Calvin's Canadian Cave of Coolness: Black Gold

Friday, October 21, 2011

Black Gold

Why do I have a bad feeling that the girl the boy falls in love with will turn out to be his full sister?

8 comments:

Pearl said...: Because you've been around the cinema a time or two? :-)

Pearl; October 21, 2011 at 4:30 PM
Cal's Canadian Cave of Coolness said...: Let's just say that there is a certain plot twist (common to these kinds of films) that twists my instestines and various tubes below. At that point all I wish for is death - death to myself or to the young lovers on the screen.; October 21, 2011 at 4:32 PM
Unknown said...: Um...I don't think so. The film is based on a book by Hans Reusch who published the book in 1957. Anyways what I know is the major focus is not the love portion but the history of the warring Arab states over the 1930s oil boom. Looks good, but I'm rather disgusted to see they couldn't make top billing be doled to people of actual middle eastern descent. An Italian and a Spaniard? Close enough! At least they have an Algerian and Indian actress to sort of show some people more closely associated with the region.; October 22, 2011 at 12:10 AM
Cal's Canadian Cave of Coolness said...: If I understand your reasoning then you are also against the 1000 Inuit they hired to play Bedouins.; October 22, 2011 at 12:15 AM
Unknown said...: I'm against the old Hollywood trope of white people playing other races.; October 22, 2011 at 4:13 PM
Cal's Canadian Cave of Coolness said...: Especially when I think of great movies with native casts like 'Whale Rider' that I just watched this week.; October 22, 2011 at 4:22 PM
Unknown said...: Whale Rider is an amazing film. I was also pleased with 2005's The New World which starred Colin Farrell and Q'orianka Kilcher, a woman of Quechua-Huachipaeri descent. To be completely correct they should have used someone of Powhatan descent but it was flabbergasting that they actually used an American Indian at all.
When Memoirs of a Geisha came out, there was an uproar about the choice of three Chinese actresses to play top billing in a film about Japanese women.
The theory is that it's marginally close enough. Still, I would much prefer these close enoughs to the traditional role of white people playing black/red/yellow/brown face. There are hundreds of examples of this and it's maddening considering the large amount of international films with tons of perfectly good actors of the descent of character.
I just feel, if you're going to build a film and a story in another culture and geographic region, you should honor the reality of the story by actually embracing the characters' ethnic identity. But Hollywood only cares about getting the A-list in their films on the pretense that the A-list make the most money. "So who gives a fuck if Antonio Banderas is a white Spaniard. He can be a Arab with some bronzer. He has an accent anyways. All accents sound the same. Hyuck hyuck hyuck."; October 22, 2011 at 4:37 PM
Cal's Canadian Cave of Coolness said...: Well except for Canadians. We have no accents. We all just sound like music to anyone who hears our voices. It's really quite magical.; October 22, 2011 at 4:56 PM

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