily have agenda. a wraith has agenda. the woman in black is a wraith. I think beloved is a wraith. She wants her mother to give take her own life through a slow pain of neglect. that is purpose. Beloved goes away as a poltergiest not a wraith. 

Did you feel differently about the meaning of the film between your first watch and the last time you viewed the movie?
Meaning, no , the meaning didn't change. I only add the comparison to the real event know. I remember relatives not liking that she didn't kill herself. The funny thing in the historical record it seems she was literally stopped by the whites coming to take her back to slavery. but I like how in the historical record she tried to kill herself with the youngest, but simply failed. 

 Do you think of this as a horror movie? 
Yes, but I want to say, this film is a visual representation of what I will call Black Statian Slave Ghost Stories. Growing up as a kid, I was told and then later read many of these kinds of stories, usually shorter in length but the same idea. Being enslaved while dealing with a negative spirit is uncommon theme or shall i say a specific theme to the Black DOS community in the USA. this isn't for willing immigrants or whites or native americans mostly, this is a very specific genre culturally. You have a character dealing with a scenario where they are born disempowered with problems stemming from a past before they were born they can not control while now a negative spirit. I think in these stories the problem is, the horror of the ghost is less important than the horror between humans and that goes against the horror movie genre as a whole in the usa. yes, the ghost is bothering me, but I had my foot cut off and my testicles branded last month. I can't afford any more from this white man so spirit, pick a number. 

yeah, good one:) 

THIS IS THE END (of October): Episode 10 ft Tristan Roach of Xion NEtwork

VIDEO LINK

VIDEO INTRO
Welcome to the tenth episode of "This is the End" with the Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

In this special halloween edition, tune-in to Mohz, Jess, Ian, Cam and Roun as we interview one of the most scarily talented comic book artists on the island, before doing a quick recap of major pop-culture events that resonated with us this month.

MY COMMENT

Dune was a serial in a magazine, turned into a book. but star wars was based on John Carter of Mars over Dune. The multiversity of characters in star wars reflects John carter more than Dune. 

SARCASM Fans enjoy

@charityekezie Replying to @musubifamily No but we also apply some honey on stones and lick it. #sacarsm #charityekezie #Africa ♬ original sound - Charityekezie

straight to the forest:) ok the spirit of the black panther:)  Anyone who loves sarcasm will love this... the community giraffe
 

Movies That Move We review US 2019

My THoughts
like the montage of reviews
2:10 so many black female writers enjoy PEele's style. I do to but many black female writers tend to start off saying that.
5:40 exactly, I wonder if a 1960s hippie's old plan written on home made paper somewhere wasn't what hands across america stemmed from
7:50 spider grandmother https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_Grandmother
11:36 yes, anansi, the story teller, remember anansi has a caribbean version , same name, different stories
13:09 random thought, was the homeless guy taken to a hospital carrying the sign some sort of guard for the doppels/tethers?

Questions how we respond to those who have less than us? What would you do if you came face to face with your darker side?

Your questions are strong. Collective reply as opposed to individual reply. In the film US, the tether abigail answers the question to individual reply by exchanging places. but the originally untethered abigail, replied to her individual revenge with a collective reply, leading all the tethers. and oddly enough, in the end, both abigails got what they wanted, in the end, the collective reply of the originally untethered abigal with hands across america happened with her side her household all killed while the tethered got her replacement life with only her male son, the "mulatto" knowing the truth about her. and her whole household lives. The power of nature here is underrated. I even argue an element of "The man who fell to earth" is used very well in this film's premise. In a man who fell to earth, the government keeps the "alien" man in a base but over time the base is forgotten. How isn't fully explained but whatever happened, the people in government who knew about this or kept it organized died or forgot or moved on, so the installation ran on autopilot, and became decrepit. like the tether's world, its sitting there. Whomever in government was supposed to manage them, stopped or moved on or died or something, where they still get electricity, but their existence is uncared for. And I like that theme of whatever the government was planning couldn't survive nature. But to your first question, to whether people have more or less, whether we want freedom or revenge, we can respond as part of a group or individually. But nature does have influence over things, At the end the tricked abigail was still naive when she was originally tricked and the tethered abigal is still dangerous when she originally forced a switch. Their varying sense of individualism or community didn't change. The tricked abigal, felt the tethered abigail in the first place, she was always communal. the tethered abigail was always an individual, never once interested in helping another tethered escape. So no matter how you respond to another, you will always be yourself eventually.

Well, I will answer, what will I do if I come into contact with one of my infinite other sides? There is a version of me that is more positive than me. and thus, I am the more negative to that version. to answer the question. I don't know. Good question. the engineer in me wants to ask, how did we even meet in the first place. Nature has rules. how are we meeting is my first question, not necessarily how we will get along. But I will say this. The key to coexisting side another interpretation of you, is to be anti christian. I will explain. If you look at zoarasters-ancient kemet-aztec mythology-taoism, most spiritual belief systems accept that nature is not good or bad but all things. But the christian belief system is starkly variant. the christian tradition says god is good, thus that which is not good is not of the essence of life. If you see a version of you doing negative things that you wouldn't do, if you have in your mind the idea that to do negative things is against nature, then you will imply that the other you is unnatural and thus communication problems, coexistence problems.

Thistle and Verse

Live Discussion

Kat Blaque

Logan Paul is WRONG about NOPE

Thistle and Verse

Trivia Night

Recommendations Gender Bender

Recommendations Author You've Never Read Before

Recommendations Rocks and Gems

Post-Ignyte Award Thoughts- Doesn't she look pretty

an online profile named Myles Daye said the following

Pronpt: drawing , thick lines, white background, only color is red from paint dripping, featuring punisher from marvel with a city apart of his jacket.
Starting to feel bad for artist cause these came out amazing.

a computer  returned the following

My reply
I am an artist, don't feel bad, star trek's holodeck has the same idea as this computer generated interpretation. certain computers today have enough memory plus speed to accept literal statements and compute based on their data storage plus algorithms the literal statements into graphical images. enjoy use it. if anyone wants to draw they still can,no is has halted the ability of anyone to draw straight from their imagination. but, for those who are not artists, now they have the computer to make art they want and if the computer isn't close enough, you can go to artists and have them make details changes. for example, if you want the punisher's cityscape jacket to have a particular skyline with certain buildings certain places you can go to an artists and they can manipulate it. Don't feel bad. enjoy the modern tools, enjoy their financial affordability, if you can remember the computer isn't an artist it isn't imagining anything, and if you want specifics that the computer is having trouble reaching, human artists are out there with the skills to adjust the base image. 

IN AMENDMENT

someone then replied

please reiterate this to all the AI haters that want to be offended on your behalf. They swear it's an affront to all artists that use "natural" mediums. I'm pretty sure inkers & pencilers felt this way once digital showed up

My reply

 in the usa, many workers in many manufacturing or mining towns have been waiting for jobs for fifty or forty years. They are joined by inkers and painters, and in twenty years will probably be joined by truckers/taxi drivers. Your correct, people online spew a wild violent negativity, unwilling to comprehend a person who supports what they oppose, to be patient to their own lives delicacy , to not be afraid. And some people simply like to spread negativity as loud as possible especially online while they are very secure offline .  But the negative vibe about computer made art is in a long line of labor group complaints energized by an ever growing populace of people who are being told all is for the collective better while they know they are not too big to fail. I admit I am lucky. I have never been hungry. I have never been told my artistic desires are unworthy or have no value. And I have a loving home where even when things go against me or not conveniently  I have people offline who comfort my fears or worries. but most people in the usa don't have that and thus the vibe. Sad. And, the solution sadly is not through online discourse, it is through CEO's elected officials managing industries better. Why didn't the usa government pay for artists in college or working in firms as digital art arose, to have free digital drawing pads plus software from sea to shining sea, every state? why didn't they force firms to pay to make sure their entire labor force including retired employees had tablets plus software. move the labor force into the industry and the labor force will not be as threatened. And if the job pool is gone, which is usual, the government need to pay to redirect people, reach to them, firms don't have to care as much, but a truly caring government should. 

