Ellington

The first review is an online exclusive.

Free the Land
Whether you've already bought into the anti-corporate, "Think Global, Shop Local" mantra, or you're just trying to figure out what all the Wal-Mart bashing is really about, Lori Cheatle and Daisy Wright's "This Land Is Your Land" is the perfect primer to what corporations are doing, or trying to do, to America.

In a phrase: Take over. Trump individual rights. And perhaps most shockingly: Sue for constitutional rights not to be challenged for their violation of people's rights. It's a twisty road, and a discomforting one, but one we must go down.

This road takes viewers through some old territory for someone such as myself who has wandered the social-justice trail for a while now: We meet populist, take-no-prisoners-of-either-party Jim Hightower; Rev. Billy (Talen, who holds his "Church of Stop Shopping" in New York City outside corporate spots like Starbucks); The Raging Grannies ("no more greed"); Naomi Klein, who regularly pisses off corporate apologists with her fact-based journalism.

Perhaps my favorite character is someone I haven't bumped into in any way: Father Tryphon, whose monastery decided to manufacture coffee, and was sued by Starbucks for using the words "Christmas Blend." They decided to fight back to prove that the word "Christmas" did not belong to the Seattle conglomerate. "I felt this was a moral issue," the father says. The film then shows other corporate "trademarks": "Shalom"; "Happy Easter"; "Che Guevarra"

The film goes even further, explaining how Mark Kasky sued Nike for lying to consumers about its manufacturing practices in third-world countries. They went to the U.S. Supreme Court to prove that they had constitutional free-speech rights—and thus could lie if they wanted to. Watch the film to see how that works out. (Nike was represented by constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe—an attorney for Al Gore in November 2000.)

Poignant for this state, the film brings home the loss of manufacturing jobs right here in Natchez, interviewing everyday people about the loss of income and security after International Paper closed its doors.

Most enlightening is the history lesson here that we don't get in our school texts. The filmmakers show that one of our founding fathers' biggest fears was … drum roll … the corporation getting too much power. The Boston Tea Party, after all, was an act of defiance against the East India Company; the entrepreneurs of America rose up against legislation to give international companies unfair advantages against local businesses.

Talk about Think Global, Shop Local.
Director Lori Cheadle will be in attendance Saturday at Crossroads.
— Donna Ladd
(82 minutes)
Saturday, April 2, 3pm – Parkway Theatre

Our Divas

Robert Mugge's new documentary "Blues Divas" captures eight belles of the blues (and soul-blues, mind you) performing at Morgan Freeman's Ground Zero in Clarksdale.

Each singer is introduced by Freeman via a brief chat, wherein the diva also divulges her path to the stage. The piece starts with a forceful Irma Thomas who opens with a thematically arching "Chains of Love" and ends with "I've been Loving You Too Long" during which she employs some disarmingly gentle singing.

Next is Odetta, whose more restrained, inflected vocalizations provide an illuminating contrast to Thomas's charged opening trio. Her surprising, whimsical turns of intonation are a delight, and her cover of Leadbelly's "Bourgeoisie Town" is a highlight. Her onstage mannerism couldn't be more disparate than Irma's: in "Careless Love" Odetta chooses to sit and give a small lecture on the key imagery of the meditative repent.

Midway through "Blues Divas," Deborah Coleman plays Koko Taylor's "I'm a Woman." In this milieu of singers, she's the lone guitar player, and during her extended instrumental not one note comes off as superfluous. It's a showstopper and a welcome change of pace, providing listeners with the only out-and-out blues riff in the documentary.

Bettye LaVette follows, and her performance of Walker's "It Serves Him Right," with the band's slick chug and her own constant grin, is infectious. Renee Austin gives a beautiful rendition of Fitzgerald's "Fool Moon" before Denise LaSalle takes over for the final three numbers.

One could wish the video quality to be a bit better, though of course it never detracts from the girls themselves.

