Da Dominion: Home of DOMINIONCAST!

I’ve never been a fan of Tyler Perry’s Chitlin Circuit to the big screen movies and I’m not starting now. His being in drag has never helped.

If you’re going to see Righteous Kill, and circumstance intervenes to prevent this, The Family that Preys is not a worthy substitute - thematically, dramatically or narrative wise. I know they aren’t meant to be comparable in any of those qualities, but without having seen the new Pacino/DeNiro flick I’m SURE it’s better - for one thing both veteran actors have better tastes in scripts.

Some of you may have never seen a Tyler Perry movie. Good news, seen one and you’ve seen them all. This is Truer than you may realize, as he has a virtual repertory company of actors that appear in one feature after the next, as they presumably scramble between non-monster roles. Alfre Woodard and Kathy Bates are the big names that signed on and their performances are decent despite having woefully one-dimensional roles.

Their story is basically The Bucket List, with Woodard as average God-fearing Freeman and Bates as stinking rich Nicholson, but without the commitment to that storyline. Kathy’s gonna die and Woodard is supposed to learn to live for herself while she still has the time, but Bates isn’t really dying and Woodard isn’t the altruisitc family martyr. The racial difference is ignored as is the economic disparity - what is this relationship telling us? Were they lesbians, cougars, both or even - perish the thought - an actual full movie about how they change and support each other through tribulations I’d understand where the writer was going. This is the portion that makes it a comedy-drama, allegedly.

The other part of the movie is Woodard’s uppity got-a-degree daughter (Sanaa Lathan) hungering for power by having an affair with her boss, Bates’ former addict evil-for-no-reason son (Cole Hauser). Lathan is traumatized by her father’s abandonment of Woodard so she doesn’t support her husband’s entreprenuerial dreams, has a baby by the white man, hoards money he gives her and believes Hauser will leave his wife for her. Bates’ boy, being a rich white man, cheats on his wife with Lathan, fires her husband, disrespects female peers and seeks to supplant rich Momma to become more rich - you know, typical Caucasian stuff. The implicit moral: being successful will corrupt you and hurt your family whom you’ll turn your back on.

In the end, white mamma, with the help of black mamma, thwart and fire white son, whom then ditches evil black daughter. All the good (morally, not class of writing) support characters, whose roles don’t really mean shit to the story, live happily ever after. Bates kills herself rather than face Alzheimer’s and Woodard takes a much-needed vacation, although we do find out she’s a millionaire and could’ve avoided much of the plot’s  issues.

Why? Because Tyler Perry writes racially targeted soap operas - like Latin novellas, but “hoavellas” since some hoe has to get her come-uppance. He’s expert with the heart string bullshit and good ole church values,  but makes the characters shallow as hell to not make the audience think - just react. Lathan does actually get slapped by her too-stupid-to-notice-my-son-is-half-white husband. The audience went wild, but I saw it coming in the wedding scene during the first ten minutes of the flick - sadly I’d seen another of Preacher Perry’s movies before.I’ll give him credit though; his other movies have been far more dogmatically didactic. This one had only one baptism scene and the prudish Woodard throwing anoiting oil on strippers to ward them away - since strippers are like vampires in that way.

The Chitlin Circuit was a result of segregation, which has never existed in my generation, so its appeal to me is wasted. Ironically, if you love chitlins you may like this movie. Like eating boiled pork intestines, some things are better left in the past.

Hunin, Rib, Angie and I talk about our favorite TV shows in a fiercely competitive way - Ok, Hunin and I do. The ladies ally on many of their choices to balance our ire. Joss Whedon’s ass bears three sets of lip prints. The Tribune of Thought lays down some principles of comedies and the place of TV in his love life. My older cousin tells us of past shows we missed. I lay out the mad genius of 30 Rock and dirty grit of The Shield. Rib wonders on the absence of Black shows.