REVIEW OF NOPE FROM MOVIES THAT MOVE WE

Some points without spoiling the review 

8:04 or 23:44 Nike - the role of Perception in the film
25:40 Nicole - description of the films place in genres
33:35 Both- the nonchalance against common sense:) very funny
37:54 Nike- Lovely real life example of how people judge a film strictly, advertise their judgement to influence others, but don't even fully assess a film, by their own admission. But how can one recant in real time
40:16 Nicole- yes, I concur to the relationship to both Peele and the director you mention who in their time in the sun:) had the ability to make films that be thought provoking or artful WHILE also commercial. I don't think it is unimportant to say that Nope covered its cost of production.
49:44 Both - Keith David is a very fortunate thespian. Not merely being a thespian having less opportunty, cause he is black and media in the USA is owned by whites, who do favor giving opportunity to whites.  But, Keith David has been able to be part of many thoughtful films in the film itself or its role in genre setting in various genres: The THing;The Live;Pitch Black;Nope<science fiction>[Keith David has successfully been a black character in a science fiction film that has lived at the end more than once, died before the 15 minute mark and died just before the end:) ] / Platoon<war film>/ Bird<documentary> [where he played a criminalized version of buster smith] /Roadhouse<action>People don't realize how some films hollywood has been heavily inspired by and never been able to repeat /The Quick and the Dead<western> [a female led western back when it wasn't so easy to see being financed]/PRincess Mononoke <anime>[the studio ghibli collection itself is something else... his voice is everywhere, ever since, and shout to tv show gargoyles]/Crash <social commentary vignettes>[hollywood has tried to find the next crash since crash]/The Inheritance<My personal favorite film with him in it, the story is a rare thing in its message> 
 

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Miss Juneteenth - film review by Movies That Move We

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juneteenth art

Title: Black YEar Round
Artist: RoseberriiDotart
https://www.deviantart.com/roseberriidotart/art/Black-Year-Round-888032233
ARTICLE
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SISTER ACT review on Movies that move we

3:29 I do have a question of the legitimacy of the ignorant spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend character in films? Can a mob man that brazzen really keep his activities secret? hmmm  4:35 haha bette midler was cast first, of course throw away role  5:10 Dolores , has whoopie ever explained the source of this 5:50 didn't know about Carrie Fisher 6:50 whoopie sang all her parts, wow! didn't know about the other 7:47 that is a great story, I will love to have seen them, dancing on the tables when they won:) *:23 yes, your right I will:) even though you told me before:) haha  8:25 25 years that show been on , wow! 9:20 that is a great question, with audio copying, I guess it fell like the rest of audio recording industry 10:47 didn't know they came out back to back , love lauryn hill 11:23 sister act 2 may challenge parents with teenage kids:) 12:02 it was relatives who introduced me to both films.  
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Down in the delta film review from movies that move we 

“Unbury the Future”: Martha Wells’ Full Speech from the 2017 World Fantasy Awards
Martha Wells
Tue Nov 7, 2017 10:00am

The convention defines “secret history” as tales which uncover an alternative history of our world with the aid of fantasy literary devices. Like alternate histories or secret tales of the occult.

A secret history might also mean a lost history, something written in a language that died with the last native speaker. It might mean something inaccessible, written in a medium too fragile to last. Like the science fiction and fantasy stories published in U.S. newspapers in the late 1800s. We know a few of those authors, like Aurelia Hadley Mohl [ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fmoae ]  and Mollie Moore Davis [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mollie_Evelyn_Moore_Davis ] , but how many others were there? Those stories were proof that everybody has always been here, but the paper they were printed on has turned to dust.

We might know that C.L. Moore [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._L._Moore ] wrote for Weird Tales, but I grew up thinking she was the only one, that a woman fantasy writer from that time period was like a unicorn, there could only be one, and that she was writing for an entirely male audience. But there were plenty of other women, around a hundred in Weird Tales alone, and many of them, like Allison V. Harding [ https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2011/05/who-was-allison-v-harding.html ] and Mary Elizabeth Counselman [ http://www.innsmouthfreepress.com/blog/summer-of-unknown-writers-mary-elizabeth-counselman/ ] , didn’t bother to conceal their identity with initials.

Weird Tales had women poets, a woman editor named Dorothy McIlwraith, women readers who had their letters printed in the magazine. There were women writing for other pulps, for the earlier Dime Novels, lots of them. Including African American Pauline Hopkins [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauline_Hopkins ] , whose fantasy adventure novel appeared in a magazine in 1903.

These women were there, they existed. Everybody knew that, up until somehow they didn’t. We know there were LGBT and non-binary pulp writers, too, but their identities are hidden by time and the protective anonymity of pseudonyms.

Secrets are about suppression, and history is often suppressed by violence, obscured by cultural appropriation, or deliberately destroyed or altered by colonization, in a lingering kind of cultural gaslighting. Wikipedia defines “secret history” as a revisionist interpretation of either fictional or real history which is claimed to have been deliberately suppressed, forgotten, or ignored by established scholars.

That’s what I think of when I hear the words “secret histories.” Histories kept intentionally secret and histories that were quietly allowed to fade away.

The women writers, directors, and producers of early Hollywood were deliberately erased from movie history. Fifty percent of movies between 1911 and 1928 were written by women. In the 1940s there were a last few survivors at MGM, but their scripts were uncredited and they were strongly encouraged to conceal what they were working on, and not to correct the assumption that they were secretaries.

With the internet, it shouldn’t be possible for that to happen again. But we hear an echo of it every time someone on Reddit says “women just don’t write epic fantasy.”

You do the work, and you try to forget that there are people wishing you out of existence. But there are a lot of means of suppression that are more effective than wishing.

Like in 1974 when Andre Norton discovered the copyeditor on her children’s novel Lavender Green Magic had changed the three black main characters to white.

Or like in 1947, when African American writer and editor Orrin C. Evans was unable to publish more issues of All-Negro Comics [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-Negro_Comics ] because there was mysteriously no newsprint available for him to purchase.

Or like all the comics suppressed by the Comics Code Authority in 1954, which acted to effectively purge comics of people of color and of angry violent women, whether they were heroes or villains, or of any perceived challenge to the establishment. Like the publisher Entertaining Comics, which was targeted and eventually driven out of business for refusing to change a story to make a black astronaut white.

There’s an echo of that suppression when DC bans a storyline [ http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/batwoman-authors-exit-claim-dc-621274 ] where Batwoman proposes marriage to her girlfriend. And again when Marvel publishes a storyline that makes us think Captain America is a Nazi. When we’re supposed to forget that his co-creator Jack Kirby was Jewish, that he was an Army scout in World War II, that he discovered a concentration camp, that he was personally threatened by three Nazis at the New York Marvel office for creating a character to punch Hitler. (Maybe the Nazis would like to forget that when Kirby rushed downstairs to confront them, they ran away.)

There’s been an active level of suppression in movies since movies were invented. At least a white woman writer and director like Frances Marion [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Marion ] could win two Academy Awards before she was banished from history, but that wasn’t the case for her contemporary Oscar Micheaux [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Micheaux ] . An African American, Micheaux worked as a railway porter before he wrote, directed, and produced at least 40 films in the black movie industry that was entirely separate from white Hollywood.

That kind of suppression is still alive and well, and we see it when the movie about the Stonewall riots shows the resistance against police attacks through the viewpoint of young white guys and ignores Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera [ https://sites.psu.edu/womeninhistory/2016/10/23/the-unsung-heroines-of-stonewall-marsha-p-johnson-and-sylvia-rivera/ ] . Or when Ghost in the Shell features a white actress [ https://www.tor.com/2016/04/20/why-are-we-still-white-washing-characters/ ]  instead of Japanese.

We’ve forgotten Sessue Hayakawa [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sessue_Hayakawa ] , a Japanese actor who was one of the biggest stars in the silent film era of Hollywood, who was well known as a broodingly handsome heartthrob.

Sometimes history isn’t suppressed, sometimes it just drifts away. The people who lived it never expected it to be forgotten, never expected their reality to dissolve under the weight of ignorance and disbelief.

Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly unburied the history of the African American women of early NASA, of Katharine Johnson, Mary Jackson, Dorothy Vaughn and the hundreds like them. They were just forgotten over the years, as the brief time when women’s work meant calculating launch and landing trajectories and programming computers passed out of memory. Like the Mercury 13 [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_13 ] , the “Fellow Lady Astronaut Trainees” in the 1960s, all pilots, all subjected to the same tests as the men. They retired, they went away, everyone forgot them.

Sometimes when they’re remembered, their contributions are minimized, like when a photo caption calls bacteriologist Dr. Ruby Hirose a “Japanese girl scientist” or labels Bertha Pallan, who was one of the first Native American women archeologists, as an “expedition secretary.” Like the photo post on Tumblr that over and over again, identified Marie Curie as a “female laboratory assistant.” Anybody can be disappeared.

We think we remember them, but then we’re told over and over again, all over the internet, that women don’t like math, can’t do science. That’s the internet that’s supposed to preserve our history, telling us we don’t exist.

Mary Jane Seacole was a Jamaican nurse who helped the wounded on the battlefields of the Crimean War, just like Florence Nightingale. Sister Rosetta Tharpe was the mother of rock and roll. Sophia Duleep Singh was a prominent suffragette in the UK. They’re all in Wikipedia, but you can’t look them up unless you remember their names.

The women who worked in the Gibson Guitar factory during WWII were deliberately erased, their existence strenuously denied, despite the evidence of a forgotten group photo that the company still would like to claim never existed.

Jackie Mitchell, seventeen years old, struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in an exhibition game in 1931. Her contract was almost immediately voided by the baseball commissioner. Baseball was surely too strenuous for her.

In 1994, Gregory Corso was asked, “Where are the women of the Beat Generation?” He said, “There were women, they were there, I knew them, their families put them in institutions, they were given electric shock.” Some of them survived, like Diane di Prima, and Hettie Jones.

Book burning draws too much attention. In science fiction and fantasy, in comics, in media fandom, everybody was always here, but we have been disappeared over and over again. We stumble on ourselves in old books and magazines and fanzines, fading print, grainy black and white photos, 16 millimeter film, archives of abandoned GeoCities web sites. We remember again that we were here, they were here, I saw them, I knew them.

