The Denzel you know is at least as bad as the Denzel you don't.

I suppose that's a few too few posts and a few to many years to even call this a revival. But here goes.

What kind of deal with the devil did Denzel Washington make in order to get the rights to play every famous black man in history?

Shall we verify this?

Steve Biko
Malcolm X
The Hurricane
Mel Tolson (coming soon)

and here, the infamous Frank Lucas, who had the dubious honor of being the first American black man to rise to the level of the Cosa Nostra.

I swear to dog if I hear the words "based on a true story..." and "starring Denzel Washington" in the same trailer again, it will be reason enough to never see another one of his movies again. Don't get me wrong, he's pretty good (not great), but I can't help hating him, since he falls into that ever expanding sphere of actors who whose narcissism infects their entire performance, home to such critical darlings as Pierce Brosnan, George Clooney, and as luck would have it Russel Crowe.

So yeah I'm stuck with the latter and big D for this ridiculously overlong death rattle from the once-great Ridley Scott. The movie goes several different directions in the first act, and confuses the audience by leaving all kinds of loose threads, but it's not even good enough to care much. We get the exceedingly tiresome Russel Crowe droopy-dog-eyed-I'm-just-a-big-lovably-lumbering-benevolent-man routine beside the main character who's about as one-dimensional as they come. Ooh wow, how ruthless! As an audience we can't help coming away with nothing except that lingering feeling of: gee whiz the 1970s really did blow, no pun intended.

If you're a fan of HBO, this is like The Wire lite, a show that not only tops this film weekly, but also could have lent even more talented black actors to play the lead roles instead of merely the sacrificial pimp.

...

Elsewhere I am destined for a late showing of I, Legend, err, I am Robot, or whatever it's called, this weekend. I heard it's not a zombie movie, but a zombie-vampires movie. Maybe there's hope after all, but how can Will Smith not ruin it? If you were wondering, yes, I do consider him in the above category as well. Squarely.

Via Sam I have just heard that we can expect a Ghostbusters 3, with the entire original cast and helmed by the original director, Ivan Reitman. Not enough to excite you? Ghostbusters 3 is a video game!

On the 'Flix front: thumbs down for:

The Island (I'm starting to feel sorry for Sean Bean, whose talent now seems to always be wasted.)
The Da Vinci Code

Thumbs up for:

The Lives of Others
Transformers (Michael Bay straddles the fence today, this shit was awesome.)
The Last Mimzy (We are closer to the spirit of the 80s kids films, but not there yet)