comment #1

Doug Pratt says ...

What you say may be true, but when you watch those damn films, they get you, every time.

comment #2

vansmith says ...

i think you nailed it, and not just this film but any other in the pipe line like it. life as a cliche. how about this - take a group of rapper wannabees and turn them into debaters 21st century style and then there can be a shootout at the great debate..winner undecided!!

comment #3

thebuddha says ...

They should rename the movie "Nappy Hos."

comment #4

vansmith says ...

i will be holding a press confrence apologizing for all of my insensitive remarks BEFORE THE MOVIE COMES OUT! then i will enter sensitivity rehab so i can learn to appreciate uplifting heavly cliched movies regardless of ethnicity..

comment #5

VedaPierce says ...

Blacks can debate, swim, master calculus, win spelling bees...we get it. Once we exhaust the black pioneer genre, it will be time to rewrite the same stories for the children of illegal aliens. The Asians will be spared this drivel because their competence is taken for granted.

comment #6

tholl-yung says ...

I believe we've all been spelling it wrong, it's "hoes." Just want to go on record as saying I prefer Oprah's curly headed hair, and I love African American hair au natural, as nappy as it can grow, and I hate the straightened look and hair extensions and fake hair, which is why I don't like the photo going around of Crystal Mangum. (mangum?)

I think a better movie could be made around Vivian Stringer and Essence Carson from what I saw on Larry (love/hate his show) King.

comment #7

nola says ...

seriously, must we have one of these movies every year? It's as if hollywood can only make, period pieces or super broad comedies when it come to black casts. Why can't we make a smart, good rom com, drama, thriller etc.?

I work for a company that receives alot of these black pioneer scripts. someone actually sent me a project about a man who intergrated a fire dept. in South Carolina in 1987 (yes that is a 19). the producer was shocked when I passed. he said it was a story that needed to be told.

Wow T. Holly, most of the men out here loooooove the fake ass weaves. I was thinking about getting one just to see if I would get more (hell any) dates. Then I realize spending 400-600 dollars every few months on some hair was stupid.

comment #8

VedaPierce says ...

I actually had no idea blacks could fight fires so perhaps you should've greenlighted that one.

comment #9

tholl-yung says ...

For such a sex obsessed town, there's not a lot of it going on in Hollyweird Califukmea. How about a rom com around a female black woman's basketball coach?

comment #10

D.Z. says ...

T. Holly: They made a movie with a female player called Love and Basketball...

comment #11

tholl-yung says ...

What does that have to do with anything, D.Z.? How you, or another regular, using your charm and wit to ask Nola out on a date? Even if it's virtual nonsense, we'll see how cool you are?

comment #12

Rod32303 says ...

Bitch, moan, complain...someone (one of us?) should then WRITE the brilliance everyone speaks of, but as we do, we bitch and moan about what a piece of shat this thing IS...without even seeing the final product or script. And (here I go) until there are maybe some people of color on the level of a Joe Roth, then, as powerful and Washington, Whitaker and even Winfrey are, you gotta find what you can and work with what you got. I loved Antwone Fisher, as do the students I show it to every year, and for every "Remember the Titans" (still a fucking good dude flick), Denzel does do interesting work like "Training Day" and his work in Spike Lee's films, and even the new Ridley Scott film. Hoping this is not cultural. When I heard of this, I got excited. Nice to see two of the big named brothers working together on a project (same excitement I felt when I heard about "Heat" with DeNiro and Pacino back in the day). And I'll never damn a project by the ABSTRACT of its INCEPTION (anyone seen the script?) Of course, most white folk roll their eyes.

Sometimes we see things differently, I guess.

comment #13

tholl-yung says ...

Nola?

comment #14

tholl-yung says ...

Meet Rod. Rod, meet Nola.

comment #15

nola says ...

T. Holly you are too sweet.

Rod I love Denzel and Forest and I read the script. I also enjoyed Antwone Fisher which was a contemporary drama and not a "pioneer" or what we call "first black movie".

Of course Searchlight thought Antwone underperformed and I can't tell you how many time I hear "no one wants to see contemporary dramas."

Anyway Rod believe me some great scripts out there. Whether they get made is a different story. Hopefully things will get better.

comment #16

frankbooth says ...

Nola, real men don't care whether your hair is curly, kinky or straight. They don't care if you're tall or short, fat or thin. They don't even care how good you are in bed.

No, Nola, none of these things matters in the end. In the real world, guys just want to know if you can get their script produced.

comment #17

Hallick says ...

Wow. This idea sounds so rote that I'm picturing a cartoon of a man snoring in his theater seat with a dream bubble of himself snoring in his theater seat, with another dream bubble of himself ad infinitum. This kind of plot has been run into the ground so many times it's going to take half the budget to send the team from "The Core" to dig it back out again.

Could it still turn out to be a great movie? Theoretically, sure. But just like with many, many religious-themed films, the intent of the filmmakers to hold up a positive, encouraging portrait of the story for America is just going to poison the lot of it with easy to swallow pabalum. Anything potentially controversial or contradictory to their inspirational message is probably going to get axed away tout suite.

comment #18

Amazing Larry says ...

After making DEJA VU, the only thing I want to see Denzel direct is a bus over the bodies of the idiots who wrote that tripe. I never thought I'd say this, but that was worse than BATMAN & ROBIN.