We have to unearth that buried history. Like Rejected Princesses [ http://www.rejectedprincesses.com/ ] , by Jason Porath, which chronicles the women of history too awesome, offbeat, or awful to be animated. Or Nisi Shawl’s series the Expanded Course in the History of Black Science Fiction [ https://www.tor.com/tag/history-of-black-science-fiction/ ] . Or Malinda Lo’s LGBTQ YA By the Numbers [ https://www.malindalo.com/blog/2017/10/12/lgbtq-ya-by-the-numbers-2015-16 ] posts. Or Medieval POC [ https://twitter.com/medievalpoc?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor ] , sharing information about people of color in European art history. Like Eric Leif Davin in his book Partners in Wonder: Women and the Birth of Science Fiction. Like Cari Beauchamps’ book Without Lying Down, about the women writers, directors, and producers of early Hollywood. Like Catherine Lundoff’s series on the history of LGBT Science Fiction and Fantasy. Like Saladin Ahmed’s articles on the early history of comics or Jaime Lee Moyer’s article on the erasure of early women scientists[ http://www.jaimeleemoyer.com/we-all-know-what-they-did-to-witches/ ] . Like all the librarians and researchers and writers and archivists and fans who work to unbury our past so we have a chance to find our future.

And we have to continue to move forward toward that future in the fantasy genre, like the nominees on this year’s World Fantasy Award ballot, like all the other fantasy novels and short fiction last year that pushed the envelope a little further, or pushed it as far as it would go.

We have to break the barriers again and again, as many times as it takes, until the barriers are no more, and we can see the future our secret history promised us.

Author’s note: I’d like to thank Kate Elliott for reading an early draft of this, and for her help, inspiration, and encouragement.

Editor’s note: Martha Wells’ toastmaster speech was delivered at the World Fantasy Convention on November 5, 2017 and is reproduced here with the author’s permission; a few minor edits have been made and links have been added to the original text for additional context/clarity.

Martha Wells is a science fiction and fantasy writer, whose first novel was published in 1993. Her most recent series are The Books of the Raksura, for NightShade Books, and The Murderbot Diaries for Tor.com. Besides many fantasy novels, she has also written short stories, media tie-ins for Star Wars and Stargate Atlantis, YA fantasies, and non-fiction.

URL
https://www.tor.com/2017/11/07/unbury-the-future-martha-wells-full-speech-from-the-2017-world-fantasy-awards/

MY THOUGHT

But I think the greater question is not about presence, but action. "We" have always been here is the truth but what do "We" do when lifetimes of merit don't force "Them" to honor or treat "We" at the least equally? 
 

MOVIES THAT MOVE WE with Nike Ma and Nicole Decandas , discuss Alien vs Predaotr

My thoughts with time indexes as I listened

circa 3:47
Its funny, Black people in terms of film have an interesting relationship with the room in the house of fantasy called science fiction.
When I think of Body and Soul, Sankofa, Daughters of the Dust, black people are more interested in dream fiction, which is in fantasy, more than science fiction.

circa 4:06
As I ponder Nichelle Nichols I realize in cheap retrospect what many Black people see, what MArtin Luther King jr. saw, and what I don't like. 
Nichelle Nichols in star trek, the original series, is interesting cause she is so lauded by Black people, including me, yet the production is in many ways something between anti-black or not pro black.
To be blunt, Black people in the USA love Nichelle Nichols as Uhura because as a thespian or the character itself, she represents what they want. The Black Individual in the USA doesn't need or exclusively want a star ship designed by black people, populaced by black officers, in Black interstellar law enforcement agency or governmental union. 
The Black people in the USA are content with Black people living happy, or respected aside non Blacks in a ship not designed by blacks, in a ship mostly populated by non blacks, in a non black interstellar organization or law enforcment organization. 
It is not that Black people in the USA do not want the black designed ship, with the black crew , with the black interstellar organization, but they are content to live as individuals without it, hoping or knowing it will happen one day. 
I don't like that, but that is the potency of Nichelle Nichols as Uhura

circa 4:32
The terms science fiction or fantasy have commonly accepted definitions but are in no way bounded to the common definitions. 
I define for this section fantasy as any film that involves the unreal, so aliens/monsters/psycopaths any unreal character, including faux biographcal characters is fantasy. 
Musicals I define as films where exhibitions of songs are inacted by thespians in the film on more than one occasion, thus seven brides for seven brothers <which I never saw, but I recall the title>, Purple Rain, west side story are musicals. The fifth element, footloose, the color purple, ray are not musicals based on my definition.
I will not speak for Nike, but when I say major production in USA cinema, I refer to volume of money spent on the film. Blackwood, Black financed cinema in the usa, is historically in comparison to Hollywood,white financed cinema in the USA, lower budget. But I do not concur with comparing Black cinema to white cinema financially in the usa. The distinction of Black cinema in the usa is it is historically with the leanest finances, thus expensive fantastic productions are not possible. Thus why Dream Fiction is so popular in Black Cinema: Body and Soul, Sankofa, Daughters of the Dust, Ceddo , Emitai
In the USA no high budget Hollywood film involving what is commonly called science fiction had a black female lead before sanaa lathan. Dionna Ross was in a high budget film , but the WIZ is commonly considered a musical or fantasy film, not science fiction, in the USA.
Oddly enough, the journey of Dorothy is a dream journey which is historically interesting with the prevalence of dream fiction in Black cinema.

circa 5:38 
Nicole asked a historical question. She asked, I paraphrase her, Black people are usually cast in Hollywood, note I define hollywood as white financed cinema in the USA, in dramatic or comedy roles but to what extent are Black thespians comfortable or the Black audience comfortable with Science fiction? 
I recall Eddie Murphy saying he turned down who framed roger rabbit based on the screenplay he received or pitch he got, and he didn't buy it. The white actor, bob hoskins, who played the role Murphy let go ,oddly enough to my themes, was in a movie in 1986 called Mona Lisa, which is a dream fiction film. 
So Eddie Murphy's admitted career choices show Black thespians have doubts. I add, Denzel Washington turned down Seven, which Morgan Freeman did. Sequentially, "the nutty professor" or "doctor dolittle" from Murphy or "the little things" from Washington. 
In defense to Murphy or Denzel, I read screenplays. And if you ever read the original screenplay of 1986 legend, by Hjortsberg  ,  you will realize how what thespians are originally pitched can be far away from what is finally produced. 
Now, why does that matter? To Nicole's point, Black Thespians based on the two examples I gave maintain the Black labor mentality in the USA. The Black labor mentality is based on the fact that Black people rarely are the owners, thus our employment is never secure and must be merited. Sequentially, as a thespian, mistakes are costly in a career. Sequentially, Black Thespians don't take the risks that early scripts present themselves to be.
As for the Black audience, the Black audience was always ready, but only recently had the money.

circa 6:51
Nike spoke on Black Panther and how a question existed in media. The question was: if people, I will define people as ticket buyers to films, was ready for an all black cast superhero film, I define ready as willing to buy tickets? 
The reality is , consumers are always artistically ready, but not always financially able. I restate, Black people always wanted to see Black people in everything. But Black people didn't have the money, nor did the non black ticket buyers show the willingness to buy a ticket for an all black high budget film in the past. 
But past the year 2020 when Blacks in: Africa,Europe, the Americas, Asia are all financially potent, let alone capable, they have the money to buy the tickets. 
And, non Black ticket buyers past the year 2020 are willing to buy an all Black cast. 

Circa 7:52
Nike states Hollywood, I defined it earlier, does not feel non blacks are willing to pay a ticket to see Black leads today. I concur. But I will say in the fantasy film realm, especially, that some Black creators haven't helped. 
From Poitier in the film "The Longships" <oh the Black Moor:) forgive me> to  Sayles, a white director, "Brother from another planet" starring Jellyroll Morton to Wesley SNipes as Blade, Black thespians have taken fantasy roles seriously.
But from "Cleopatra Jones" to "The Adventures of Pluto Nash" to "Fat Albert" to "MEtero Man" Black creators or thespians have played fantasy roles in a comedic way that hurts the role. 
To be blunt, fantasy can easily become comedy, as it is easy to laugh at the unreal. To many examples of Black thespians making a fantasy role comedic exists. 
And that is why Sanaa LAthan's heroine in Alien vs PRedator is a great role. She is Black, she is a woman, the film is a hollywood high budget, but she isn't comedic. While she still offers the full range of emotions through the character's scenes, from funny, to sexy, to brave, to afraid, to legendary.

circa 8:42 
Nicole makes the point, I restate her, Black money has finally reached a point where it can influence larger fields in the film universe.
The 1970s Hollywood films involving or starring Black thespians, commonly called Blaxploitation, was reflected on greater Black revenue in theaters as well as white ticket buyers willingness to buy said hollywood films with black thespians. How many white women know the Shaft song? 

circa 10:39
They , Nike side Nicole, speak on Sanaa Lathan's preparation, and how they felt she forced some of her lines. Sanaa was inexperienced in the genre. When you look at Sigourney Weaver in Aliens as compared to Alien you see what having one of these in the belt means. But they do make a great comparison between LAthan in "Alien vs PRedator" in comparison to Angela Bassett in "What's love got to do with it". 
My only issue is I would had compared Sanaa LAthan in "Alien Vs PRedator" to Angela BAssett in "Strange Days" . Yes, Ralph Fiennes was the lead thespian but Angela Bassett was totally convincing as the single mom black security driver who has a unrequited love to a man who earned her respect and is going through his own internal chaos while los angeles is going through a potential phenotypical war, and the man in question happens to be white.
I argue it will be nice to see if Angela BAssett was called for Alien vs PRedator and did any casting tests.

