Friday Fondue: Happy 2012!

            Yes, I'm weeks late, but HAPPY NEW YEAR anyway! I hope all your holidays were as awesome as mine! I had a restful vacation coupled with a quick and busy return to reality, which is why it's taken me so long to come up with anything. I know, I know, not excuses, because there were so many interesting books and movies and artists I was exposed to (AN AVALANCHE) that I wanted to tell you all on the spot but couldn't. I promise, there will never be so long a hiatus again. Except, of course, when the holidays come by again. ;)

             But one of the things I have come up with for this blog is the special, "FRIDAY FONDUE." Where, on randomly picked Friday's,  I pick from each of my three genres (Literature, Film/TV, and Music) one particular thing that I'm gushing over the most. Let me begin with books.

  The avalanche of art I spoke about is in part because of a tragedy. I live in an area with a Barnes And Noble, which is my main spot (I LOVE BOOKS) and it closed down for good over the holidays. I was depressed and angry, but what are your gonna do except keep moving? Which I did. After I bought 4 books the second to last day they were open. I'm still reading through all of them bit by bit, but I gotta tell you, one of them has me on the floor cracking up the most.

Yes, Ellen Degeneres has always made us cry tears of mirth on her talk show, her stand-ups, and her old sitcoms, but there's nothing like reading her witty humor on paper.  Your imagination fills your head with her voice, and you interpret the jokes exactly as she would have spoken it, which makes everything ten times as funny. Even if it was something as mundane as, "I like pickles," you could imagine it in Bill Cosby's voice, Eddie Murphy's voice, and Ellen's voice, and you'd start giggling uncontrollably. 

So far( I haven't finished it yet) this book had been wonderful. If you're looking for a feel-good, light-hearted read, then this surely is the book for you. 

Next up on my Friday Fondue list is music, and I have to take you back for this one, all the way back to 1999, the first year we were supposed to die and didn't.  New Jack Swing had died down, giving way to a mini-era of ballad-y RnB love songs and the mesh of digital with acoustic and the Backstreet Boys. (Okay, that band  was formed in 95, but you get the point.) Overseas, a seasoned female vocal group was releasing their fifth album, infused with African, European, and Western sounds.It was unlike anything I had ever heard before, and to this day I like to bump it in the house whenever I'm feeling good. I'm talking, of course, about Zap Mama's album, A Ma Zone.

Some of you may not know Zap Mama at all, so I'll give you a quick idea: Zap Mama is a belgian female vocal group, founded and lead by Marie Daulne. While the other members have changed and vanished, she has remained the force behind it all. Since 1991, Zap Mama has been putting out albums with unbelievable quality. (If you're looking for her most recent album, it's called ReCreation and it came out 2009.) Anyway, A Ma Zone is the perfect mix of African, American, and European music.  Songs like, "Rafiki" (featuring Black Thought) and "M'Toto" are one of the shining examples of pop-infusion, while others have a more worldly taste to them, like "W'Happy Mama," and "Gussie." Seeing as this group started out as pure acapella music, most tracks on here are heavily laden with beautiful three-part harmonies, the more simple of which can be found on "Songe." 

          I'm not giving one bit of this album away. You MUST go get it yourself. But Let me tell you, if you like that kinda music, you'll be glad you paid for the album.

Finally, I have to acknowledge the movie section, which ended up bigger than I expected due to recent events, but you’ll like it just the same. More recommendations for you, anyway. ☺

How many of you love Mark Wahlberg?

Me, too. He's one of those really great flexible actors who can pull off much any role he is given. I've loved just about every one of his movies that I've seen, so when I saw the trailer for Contraband, I knew I was going to see it. Didn't matter what happened.

The story goes as such: Chris Farraday (MARK) is a retired smuggler with a wife (Kate Beckingsale) and two kids. Then His wife's brother gets into trouble over a failed smuggling operation, and Chris decides to step in, offering to pay back the lost money to the boss. Unfortunately, this proves much more dangerous as his family is being threatened.

At first, I thought it was going to be one way, the expected way. The brother's boss holds family hostage, and Chris turns into an angry vengeful bull. But it's a lot more twisted, a lot more complicated than that. The basic ideas are there, but instead of being boring and predictable, it actually was enticing and fast-paced. Mark's performance as the family loving man with a knack for kicking butt works for him because he has that look and demeanor, even offscreen! 

So yeah, this movie is definitely cool.

But Wait, I have to break my own rules. I have to add two more movies that must be seen.

And one of them is involving a Mixed Martial Arts Kick-Ass Queen named Gina Carano.

            Yes, Haywire is the new dangerous chick flick out in theaters, starring an actual martial arts sweetheart Gina Carano, latin heartthrob Antonio Bandera, Inglorious Basterd Michael Fassenbender, and Obi-Wan Kenobi. It’s about a woman who does undercover jobs for the government and is caught in a deceptive plan that involves her death, which doesn’t go over so well with her. Before we know it, she’s on a mission to keep her life, protect her good name, and find out the truth, while keeping her eye on the fat cats of her company who put her in this position. Trailer is down here.

