"A Good Day to Be Black & Sexy"
(Credit: Sundance)
Movie stars are expensive. Provocative titles are cheap. That's the primary lesson of "A Good Day to Be Black & Sexy."
Unfortunately, a title alone can't sustain audience interest. Don't expect the quintet of rambling, tedious vignettes about African-American sexuality to show up at a theater near you anytime soon. (It's a shame the movie isn't better. Both black people and sex are woefully underappreciated by Hollywood. And black people having sex? Forget about it.)
Less titillating but far more compelling is Timothy Greenfield-Sanders' "The Black List: Volume One," a documentary about the contemporary black American experience as told by 21 major figures in art, politics, sport and business.
The impressive list of subjects includes Chris Rock, Colin Powell, Toni Morrison, Slash, Al Sharpton and Sean Combs. Film critic Elvis Mitchell conducted the interviews, which Greenfield-Sanders presents in sharp, entertaining and enlightening successive segments. (Check out what my colleague Jevon Phillips of the LA Times thought as well.)
HBO Docs acquired the film and it'll play great on the network—though IndieWire reports that the company also plans a theatrical release to qualify for Oscar consideration.
Don't expect "Love Comes Lately," which already played the Toronto film festival in September, to score a major buy.
The limp quirky comedy is based on several short stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer, all woven together as the work of the movie's main character, Max (82 year-old Austrian actor Otto Tausig). Tausig makes for an unlikely leading man and a strange object of affection for a parade of random actresses including Rhea Perlman, Barbara Hershey and Elizabeth Peña. Most of the comedy falls flat, while the stories meander unconvincingly.
Saving the best for last, I caught "The Visitor" before the fest but it's worth a mention on the day that it screened for the media here.
Tom McCarthy's follow-up to the lovely indie "The Station Agent" shares some similarities with that low-key comedy of friendship. But "The Visitor" also personalizes a hot-button issue—illegal immigration—with first rate characterizations and uniquely moving relationships.
The actors aren't widely known. but Hiam Abbass, Haaz Sleiman and Danai Gurira are all exceptional. They serve as support for Richard Jenkins (the deceased father from "Six Feet Under"), delivering a perfectly calibrated turn as a lonely college professor whose friendship with a Syrian immigrant permanently alters both of their lives.
"The Visitor" opens in limited release on April 11. It's certain to be one of the best films at Sundance and likely among the best of 2008.