circa 12:10 
Nicole side Nike go over Sanaa Lathan in films like "Disappearing Acts" or "Brown Sugar"

circa 12:25
Everyone wish Nicole Decandis a happy BESOONED BIRTHDAY!!! seven days from the time of this post

circa 13:31 
They talked about the Alien or PRedator franchise and whether the story for Alien vs PRedator helped Sanna LAthan. 
I saw all the Predator films or the ALien films 1 to 3 before this film. 
It is a standalone, it refers to either film franchises but doesn't own either. It is standalone and even alludes, in location,  to the legendary story "who goes there" more commonly known in the film world as the "the thing from another world" or "the thing"

circa 15:52
I want to merely repeat what Nike stated about a film I will not type out in name, but say it is the supposed sequel to Alien vs PRedator. 
It didn't need to happen. 
Those who know about an annihilation, that is a clue , know what I am talking about. How can all that is good be killed in a sequel?  It makes wrath of khan look magical.

circa 16:04
I don't rate or star films, enjoy Nike or Nicole's rating.
My review is, if you are looking for a fun action film ride, Alien vs Predator is a fun ride. If you are a hardcore

Alien or PRedator fan that wants the details followed, this movie isn't for you. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EZcgCyq8B0

MOVIES THAT MOVE WE- aalbc search
https://aalbc.com/tc/search/?&q=%22movies%20that%20move%20we%22&quick=1&search_and_or=or&sortby=relevancy
 

Hidden Figures

review from

Movies That Move We

Black Home Movies

Sir Solomon Jones’ Home Movies, 1925-1926

The Sir Solomon Jones home films are a dynamic showcase of Black living. His movies are some of the earliest accessible intracommunity chronicles of Black life. Solomon Jones displays the intimacy of hairdressing, football games, and Turkey Day in this silent survey.

URL

https://blackfilmarchive.com/Sir-Solomon-Jones-Home-Movies-1925-1926

URL

https://beineckelibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1058/collection_resources/35014

Wedding Reception

What does tenderness look like? In this short home movie, Thomas F. Freeman records the pomp and circumstance of the union of two hearts.

URL

https://blackfilmarchive.com/Wedding-Reception

URL

https://texasarchive.org/2011_00779

All were asked to the following article in the group Movies That Move We < https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqYM90UgloorX_NbqqZRCfw >  

Is there a film you would add to this list? Is there a film that you think shouldn’t be on this list? Name them and tell us why!

ARTICLE BEGIN

Five films that could never come out in 2022
OPINION: These movies aged like cottage cheese left out in the sun.
Dustin Seibert Jan 21, 2022
Being a Gen X-er/elder millennial all but demands that we scrutinize the media from our formative years.

Unlike our Baby Boomer parents, who don’t really care as much about evolving social propriety, we tend to have an almost visceral response to the stuff we enjoyed in the 1980s and 1990s that didn’t age well. Presumably, it’s happened to us all: We watch the digital version of a film we used to wear out on VHS, or we stream a jam we used to own on cassette, only to clutch our teeth and let out an “Eeeeeeee.”
Below are several of those films that elicit such a response. In some cases, it’s one scene or plotline; in one case, you can just throw the entire film away. Note that this list is far from exhaustive and doesn’t include films in which the offensiveness is intended. (see: Blazing Saddles)

Purple Rain (1984)
My favorite terrible movie of all time. I’ve seen Purple Rain more times than I can count over the last 38 years since my mama’s massive Prince fandom circumvented any concerns about her kid watching R-rated content.
But it was as an adult that I realized no one involved in the making of this film gave even a tincture of a damn about women. From The Kid’s interminable petulance (and ultimate violence) toward Apollonia (Apollonia Kotero) to tricking her into jumping topless in “Lake Minnetonka” to the marginalization of Wendy (Wendy Melvoin) and Lisa (Lisa Coleman) until it benefited The Kid, Albert Magnoli’s musical drama is steeped in Olympic-level misogyny.

The worst scene, however, is when Morris (Morris Day) is confronted with one of his “sexies,” whom Jerome (Jerome Benton) picks up and tosses in a dumpster. Twitter would be on fire if, say, Bruno Mars made a movie pulling this s— in 2022.

The Best Man (1999)
Perhaps not as egregious as the other films on this list, but The Best Man delves into the Madonna-whore complex and what constitutes a “good” man, and, I think, inadvertently hoists up outmoded ideas.
The core conflict lies in a semi-fictional book that Harper (Taye Diggs) wrote based on his quartet of homies. Professional athlete and recovering man-whore Lance (Morris Chestnut) learns just before the wedding that fiancé Mia (Monica Calhoun) smashed Harper back in college while he was cheating on her left, right and sideways and is ready to blow the whole wedding to pieces over it. Because God forbid a woman demonstrates some sexual agency before she hangs it up.

Shelby (Melissa De Sousa) is a one-note shrew of a girlfriend, and while the first film did well with Candy, the stripper with a heart of gold (Regina Hall) linking with the pusillanimous “good guy” Murch (Harold Perrineau), they throw the goodwill of that plotline out the window in the sequel, The Best Man Holiday, when Murch jeopardizes their marriage after receiving a video of Candy living her best sexual life before they met. Meanwhile, the capricious “bad guy” Quentin (Terrence Howard) is the only character living out their truth in either film.

The Best Man isn’t exactly unrealistic in its core depictions, but the original would light up social media if it were released in 2022.

Love Jones (1997)

Perhaps the most divisive film on this list (read: you might get cut amid debates), the entirety of Love Jones isn’t terribly problematic, and I appreciate the way it handles the complicated nuances of marriage via Isaiah Washington’s character.

But one sequence is a no-go: Larenz Tate’s Darius Lovehall shows up at the house of Nina Mosley (Nia Long) only because he jacked Nina’s address from a check she writes at the record store. And Darius’ girl, Sheila (Bernadette L. Clarke), who works at the record store, allows it.

The film presents it as a noble whatever-it-takes romantic gesture. But it screams “stalker,” and the 2022 version of Nina would’ve likely tased Darius in the nuts and called the cops.

Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995)

Both of Jim Carrey’s star-making Ace Ventura films wouldn’t fly in the Age of Twitter—the first movie is rife with homophobia. But the sequel features a plotline involving a fictional indigenous African tribe whose customs are played for laughs in contrast to Ace’s western sensibilities. Any African stereotype you’d imagine white Westerners harbor is probably in the film.

Tommy Davidson portrays tribe member “Tiny Warrior,” speaking no actual words in lieu of animal noises meant to portray him as less human, more rabid rodent. That the film has the distinction of being America’s first exposure to the lovely Sophie Okonedo doesn’t absolve it of its sins.

Soul Man (1986)
The apotheosis of obsolete filmmaking, the most offensive thing about this film isn’t the fact that the protagonist Mark Watson (C. Thomas Howell) complains about tuition and fees at Harvard Law School totaling just over $10,000 (which will probably buy you one textbook and a sandwich in 2022).

It’s that the entire conceit of the film involves a white man exploiting affirmative-action scholarship benefits by enrolling in and attending the school in blackface. Considering we’ve had a blackface reckoning in recent years that even caught up the beloved prime minister of Canada and that we’re forced to have the same god—m conversation with white folks every Halloween, Soul Man wouldn’t have made it past a first script draft in 2022.  

Apparently, the film was even controversial when it dropped in the mid-1980s. But social media was decades away from being a thing, so it wasn’t around to prevent Soul Man from becoming a commercial success.

BONUS: Every black film that exploited LGBTQ+ people
It would probably blow the mind of your average 20-year-old to see how reckless Hollywood was with the LGBTQ+ community a couple of decades ago. Film and television were full of either latent or blatant examples of rank homophobia.

A Low Down Dirty Shame (1994) featured Wayman (Corwin Hawkins), a gay Black man who existed only to be demeaned by Keenan Ivory Wayans’ Shame. The entire talky twist of The Crying Game (1992) involves the “reveal” of the deceitful trans woman.

Also, figure every film and television show involving a dude dressing up as a large, “unattractive” Black woman is predicated on some degree of transphobia. I’m looking at you, Wanda and Sheneneh.

ARTICLE END

A QUICK THOUGHT TO THE ARTICLE

It start with a lot of negative bias to those in certain age ranges, while supposes support to women from the physical violence or subjegation of men. It also has a large amount of cultural negative bias. Remember, race is any form of classification/rank/ordering from phenotype to gender to age to cultural beliefs to geography to releigion to religion to... you comprehend.

MY THOUGHTS TO EACH FILM IN THE LIST

Purple Rain is interesting. I remember hearing, a video recording of Prince, speak on a real event where a member of his team threw Vanity/Denise into his pool, and when I heard that story I thought of this scene. In the context of the article, it opens up alot in terms of the level of mysogyny. 
But, the greater issue is misogyny. I saw a halftime show in which Purple Rain was chanted by many people who clearly were in the ambiance of the artist formerly known as Prince as well as their thoughts of loving ones whose spirits have flown, which the song alludes too. 
Suggesting that this movie can not be seen, for a scene of abuse toward a woman from a man, is discounting how many people heard that song through the movie. Is it a wareranted sacrifice, I wonder? 
As for Prince's characters mimicry of his father's abuse, that is actually the stories point. Prince's character was evolving in a film. Like bobba Fett from being the lone man killer that many of the characters fans demand or want to the killer who has gained from priceless experience a level of growth that in all living things, takes time.
The question is, does Prince's characters modulation not warrant to be seen? Is the argument from the philosophy the article writer espouses that the modern audience can not handle watching the change in a character, they can only accept witnessing the final result? 

