Clusterf*ck

How does a rare medical condition, a skunk attack and magic tie in together? By the end of this post you will find out.

I must admit that I always wanted to be rare and special. When I was eight-years-old my mother and I travelled to Rome and I met the then-pontiff, Pope Paul VI. Well, the meeting was not exactly intimate. He presided over a mass of thousands at the Vatican. I still remember him standing on that tiny little balcony waving to the ardor of the throng. Upon returning to home to America, I would grab my cape and staff, head out into the front yard and stand on my invisible ledge pretending each blade of grass was an adoring congregant. Ahhhhhhhhrrrr! The cheers of the crowd was defining. I was blessing them surely as the Pope had blessed me---blessed me to be special.

Life is not without irony.

Shortly after that trip, I started experiencing something that would define my youth (actually my life):  a medical condition that fulfilled my wish of being rare.  It took me 29 years before I even knew what I was suffering from had a name and that there were others like me.  Hortons Headache---or its more common name, cluster headache---is a 1-in-1,000 condition (or roughly one-tenth of one percent of the population), whereby those who suffer from it often describe it as a curse. All my life I had been prodded, x-rayed, MRI'd, had blood drawn, screened over and over to no relief. I was told it could be mini-strokes, meningitis, cancer.  All sorts of scary things. The true diagnosis was far crueler and more fitting of my personality. It was Greek in nature; Promethean, to be specific...

The myth of Prometheus is powerful.  After defying the gods by giving human beings fire, Prometheus was punished by Zeus. His judgment was exacting and horrific in scale. Prometheus was chained to a rock. Each morning, an eagle would descend to eat his organs and leave him bleeding, racked with pain and left for dead. Then, miraculously overnight, his organs would grow back only for the eagle to return the next morning. This went on for eternity.

So what does all this mishegas have to do with me? Cluster headaches are like a Promethean judgment. Everyday, at the same time, I get a headache---the most powerful, intense white-hot, suicide-tempting pain you'd ever experience. It's akin to a thief that steals your sanity and happiness. When that hour approaches you feel dread and doom. It's like torture. The few women who suffer from cluster headaches (males statistically make up the majority) say that child-bearing is less painful.

My clusters, like all clusters, are unilateral, meaning they only affect one side of the head, and, in my case, they occur on the right side. Unlike a migraine, clusters are a shock-and-awe type of pain. They start out rapture-quick and within 5-10 minutes they are at its peak, becoming an unbearable ordeal. Imagine a drill that starts boring above and slightly to the left of your right eye. And imagine this drill is blisteringly hot. Now, imagine it drilling through your skull and brain before exiting out of the back of your head near your right ear. Then come the tears. Your right eye (and only your right eye) starts to weep. Your right nostril then begins to stuff-up like you have a cold.  We're not done.  Accompanying this pain is the sensation of electricity shooting through your head. Imagine little bolts of lightning shooting from the drill. Now envision, as each bolt pops, you feel the sensation of an ice pick pierce the spot just where the lightning bolts struck. With each stab of the "ice pick" you feel as if your nervous system is shattering. Now, my friends:  imagine that is the starting point of the headache and the pain only intensifies from there. I moan, groan, rock and pace. I toggle between begging God for release and cursing him for giving me this pain. I roll and roll and wonder "why me Lord?" Why give this to me? It hurts so bad that I've beaten myself in the head with my own fists. I've used telephone receivers. In college, I used text books. I even once bit myself to distract, albeit momentarily, from the pain. Luckily, in my case, the headache lasts only 45 minutes and then it's gone almost as quickly as it came; a brief destructive tornado then the sun is back shining. By the time it's over I'm usually exhausted.

Cluster headaches are cyclical. They hit you regularly from about 2 weeks (like mine usually do) till about 2 months, then they dissapear. They won't return for weeks or even years if one is lucky. They usually start around age 20 and subside around age 50.  I've had them since I was 8---right after I wanted to be "special" after being blessed by the Pope.  Although they have seemed to taper off over the years, I am, unfortunately, still a life-long sufferer. My last bout was in 2008. This new cycle has lasted 86 days. Zeus, you sly devil: you goaded me into thinking I was safe.

