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Reading Off Into The Sunset's avatar

As soon as I saw even a clip of OBAA I knew it was definitely not for me. Just another blaxploitation film with a very distasteful modern twist. Nope. I don’t dig that kind of thing. Violence alone might sell at the box office, but that doesn’t cut it for me. I need more depth, more truth, more honesty.

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Susie Bright's avatar

Caveat: I am not someone who uses film reviews as litmus tests… YMMV!

One thing I like about being in a critics group is we have spirited arguments about what we vote for, and then after we all eat rum cake and drink punch. As comrades. We love movies, period.

OBAA needs some criticism; it’s gotten out of control with the “accolades.” it’s received grade inflation that is too much, no matter what you think of it.

I’ve enjoyed some of PTA’s movies very much. I thought “Licorice Pizza” was hilarious and a zinger about growing up in The Valley in the waterbed era. Accurate! I saved OBAA for a relaxing night, thinking I would love it. I was very much surprised.

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Celia's avatar
4hEdited

Thanks for saving me two hours of my precious life! (The PR for OBAA probably would have sucked me right in.) It does so much damage to such an interesting and important time in our history to portray it like that. It's almost like it's calculated to breed cynicism... (And thanks for, among other things, that soup! ; )

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Susie Bright's avatar

That’s me, little Miss Time Saver. Knowing you, yes, you would be as taken aback and pissed off as I was. Very much a cynicism breeder. Also: just bad art.

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Gwynne Garfinkle's avatar

Ugh. I'll give that PTA film a miss. (I wish somebody would make a movie based on my novel Can't Find My Way Home, set around the same time period! Or, for that matter, Vida by Marge Piercy.) I really hope someday there'll be films based on the autobiographies of Angela Davis and Assata Shakur.

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Gwynne Garfinkle's avatar

(Although, of course, there was that wonderful Angela Davis documentary a few years back.)

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Susie Bright's avatar

Yeah. There’s plenty of great novels and memoirs to adapt from their period, or get inspired from to write an original.

Even the name of the “underground cell” infuriated me: “The French 75.” ??? A gin and champagne cocktail named after a piece of artillery from WW1.

Someone please introduce PTA to his first real live Marxist.

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Kathy  Andrew's avatar

Yay!!! to a heads up on Tangerine!! Looks fabulous and can’t believe I missed it. Happy Holidays Susie❤️

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Susie Bright's avatar

I am sure you will LOVE it

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Lisa Udelson's avatar

OMG thank you. I was squirming from minute one. As is often the case, everybody around me seemed enraptured. Oversexualized black women. Guns guns guns. Ridiculous dialogue. I've never been a PTA fan, and this one flinches it. Give me Sean Baker, every time.

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Susie Bright's avatar

I promised you I would bring a trowel!

And yes, I know people who say they enjoyed it without dwelling on it, and found the protagonists worth cheering for, “believable.” I don’t know how someone who lived through it can stand it.

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