I only saw a few scenes of the Best Man. I admit, I have little liking or patience to these black group film dramas. To those who enjoy that style of art it is entertaining but for me, I can't stomach it long as a genre. 
I do know of the basic plot though. I don't see how the movie will be banned for portraying characters that share traits with many living people, in the same way, purple rain does to. 
But that leads to another question, is this about presenting fantasy humans? I rephrase, is this movement of cancelling culture to only allow one cultural mold? if so, how can art be deemed in it free to express all culture?

Love Jones scenario is like in the Best Man. Stalking is human, is it denied by not showing it in a film? and by not showing it is art improved.

I never saw any Ace Ventura film, so I admit, I can have it expunged as I am not a fan of jim carrey's comedy for the most part in general, yes I never saw Dumb and dumb series as well.
But to the theme, people who dislike homosexuals is not new nor will go away throughout all humanity. And, though few to no movies offer the reverse insult, many black people don't think positively of white communities.

I want to speak about Rae Dawn Chong and James Earl Jones, when it comes to the film "Soul Man". Rae Dawn Chong contends the film isn't negatively biased. And this goes to the penultimate issue. In the end, who determines how another is meant to see the world/humanity/life?
This battle over what art should be viewed from the times when non white europeans were disallowed under white european domination or in the complex multiracial landscape of the usa, with each tribe trying to make one cultural perspective dominant, shows the dysfunction of the attempt. No culture ever truly dies, it at the most diminished becomes a private culture, but cultures never die.
Spike Lee and the impotent N.A.A.C.P. made this film a battleground but the issue of black owned film production or black people in the mechanics of the industry had no words from said people except one day it will happen or beg whites. Rae Dawn Chong was right, it was all talk. Talk for media points. 

A bonus, Al SHarpton who I do not usually concur too explained the idea behind the self righteous non violent movement, brilliantly. I paraphrase him. The non violent mantra is not merely about stopping those who utilize violence against you but not allowing yourself to utilize violence. This paraphrasing is the entire idea behind the bonus section in the article.
But, that is self righteous. To tell someone to hold themselves to a cultural view, regardless of anything is not only self rightoeus but goes back to the entire flaw of the cancel culture strategem or similar cultural blocks from the past from one community to another. 
WHy don't black parents speak of Nat Turner or Jean Jacques Dessalines? what did either do wrong that does not warrant mention? they acted violently against those who were violent towards them? 
Their actions have been cancelled by many black people long before cancel culture, but has that improved the collective lot of the black community, has it changed the lot of the white community ? the answer is no.

NAME THE FILMS I WILL ADD? NAME THE FILMS THAT SHOULDN'T BE ON THIS LIST?  
None and All. I will paraphrase a white jewish female writer: art can not be the battleground for culture. 
I know she is right. Not seeing an action, does not delete an action. On the other hand, seeing an action does not embolden an action. 
The whole concept of not showing certain arts based on the messages in them, is based on the idea that it will influence culture. But is that true? 
I use two scenarios in human history as my proof they do not.
The Sars-Cov-2 era in NYC, specifically, when the city had a near total shut down of activity. 
During that time in New York City, the advertised freethinking capitol in the United States of America, the levels of abuse from men to women, from adult male children to their senior female parents , rose by a huge percent. Was said increase of a certain activity based on a film? was said increase based on a music video or video game? 
What does the first scenario prove? That misogyny's source is not media. When people were forced into their homes side their supposed loving ones they got more violent, not less. In particular men showed a increased dislike toward the women they live with, being forced to be next to them. IS media the source of the misogyny... or is it how we humans build or maintain relationships? The last point being, can not showing an action in media help to yield better relationships. I say no.

The second scenario is media by people of color, people of color defined as non white europeans, in the age of white european imperial power. MEaning from the 1400s to the end of world war two < which began the first phase in the era of white statian imperial power, commonly called the cold war >
In the white european imperial power age people of color, made art that was often chastized, or burned, or blockaded from the view of people of color themselves, but they made it. This artwork didn't free people of color or stop white european power. But it was symbols of another culture than the one in power. 
What does the second scenario prove? art doesn't change the alignments in humanity. It comes from the soul, and can inpsire humans, but can not deflect bullets, can not make laws. And it is bullets and laws that dictate the alignment of humans in humanity.

Sequentially, I add no film to this and think all films should not be present in it. The list is dysfunctional.
I am not a NAzi, I have no desire to be white or german or aryan. But I think the night marches are beautiful from the nazis. The premise of waging cultural war through art is suggesting, the human individual or collective can be so moved by art that it dictates who they are or who they want to be. I oppose that viewpoint. I think history proves my opposition correct. 

Article U.R.L.
https://thegrio.com/2022/01/21/five-films-that-could-never-come-out-in-2022/

Movies that Move WE- Selma 

MY COMMENT

odd that this year, MLK jr day is the same time as Marcus Garvey's birthday.. I think the contrast between marcus garvey's long term vision as opposed to the long term vision of MLKjr or his predecessors, WEB DUbois when young or earlier Frederick DOuglass , concerning the relationship of blacks in the americas americas  to whites  in the americas.

Now to the video...
6:40 yes, MLK jr was not a fool about being an advocate . He knew it wasn't financially grand nor had a great chance of true success. But, the identity of a christian baptist preacher was important to regaling. 
8:04 yes, black businesses had a huge role in financing the civil rights movement of the 1960s, I wonder if they got their money's worth
9:01 black christian women have always been the backbone or the administration or communal arrangement of the black church.
9:32 My home had people who were at the march on washington. I concur to Nicole, having people who were in the home who experienced the history is key, but only truly matters if they convey it
11:10 yes Nicole , the disconnect is the communities fault. Every community in the usa, from the embattled native american to the afghanistani's from the iraq war have to teach who they are to their children and all who fail to get the proper results
14:14 good point, Nike, the illusion that the past is so far from the present. Like the racial is so far from the post racial
15:35 good dialog, Nicole/Nike about the progression of black history in the usa and how the black community has changed very fast while also very irratically for various reasons
16:47 You two offer the question many have asked before and many will ask after... how did the black community not maintain a highly serious collective tone from circa 1850 to circa 2022 ? 
19:47 Nicole, urgency from whom? How many black people, who are in elected office, are millionaires, feel the sense for urgency seriously? they all will say urgency is needed. but, how many truly feel that?
26:41 MLK jr is a legendary speaker, funny how Malcolm is also the son of a preacher man
27:55 the last speech from mlk jr in harlem was at the riverside church, which has the largest carillon in the world
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/1/17/mlk_day_special_2022#:~:text=We play his “Beyond Vietnam” speech%2C which he,Copy may not be in its final form. 
where do we go from here
https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/where-do-we-go-here
29:35 yes, but history books in mass education generally soften history. Histories details are by default, not a quick thing. Histories details, show how jews helped the naziz. How hong kong was the epicenter of domination by the united kingdom over the entirety of china. Histories details, show the good or supposed innocent are not that good or innocent, how the bad or supposed hellish are not that sinful or devious.

In conclusion, you two made a lovely dialog, but I will suggest you made one potent absence. All to often, black people say, what are we not doing? but answer in your own way, what do we need to do?
I know a number of black men who went to the million man march and the reality is, black men showed up to what the black organizers had planned, but the black organizers had no plan whatsoever? Black men came from around the usa to be guided with functionality or purpose not words or chastizement.
I will give an example, if a million black men came together, and asked me what to do. I can suggest, make a credit union. Each man who is here put a dollar into a collection and give each man a vote over how the money is used. Is it a brilliant plan? no. It is very simple. but it is function/purpose. It isn't a "do good fellas" speech.
What do you two black women want black people to do specifically, name one thing?   

A last point, Haile Sellasie offered land before his ousting by the communist party of ethiopia , only a third of it was given by the communist government of ethiopia , but it went to rastafarians, who grabbed the opportunity. I am doing research to see how the black people of HArlem Selassie had originally offered the land did not know, reject it or failed interest while black people from jamaica jumped on it. The town is called Shashamane. 

My R&A - response and articles

Well.. this topic goes into fiscal capitalism: its modern form in the usa + emitted to the remainder of humanity from the usa, the management of industries in the usa, individual wealth or living standards in the us, the prosequences or consequences of complete ownership in fiscal capitalism or the alternatives to complete ownership. ... but to be briefest, from the crafts of the oldest humans or the walls of kemet to the empire of mars, arts + crafts are best shared when totally public, ala library. But within private homes, complete ownership is best for all arts or crafts. 