Now for the skunk. Since moving back to the South to take care of my mother (who has dementia), these clusters have been attacking me as if I don't have enough on my plate. If you've ever been the sole caretaker of a person with dementia, you would agree that I need every ounce of strength and stamina imaginable. So waking up several times a night with intense pain is not conducive for the daily caregiving routine. My mother has developed a strange, inexplicable habit of putting our dog, Ricky, a playful adolescent chihuahua mix, out on the side porch in the middle of the night. Last Wednesday she followed this routine. It was 1 a.m. and I was asleep. The cluster hit. The dog was outside barking excitedly. There was a strange creature visibly lurking in the woods behind our house, just beyond the treeline. The stage was set for pure disaster.

I stumbled downstairs, still in awesome pain. I opened the side door and unleashed barking Ricky to let him back in.  He raced off into the darkness instead.  Dammit! I don't need this. I hear barks, growls, a struggle. I yell for Ricky to heel. Oh god, I hope he wasn't bitten by a racoon. They have rabies. He appears from the bushes and happily charges back up the steps. As he runs past me it hits. It hits. A SKUNK!!

"Shit!" I rasp.

I turn and chase him through the house and finally corral him into the garage. I run back upstairs to my home office and immediately jump on the Internet. I begin googling skunk+dog+clean to quickly learn what to do. Now my head is pounding, I'm tearing at the computer and the smell of skunk is rising to the upper floors. My mother pops out of her bedroom clutching the front of her robe and bleats "What in the world is that smell?!"  I shout while in my cluster pain, "The dog got skunked Ma!"

Moments later she's at her door again, clutching her robe once more. "What in the world is that smell?!?" Again, I shout, "The dog got skunked!"  A few more minutes, she comes back a third time: "What in the world is that smell?!"  Just like a cuckoo clock this goes on for several more minutes. So, gathering the googled information I needed,  I dashed to the car (which now smells like skunk too thanks to my temporarily locking the dog in the garage). Driving a little too fast and holding the side of my head cursing every deity I can think of, I venture into Wal-Mart. I grabbed a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and some baking soda and I'm forced to wait behind a family dressed in camo buying an assortment of processed lunch meats, soda, chips and beer. Mother, father, daugher and arm-baby all dressed for combat at 1:30 a.m. for some unknown reason. The man looked to be my age but had no discernible teeth and his daughter had a dirty t-shirt over her army trousers that read "I'm a Princess."

Yes you are.  But I digress.

Finally, back home, I'm out in the dark yard in my underwear washing my skunked dog in 95-degree late-night heat, all with a cluster headache. And my mother, every few minutes, has now descended to the garage level, completely forgetting the entire skunk debacle of just 30 minutes prior. She opens the door, "Oh you're washing the dog? That's nice."

Three minutes later, "Oh you're washing the dog? That's nice."

Three minutes later, "Oh you're washing the dog? That's nice."

Three minutes later, "Oh you're washing the dog? That's nice."

But here's where the magic happened. In the midst of all this stress I'm hit with an epiphany:  Maybe the rare things that I thought were burdens are actually tiny little blessings. Maybe if I just laugh it won't seem so insurmountable. Maybe the Pope really DID bless me (and not curse me as I've always thought)---to have these experiences surrounded by people and pets that I love. That no matter how dire the straits may be, there's always a sun to appear after the hurricane. So there I sat; in my drawers covered with skunk-smelling doggie bath water, a horrifically scary headache yet I was laughing my ass off. I have been laughing ever since. Sure, my headaches are still kicking my ass. Sure, it's still stressful looking after my dimentia-laden mother. But that night was the funniest thing that has happened to me in a long time. And it made me realize how rarely special I really am.

The stone throwing spring of Mrs. Roman

Tami Roman needn't apologize nor be ashamed of her behavior. We should be of ours.

