the groundhog day project

Though it is day three with After the Dark (AKA The Philosophers ), I don't think I have much to say about the film as a film . It's shot well enough, the acting is good for such large cast, some with only a few lines to work with. A warning going in: if you don't like Sophie Lowe's whispering in the opening scene, you should know that she continues to talk like that. Though she tells him to be quiet, ostensibly because someone is in the house with them--he assures her that they know she's there--she is not actually whispering to be quiet; that's just her voice. She will continue to talk like that and will not have many facial expressions either. Somehow, it kind of works for her character. A big problem this film has, generally, with its cast is some of the lesser (meaning, less screen time) characters have more personality than the leads--Petra, Mr. Zimit (James D'Arcy) and James (Rhys Wakefield). Freddie Stroma's Jack, for example, is more expressive...

Let's just start with a frank, honest truth. Roger Murtaugh is not black. And, I don't mean to be a smartass about the color versus the race, that "black" people are generally shades of what we'd call brown or whatever. I mean that, in Shane Black's script, race is not mentioned. Except for the title of today's entry (and one other instance I'll get to in a moment). Alfred says that to Murtaugh. And, the line may resonate a little more in the script because Murtaugh is not said to be black. He's just... Murtaugh. In fact, race is not an issue at all in the course of this film. Murtaugh just happens to have been cast black. Burke--the guy who tells Murtaugh he's breaking in a new partner--is only described in the script as "Rail-thin, nose like a beak." The actor cast as Burke just happens to be black. Okay, maybe not "just happens to be." Maybe the casting director, Marion Dougherty, deliberately chose to cast black actors...