Unbiased Reviews by Real People
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Unbiased Reviews by Real People
Jan's Top 12 List Of Black History Books, Movies And Music~Feb 11, 2012 Write an essay on this topic.The Bottom Line For Black History Month twelve intros to great books, movies and CDs. For Black History Month I went backwards through my reviews, found twelve great books and movies (and music) written by, starring or sung by black Americans and then introduced my reviews to you. This is just a drop in the bucket because I’ve written over two thousand reviews, but these are the most recent. I rated them either four or five stars and I hope you‘ll enjoy the list.. The first book by Nelson won the 2012 Coretta Scott King award. Kadir Nelson Heart And Soul: The Story Of America And African-Americans If you’ve read a few history books that made you cringe in dismay because the African Americans mentioned only sounded like victims in America’s story, you may sigh in relief when you read Kadir Nelson’s oversized, 2011 book called Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans. Otherwise if you’ve read history books about America and found nothing missing from or misleading about them, you may read Nelson’s book in some consternation. Nelson puts heart in his writing and soul in his oil paintings, already picking up Caldecott Honors and a Coretta Scott King award. He tackled the story of this nation and his people in 108, illustrated pages in the form of a homey narrative told by an elderly black woman. For full review: book Spike Lee Passing Strange "He's a brilliant director every adult movie fan can love. Take Passing Strange, based on a book. It's a rousing rock musical, a semibiographical story of its narrator, the singer/writer Stew, a witty comedy and moving drama. First it was played in repertory theater, then Broadway and now filmed for everybody to experience on DVD." For full review: movie Jeremy Love Bayou Vol. 1 The first volume tells the ghostly story of Lee Wagstaff, the little daughter of a sharecropper in 1933 outside of Charon, Mississippi. She and her father live alone and are so poor that when the story begins, Lee dives for a few dollars into the murky waters of the bayou to help the sheriff drag out a murdered black boy caught in a tree. It's pretty spooky, especially when she glimpses the ghost of the boy watching her. For full review: book James Kloppenberg Reading Obama “…Kloppenberg makes a very convincing portrayal of Obama as a very rare traditional Democrat inspired by pioneering pragmatic philosophers like William James and John Dewey, philosophers who, in Obama's words from his book The Audacity of Hope, were 'looking for both a language and systems of action that could help build community and make justice real'..." For full review: book John Boorman In My Country Renowned South African poet and public broadcaster Antjie Krog sought to poignantly capture her feelings for her troubled homeland in a nonfiction book called Country of My Skull, which South African screenwriter Ann Peacock read with a great deal of empathy. She spent two years developing a sensitive script for director John Boorman's 2004 film In My Country that seems to be mostly misunderstood, even critics lacking appreciation for what its dramatized story inspired by Krog's book was trying to convey. For full review: movie Charles Flood 1864: Lincoln at the Gates of History The North was losing the war when 1864 began and it looked pretty grim, even after Lincoln, with little support, appointed an obscure general to command the Union troops, Ulysses S. Grant. Flood doesn't gloss over the bad parts. The North may have had more numbers, but they were dying faster than the rebels under the cunning, bold direction of Robert E. Lee. I remember one disaster for the Union where they dug a tunnel into Confederate quarters, planted four tons of dynamite, and still lost what is called the Battle of the Crater. It looked like Lincoln would go down with the North when General Sherman sent the message that he captured Atlanta. That was the turning point, but the battle was far from over. Lee refused to negotiate and had to be defeated, run out of Richmond and left no option but surrender, just weeks before Lincoln's assassination. For full review: http://tinyurl.com/7xckfzk Leonard Todd Carolina Clay: The Life and Legend of the Slave Potter Dave Quite an exaggerated legend has grown up in some circles around Dave the slave potter from outside Edgefield, South Carolina, one claim being that he even spoke French, and a piece of his masterful stoneware sold for $135,000 in 2004, but he does deserve to be appreciated and his story told. Twenty-nine of his inscripted