It was over 100 degrees when I arrived in Charlotte late Friday night---a slow moving, exhaustive heat, Southern and gothic like those of my lazy, hazy childhood.  The city of Charlotte simmered under the humidity of late June's heat. The skyscrapers wavered in the distance as if they were involved in some kind of wobbly calisthenics, shimmering in the waning sunlight.  I was attending the opening of America I Am at the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African American Arts+Culture where Tavis Smiley was the special guest. The spectacular exhibit chronicles centuries of Africans' accomplishments and tragedies in the western hemisphere, localizing on those of us in America. The exhibit is laid out in a coherent fashion that takes you from the chains shackled to African legs 400 years ago to the flight suits worn by modern African American astronauts who soared over the earth today. It's emotional and powerful.

After a few visits to the bar, I made a startlingly realization. My friend Sharon, who invited me, works for the Gantt and had assembled a dazzling array of guests which included artists, politicians, clergy, scientists, celebrities and business professionals---most of them black and many of whom were women; "bougie" women dressed in designer fashions evoking big city styles alongside "mother earth girls" in their natural fabrics and unprocessed hair filled the space with laughter and conversation and not a bottle of Cliquot was thrown in any direction. How is this possible that so many women of color can assemble in tight, climate-controlled spaces and not end up punching, kicking, screaming or cussing? By the end of the night they were dancing, happily together, under the languid cobalt of the evening's sky. Their voices and movements were raised to the heavens as they were each celebrating their sultry black-womaness. But this isn't possible. Black women fight every chance they get. VH1 and its hosts of Battling Negresses have proven that. Black women are incapable of peaceful discourse. Bravo sparked a cottage industry on the notion that black women can cuss and slap at the same time. Look at The Bad Girls Club. Or check your email inbox where someone has probably forwarded you a link from worldstahiphop.com, showcasing where young black women have spilled out onto the streets of Chicago, Memphis, Spartanburg, South Carolina and Kosciusko, Mississippi fighting like pit bulls in a ring inside malls, parking lots, Dairy Queens, etc.  Hell, last week I was even forwarded a video of two young women fighting in a church. 

Where has this ill-manner and discomposure come from? We can't say it's manufactured. It's been boilng under the surface for some time, maybe due to, among other reasons, the anger of isolation and invisibility that black women experience. I discussed the rampant desexualization (as well as over-sexualization) of black women at the hands of Hollywood here. The sassy black woman telling-it-like-it-is has been part of cinema and television even before Jim Crow fell. These tropes usually constitute the neck-rolling sista-cum-greek chorus of the white protagonist, telling her "Girl you betta' go afta' that man," or "Oh no you di'idn't!" But for the most part, these stereotypical women were never violent. But in the last few years that sass has turned into bash. Now comes another daughter of Sheba and she's ready to tho' dubs.

There has always been a certain cachet in the black community when it comes to violence. Many resolve issues and conflicts with fisticuffs.  Bitch!, inferred and inflicted in any fashion you may choose, has become the mot du jour compliment of this decade. This goes way beyond Omarosa's haranguing on the first season of the Apprentice. Black women now seem to want to fight everybody. Random men on the subway. Cashiers at McDonalds. Bus drivers. Each other. The list goes on and on. Have we so undervalued our women that now the spotlight has shone upon them as spectacle?  Is participation in life only acquired by verbal and physical assault?  Spartacus in Christian Loubitin battling Crixus in giant glittery earrings? YouTube, Vimeo and cellphones all record and regurgitate bad behavior to the cheers of a legion of online fans. To use an obvious pun, these videos have generated millions of hits. Literally. 

Tanisha has her own spin-off show after popping off asses on Bad Girls Club. And who can forget the oh so quotable "Bitch you’re a non-motherfucking factor!" We laud and applaud these women as if they are the millennial role models of our worlds. Gone is the courage of Harriet Tubman and Daisy Bates; the righteous anger of Angela Davis and Ruby Dee; the odds-defying accomplishments of Mildred Loving and Marian Wright Edelman. It has now been replaced with the preening, cattiness of bourgeois hellions who don't fight for freedom but fight for ratings.  Every woman has a right to be who she wants to be. If that's a scrapping diva then so be it. My fear is that this behavior has already slipped into the realm of acceptable behavior by many young people. And yes young white women fight too. Just look at any given episode of Maury or Jerry Springer. There's nothing wrong with a good girl fight. It has been a staple of melodrama since Clare Booth Luce's The Women. Who can forget Diahann Carroll's Dominique Devereux's "Thank You" slap-to-the-face of Alexis heard round the world in the now famous episode of Dynasty. This is not that kind of stylized choreography. It has a  sense of doom and tension a raised humidity when two women of color go on the attack. The mob goes wild in the arena. Others may laugh but all I see is that awful Battle Royal scene from Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. 

