Speaking three or four days ago at the Dubai Film festival (and quoted in a 12.10 Wrap piece by Matt Pressberg), Samuel L. Jackson derided Oscar-bait movies as films that people don’t really want to see but have to put up with during award season. Well, they don’t have to put up with them but, to go by Jackson’s interpretation, they’d rather not even consider them as an option.
The blazingly shallow Samuel L. Jackson, snapped last weekend in Dubai.
What a Shallow Hal Jackson is. An empty Coke bottle looking to do paycheck movies for the rest of his life, and polluting the common spiritual pool a bit more with every self-regarding performance.
If it weren’t for award season Hollywood would be all empty escape, bullshit fantasy, CG-driven slop, comic-book pulp, gross-out comedies, empty diversion — it would die and shrivel from a lack of soul.
Jackson is probably correct when he derides sensitive slogs like Collateral Beauty, at least to go by Owen Gleiberman’s Variety review. Nobody with a lick of sense is looking forward to that Warner Bros. release.
But Jackson is dead wrong and broadcasting from the Planet Uranus when he says that Manchester By The Sea is “not an inclusive film.”
HE to Jackson: Manchester is not only more inclusive but more real-deal and life-reflecting than any film you’ve ever been in or any performance you’ve ever given, ever. You’ve never been associated, and probably never will be associated, with a film as good as Manchester By The Sea. It’s beyond your realm, and apparently beyond your comprehension.
“What happens during this time of year is very interesting in Hollywood,” Jackson said. “The movies they choose to say are amazing and great, you know…Manchester by the Sea, oh my God, you must see it, it’s an amazing film! But, ehh, I guess it is…to somebody. It’s not an inclusive film, you know what I mean?”
Because there are no African-American characters in it? Is that what Jackson is saying?
“I’m sure that Moonlight will be thought of the same way,” Jackson said. “They’ll say, ‘Well, that’s a black movie. Where are the white people?’”
HE to Kenneth Lonergan: Why weren’t you clever and perceptive enough to include at least a couple of black characters in your film? Was it your deliberate intention to impart a feeling of non-inclusion to non-white audiences? Are you a closet racist on some level?
HE to Twitter dogs: This is your opening, guys. Do your demon pit thing on Manchester By The Sea. Beat it to death for not being “inclusive.” Go for it.