Dominion Cast 8 download (55 mins, 49 mb)

Music by St. Adam and Reno Project
Topics were too damn wild to index, so here’s some links to those shows mentioned:
Whedontastic: Buffy and Firefly
Hunter: Works for Us
Chef
Home Movies (you decide)
Deep Space Nine (not … Stargate SG1)
30 Rock’in It
Mackey on the Attackey!!<
The Boondocks: Heir to Chappelle

To suggest show ideas, comment here, in our forums or email Dominus at DaDominion dot com

My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-e823a0e05e56c06e2a69bdf3954f05f6}
   

Just got done watching the latest Don Cheadle vehicle Traitor and I’m pissed.

If I had tens of millions to invest I’d buy out the government of some tropical nation and market it as a high fashion getaway to attract models. Better yet, set up a model dojo - to attract wannabes without the attitude/self-esteem to resist my advances. I’m watching Next Top Model right now - it may be coloring my daydreams. Dating Domina Dawson and beatific Belucci when not writing this blog, which would have license to broadcast the entertainment we discuss, would be most likely. Still, if I plunked down a chunk of bank on a movie as good as Traitor I’d DAMN sure to market the muthafucka.

How long after Equilibrium came out did you see it? Have you seen Equilibrium? You haven’t? Go see the shit and I’ll wait here. … … … Back? Wasn’t that the shit!? Taye got FACED !! Traitor is the same way in terms of media attention. If I didn’t have this Dominion, or you citizens to proclaim cool stuff too, I wouldn’t have been thinking about some non-TV topic to write about and would’ve caught it on DVD, if I remembered. Advertised as this year’s “Bourne Ultimatum” is ass-headed. You set the movie up to be compared with another that’s already been seen when it may not be comparable and that makes your flick seem a shallow shadow of the bigger picture. Stupid, the marketing execs should be tied in celluloid film tight enough to break the skin and splashed with boiling butter.

Besides the main characters having rhyming last names - Samir Horn and Jason Bourne - Traitor is to the Ultimatum what the Departed is to Casino Royale. They both have guns and international intrigue, the comparison ends there. The movie begins as Training Day, then slowly becomes the Departed and ends like Donnie Brasco around the theme of The Siege. Now you can go watch all movies four films back to back, or I can try to elaborate without giving spoilers. OK, … I’ll go on, crybabies.

Cheadle’s Samir Horn is a Sudanese-American man of deep faith in God/Allah. The question is does he view Allah as the Muslim version of God, or God as the American version of Allah. It seems a translation difference, but part of the depth of his character is that it’s a true cultural divide. He’s a good man with good allies on both sides committed to fighting evil, which exists on both sides. There are revelations given in the film that suggest whether or not Horn is a traitor, and if so to which side, but they’re able to keep the tension mostly intact until the climax, though its subject does change mid-film. I’ll only say that he is, in fact, True to the title.

International intrigue with Islam involved equals the War on Terror theme. If this is a spoiler for you, with a title like “Traitor”, you’re probably new to the blog and get turned off by big words like “international” - thanks for stopping by. Most films covering this … across the world conflict feature the apparent futility of it, it’s toll on innocents and the way it contrasts with past wars in the good old days when enemies were really evil (Nazis) or at least wore self-identifying uniforms (Viet Cong). It’s often a one-sided account from the US perspective. Writer/director Nachmanoff does a great job of cover both sides, answering some of the questions regarding “Why they hate us.” The treatment of American Intelligence draws parallels with the Fundamentalists in regard to how innocents are views: sadly expendable in the service of defeating a great evil. No group or agency is explicitly named, but terrorism is only a tactic, not ideology, applicable to either side.

Hunting Samir is devout Christian FBI agent Clayton - played by Guy Pearce - yeah, he’s in this move too! You’d think they’d double bill him with Cheadle given his caliber. More butter for the bastards. He could’ve been used more but serves well as a counterpoint to Samir. They’ve both played better characters but as elements of the plot and direction fulfill their roles more than adequately - with emphasis on Cheadle’s ability to portray complexity. Props go to Said Taghmaoui who plays the Fundamentalist recruiter Omar. He’s played a ton of terrorists in the past but this time he’s allowed to portray a sympathetic character given his friendship with Samir.

If political thrillers are your thing, and it’s been a while since we had a good one that wasn’t bullet ridden, check it out in theatres.   