But why must this be for so many black women? We all know the cultural phenomenon of male black-on-black violence. In my short story, Hands of Fire (included in my soon-to-be-released collection of short stories entitled Thirteen Days of May), the protagonist, a teenage boy, comes to terms with his homosexuality and muses about the violence that black men inflict on each other.

I sat dumbfounded when we were sitting in the living room of Juney’s house. My father and his father talking over “the problem."  My father suggested that we fight. Juney and me. The bully’s father, gushing with pride, said "yes" to the whole thing. Has the world gone crazy?! These are adults?! They’re supposed to be rational. But I had to remember:  reason had no hold on a black man’s mind when his son had just been called a faggot. Maybe it’s the legacy of slavery that caused our violence. We were emasculated and stripped of all semblances of humanity. The only thing we had [left] was our fists and our dicks. We could not raise those fists to massah so we brought them down on each other. The future they gave us was, if you didn’t fuck, you were queer. If you didn't fight, you were queer. Well, I could not debate the anthropological ramification of slavery now; I was 'bout to get my ass kicked by the biggest bully in the neighborhood.

But such, typically, has been in the domain of men and maleness. It was the generalization that black men won't/don't/can't strive for the best that was the underpinning to our nation's post-segregation racism. But these female fight clubs, a.k.a. reality shows, have brought something ugly to the fore---a  piston of anger and rage pummeling many of our young women. I think Ms. Roman's apology and her later talk on the legacy she leaves behind bear the fruit of how to stop this problem. America will consume both the good and bad of us individually. What we must do is to learn how to separate reality from reality tv, and educate our daughters that the consequences to bad public behavior is not your own 15 minutes of fame, but rather a lifetime of potential hurt and rejection. To use that inner strength and  power to not just say what's on your mind but to say what's right is a trait that many want but few exercise.

For you, my reality show battle-cats and wannabes, remember that your legacy should not become a 'funny-but-sad' clip on Talk Soup or Tosh.0.  You should leave not a bloody nose, but an open heart.  And for all of us opening that email right now with the subject line: FW: Hood Fights in the CHITOWN Big Girls on Deck, let us not perpetuate, instigate, celebrate or participate in our young womens'  embarrassing regression. The producers at Bravo, VH1 and Oxygen need no help doing that themselves.

Here Upon the Vast Millennium

I wrote this poem in 1999 shortly after my step-father's death and before the New Year. I was melancholy because I felt that many of the goals I had set myself had gone unmet. This was just a glimmer of hope I had for the coming not only new year, new century but new millennium. I wonder if I've gotten any farther.

The Millennium approaches
and I feel pressure upon me
from empty hands that
idle and hurt.
The whispers of dry mouths
thirsting for fruit.

The Earth sits in ink
with amber shining upon it.
Yet her tears splash on dust
and not a drop to spare.

There are gods of many lands
but there a few faithful,
our brother's conscription at hand.
We sleep and it shows approval.

The Millennium is here
and those hands now must move.
Pitiful refugees, malleable charity.
Let us give forth fruit for our people.
Brothers and sisters are we all.
And a thousand years is not long.

And you thought Eric Northman was the hottest vampire in the south

It’s the story of Eric Peterson, a shy seventeen-year-old, very accomplished All-State clarinetist who falls madly in love with Marquis LeBlanc---a dashingly handsome stranger. They meet while taking a creative writing course at Loyola University. Selected as writing partners, Eric and Marquis exchange stories and poetry. Like most teenage boys, Eric has no control over his libido and wants nothing more than to lose his virginity to the man he’s fallen in love with. Marquis wants nothing more than to love and protect the young man he has become so enamoured with. He is shocked that after so many years of being alone he has developed such intense feelings for another person. He’s also keeping a dark and dangerous secret: Marquis is a 200-year-old vampire.