jars during the decades of slavery leading up and into the American Civiil War have been discovered and are protected in many great museums, such as the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston) and a couple in South Carolina. He was the only potter in the country who could fire a jar over twenty-eight inches tall and holding forty pounds. I first learned about Dave in a 2011 Caldecott Honor book, Dave The Potter, but I've learned so much more in Leonard Todd's 2008 nonfiction book, Carolina Clay: The Life and Legend of the Slave Potter Dave. For full review: book Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost For Black History Month I could think of no better black actress to honor than Caryn Elaine Johnson from Manhattan. You know her as Whoopi Goldberg, the first African American actress after Hattie McDaniels to win an Oscar for her delightful, supporting role as Oda Mae Brown in 1990's Ghost. She was also nominated in 1985 for her role in The Color Purple and is one of few actresses to have won an Oscar, Tony, Grammy and Emmys as well as scores of Golden Globe, Peoples' Choice, Image and Favorite Comedy Actress awards. We don't need to mention her nomination for a couple of Razzies. My favorite role (so far) is Brown, but I also love her Sister Clarence/Delores de Cartier in 1992's Sister Act. For full review: movie Ray Charles Genius: The Ultimate Collection Charles never could remain in one genre. His repertoire from a bluesy, grooving piano with back-up singers range from r & b, pop, country, blues, jazz, gospel and, it seems, classical as the liner notes indicate. I don't hear a classical one here, but his foundation of blues, gospel and jazz underscore them and transform classics like "You Are My Sunshine" and "Yesterday" into mesmerizing Charles' originals. I can't say which is my favorite as they all are highlights from his career that make me want to dance to the irrepressible, swingin' rhythm, sax pimping and his incredible, jivin' voice unrestricted to its tenor roots. For full review: CD Cornel West Hope on a Tightrope "Doc, my brother has written a lot of important books like Race Matters and Democracy Matters, which use 'matters' as a verb, and been honored with the American Book Award and more than twenty honorary degrees, besides being this University Professor at Princeton. With Hope on a Tightrope, we get, ya know, samples of his brilliant thought over the spectrum of twelve chapters..." For full review: book plus CD Barack Obama Of Thee I Sing Recently America's forty-fourth president, Barack Obama, published a charming picture book called Of Thee I Sing: A Letter To My Daughters. There are perhaps thirty pages illustrated by Loren Long, simple and engaging in text on one page and filled on the other side with illustrations that are more whimsical than cartoonish. What this loving father wishes to tell his young daughters is the inspiring thought that they stand on the shoulders of giants, as Isaac Newton once said of himself. Obama doesn't include the English discoverer of gravity, but the thirteen, eminent, awe-inspiring Americans he does include are: Georgia O'Keefe Albert Einstein Jackie Robinson Sitting Bull Billie Holliday Helen Keller Maya Lin Jane Addams Dr. Martin Luther King Neil Armstrong Cesar Chavez Abraham Lincoln George Washington For full review: book Van Jones The Green Collar Economy Bruce Springsteen put it best in 2004 when he said: "America is not always right. That's a fairy tale for children...But one thing America should always be is true. And it's in seeking her truth, both the good and the bad, that we find a deeper patriotism, that we find a more authentic experience as citizens, that we find the power that is embedded only in truth to change our world for the better." In 2008's The Green-Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems, Van Jones includes that quote, believing that there's a noticeable difference between the deeply patriotic and the cheaply patriotic citizen. Who are the cheaply patriotic, according to him and Springsteen? It would be the ones who mindlessly wave the American flag while the U.S. Constitution, America's prestige in the world, the national treasury and the international rule of law are diminished or abused. The deeply patriotic would be people who still believe that America can be a more perfect union and oppose those who seek to divide us. It also would be people who want America to lead the world, not in per capita greenhouse emissions and incarceration rates--or war--, but in green economic development, world-saving technologies, human rights. For full review: http://tinyurl.com/6naltdm  |
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