The name "Joe Roth" stirs in me the same feelings as the name "Yoko Ono". It's a vague sense of nausea, followed by the suspicion that I'm about to be trank darted in the neck and wake up in a cage in a basement somewhere. I'm not sure exactly why this is.

comment #19

nemo says ...

Amazed and alarmed to see that the dreaded Joe Roth is listed as one of producers on Guillermo del Toro's upcoming "Hellboy 2". Not a name I ever expected to see associated with del Toro.

comment #20

houmas says ...

Seriously, what type of movies are blacks allowed to make?

Welles dumps on black musicals (ie Dreamgirls), black comedies (see anything involving Ice Cube, Tyler Perry or Eddie Murphy)and now inspirational black dramas seem to be an issue.

Yes, The Great Debaters sounds fairly predictable. But no more predictable than 3 of Russell Crowe's most recent efforts (A Good Year, Cinderella Man and A Beautiful Mind). And we all know Jeff will lick Crowe's nuts and any film he appears in, even the abysmal A Good Year.

It is cultural. If The Great Debaters were the next Ron Howard/Russell Crowe sapfest, about an intellectual white Professor leading his underdog debate team against Harvard, we'd hear Jeff waxing lyrical on the brilliance of Crowe and predicting oscar noimations all round for Grazer (who would obviously produce), Howard and Crowe. No story or plot is too predictable or overdone for white guys to rehash, and long as Jeff likes them enough.

The Great Debaters, in plot terms, is no more predictable than Cinderella Man and A Beautiful Mind, which were both decent examples of a strong cast and team making predictable material into worthwhile movies. I knew exactly what was going to happen in every frame of Cinderella Man. But it was still a good film, imho.

Antwone Fisher was a good movie, and a solid directorial debut by Washington. He resisted the temptation to make it too sappy or saccharine. After only one film, he's clearly at least as competent as Ron Howard in the "inspirational drama" stakes, and probably a fair bit less sentimental and mawkish.

With Washington behind the camera, and two brilliant actors like Whitaker and Washington in front of the camera, this could easily be a superior example of well worn formula (like the Crowe/Howard pictures). And frankly, I'm glad Denzel is playing an intellectual again, after a few years of playing dirty cops, vigilantes and badasses, it'll be good to see him in a role that doesn't require him to fire a gun. Since he's next playing one the most infamous drug lords in US history, the contrast between his roles in The Great Debaters and American Gangster should be a good reminder of his range.

comment #21

houmas says ...

PS; Just wanted to say that I was in no way defending the tripe comedies that Ice Cube or Tyler Perry produce.

I just find it weird how every genre featuring black protagonists becomes "too much". Too many "hood" movies, too many lowbrow black comedies, too many black biopics, too many black inspirational dramas. Too many "buppie rom-coms".

Do we really need another historical period piece about a British monarch? Yet like clockwork, we're getting at least two more this year (The Other Boelyn Girl, The Golden Age). And they'll crank out another one next year, with Emily Blunt as Queen Victoria. Yet white people (and critics) never seem to get tired of these movies.

Or do we really need another inspirational boxing movie? We've just had Cinderella Man and Rocky Balboa. Now Matt Damon and Mark Whalberg are mining a similar formula with The Fighter.

Do we need any more rom-coms? Do we need anymore cop thrillers? We could go on forever.

I didn't think we needed any more bank heist movies, till Spike Lee and Denzel Washington gave that sub-genre a shot in the arm with Inside Man.

Most films fall into some sort of formula. At the end of the day, the cream will rise from the crop. The team involved in The Great Debaters means it's worth giving a shot, At the possibilty that it could be a far superior example of it's formula. I'm pretty certain I'll like it better than A Good Year, at least.LOL!

comment #22

George Prager says ...

This movie will only work if William Zabka plays the coach of the rival white debating team.

Best post on the thread. AGAIN!

comment #23

NYCBusybody says ...

I think Wells pretty fairly and thoroughly excoriates almost every genre of Hollywood movie for being "too much", or being done to death. The only reason he mentions race at all with the black films is that, for the most part, they are ABOUT being black. If Howard and Crowe made a similar movie about poor, white kids rising up to become champion debaters, them being white wouldn't really be much of an issue, and thus not worth mentioning. If they're black, however, race IS a factor, as well as class.

Many black movies purposefully rest on self-aware blackness. They may be as rote and formulatic as white movies, but often they include racial plotlines too.

comment #24

kmoore says ...

Actually Jeff you have Whitaker's character wrong. I read the script, which is not half bad. But the same ole teacher movie that we've seem a thousand times before. Half Nelson it's not. In the film Denzel is a teacher/communist and I am assuming Whitaker will play a devout christian who does want his son on the team. I think the father's role is being expanded, because he was very big in the script I read.

comment #25

houmas says ...

NYCBusybody: I get that. My point is that, Welles is railing against formula and predictablity in general in his rant. Which is a bit rich, seeing as how he was pimping A Good Year and Cinderella Man religiously, two of the most rote, predictable overdone plots in film history, simply because he's got a hard-on for Rusty Crowe. The dude ain't consistent.

Cindrella Man's "formula" has been made a million times (including Rocky and The Karate Kid). Welles gave it a chance because of Crowe. The Great Debaters may have a plot that's been done to death, but Denzel can make reading the phonebook look compelling, so I'm giving this one the benefit of the doubt that it'll have more going for it than most of it's genre. And the added presence of Whitikar helps enormously.

The Great Debaters will probably be as predictable as Cinderella Man. But maybe, it might be as good.