Image of Emeralds and Chocolate was a relatively nimble and enjoyable read. Eric is a circumspect youngster living in New Orleans whose tentative nature comes from his distinct hair (naturally red-colored dreadlocks) and from him being teased as a chubby child. “Look, it’s porky Ronald McDonald.” Children used to taunt him. He is, as most teenage boys are, overly horny with a “winky” that has a mind of its own. He takes college prep courses at Loyola University where he is also a campus tour guide. He is asked to give a special night time tour to Marquis, and, from that page to the last, he is smitten. Eric and Marquis also take part in a creative writing class where, as a part of their assignment, they have to exchange writings. Eric chooses poetry; Marquis chooses to write a short story.

We read both Eric's and Marquis’ work. Interestingly enough, Marquis’ short story--unbeknownst to Eric--is a chronology of Marquis' life. I actually found the short story-within-a-story much more interesting than the main plotline of the book. Told from Marquis’ first person perspective, we see him grow from a child (whose original name was Emanuel) born into slavery in 1800, into a hellishly handsome field hand sold from plantation to plantation. Johnson skillfully uses Louisiana to his greatest advantage creating a romanticized mythology of the region's great history and topography. When he describes Marquis and his lover Jeremiah bathing alongside the other male slaves in the muddy waters of the Mississippi River you can feel the humidity of their sensuality on your skin creating a breathless scene of taboo beauty. The tale of Mr. LeBlanc's life in a voodoo-laden pre-civil war landscape was lush and rich with legend.

I thought the use of modern colloquialism often hurt the prose since it was set in the 19th century, with some of the descriptions coming off as a bit puerile “…Jeremiah’s back was covered with scars from numerous beatings…while his buttocks looked like two giant chocolate melons.” I liked his version of what can easily be seen as retreaded vampire lore–as well as the ease of these characters with their sexual nature. We often don’t explore gay male sexuality contemporaneously let alone under the moon of the antebellum South. The author handled love and lovemaking between two men as well as the grotesqueries inflicted on slaves by the hands of both Massa and overseer with an unobtrusive matter-of-fact style. (We often see the result of female rape during this time period but male and child rape is rarely examined.)

This story-within-a-story was told with such depth and heartache; it truly is the heart of the book. Once Marquis is turned into a vampire by an evil plantation owner the story gets a bit dicey, however. There’s some contrived carnage and revenge while we find out that all vampires have unique super-powers (like being able to turn objects into gold, or becoming a human torch, or the ability to shoot ice out of one's hands). There’s also a subplot with messianic overtones that took something away from the angst of the characters. At times the author lost control of his story and it felt its most insincere when trying to be relevant historically, like, for example, when Marquis meets a young Barack Obama on the beach in Hawaii in 1968.

Back in the present, Eric is embroiled in a rivalry with another student named Amber over who should be picked to play as the first chair clarinet in the school’s holiday orchestral performance. When it was finally revealed why Amber kept getting the first prize, I was shocked---and not in a good way. This was definitely the weakest part of the story. I almost felt like Mr. Johnson was going for obvious melodrama instead of the solid storytelling that was evident in other parts of the book. Though Eric was the main character, I thought his story lacked completion and I was a bit unfulfilled at the end of the book's journey.

Mr. Johnson is a strong novelist. And when he writes with his heart's conviction I see greatness in his work. His descriptive powers are formidable when setting a scene although it sometimes appears he has an obsession with complexion. He makes sure we all know the many hues the African American characters come in by telling us this one is mocha-honey and that one is caramel-butterscotch. I think his depiction of the vampire Sophia is the most perfect in the book. “Sophia had long auburn hair, hazel eyes and a splash of freckles on both cheeks.” When his writing leaves room for the reader’s imagination it makes for a more delicious experience.

Image of Emeralds and Chocolate is a good work of fiction and I have recommended it to just about everyone. I see a bright future for Mr. Johnson who I think will soon join the ranks of great speculative fiction authors such as Brandon Massey, Nalo Hopkinson and LA Banks. Bravo.

