Movie Review - "Da 5 Bloods"

 Four Black Viet Nam veterans gather in current day Saigon.  Why?  Ostensibly, it is to recover the remains of their troop leader, Stormin' Norman, who was killed in action back in 1967, and return them home for an honorable burial in Arlington National Cemetery.   However, they are also going back to recover a chest from a downed CIA transport plane that was filled with gold bars, which the five of them - the five "Bloods" from the title - found and buried back in 1967 shortly before Norman was killed.

Of course, many other issues reveal themselves, including greed, black market forces, PTSD, racial inequity, and the scars of the American War in Viet Nam that still exist nearly fifty years after the fall of Saigon, among both the Americans who served there and the Vietnamese who still live there.  The lunacy and pointlessness of the Viet Nam War is brought front and center to all of us once again.

I had heard a lot of critical acclaim for this movie, but I have to say that I was completely blown away by this Spike Lee "Joint."  It's told in both the present day, and is filled in with flashbacks where we see the five platoon mates in action, including Stormin' Norman, the leader of the crew, and played by Chadwick Boseman.  It is yet another painful reminder of what we lost with Boseman's untimely death last year.  The first among equals of a terrific cast, though, is Delroy Lindo as Paul.  Paul is the guy who has assumed the leadership among the remaing four, and he is also the one who seems to be fighting the most demons from his multiple tours in Viet Nam.  Would not be surprised if Lindo scores an Oscar Nomination for this performance.

Oh, and as a bonus, there are several background musical tracks featuring Marvin Gaye, including a terrific a cappella rendition of "What's Going On."  How great is that?

This is a fairly long movie, two and one-half hours, and there is cursing, LOTS of cursing, and some graphic depictions of war time violence, so this one may not be for everybody.  With that proviso, though, I have to say that I loved this movie.  

It gets Four Stars from The Grandstander.

"Ma Rainey's Black Bottom"

The story told in "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom", the movie based upon the August Wilson's 1982 play, takes place in one day in a Chicago recording studio in 1927.  The famous Ma Rainey (Viola Davis), legendary "Mother of the Blues" has come to town to record some records accompanied by her quartet of musicians, Levee (Chadwick Boseman), Toledo, Cutler, and Slow Drag.  Only horn player Levee would like to write his own songs and arrangements, and play the music his way, "like the people in the big cities" want to hear, only Ma, a diva unlike any other, is having none of it.  

Like all great plays - and director George Wolfe films this very tightly, you can tell that this was a play - lots of exposition takes place from different characters, particularly Levee, as we learn the backstories of the characters.  Like all great dramas, this story makes you think and at times makes you uncomfortable.  I'll not say more other than tell you that the final seen is ironic and tragic at the same time.

It's a great story, but you really want to see this movie for the performances of Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman.  

Both are sure to receive Oscar nominations for their performances.  The performance of Boseman is particularly wrenching when you realize what he was dealing with and nearing the end of a years long battle with cancer.  That he could give such a performance is remarkable and a great testimony to a career and a life that ended way, way too soon.

The Grandstander gives this one Three and One-Half Stars, and will leave you with a scene from the movie...

https://youtu.be/SwkStUxtGkI

To Absent Friends - Chadwick Boseman

Chadwick Boseman

1977-2020

It was shocking news last night to learn of the death of actor Chadwick Boseman at the way-too-young age of 42.  He had been suffering from colon cancer, a diagnosis he and his family kept away from the public, for the last four years, and in that time, amidst all of the dire treatments that such a diagnosis entails, Boseman continued to work and act in movies, many of them quite significant ones.

His brief career includes 35 acting credits, the most significant, to me at least, being King T'Challa of Wakanda, the Black Panther, in the movie "Black Panther" in 2018, and Jackie Robinson in the 2013 biopic "42."  Both movies received critical acclaim for Boseman, and "Black Panther" become one of the highest grossing movies of all-time (over $1.3 billion to date).  He has also portrayed such figures as singer James Brown and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, in addition to appearing as the Black Panther in three other Marvel Universe movies.  Later this year, he will appear on Netflix in the film production of August Wilson's "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom."

