Leonard Maltin's 151 Best Movies You've Never Seen - Maltin, Leonard [4]
Kate genuinely likes Duncan but perceives that he’s unable, or unwilling, to move out of his carefully proscribed comfort zone with his pals in Minneapolis. Is there a future to their relationship? And is Duncan’s grandfather serious when he talks about ending his own life?
What could play out as soap opera becomes convincing drama because the performances are so sincere. Jackson has a way of underplaying that makes what he does look easy. Lewis is lively and likable as a good-hearted person with a sound head on her shoulders.
Then there is Donald Sutherland, who has the ability to play colorful, slightly-larger-than-life characters without slipping into caricature. He is completely endearing as an old man with an independent streak and a sly sense of humor. Neither screenwriter Brent Boyd nor director James Burke wanted him to be cute—as so many older people are personified in Hollywood movies—and he dodges that quite neatly. In fact, Sutherland spent time researching people with Parkinson’s disease before filming began.
During a discussion about the film with my class at USC, an interesting point arose. There is a scene in which Louise Fletcher and Juliette Lewis try to help wheelchair user Sutherland to the bathroom in time to meet his urgent needs. They don’t quite make it, but instead of despairing they all begin to laugh, at Sutherland’s cue. Some people in the class found this forced—a cheap laugh—but two other students raised their hands: one spoke of how it reminded her of a grandparent who’d reacted in exactly the same way, and another called on her experience in health care to confirm that many older people develop a sense of humor about their problems as a means of coping.
It’s this kind of sensitivity that makes Aurora Borealis worthwhile. A great movie? No, but definitely a good one. If you see it, agree with me, and happen to run into one of its actors someday, be sure to tell them.
4. BAADASSSSS!
(2004)
Directed by Mario Van Peebles
Screenplay by Mario Van Peebles
Actors:
MARIO VAN PEEBLES
JOY BRYANT
TERRY CREWS
OSSIE DAVIS
DAVID ALAN GRIER
NIA LONG
RAINN WILSON
T. K. CARTER
SAUL RUBINEK
PAUL RODRIGUEZ
VINCENT SCHIAVELLI
KHLEO THOMAS
LEN LESSER
SALLY STRUTHERS
ADAM WEST
GLENN PLUMMER
JOHN SINGLETON
TROY GARITY
There are many movies about moviemaking, but even within that category Baadasssss! is unique. It is at once a period piece, a cultural document, a family diary, and an unblinking look at guerrilla filmmaking. Its title, although entirely appropriate, apparently put people off. (I wonder how it would have fared had it been released with its working title, How to Get the Man’s Foot Outta Your Ass?)
In the early 1970s there was no independent film movement, as we know it today, and there were no avenues for black filmmakers to tell their stories. Melvin Van Peebles had enjoyed his first success in Hollywood with a sardonic comedy called Watermelon Man, but he didn’t want to make another studio movie. He was fired up to create something original and relevant, and he did just that, by any means necessary. This is Mario Van Peebles’s dramatic account of how his father made the landmark 1971 movie Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song.
Mario portrays his iconoclastic father, who’s got the drive and enthusiasm to make a street-smart movie for black audiences, and a makeshift crew of people who are willing to help him out. But Melvin is also his own worst enemy, repeatedly alienating the very people who can help him realize his goals and often putting them at risk. He also casts his young son Mario (played by Khleo Thomas) in the movie, enacting scenes that even some of his colleagues consider inappropriate.
Baadasssss! is a portrait of a contrary but unique artist and a