I like to vary up the categories of my articles to create pallet of media choices - and I get hella bored doing repetitive topics - but I’ve got to discuss this other HBO show: True Blood. From the creators of Six Feet Under, which I’ve never seen but have heard nothing but props about, I decided to give it a look-see. Home Box Office rarely makes me regret checking out a new show - plus being a premium channel you can at least get some nudity and well-written profanity for your trouble.  

The promo caught my attention with the general premise being modern day vampires that seek civil rights like a social group despite expected prejudice. I immediately assumed it would be the irreligious bloodsucker type. The kind that blade featured where vampirism is like some kind of fucking venereal disease that does funny shit to your blood to make you seem supernatural. I HATE this kind of vampire mythology, cause there’s little myth to it. We live in a world of science and it can’t mix with the supernatural in my view, since examination of given phenomenon takes away it’s mystique. Bat shit and magic words that creates a ball of fire is no longer an evocational incantation, it’s a harmonically induced spontaneous-endothermic reaction with an exact formula - lame.

Enough of my purist musings. The show’s vampires, so far, are the undead kind: can’t go out in sunlight, drink only blood or the socially-approved mass marketed Tru Blood substitute, and affected by archetypal symbolism. The director further shows their preternatural character with small mental influence over others and other creepiness. So far the only vamp character is Bill - yes, Bill. There’s a scene with the heroine (Anna Paquin) remarking on his name not being Antoine, Basil or Langford. Two years ago the race of undead “came out of the coffin”, so people are having first encounters with them the way some folks experience Black people and homosexuals in many places. The setting is a rural Louisiana town - we approve of the Anne Rice stylistic homage - where I wouldn’t feel comfortable myself given the Jena 6. Another complication is that vampire blood is the new crank apparently - so they come off like minorities from being victimized. “Fang-Banger” is the new “Nigger-Lover”.

Sookie Stackhouse, Paquin’s psychic waitress, is the main girl-next-door idealistic and pure-hearted protagonist. Already there’s a sexual tension since he’s the only person she can’t mentally read at all, he’s a man of mystery in her country fried steak world and it’s HBO. This is giving me pause, as it seems a bit Buffy, without Whedontastic writing. The writing is nice but more plain spoken without the sarcastic wit. The heroine’s powers are more shameful affliction than real power. Sookie is no anciently heralded girl power modern Xena - but her powers let her kick ass to save Bill. The vamp is so far this huge serving of gravitas with little other development outside of a gentlemanly formal air - since he may be centuries old - but not overdone with the Angel levels of angst.

Other characters of note are the Rattrees, a white trash couple that hustles weed and other scams including BJ - the street name for vamp blood. Terra the Black best friend of Sookie whom is the typical Black bitch with a heart of gold: ever vigilant against racism and without patience for “steeyoopid peepull”. Her racist brother Jason Stackhouse that hates vampires but is a womanizer and monster himself. Sam owns the bar at the center of town and is Sookie’s overprotective boss that loves her - and is of course player-hating the new vamp in town. Other personalities surround the story and give it a very authentic feel, which I gauge by its strange feel to me. Being an elitist intellectual urbanite minority, I kind of related to the vampire most.

Ironically, and as a credit to the concept, I’d be a huge vamp bigot. Creepy folk with weird powers that look at me like a cheeseburger they could haz laps my tolerance several times. Other ethnicities regard me with more fear than I do them, including gays. I can tolerate another man viewing me as a sex object, or not - but since it’s me, likely -  the same way I could deal with an undesirable woman doing the same. Having my apex predator status stolen is a deeper matter. I applaud the show thus far for posing these questions to add an entirely new level of grittiness.

It makes me want to run D20 Modern again - which is a True compliment coming from me - but I’m ready to be let down later.        

Q and Rib rejoin Hunin and I for a discussion of the film greats that move us the most. Hunin reveals his crippled ability to enjoy a Mel Brooks classic. Words are seen to be the heart of action. An old holiday favorite is painted as fantasy bullshit, and a little known film is raised from obscurity.

What are some of your favorites? Future topic ideas can be commented here, in the forums, or e-mailed to dominus at dadominion dot com. Submissions will be open for another week.

Dominion Cast 7 download (41.3MB, 45 mins.)

My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-e823a0e05e56c06e2a69bdf3954f05f6}