As Robinson in "42"

How ironic that Boseman died on the day that 

MLB was observing Jackie Robinson Day

As King T'Challa, 

The Black Panther

It was an all too brief, yet quite notable career for Chadwick Boseman.  RIP.

"42"

We spent this afternoon at the movies seeing the just released "42", the story of Jackie Robinson's first season in the major leagues.  I have long felt that the story of Jackie Robinson is one of the most important pieces of American social history in the 20th century, and Robinson himself one of the most important persons, not just an important ballplayer, but important persons of the 20th century, so it is significant and perhaps long past due that an important film maker, Oscar winner Brian Helgeland, who directed and wrote the screenplay, made a movie of this story.

It is a terrific movie.  In fact, I can say that it ranks right up there with the best of all of the baseball movies such as "Pride of the Yankees", "Field of Dreams", and "Eight Men Out" (my personal favorites).  Like the first two of those movies, it weaves a love story, in this case the story of Jack and Rachel Robinson, in among the baseball.  Like the third of those movies, it focuses on a major event in the game's history.  In this one, it is the story of Branch Rickey's breaking baseball's unwritten code of "whites only" in major league baseball.  It is Harrison Ford's Rickey and Chadwick Boseman's Robinson that are the fulcrum and the heroes of the story.  Boseman, with whom I was not familiar, does a great job as Robinson.  Unlike Gary Cooper as Lou Gehrig, he actually looks like a ballplayer, he carries off the baseball scenes, and he hits all the right notes in his portraying the anger, frustration, and heroic stoicism required of Robinson in that first season.  Harrison Ford also pulls off playing the larger than life Branch Rickey, right down to the bushy eyebrows.  in her review the Post-Gazette's Barb Vancheri called this Ford's best performance in years.

Baseball fans who know the Robinson story will see that the movie picks up on all of the pivotal moments....being told by Rickey "not to fight back", the petition of some Dodger players to refuse to play with  him, Leo Durocher laying down the law to the team that they WILL play with Robinson, the rampant racism in the south, and the north, during the period, being targeted by opposing pitchers, the vile racial baiting by Phillies manage Ben Chapman, and Pee Wee Reese putting his arm around Jackie on the field in Cincinnati.  Familiar stories to the avid baseball fan, but expertly told and depicted in the movie.

Now, a word about the baseball in the movie.  I thought that the baseball action in the movie was done well and was believable, but I know that the militant seamheads will no doubt find fault with it. I have already heard people pointing out that Dodgers road uniforms had "Brooklyn" across the front, not "Dodgers" as shown in the movie, and, yes, I know that the scoreboard was not in left centerfield at Forbes Field, nor were there advertising signs along the outfield walls at Forbes, but, please, as our friend Dan Bonk has pointed out, the film makers were "making a movie, not a documentary", and, hey, they did get the Cathedral of Learning right, didn't they?   In any event, the essence of the story is there, and it is told brilliantly, I think, and who cares if occasionally they don't get the exact pitch count correct. 

 "42" will move you, will anger you, will bring you to tears, and in the end, it is an uplifting story.  Be sure you watch the end of the movie when a sort of "Whatever became of...."  montage is shown before the credits.  It is a movie that I plan on owning and will watch regularly in the years ahead.

When I do tours of the Sports Museum, I always highlight the Negro Leagues in Pittsburgh, and I always start with the question "How many of you know who Jackie Robinson was?"  I am always pleasantly surprised by how many kids, even grade school kids, know who Robinson was, and what he did.  It proves that Robinson's story is not just a sports story, but an important American story.  "42" does a terrific job in telling that story.  Everyone should see it.

"A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives."
                                                                          - Jackie Robinson