Underwold Underwhelms

When Selene, played with sexy panache by Kate Beckinsale, uttered the words “The war had all but ground to a halt in the blink of an eye.” Whispered in her full-mouthed British pout she flung herself off the precipice of an indescribably tall tower and she dropped into a dark rainy night descending what seemed like hundreds of feet to the earth below. So began one of the most memorable opening scenes of movie making in the last decade-and-a-half. A sequence so startling it stays in your mind like the site of that massive Star Destroyer obliterating the screen chasing Princess Lea’s shuttle at the beginning of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

Under the helm of writer Kevin Grevioux and director Len Wisemen, Underworld transformed our imaginations and began a new zeitgeist for vampires and werewolves while turning Ms. Beckinsale into a slinking action star. In that original movie you had intrigue, scandal and sex constricted by violence into a serpentine plot. It was a bloody and glamorous melodrama funneled through the mind of Len Wiseman as if he were Douglas Sirk making a vampire movie. Seriously. Unfortunately that was 9-years and two movies ago and now the franchise has devolved into a derivative version of its former glory.

The movie starts off with Selene—Ms. Beckinsale reprising her role after missing the third installment, the vampire Death Dealer, as she and her beloved Michael, the only human-vampire-werewolf hybrid to ever exist, try to escape capture at the hands of humanity. The Vampire-Lycan (werewolf) war has been exposed and humans are out en masse searching for all non-humans and destroying them, erroneously thinking vampirism and werewolfism were some kind of disease or plague. Selene and Michael are captured. Fast forward a dozen years later and the first of many sci-fi staple rip-offs begins. Selene is in no better mood waking up confused than Sigourney Weaver's cloned Ripely in Aliens: Resurrection. In this future vampires and werewolves are all but extinct. Hidden in the bowels of a genetic laboratory run by Dr. Jacob Lane (Stephen Rea) is the secret to mankind’s salvation from monsters. Or so mankind has been told. Its seems that a mysterious young girl named Eve (India Eisely) --who by the way is this movie's Newt--holds the key to the Vampire’s salvation and Selene must protect her at all cost.

Directors Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein have created a reductive stew that blends the major uhs and ahs of special effect and wire-work wizardry with none of the original movie's excitement or innovation. They blow their wads in the first action sequence (actually the second sequence but the many in this movie are so tedious they start looking and feeling a like) when we see Selene breaking out of the genetic's lab. A well meaning Detective Sebastian has the case of finding the culprits who caused the destruction and subsequent murders of several people dropped into his lap. He knows that vampires still exist even though they remain hidden from view. A young vampire warrior named David comes to Selene's aid. He wants to return the vampiric covens to their former glories as masters of the world but his father is conflicted. Selene is tasked with protecting young Eve no matter what and soon the Lycans make a decidedly massive comeback and all sorts of ill-time gory shenanigans follow.

Underworld: Awakening is a beautiful movie to watch. Sweeping atmospheric eastern European landscapes, brooding rain, industrial and austere looking buildings give the movie a sense that it is about to implode and collapse in on you. The special effects are more CGI related in this one but all of it is a retread of the 3 previous movies. Ms. Beckinsale delivers on her sexy violence. She plays Selene straightforward. She tries to bring a certain freshness, urgency and emotional range to a character she's playing for the third time. I appreciate that but at the end of the day its still a hot girl with a milky completion, un-dialated colored contacts with fangs and an automatic weapon. There's only but so much that can be done that hasn't been in her 2 previous iterations of this character. Michael Ealy who plays the haunted detective (his wife died of the plague) looks equally as good given his flaccid character's dialogue. He's a by-the-numbers sidekick, torn between what's his duty and what's right. He goes through the movie with his signature frown-pout that is his all-purpose emotion when he's given nothing to work with. There are a few staid sub-plots between David (Theo James) and his father. Interestingly enough the only real emotion or fun I feel comes from the older actors: Stephen Rea and Charles Dance who plays Thomas, David's vampire father. Mr. Rea takes his character at face value. This gives his performance some heft but it doesn't come across as pretentious.

