Take 'Em Down, Brown
I have much respect for Jack Brown's discerning film reviews, and applaud the fearlessness with which he countered the hyperbolic regard for Sacha Baron Cohen's ambush-style brand of satire in his recent Advocate takedown of Bruno [Cinema Dope, July 23, 2009].
Would that Brown had been able to bring that degree of toughmindedness to bear upon Yojiro Takita's Departures, easily the most manipulative foreign-language film to flimflam Oscar voters since Life is Beautiful. Like that lamentable Holocaust vaudeville, Departures takes on a Challenging-But-Important Subject (the honoring of the deceased), then sweetens it with feel-good-about-feeling-bad humor, pretentious shots of the protagonist playing the cello amid stunning pastoral backdrops, and enough shmaltz to keep New York's Second Avenue Deli in chopped liver till the turn of the next century. That this slick Japanese customer should win that most coveted of commercial American film prizes over such extraordinary global contenders as The Class, Waltz with Bashir and Revanche says less about the triumph of the human spirit than the filmmaking establishment's ongoing failure of nerve, as well as the susceptibility of some international artists to the worst of Hollywood's hard-sell tendencies.
Jan Stuart
Leverett
Gates Incident a Setup?
This letter is in response to the controversy over the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. by the Cambridge, Mass. Police Department. According to the several articles: "Cambridge Police responded to a call about 'two black males' breaking into a home near Harvard University." Police ended up arresting the man who lives there, Henry Louis Gates Jr. He had forced his way through the front door because it was jammed. Police say he refused to come outside to speak with an officer who told him he was investigating a report of a breakin. "Why, because I'm a black man in America?" Gates said, according to a police report written by Sgt. James Crowley, who teaches a racial profiling class for rookie police officers. Obama said the Cambridge police acted "stupidly" in arresting his friend, the prominent black scholar. Patrolman Carlos Figueroa told the Associated Press that when Crowley asked Gates to present identification, the professor shouted, "No, I will not!" Why would Gates assume this was racial profiling when he was informed by the officer that he [Crowley] was investigating a report of a break-in? Is it possible that the Cambridge police were set up for a racial profiling ambush?
Joe Bialek
Cleveland, Ohio
Correction: Last week's Advocate ["Going Around in Circles"] mistakenly paraphrased Northampton City Councilor David Narkewicz discussing the safety and environmental benefits of traffic "rotaries" when he was referring to "roundabouts."
