the groundhog day project

1. Today is the third anniversary of Roger Ebert's death, so I thought I'd share his thoughts on today's film--repeating Slam . 2. Today was the final day of AFA Nationals, it's already after midnight local time, and we're heading for the airport in the morning... Since it is (was) the last day of AFA and the final round I watched was, like yesterday, poetry--an amazing round, six brilliant performances, five of those six on issues about black Americans, so that's why I'm repeating Slam . 3. I'd like to get into some serious political stuff related to, primarily, the argument between Ray (Saul Williams) and Lauren (Sonja Sohn) that comes (oddly) late in the film. (Oddly, because the structure of this film seems a bit off. The jail sequence just goes on a little too long, and structurally comes too early to be the second act, and goes too late to be confined just to the second act. Also, the jail sequence is not split appropriately to be both acts on...

In the mood for some poetry after judging poetry semifinals at the end of today's tournament day. first poetry movie that came to mind was Slam (I couldn't remember if Total Eclipse really includes much poetry and I swear The Basketball Diaries includes almost none, and I've already watched Dead Poets Society for this blog) so I'm watching Slam , even though I remember liking the move but being underwhelmed by the poetry. (I suppose I could have finally watched Howl but I didn't feel like something new tonight; didn't even get back to the hotel until almost eleven. That's how Nationals goes. Early starts and late ends to the days, three hard days then you're out.) (Separate note: Danny Rubin pointed out that this---Gainesville--is his home town.) The movie is filmed like it's a documentary, and I think it's covering a lot of the same themes as the documentary SlamNation . It's talking about how black Americans ends up disproportion...

The heart of Swingers is Mike, especially what I've been calling that scene . If you're with this somewhat depressed guy and can make it through that scene--my daughter was in the room the other day when that scene was on, and her "Oh, sweetie, no," was exactly the kind of response we should have--you're rooting for him, rooting for his life to get better. And, that's easy. Mike is not a jerk like Trent or Sue. He's not there to pad the rat pack esque group at the center of this movie, like Charles--though his "this place is dead, anyway" is amazing--or Rob--whose useful advice about life for Mike could have come from Trent and maybe worked a little better dramatically, structurally. Instead of the latter, we're barely offered up much that is positive about Trent. Sure, he's trying to get Mike out of his apartment but it's hard most of the time to really see Trent doing that for Mike, rather he's taking advantage--or so it seems...