It's a pleasure to watch these divas approach, perform and celebrate the blues in their individual manner, each having her distinct flair for vocal improvisations and gestural displays. Running through all these performances is the transformative joy of blues singing, and nowhere is that more evident than when LaSalle, in her closing number, bays "I'm kicking ass and taking names" with a look of absolute candor, followed with an equally sincere grin. Enjoy.

The Most Segregated Hour

Kent Moorhead's "The Most Segregated Hour" is a special documentary—requiring just a little more than an hour out of our lives to watch a church full of black folk and another full of white folk in Oxford, Miss., try to figure out how to talk to each other. St. Peter's Episcopal Church and Secondary Missionary Baptist are a couple hundred yards apart and have a shared race past—but with too many congregants ignorant of that history (as Dr. Martin Luther King said, 11 a.m. Sunday is "the most segregated hour in America").

The film captures honest emotions—not the least of which is white guilt, which too often leads to complacency and avoidance of race issues. Patricia Young was a member of St. Peter's in 1962 during the Ole Miss uprising of whites when James Meredith integrated the university. She is ashamed of her, and her fellow worshipers', response then. They did nothing. She believes now that the incident should have brought her church closer. "Instead, it split the church wide open," she said. Literally. Like many white denominations both during the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement, some whites formed other branches of the church in which to worship their white supremacy.

"I truly believe we failed the test, except in Duncan. He was a great symbol we should have rallied around, and we didn't," she said.

Young is referring to Duncan Gray II, St. Peter's rector in 1962, who supported integration and liked to quote Matthew 25 about "the least among us."

Moorhead also interviewed Leroy Wadlington, who was 12 in '62 but would become the pastor of Second Baptist. He would later work with Duncan Gray III to host dialogue efforts between the churches in the 1980s and '90s, and even sending children to camps together.

Many will recognize this name: Gray III is now the Bishop based in Jackson and working toward racial reconciliation with black minister Ronnie Crudup. He cut his teeth in Oxford, and had a pretty good role model in his daddy.

This documentary, which delves into intimate verité being that Moorhead was a member of St. Peter's, does not sugarcoat the task at hand, and is honest about the disappointments that also resulted from the efforts. Moorhead allows his frustration at white denial to show clearly in the film, and he provides one of the most succinct definitions of "racism"—a word bastardized and trivialized today by apologists looking for justification in the actions of others.

"You can't be racist without power," he says, pointing out the difference between prejudice against people of a different race and actual racism, which is "structural" and can only be committed by those with power over another race.

People at St. Peter's decided to follow the advice of Malcolm X: When a race holds the power, he said, they need to talk among themselves first—to identify what a racist system looks like. So, his church decided "to do their homework," Moorhead says.

That homework was revealing, and it was uncomfortable (comfort is white folks' obsession, Moorhead shows), and unfortunately it didn't last, especially after Gray III moved to Jackson to take the Bishop's seat.

At the end, Moorhead expresses the feeling of many in the state toward the ones who hold onto past symbols and practices and fears, who don't care what it costs the state in resources, talent, self-esteem. "I'm tired of Mississippi being drained of good people black and white," he states.

Moorhead will be at Crossroads Film Festival.

Saturday, April 2, 1pm – Parkway Theatre
(68 minutes)

A Red Clay Parnassus

Art fares best in an open forum, and in the '80s and early '90s no freer field could be found than in Oxford, Miss., when businessmen such as Bill Forrester, Ron Shapiro, Willie Wallace, Syd French, John Anderson and Frank Odom maintained enterprises that promoted an eclectic marketplace for invention.

In those halcyon days, Willie Morris, Barry Hannah and Larry Brown contributed their literary wattage to an arts scene illuminated by the bright lights of the Hilltops/Blue Mountain, the North Mississippi Allstars and Beanland. It was a heyday of the muses; throw in a couple of Jere Allen's brilliant brushstrokes, and you have nothing short of a red clay Parnassus.

