Film Rec

[nightdog_barks]

So last night, Independent Lens, on PBS, showed the 2016 documentary I Am Not Your Negro, which is based on the writings of American author James Baldwin on black history in America. It was amazing. By turns infuriating, incendiary, profoundly depressing, eye-opening, and ... maybe just a little hopeful. But not much. See this film if you can.

Finished Ashley Hays' The Body in the Clouds, and, while it was pretty good, it left me feeling pretty meh. There's a Plot Twist that ... isn't much of a twist, and the story kept going for another twenty or so pages after it should've ended.

We got no snow here. We did get a sprinkling of pretty, shiny ice pellets, but no snow. Bah humbug.

Comments

[jadesfire]

I bought this for the students as part of Black History Month in October, along with a bunch of James Baldwin's books. It's yet to be returned to the library since then, so I haven't managed to see it myself, but it's on the list.

We had snow! Sort of! I mean, it fell overnight and left just enough on the pavements to make them really, really hard to walk on, now it's frozen. I love snow, but much prefer fluffy white drifts to taking my life (and bones!) in my hands every time I step outside.

[nightdog_barks]

I think you will really like it! It is absolutely maddening in parts, seeing how so much has changed, but ... so many things haven't. There was one shot in particular, a tiny video clip of white boys protesting desegregation in Alabama (or Mississippi, or wherever) in the 1960s, and they were holding up signs with swastikas and "White Power" on them, and it's like, oh look, everything old is new again. I was so hugely impressed by Baldwin himself -- I'd never really seen any of his interviews, and he was such a thoughtful, intense speaker. Five stars! :D

I am envious of your snow! All we have had are ice pellets.