Christopher Nolan Says Streaming-Only Content Is a ‘Danger’ and Can ‘Get Taken Down,’ Guillermo del Toro Calls Owning Physical Media a ‘Responsibility’

By Zack Sharf

Christopher Nolan made headlines earlier this month when he took a playful jab at streaming platforms while discussing the upcoming home release of “Oppenheimer.” The atomic bomb drama, which grossed a staggering $950 million in theaters worldwide, is hitting Blu-ray and other digital platforms this month. Nolan said at a recent “Oppenheimer” screening that it’s important to own the film on Blu-ray so that “no evil streaming service can come steal it from you.”

“It was a joke when I said it. But nothing’s a joke when it’s transcribed onto the internet,” Nolan recently told The Washington Post [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/movies/2023/11/17/christopher-nolan-oppenheimer-style-session/ ] in a follow-up interview.

“There is a danger, these days, that if things only exist in the streaming version they do get taken down, they come and go,” the director added.

Streamers have become notoriously known in the last year for pulling original titles from their platforms in order to license them out elsewhere and open up potential revenue streams. When such titles are streaming-only offerings, their removal makes it impossible to view the films elsewhere. Such was the case this year with the Disney+ movie “Crater,” for instance. The streaming-only family adventure was pulled from Disney+ in June and could not be viewed anywhere until it was reissued as a digital release months later in September. For Nolan, owning physical media is the only way to combat such streaming trends.

Guillermo del Toro agrees, having shared Nolan’s recent quotes on X (formerly Twitter) and adding his own commentary on the issue.

“Physical media is almost a Fahrenheit 451 (where people memorized entire books and thus became the book they loved) level of responsibility,” del Toro wrote to his followers. “If you own a great 4K HD, Blu-ray, DVD etc etc of a film or films you love…you are the custodian of those films for generations to come.”

Nolan previously said that he has spent months preparing “Oppenheimer” for home release so that the Blu-ray version of the film sounds and looks as pristine as the film’s theatrical release.

“Obviously ‘Oppenheimer’ has been quite a ride for us and now it is time for me to release a home version of the film. I’ve been working very hard on it for months,” Nolan said. “I’m known for my love of theatrical and put my whole life into that, but, the truth is, the way the film goes out at home is equally important.”

“‘The Dark Knight’ was one of the first films where we formatted it specially for Blu-ray release because it was a new form at the time,” he continued. “And in the case of ‘Oppenheimer,’ we put a lot of care and attention into the Blu-ray version… and trying to translate the photography and the sound, putting that into the digital realm with a version you can buy and own at home and put on a shelf so no evil streaming service can come steal it from you.”

U.R.L.

https://variety.com/2023/film/news/christopher-nolan-streaming-films-danger-risk-pulled-1235802476/

PASSING BY MOVIES THAT MOVE WE

MY THOUGHTS

2:14 Many people I know have said the topic of passing is heavy but I don't see it that way. Yella people pass cause they are phenotypically closer to white. The real issue for me is the one drop rules great dysfunction in the usa. The one drop rule favored white european purity. 
6:56 great personal story from Nicole Candace about passing in her bloodline. The key issue is just because one isn't white does that mean one isn't black. 
9:02 Carol Channing was not black. I don't care what anybody say. She was Yella. It is time for Black folk to use Yella as an official label. 
11:43 Yes, Harlem at a time was somewhat of a bubble, not completely. But Colored women, Black or Yella, still try to protect colored children by not admitting the culture they live in. 
13:24 In the same way Irene's husband and IRene have disagreement about their association to the usa, has that difference of opinion on the USA  between black women side men still exists? even if it isn't advertised. 
17:00 good point in how these two women deemed black are both unhappy in either situation. 
19:25 well, I think an open secret in the room is how yella women have a long history of being abused, by black men who want a trophy wife and white men who want a woman to abuse or own. 
21:59 all our names, funny , Nicole
22:44 My Little Nig by THomas G Key in 1845 Signal of Liberty poetry section < https://aadl.org/signalofliberty/SL_18450303-p1-02 >  Here is "My Little Nig" reused in the book Clotel by William Wells Brown < https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/161/clotel-or-the-presidents-daughter/2842/chapter-11-the-parson-poet/ >  Signal of america was an abolitionists newspaper < https://aadl.org/papers/signalofliberty>
25:15 PReach Nike, Negras are not blancos but the idea of being latino in the usa is predominated by what are called mestizos in latin america. 
27:13 Nicole, I will love to know what black women think on yella/white skinned women choosing the blackest black man so to speak? 
28:29 The director, geniously or in the spirit of larson, realized the two women are in a trap as individuals and they both are dealing with realizing their uncomforts. The story destroys the tragic mullattess
35:22 Clare is releaved when she is amongst black people cause she has spent years worried at every gesture, while Irene has yearned for more than her comfortable life.
38:43 interesting, the director maintained that query. I offer a question. Imagine being two women , who are phenotypically white, as children, alone among a midst of black children. It will pull both female children together. My point is, when people are pushed into proximity to each other against all others, it creates a closeness to each other that may not lead to intercourse but comes as praise or adoration.
43:39 Interesting Nicole, I think Larson was trying to get away from the tragic mulatto , but you are saying the director pushed the tragic position.  HAHA! PAssing 2!:) I know the title for PAssing 3, it is PAssing 3 the grands Great point by Nicole
45:30 Like the book, the movie ends on the cliffhanger , like a who dunnit detective novel, all we need now is the stuff dreams are made of:) 
46:40 I agree, a sense of total failure, exists, but it isn't merely the lies, it is the bad marriages, it is the country. Two men who don't know their wives good enough. Children who don't know their parents.  Look at the RHinelander trial, that LArson admitted knowing about < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinelander_v._Rhinelander > 
49:20 Nicole makes an interesting point, to out Clare is to out himself , specifically, to injure his social standing. Some white men will not associate with clare's husband if they found out. 
51:24 Yes, there was a time where the black community in nyc in particular had the wealth and had a cultural desire to be considered upstanding. Most black people lived in the southern states and were dirt poor.  Well, that harlem is gone, and the architecture of harlem was meant for whites, rich whites, so harlem itself in some way was passing. The polo grounds was meant to play polo, not baseball, like the ny giants or ny yankees that played there. So, harlem's architecture was meant to be for wealthy whites. but black people got harlem cause rich whites went away.
55:36 good point about the reality in another time Nicole, it works for all things. Ala the people of Hong Kong and their britishness.

Video Link- if embedding fails
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0DnBaH5KDo

IN AMENDMENT
CLotel more information : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clotel

A lasting thought was about the label Karen. Do we need to use the label Irene for Yella black women that like to be uppity? OR use the label Clare for Yella black women that want to be blackity black?
 

A Call for Submissions
for the Killens Review of Arts & Letters
Spring 2024

All That We Carry: Where Do We Go From Here?

Deadline: Friday, December 1, 2023

The Killens Review of Arts & Letters is a peer-reviewed journal that welcomes Black writers and artists whose work speaks to the general public and to an intergenerational range of readers represented throughout the African diaspora. For the Spring 2024 issue of the Killens Review, we are seeking short stories, essays, creative nonfiction, poetry, art, and photography. Inspired by questions posed by Dr. Tiya Miles, eminent historian and creative writer, and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we are soliciting content that reflects how Black creatives from all parts of the world move forward when all around us is in disarray. Specifically, we ask that you submit original writing or art that explores the themes of legacy, memory, inheritance, and/or radical hope (or pessimism), with an orientation toward the future and future generations of Black peoples.

Application

https://centerforblackliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/CFP_Killens-Review-Spring-2024.pdf

phantom lady 1944 - portrait of ella raines - photography alamy

Column: How profit-driven turmoil at Turner Classic Movies placed a vast cultural heritage at risk

Michael Hiltzik

June 29, 2023

It wasn't that long ago that the cause of film preservation and film history seemed to be on a roll. Multiple cable channels such as American Movie Classics, Bravo and Encore were devoted to classic films from the 1930s through the 1980s. When streaming supplanted scheduled cable programming, FilmStruck offered viewers a huge library of classics from the libraries of Warner Bros. and other studios.

Through it all Turner Classic Movies, or TCM, was the much-admired king. The channel was founded in 1994 by entrepreneur Ted Turner to show the library of MGM classic films he had acquired. It evolved to not only screen classic films but also curate its offerings, providing historical commentaries and interviews presented by knowledgeable hosts.

All those other services have either disappeared or been repurposed away from classic films. Until a couple of weeks ago, TCM appeared to be one of the sole survivors in the classic movie landscape.

Bruce Goldstein, Film Forum

But on June 20, David Zaslav, chief executive of TCM's new owner, Warner Bros. Discovery, swung the ax. Layoffs wiped out the network's entire top management, including some figures who had been its leaders for decades. TCM was placed under the supervision of an executive whose other responsibilities included the Adult Swim channel and Cartoon Network.

The sense of dismay and betrayal that swept across Hollywood was almost indescribable. Film stars and character actors known to millions of fans took to social media to condemn the move. Film directors Steven Spielberg, Paul Thomas Anderson and Martin Scorsese reached out to Zaslav to urge him to back off, advice he seems to have taken, partially.

The turmoil at TCM points to more than a single company's effort to squeeze as much profit as possible from a single asset. It reflects the impulse by the corporate stewards of America's immense film history to view that culture strictly in commercial terms.

"Whether Mr. Zaslav planned to or not, he has inherited an American cultural treasure that he is responsible for safeguarding," film historian Alan K. Rode, a director of the Film Noir Foundation, told me. "But he's also trying to run a business that's over $40 billion in debt. I don't know how you square that circle."