Scotty Glahn and Kutcher Miller's "Beanland: Rising from the Riverbed" attempts to and largely succeeds in capturing the freewheeling, lackadaisical, and somewhat dissipated spirit of that time and place. The result is a roman à clef best appreciated by those who were there then and knew members of the cast of characters. It's a voyeuristic peek into a seminal period in the cultural life of Oxford. Interviews make for the largest part of the film's appeal, but the chronicle also includes footage of Beanland's best-known performances and glimpses of venues and buildings long gone.

Nostalgia is not a bad thing, especially when it's worked out so carefully and lovingly. I tip my hat to Glahn and Miller not only for recognizing Beanland as worthy of a broader stage, but also their foresight in documenting a special time in a very special place.

Great job, guys; my check is in the mail.

Saturday, April 2,
3pm – Parkway
(96 minutes, adult language)

Down To Eight

The National Film Challenge is a 48-eight hour contest wherein a film genre, prop, character description and line of dialogue are given to the filmmakers via e-mail, and the short containing those elements is made and sent off within a weekend's time.

Darrell O. Troth's entry into the National Film Challenge is "Down to Eight"—a nine-minute comedic parody of detective films, where the clueless sleuth (Jason Usry) must apprehend a 12-toe art thief, who, of course, is also the femme fatale (artist Ginger Williams). The chief pleasure of the film is watching Usry's inspector bumble through his investigation with precious little tact, attempting the genre's traditional hard-edge banter with his sexy suspect only to end in an idiotic stalemate every time. In his first verbal parry-and-thrust with the purloiner, the detective is asked about his favorite artist. Our hero, clearly at a loss, replies, "Well that would have to be Van Gogh, obviously," and utters it with such a look of vacuous self-satisfaction that one can't help but laugh.

Darrell Troth, John Gibson, Don Warren and Jason Marlow had 48 hours to produce this little film. The result is sure to delight JFP readers; you will know the characters and the building, and you will applaud our locals' ingenuity.

Director Darrell O. Troth will be in attendance. (9 minutes)
Sunday, April 3, 1pm – Parkway Theatre

Kinsey: The Documentary

"Kinsey: The Documentary" is a curious, sometimes shocking and refreshingly honest documentary, which first aired as part of PBS' "American Experience." It is about a unique American character: the controversial biologist who decided to research the sex lives of Americans in the 1940s and '50s and then publish books about it. Even though his methods ultimately didn't prove as scientifically sound as they could have been, Alfred Kinsey lifted the puritanical veil of secrecy prevalent in that time. He showed that this country was not filled with goody-two-shoes. In fact, Americans committed adultery, had dalliances with people of the same gender, did it in non-missionary ways and, shall we say, participated in "sexual diversity" to the nth degree.

Most fascinating, perhaps, is the journey Kinsey himself was taking as a bisexual man trying to find a place for his own fantasies, while pushing his openness a bit too diligently on the people closest to him, including his devoted wife. Director Barak Goodman tells a real story, not a caricature: Kinsey is too strange and complex and determined to be fiction.

His exploration of homosexuality was particularly eye-opening, then and now. Being gay, then, was a sin, and it was a crime. Today, many people consider it a sin and crime. How much have we really changed? A half-century later, we are a still a society obsessed with what goes on inside someone else's bedroom—as many of us pretend publicly to be goody-two-shoes inside our own.

The more things change …

(84 minutes, adult content), Sunday, April 3, 5pm – Parkway Theatre

Previous Comments

ID

78069

Comment

I have heard this "most segregated hour" crap my whole life... and I'm sick of it. It only serves to create "white guilt", thereby attempting to perpetuate a notion that modern white adults are guilty of past injustices, and furthering a culture of indebtedness to blacks. The biggest injustice to the "segregated hour" concept is denial of a black culture in the South. Black folk have a cultural way of dancing, singing, talking, dressing, and yes (gasp!), worshipping. To play upon this cultural difference as a means toward further suggesting oppression or racism is insulting. Am I to leave my church which doesn't jump around and act the fool to go to a black church? Or should we expect black people to leave the culture of their community and church to assimilate to a quieter version of Christianity. It's all silliness.