I was surprised at the dull and fallow script. Mr. Wiseman who wrote the story has been with this franchise since the first movie and should have been savvy enough to know what his legion of fans want to see. And if not the Hugo winning J. Michael Straczynski, the creator and writer behind Babylon 5, should have known how to produce strong character driven movies with powerful narratives. He did it for 5-years on one of Sci-Fi's greatest soap operas. What spoiled Underworld: Awakening was a lack of imagination. The filmmakers didn't think they needed to propel characters into new directions. They thought we lacked that imagination to follow them in new directions. Ultimately this made for an ending that begged for a sequel and that angered me. I must say this last instalement of Underworld indeed has awaken me and I won't be following this franchise into another darkened theater again.

Red Tails: This movie didn't fly

George Lucas’ controversial new movie Red Tails comes with a pretty impressive pedigree. Adapted from John B. Holway’s novel of the same name; Red Tails is the story of heroic African American pilots that battled discrimination and Nazis in a segregated all black unit during World War II. The movie sports an Oscar winner, 2 Oscar nominees, a relatively hefty budget for a January release with a predominantly black cast and George Lucas, the Godfather of the modern event movie (Star Wars, Indiana Jones) and the creator of Industrial Light and Magic, the go-to Gods of special effects. Putting aside the racial vitriol that ignited the blogosphere that rendered the necessity for an advertisement budget to zero; George Lucas, executive producer, famously accused the Hollywood machine of not wanting to fund a black movie. My fear at the time was that Lucas’ words were a ruse used to garnish a robust first weekend in ticket sales because the makers of the film knew they had produced a clunker. Unfortunately after seeing Red Tails my fears were borne out.

The plot revolves around a group of fighter pilots, trained at Tuskegee University to be brave sky-warriors at a time when blacks were seen as not only lacking the acumen, capacity, skill or courage for flying planes but were deemed more suited for kitchen or latrine duty. Flying low profile runs the Tuskegee Airmen are hungry to mix it up with the Germans but they are often grounded due to racism and faulty separate-but-certainly-not-equal equipment. When the Allied bombers suffer catastrophic casualties during bombing raids it is noted that the white pilots sent to protect their comrades are more interested in racking up kills than protecting the B-52s. Most missions end in failure and death. The Tuskegee men are finally allowed to fly a bombing run. Their sole objective is to protect the “heavies” at all costs. Even if it means forgoing attacking the Germans and missing out on the glory.

The movie is filled with stock, pedestrian characters that were so thinly defined and broadly written it was like watching an ABC Family Special Black History Month Presentation. Surprisingly John Ridley (Three Kings, U-Turn) penned the script and Aaron McGruder (The Bookdocks) did a final polish. The result of what should have been a dynamic collaboration turned out to be a tepid historical drama. All the tropes were thrown into the mix: the crusading Colonel valiantly trying to show the white brass inside the Pentagon that black men deserve to die for their country; the fatherly Major in charge of his eager troops, the troubled alchoholic squad leader who desperately seeks his father’s approval, the flashy philandering womanizer with the best flying skills but the worst discipline; the baby-faced recruit whose only passion is flying. There’s a folksy musician, comedy relief, a soulful Christian who loves Black Jesus and of course the hot love interest.

Terrence Howard tries his best to project gravitas and idealism in a thankless performance as Colonel A.J. Bullard who is nothing more than a pitchman trying to keep the pilots dreams alive. Cuba Gooding Jr. is completely unbelievable as the sage base commander complete with apple pie charm and a pipe; channelling Harry Morgan’s less grizzled Colonel Potter from M.A.S.H. If they could have put him in a cardigan they would have. Nate Parker, Tristan Wilds, Elijah Kelley, Ne-Yo, David Oyelowo and Marcus T. Paulk were all likable as the pilots but given “very little” to do. Anthony Hemingway in his feature film debut lost control of his film. He didn’t push the script or actors into new territories. I would have even taken some Roland Emmerich style melodrama over the sodden work here. From the opening credits that resembled an episode of the Black Sheep Squadron to the tacit punctuations of racism throughout gave the movie a tentative feel. Still photography with thought bubbles would have given off more heat and emotion than seen here. It was like the filmmakers didn’t want to commit anything too bloody or too garish. They kept everything soft and palatable. Like celluloid baby food. This is supposed to be a war movie dammit! I wanted to see the balls out bravado of The Dirty Dozen combined with the heart and soul of Platoon mixed with the style and depth of Full Metal Jacket. What I got was a loose primer on one of the greatest little known stories about World War II.