This is not a new conundrum. Almost all artifacts of film history are squirreled away in studios' vaults, where they've been subject to the vicissitudes of corporate accounting and the ebb and flow of mergers and acquisitions.

Occasionally, when they're encouraged by cultural fashions or the appearance of new technologies, the studios have burrowed into their film libraries to assess their marketability and try to untangle ownership rights.

Some 700 historic Paramount Studios productions, for example, are assumed to be nestled in the vaults of Universal Pictures, which inherited Paramount’s 1930s and 1940s film archive from its forebear MCA, which acquired the collection in 1958. (Universal was later absorbed by NBC and is now a division of the entertainment conglomerate Comcast.)

The studios don't repurpose their libraries wholesale. Converting old films to digital formats to be screened online or on cable, or shown in theaters equipped with digital projectors, is an expensive and complicated process. Only films thought to have commercial potential get the favored treatment. Most of the others remain largely inaccessible to the public.

Warner Bros., now absorbed into Warner Bros. Discovery, was long considered the best steward of its cultural hoard. Its Warner Archives division was the industry gold standard in the care and marketing of the past. Under division head George Feltenstein, now the Warner library historian, Warner put thousands of titles, including TV series, on sale as made-to-order DVDs and established a subscription video streaming service that has since been incorporated into the company's Max streaming service.

Choosing which films to market as DVDs or Blu-ray discs was sometimes an easy call, sometimes a challenge, Feltenstein told me in 2015. “There always will be a place on the retail shelf for ‘Casablanca,’ ‘King Kong’ or ‘Citizen Kane,’” he said. But others required finer judgments or innovative marketing. Warner Bros. still offers DVDs and Blu-rays from its classic and contemporary libraries for sale.

Classic-film cable and streaming services have tended to have short half-lives. Consider the fate of FilmStruck, which launched as the subscription-based streaming arm of Turner Classic Movies in November 2016 with an inventory of 500 films, including 200 from the classic movie library of the Criterion Collection. FilmStruck quickly became what Esquire termed "the new go-to movie destination for serious movie buffs."

Two years later, FilmStruck was dead, slain by Warner Bros.' new owner, AT&T, which couldn't wait for the service to grow beyond its base of 100,000 subscribers and reach profitability. For AT&T, as I wrote then, "mass subscribership and profits are the ballgame," patience be damned.

Other networks that had been founded to cultivate an audience of film fans suffered a similar fate. American Movie Classics was founded in 1984 as a premium cable channel to air classic films uncut and commercial-free. It even sponsored an annual film festival to raise money for film preservation. In 2002 it was rebranded as AMC and refocused on prestige TV. AMC produced "Breaking Bad" and "Mad Men," among other series — good TV, certainly, but not classic films.

AMC's sister channel, Bravo, was launched in 1980 to present classic foreign and independent films. After NBC bought it in 2002, it was turned into a showcase for reality series.

Yet audience interest in classic movies and film history continued to grow. "Ten years ago, I felt that we were in kind of a golden age of appreciation of film classics and appreciation, and TCM was a huge part of that," says Bruce Goldstein, the founding repertory artistic director of Film Forum, a New York repertory house. "Now it seems to be falling apart."

TCM and the Criterion Channel remain the go-to streaming destinations for classics. Netflix, am*zon Prime and other networks have minimal classic libraries and no learned curation.

On the surface, there is no great mystery about why Warner Bros. Discovery and Zaslav might want to draw in their financial horns a bit. The company is laboring under a crippling debt load of more than $49 billion, most of it resulting from the 2022 merger that brought together the cable programming company Discovery and the WarnerMedia division of AT&T, itself the product of AT&T's 2016 takeover of Time Warner.

Given the combined companies' loss of $7.4 billion on revenue of $33.8 billion last year, plainly something had to give. The question being asked by cultural historians, cinephiles and plain ordinary film fans is why TCM had to be part of the bloodletting. It was reportedly profitable, if not hugely so, but by any measure not a significant factor on the merged company's profit-and-loss landscape.

That low profile in corporate terms could be TCM's salvation. As my colleague Stephen Battaglio reported, an outcry in the film industry, including by Spielberg, Anderson and Scorsese, has prompted Zaslav to reassess the bludgeoning he visited upon TCM.

The network's longtime programming chief, Charles Tabesh, who had been fired, will stay on, TCM says. Spielberg, Anderson and Scorsese will have a voice on TCM's curation and scheduling. TCM's classic film festival, held annually in Hollywood, will continue. In a move aimed at quelling outrage in the industry, the network will report directly to Warner Bros. Pictures Group co-heads Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy.

Those developments generated an optimistic joint statement from Spielberg, Anderson and Scorsese: “We have already begun working on ideas with Mike and Pam, both true film enthusiasts who share a passion and reverence for classic cinema that is the hallmark of the TCM community," the directors said.

It's impossible to overstate the reverence that film historians and preservationists, and fans, have felt for TCM.

"They are the keepers of the flame," says Foster Hirsch, a professor of film at Brooklyn College and member of the Film Noir Foundation board. "They're an enormous resource for scholars and writers and fans of all ages. To start tampering with the brand or to view it in terms of marketing and data exclusively is horrifying. It's an assault on our common culture."

Among TCM's virtues is its eclectic approach. "They didn't show only well-known masterpieces," Hirsch says. "They showed obscure films, some which aren't good, they showed films for almost all tastes, different genres. From an artistic or historical point of view it isn't broken. There was no reason to 'fix' it."

The network has also been an almost unique portal introducing new generations to film culture. "It's been an essential part of people's film education, especially people of my generation," says Jon Dieringer, 37, founder of Screen Slate, a film culture website. "I grew up watching Turner Classic Movies."

Yet how assiduously Warner Bros. Discovery will follow through on its stated commitment to TCM's mission remains open to question, as does whether the network can retain its stature in the cinephile community. The confidence that the network's fans had in its staff and hosts and their ability to provide a curated approach to film history has been deeply shaken.

Many in the film community are hoping that TCM may have suffered nothing more serious than a near-death experience. Whether that's so won't be known for some time. Everyone will be watching, but experience suggests that when public companies pledge to treat the cultural assets under their control as more than generators of cash and profits, it's wise to expect the worst.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/column-profit-driven-turmoil-turner-120049275.html

Too many classic films remain buried in studios’ vaults

BY MICHAEL HILTZIKBUSINESS COLUMNIST 

OCT. 23, 2015 5:48 PM PT

Will McKinley, a New York film writer, is dying to get his hands on a copy of “Alias Nick Beal,” a 1949 film noir starring Ray Milland as a satanic gangster. For classic film blogger Nora Fiore, the Grail might be “The Wild Party” (1929), the first talkie to star 1920’s “It” girl Clara Bow, directed by the pioneering female director Dorothy Arzner. Film critic Leonard Maltin says he’d like to score a viewing of “Hotel Haywire,” a 1937 screwball comedy written by the great comic director Preston Sturges.

Produced by Paramount Studios, these are all among 700 titles assumed to be nestled in the vaults of Universal Pictures, which inherited Paramount’s 1930s and 1940s film archive from its forebear MCA, which acquired the collection in 1958. They’re frustratingly near at hand but out of reach of film fans and cinephiles.

Like most of the other major studios, Universal is grappling with the challenging economics of making more of this hoard accessible to the public on DVD, video on demand or streaming video. Studios have come to realize that there’s not only marketable value in the films, but publicity value in performing as responsible stewards of cultural assets.

I would have to break the law to see that film.

— Cinephile Nora Fiore, of a 1932 classic locked in a studio vault

No studio recognizes these values better than Warner Bros., whose Warner Archives division is the industry gold standard in the care and marketing of the past. The studio sells some 2,300 titles, including TV series, as made-to-order DVDs and offers its own archival video streaming service for a subscription fee of up to $9.99 a month.

The manufacturing-on-demand service, launched in March 2009 with 150 titles, has proved “far more successful than we even dreamed,” says George Feltenstein, a veteran home video executive who heads the division. “I thought that all the studios would follow in our footsteps, but nobody has been as comprehensive as we’ve been.”

Other major studios have dipped their toes into this market, if gingerly. Paramount last year stocked a free YouTube channel with 91 of its own titles, mostly post-1949. This month 20th Century Fox announced that as part of its 100th anniversary this year, it would release 100 remastered classic films, including silents, to buy or rent for high-definition streaming — “enough to make any classic film fan weep with joy,” McKinley wrote on his blog. Sony last year introduced a free cable channel, get.tv, to screen films from its Columbia Pictures archive, though it’s only spottily available and often preempted by cable operators.

Universal offers some manufacture-on-demand titles via am*zon as its Universal Vault Series and announced in May that it would restore 15 of its silent films as part of its 2012 centennial celebration. Curiously, Universal, owned by the cable giant Comcast, is one of the only majors without a dedicated cable channel or Internet streaming service for its archive. Universal spokesperson Cindy Gardner maintains that the studio is working on ways to improve: “Stay tuned.”

Film buffs and historians have easier access to more classic films than ever before. But that only whets their appetite for important — but perhaps forgotten — films.