Author

PUDDINTANG

Date

2005-04-04T08:49:01-06:00

ID

78070

Comment

Er, didn't make me feel guilty.

Author

kate

Date

2005-04-04T10:12:06-06:00

ID

78071

Comment

Pudd, it's also "silly" to stereotype whites and blacks as you are doing. You are assuming, for instance, that no white folks want to go to a church where there is loud singing and dancing and worshiping. I, personally, would much rather attend that church--because I'm someone who likes to be loud and dance around. I have no desire to go sit in a church with all white people with their hands folded demurely in their laps. Of course, there are different worship styles, and that's fine. But that doesn't negate the fact that kids are raised to think that there is only one way to worship -- based on their skin color. Perhaps the most wonderful way to worship would be in a diverse church that respects both joyous celebration and quiet meditation. And the film is about a whole lot more than that. It's mostly about white denial of our racist past, and the unwillingness to solve problems that still exist that resulted from that racist past. And it's about why white folks are so damned determined not to talk about things that make us uncomfortable. Great film -- won Best Documentary this weekend. And, Tim K., if you're reading this: the filmmaker Kent Moorhead wants to get together with you in Stockholm with he lives part time with his wife Pia. The rest of the time he lives in Oxford with his daughter, as I understand it. I have his info; will e-mail it to you.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-04-04T10:31:20-06:00

ID

78072

Comment

I never assumed white folks dont enjoy exuberant worship. I just think it is dangerous to paint as "sterotyping" the acknowledgment of a separate and distinct black culture in the South. The fact that, for the most part, blacks and whites worship separately should not be a point of guilt for either community,..... why can't we say that it is fine, another wonderful aspect of a rich black culture. Yes, all social institutions have been tainted by racism, but I think some people confuse Distinct Worship Styles = Not Getting Along. Isn't that what diversity is about?.. A time and place for all styles of worship?

Author

PUDDINTANG

Date

2005-04-04T10:56:37-06:00

ID

78073

Comment

Nope, not what I said, Pudd. And I don't agree with the word "separate." That's dangerous territory. Also, you probably ought to see the film before you tell us what it was about. Just sayin.'

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-04-04T11:00:31-06:00

ID

78074

Comment

Um, I did see it.

Author

PUDDINTANG

Date

2005-04-04T12:00:45-06:00

ID

78075

Comment

Really? It didn't sound like it. What did you think of the dialogue between the kids?

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-04-04T12:18:01-06:00

ID

78076

Comment

Sorry, not what I said, laddie. My post was not meant as a synopsis of the film, only what I ultimately took away from it. I was not tellin ya'll what it was about. As per the word "separate", again, I am owning up to the fact that there is a separate black culture in the South, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Author

PUDDINTANG

Date

2005-04-04T12:36:16-06:00

ID

78077

Comment

I'm still curious about what you thought of the kids' dialogue, Puddie. Also, I'm not in denial about a black culture -- no problem there -- but the word "separate" still doesn't work for me.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-04-04T12:42:34-06:00

ID

78078

Comment

ìYou canít be racist without power,î he says, pointing out the difference between prejudice against people of a different race and actual racism, which is ìstructuralî and can only be committed by those with power over another race. I fail to see how distingishing between racism and prejudiced is a legitimate splitting of hairs. Isn't racism merely an expression of prejudice against a race? He may have a point or two about the power of those with racist/prejudiced attitudes, but power is not the issue where definition is concerend - the issue is the sentiment in and of itself. Is a Catholic-hating Protestant in Latin America any less of a "religionist" (i.e. "religious bigot") because that "religionist" may live in a country 90% Catholic? Therefore, I can't see how his claim that you can't be racist unless you have power has substance.

Author

Philip

Date

2005-04-04T21:02:26-06:00