I must say the bulk of the budget was spent on the spectacular air skirmishes. They were moving and well crafted. The climax of the film served up our brave men in their propeller planes going up against the superior technology of the Nazis Messerschmitt jets was one of the better dogfights ever put on film. Clearly this part of the movie was influenced by George Lucas whose better working with CGI than real people. But ultimately these beautiful aerial battles were nothing more than pops of color in a drab room. Acrobatic chiaroscuro in an unstylish remarkably un-violent war movie. Leaving the theater my heart swelled with pride at these great Americans whose sacrifice and determination made all of us, not just African Americans proud as they fought adversity. Unfortunately this movie about them did not make my heart soar.

Pariah: Dee Rees a star just born

Sitting through Pariah, Dee Rees semi-autobiographical new movie is not one of those visceral theater experiences like Darren Aronofsky Requiem for a Dream or the highly controversial Italian film, Salo. You don't leave depressed or whimpering in dry heaves. You leave with the impression that something really important has been put on film. Quiet and introspective, Pariah explores the coming of age of Alike (pronounced A-lee-kay) a 17-year-old "butch" lesbian on the streets of Brooklyn. I must admit the movie itself is nowhere as violent or melodramatic as the premise may sound. It was a small muted slice of life as a young woman tries to make her way through the brambles of budding sexuality and a deteriorating home life all at once.

Alike is a masculine-leaning (or aggressive as they called themselves in the film) teenage lesbian. She is shy like many kids her age and all she wants is to have a girlfriend. She is guided by her best friend and mentor Laura. Not in denial but in hiding Alike changes clothes from the hyper-masculine affectation she presents at the local gay club to a sparkly, girly tee-shirt to hide that side of her life from her controlling mother and indifferent father. Kim Wayans, in a nice dramatic turn, reigns in her enormous presence to play the unhappy matriarch of the family who hides behind Jesus so she doesn't have to deal with her eldest daughters blossoming homosexuality. Charles Parnell plays her father whose DADT attitude is made up of less acceptance and tolerance for his daughter than his anger towards his wife in their decaying marriage. When the mother tries to circumvent further sapphic tendencies of developing she gets Alike to hang out with the daughter of a church member. The two girls embark on a sexual relationship that leads to heartbreak and betrayal. This was by far the most obvious plot device in what is a singular spectacular script. The words were written so truly it harkened back to the days of HBO's The Wire. Though you knew tragedy was afoot you were rooting for Alike to find her love. The film ended on a bittersweet note that you as the viewer had to pearl for Alike's and your inner joy.

Adepero Oduye as the main character is so fresh and vulnerable in her performance that often you want to look away to respect her privacy. Ms. Oduye captures teenage Weltschmerz with the power of a smoldering ember. The notion of heat is right below the surface. We see her toggle between despondence and euphoria and great weeping devastation just like any other red-blooded teen. Many times in the same scene. Her work on this film is so real I was transported back to those same emotions as I attended North Forsyth High School. This performance is definitely award worthy. Pernell Walker as Laura, struggling with her own mommy-issues gave an insightful, painful and solid performance. But to me the star of this movie is its director. Crafting and weaving a story that compels you in a direction that you didn't know you were going in until you arrived at it realizing that this was the only place you needed to be. She pushed her actors to give deep portrayals not just imitations of lives unknown. This movie may not be the glossy absurdity that black cinema has become mired in lately but its certainly an important new voice that I think we should hear from for years to come. Brava Ms. Rees. And like one of the teenage girls mentioned when discussing her bisexuality: "I like girls. But I love boys." And I love movies like this.