The 1932 Paramount World War I drama “Broken Lullaby,” Fiore says, might provoke a reexamination of the career of its director, the master of graceful comedy Ernst Lubitsch. But a version that crept onto YouTube a few years ago was taken down at the insistence of Universal. “I would have to break the law to see that film,” laments Fiore, who blogs on classic films in the guise of the Nitrate Diva.

“The studios seem to be sitting on a lot of films, but they’re limited by budget and by their projected return on investment,” says Alan Rode, a director of the Film Noir Foundation. “But it’s not like you open a valve and films come gushing out. If they can’t realize a profit on it, they’re not going to do it.”

Adding to the challenge is that some of the major studios have become subsidiaries of large corporations, and not consistently huge profit centers. For example, Paramount last year contributed about 26% of the $13.8 billion in revenue of its parent, Viacom, but its $205 million in operating profit paled next to the $2.4 billion net income recorded by the whole corporation.

Converting a film title for digital release can be costly, especially under the watchful eye of cinephiles who demand high quality. Some black-and-white titles can be digitized for $40,000 or less, says Jan-Christopher Horak, director of the UCLA Film & Television Archive — with 350,000 titles, the second-largest in the U.S. after only the Library of Congress.

But the price rises exponentially for color, especially for important restoration. UCLA spent about three years and $1.5 million in donated funds on its heroic restoration and digital transfer of the Technicolor classic “The Red Shoes,” a 1948 backstage ballet drama revered for its beauty.

That means that when deciding which titles to prepare for digital release, archive managers must walk a tightrope between serving their audience and protecting the bottom line. Some classics are easy calls. “There always will be a place on the retail shelf for ‘Casablanca,’ ‘King Kong’ or ‘Citizen Kane,’” says Warner’s Feltenstein. But finer judgments are required for what Feltenstein calls “the deeper part of the library.”

“My job is to monetize that content, make it available to the largest number of people possible and do so profitably,” Feltenstein told me. To gauge demand, Feltenstein’s staff keeps lines open with film enthusiasts and historians via Facebook, Twitter, a free weekly podcast and other outreach. “They literally ask us, ‘What do you want to see?’” Fiore says.

That gives them a window into values that others might miss. Take B-movie westerns made in the 1940s and 1950s that landed in the Warners vault. To Allied Artists and Lorimar, their producers, “these films were worthless and they said it’s OK to let them rot,” Feltenstein says. Instead, Warner Archives packaged them into DVD collections, “and they’ve all been nicely profitable.”

Feltenstein says Warners is releasing 30 more titles to its manufacturing-on-demand library every month. “It’s growing precipitously and there’s no end in sight.” Universal’s Gardner says there’s “real momentum” at her studio behind “making our titles more available than ever before.”

But there’s always more beckoning over the horizon. “The good news is that every studio is actively engaged in taking care of its library,” Maltin says. “That’s a big improvement over 20 or 25 years ago. But access is the final frontier.”

[UPDATE: Nell Minow, whose excellent blog on film can be found at Movie Mom and who is a fan of “Alias Nick Beal,” reports that the title character, played by Ray Milland, is more than merely a “satanic gangster” as we describe him above--he’s Satan.]

Michael Hiltzik’s column appears every Sunday. His new book is “Big Science: Ernest Lawrence and the Invention That Launched the Military-Industrial Complex.” Read his blog every day at latimes.com/business/hiltzik, reach him at mhiltzik@latimes.com, check out facebook.com/hiltzik and follow @hiltzikm on Twitter.

https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-20151025-column.html

First act, a set of educators, i think college are helping a colleague leave but they all have an affinity to this colleague, a curiosity about his nature. I concur with Bixby, real human beings are not alarmist and in this select case, all of these are seasoned educators used to slowly thinking about something, so they wouldn't call the cops or paddy wagon immediately. 

Why did I not guess the black leather jacket would call someone from outside first. I thought it would be billingly's character the physics or chemistry professor.

Second act, a female teacher loves him, reminds me of that twilight zone , Long Live Walter JAmeson, by the dead early Charles Beaumont, but extended.

I love Crude demonstration , hilarious, I am not superman. Loving Tony Todd's acting. 

27:34 first seeing the ocean

28:42 he studied with the buddha, and i loved the earlier birth of the vampire myth

29:06 the first betrayal of character, leather jacket should had considered he think of being outed. Considering he called someone he is either biding time or betraying himself.

29:38 ahh well done, he was expecting, 

30:31 i wish i had been here from the beginning, I concur:) 

32:16 he survived the bubonic plague, typhoid , smallpox

32:53 good point, being immortal in a cage isn't desired

33:33 black leather is wrong, common sense isn't insulted by an immortal being, common sense accepts tthe unique is plausible even if it can't not be explained.

35:19 true Tony todd, but time is also the most precious thing in existence.

35:52 exactly, the second is a human construct. an algorithmic truth, not assessed from nature.

36:27 funny moment. slow movie but for those who like to overthink and like dialog fun

37:21 is he lucky? that is the point of the story

39:41 exactly, he is outside most of humanity yet still human, a minority of one

41:46 I love that he didn't go into his past wives or children by the invasive psychiatrist

42:50 good point, the one great chaotic moment is the "immortal man" chose to even do this. I comprehend the writer's point. It is a random idea in one of many lives. But I must admit, my long lived characters wouldn't do this, unless they wish to be caught or have their cycle of lives undone.

43:07 he didn't think of these people's feelings before he told them ahhh, i disagree bixby.

43:37 the psychiatrist, white haired is trying to pull off a guilt trip, i bet he was diagnosed to die soon

44:50 ahh i knew it was a tragedy, the psychiatrist wife died yesterday
I love it, permit me to be infantile by myself. 

46:58 my first wedding funny charades

47:54 this movie clearly couldn't make it in theaters.

48:48 love his answer to 1292 ad

50:04 funny, about the primitive tribe in new guinea:)

51:03 the older woman is a hard core christian

51:47 no way skipping the biblical figure, and now he wants to call it a night, this is what you get when you ask those who study knowledge about a person who has lived longer than common

53:10 he is jesus hahaha! 

53:24 sit down edith, i know 

54:16 yes, sit down edith, lovely honesity from the biologist about his kin

54:41 tony todd, modern, that's good:)

55:29 ahh he is espousing the old belief that jesus learned buddhist ways. it makes sense historically in one way. Buddhism is older than the roman empire, and from the travelers, who were common at that time, labeled magi, who traveled freely in the roman empire because of the might of the roman empire... ok.

56:41 exactly, Tony Todd, christianity was born from the multiracial roman empire. 

58:26 good point, buddha /jesus/the christian god, may not be happy 

59:04 you can tell this was written on bixby's deathbed, a great mortuary story. I wonder what I will write in my last moments.

59:35 hhahaha, the psychiatrist came back:) haha soul saved:) 

1:00:00 nice bridge, we don't need to reintroduce the old topics for the psychiatrist, his shame on leaving.

1:00:53 great joke, nothing unusual in the path of the psychiatrist until the day he met a caveman who thought himself jesus

1:01:46 piety is the mistake they bring to the lessons haha, he is on a roll, Bixby is enjoying himself in his last days

1:03:10 thank you biologist, people make to light the influence of drugs, no, if he is taking a drug it isn't making him go up or down be violent or peaceful, it isn't changing him at all

1:04:20 thank you tony todd, i don't blame you, stay calm and relax.

1:04:55 exactly, psychiatrist, or the modern mythologies of MLKjr or Adolf Hitler

1:07:42 Its funny , in a group called african american literary book club, do you know how many black members suggest the usa will be forever? why is that? why is it, black people who knows kemet has all other human communities by thousands of years will be bested by the usa? what are blacks in the usa afraid of?.... 

1:08:20 how do you know?  I don't smell it. 
exactly, you know when it will rain , all humans do. 

1:09:20 etymology, this does happen. words matter.

1:10:25 good acting, they are all trapped by this story of their colleague

1:11:00 if edith says you aren't jesus one more time

1:11:56 edith have broken down , the psychiatrist had to shed light

1:12:49 the psychiatrist is wrong, he doesn't demand the truth, he demands the lie to keep peace

1:13:44 he is bluffing, well done, he is giving them safety

1:14:22 easy tonny todd:) he want to kill him

1:15:44 it ends safe, well done bixby, he lets the thinkers get off easy

1:16:25 exactly , the woman who lives him is right. 

1:17:59 edith knows. she will leave it

1:18:14 Tony Todd, a latitude in what we call reality... anything is possible
I am going to watch star trek. and yes, good move tony todd
Drop me a line whenever

1:19:34 the psychiatrist found out
easy psychiatrist , the break down. ahh well done, Bixby, ahh the psychiatrist was a man he knew. 

1;21:45 exactly, he never saw his own child again.

1:22:34 yes, let her decide

hahaha, great hook, who knows, let the viewer decide.

IN CONCLUSION
Ok, this movie was fun, but not for the general audience. Alittle careless of him, but that is part of John's humanity, humans even long living one's will make mistakes. 
I know this is an aside, but i love the credits , they are large enough to see and slow enough to follow, many movies have very uncaring or cheap credits.

I say, this is a well constructed example of someone long lived revealing themselves in a paraspontaneous way.

Just thoughtfulness.

I didn't time index from the begining cause I was watching it side relatives , we do those things in our home, but I am glad my relatives went to watch other things as I could write more specifically and i forgot some points early on:)