Posts Tagged ‘Nov 22’
COMING SOON: The Phoenix of Phillips
Youth artists working on a new mural. Photo provided by Semilla Center for Healing and the Arts By PHOENIX OF PHILLIPS,SEMILLA CENTER Hoping for surprises this holiday season? The next issue of The Phoenix of Phillips will soon be in the alley. This issue, whose theme is “Seeding a New Community” will be co-edited by a group of wonderful youth artists. We hope you will be surprised at what they come up with.
Movie Corner: Barbarian
20th Century Studios By HOWARD MCQUITTER II 20th Century Studios 2022Horror Barbarian is a very well-rounded horror film that, with its unpredictability and contradictions, is genuinely scary. For what seems like a normal house with normal trappings, below it is a house of horrors. Prepare to squirm in your seat when you see Barbarian. Tess Marshall (Georgina Campbell) is in Detroit (1980s) for a major convention. Finding hotel space full to capacity, discovers her Airbnb service has been double-booked at a “nice” house in a rundown neighborhood. It is night and pouring rain. Such a perfect setting for scares, a perfect place to be in the wrong places. She rings the doorbell to find another occupant is there. His name is is Keith (Bill Skarsgård, who played the murderous Pennywise the Clown) and he is as puzzled as she. He invites her to get out of the rain as everything seems to be “normal” inside the house. Understandably, Tess is wary of Keith; and Keith nervously tries to make her comfortable. He’s a perfect gentleman, offering her to sleep in his room while he sleeps on the couch. In the middle of the night, she awakes to find her door open. She moves from the bedroom to the darkened hallway while calling for Keith and getting no answer. Strange house, strange happenings, she walks slowly, not knowing where to go. What she finds going down to the basement is a marked contrast to the upstairs. What’s more, there are unbelievable discoveries below too frightening to elaborate on…no spoiler’s alert! Another piece to this scary adventure by director Zach Creggar (comes from a comedy background) is not scary in itself-- but a part of the story anyway. The owner of the house AJ (Justin Long) may have to sell the house because he faces sexual harassment allegations on his job as an actor and he is trying desperately to find lawyers to defend him. Cast: Georgina Campbell (Tess), Bill Skarsgård (Keith), Justin Long (AJ), Matthew [...]
Movie Corner: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Warner Bros. By HOWARD MCQUITTER II Warner Bros. 1962Black &White Drama/Horror Thriller The drama/ thriller feels so much like Alfred Hitchcock, but it is directed by Robert Aldrich (The Dirty Dozen , Emperor of the North ). To this day, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? has aged quite well. The story of two sisters starts as children in vaudeville in the early 1900s before becoming movie stars in Hollywood’s pre-Golden and Golden Ages. As for Jane (Bette Davis), her movies are often riddled with being difficult to work with besides her heavy drinking which will carry into her years long after acting. Blanche (Joan Crawford) on the other hand, is much easier to get along with in general and is a better actress than her cranky sister. The camera moves fast forward several decades later where the two two sisters who never married live in Rudolph Valentino’s old mansion which looks more inviting from its façade than it does inside. By this time, Blanche is wheelchair bound and she depends partly on a very attentive maid Elvira Stitt (Maidie Norman), the only major African American in the movie, who makes two or three visits a week. But the majority of the time, Blanche is subjected to verbal and physical abuse by Jane. Jane feels she has complete control over her invalid sister. Elvira is suspicious of Jane and tries to encourage Blanche to get psychological help for her sister. Blanche is kept in an upstairs room with bars on the window. She has no connection to the outside except the telephone and Elvira. Jane, angry at Blanche, rips out the telephone, leaving the only other telephone on the first floor. When Jane runs out of liquor she uses Blanche’s checkbook. Jane drives a 1940s sedan in mint condition. The next door neighbors, Mrs. Bates (Anna Lee) and her daughter Liz Bates (Barbara Merrill, who is Bette Davis’ real-life daughter), are kept at bay by Jane when Mrs. Bates tries to be friendly to her. Jane puts an ad in the [...]
Returning Chapter 25: Moonstruck
Patrick Cabello Hansel. Photo courtesy the author. By PATRICK CABELLO HANSEL Screen one: Luz and Angel stare at the full moon rising, holding little Angel’s hands, for a moment forgetting that their daughter had been taken and they were in a desperate search to find her. For just a minute, the beauty of the moon gave them room to breathe; a space free of fear, full of awe. Screen two: Agnes, looking at the same moon, 120 years later, holding little Lupe’s hand, knowing that she did the right thing by taking her away from Brian Fleming and his band of criminals. Knowing that it meant the life of her granddaughter Amethyst was in mortal danger. For Agnes, the full moon inspired not awe, but doom. We cannot stare at beauty or shake with fear forever. We have to move. Agnes took Lupe by the hand and decided to go to the one place that would not ask too many questions. It was a shelter for the abused: women, children and others. But it was not one of the official ones which offered shelter, food, medical care and gentle guidance through the web of police, courts and social workers. No, this was the most underground of underground shelters, run by a woman who was only known as La Conejita: the Little Rabbit. Not that she was small at all. Big in bone, in voice and in ability to strike fear in any man looking to exact revenge or obedience. She sheltered not only women who had been beaten, but women who had fought back, even killing their abusers. She sheltered all victims, innocent or not. Agnes knew that La Conejita would know how to deal with men like Brian Fleming. Meanwhile, Luz and Angel were stunned out of their lunar reverie by a cold wind that blew down from the north, that seemed to carry all of winter with it. It shocked them out of their momentary peace; it also emboldened them in their search. They had never dealt with time travel before. But they had encountered many difficult things, and had triumphed over incredible [...]
Something I Said: Should’ve Been
Dwight Hobbes. Photo: courtesy the author By DWIGHT HOBBES Art Knight should be the next Minneapolis Police Department Chief, but has too much integrity for his own good. That’s how he lost his deputy chief position and got demoted, calling the MPD out for entrenched, institutionalized racism. Knight said the department needs to improve how it recruits, trains and promotes minorities and women, stating the obvious. “If you keep employing the same tactics you’re just going to get the same old white boys.” Chief Arradondo dismayed black Minneapolis at large with that move, since he, himself won his job on the strength of overwhelming black support in a social climate that demanded a change from those same old boys. And, for that matter, racist female cops. In fact, in 2007 then-Lieutenant Medaria Arradondo was part of a successful lawsuit against the MPD on the grounds of an environment hostile toward black officers. One has to believe the publicly pull-no-punches Art Knight, not some platitude-spewing token like Arradondo turned out to be, would bend his back to making real change instead of posturing as an affirmative action token. Mayor Jacob Frey, phony as a $3 bill, has trotted out candidates to nominate: Elvin Barren, Brian O’Hara and, two-for-one token RaShall Brackney. Not one is from the community the next chief will be charged to serve. And you can bet his paramount concern is how well his arm fits up the back of whichever puppet. Knight has been on the force more than a quarter century. As chief of staff he oversaw the community engagement and outreach bureau and led the procedural justice team. Importantly, even before came right out and called a spade a spade, the community trusted and respected him. They still do and would soundly applaud his taking the top job. In fact, such a move would go a long way toward them finally taking any stock at all in a white mayor. Importantly, it would also go a long way toward hopefully preventing [...]