                 While this is a typical plot, and we can expect the suspected villains to be the actual villains, it’s still a kick-ass movie. The scenes in slow-motion and real time of her running or “obtaining information” from suspects, set to eclectic-jazzy soundtrack music (which I will be looking for on iTunes) gives this film a distinct persona not often matched with the typical action/adventure themed movie. For this, I am glad, because I wouldn’t have put this movie on the Friday Fondue had it been like every other spy-turned-rogue film out there today. I’ll admit, Gina Carano sometimes had cliché lines spoken in monotonous tones out of place in the situation she is placed in, but for a film debut, this is pretty good. Sure you may not like her acting too much, but you appreciate the scenes where she’s punching out bulky men with guns and kicking them to the ground like it’s no big deal. There is a certain maniacal satisfaction I get from watching girls beat up guys. It may help that as a girl, I want more of that as less of the helpless-sex-kitten character on the big screen, or maybe I’m just a victim to bloodlust. I don’t care. She totally runs this movie from start to finish, the cinematography keeps you engaged even during calm scenes, the music is unique and worth appreciating, and before you know it, you’re at your computer searching online local karate classes.

          And now, the final movie of the Friday Fondue Pack. The movie that is currently number two in the box office, but, if we’re all honest with ourselves, should be at number one with a “Movie Of The Year” Nomination. The movie that took years to put forward and millions of dollars from Lucas’s own pocket. 

          Yes, I see that some of you are aware of what I’m talking about. And you know I’m totally right. Out of all these picks today, this is the most important one.

The Top Film Deserves The Biggest Space

                   It’s the perfect true story: 1940’s in Italy, when the Tuskegee airmen were taken about as seriously as the four year old who claims monsters are under her bed, and were given old planes to do nothing of great importance to the war, along came Operation Shingle (just following the movie here) and the Tuskege Airmen proved, even with battered planes, that the color of your skin had no bearing on your skill. After a spectacular victory, they were asked to escort heavier planes and protect them from German attacks, which they did with finesse, shocking every racist jerk around. But I think the trailer might do better explaining than I can.

                  The cast is a superb line of talented black men: Nate Parker (The Great Debators), Michael B. Jordan (Upcoming movie Chronicle), Tristan Wilds (90210 and The Secret Life Of Bees), David Oyelowo (Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes), Elijah Kelly (Hairspray), Ne-Yo, Cuba Gooding Jr., Terrence Howard, METHOD MAN! I mean, fresh, seasoned, respectable young and older actors whose comraderie onscreen is as palpable as the tobacco Ne-Yo’s character chews—and by the way, for the large amount of characters the movie focuses on, you feel a close connection to each and every one of them, so that any time any one of them seems in even minor danger, you can’t help but sit at the edge of your seat with your fingers in your mouth like French fries. It may have helped that the cast was put through a week and a half of 1940’s style bootcamp to increase friendliness amongst each other, although every cast member states that it was the worst thing by far they have ever had to do in their lives.

                   And the action in the movie is unbelievably real. Those scenes where the flyers are in battle with the Germans? All simulated. But no one can tell, because with the loud booms and sweat on the flyers faces and the speed with which these planes are flying, you’re not paying attention to whether or not they used a green screen for that one scene, because you’re rooting on Smokey or Joker or Maurice to dodge the open fire and spin around in the air to fight back. When a plane falls, you feel relief. When a Red Tail is hit, you feel the impact in your chest. There were “OH’s” and “Ah’s” at every possible moment because each attack came so closely in between each other that we didn’t have time to calm down. As long as they were in the air, you didn’t get a breather.

                   And on the ground, they were, again, as I have mentioned, the cosest pack of brothers you’ve ever seen. ON the ground, Lightning (Oyelowo) had a beautiful Italian girlfriend who barely spoke English except to say, ‘I Love You,” and “Marriage.”  On the ground, Black Jesus was Deke’s way of coping with the war while drinking was Easy’s(Parker).  ON the ground was time for us to laugh or cry without seizing up with fear.

                    And now I’m getting to that point where I can’t keep praising the movie without giving all of it away. But you need to understand, this is a movie that should have been made and praised a long time ago. Yes, I know there was another movie about it before, but you know the hype surrounding it was just not the same as the well-deserved hype surrounding this film. Lucas gets my permanent respect for putting this film out after years of trying (and I thought I couldn’t love him more after Star Wars.) Every actor gets my fanatic-obsession for their performance (a few of them get extra because I’ve already loved them for so long). And I will praise my readers if they go to se it twice. Trust me, after the first time, you will want to. I certainly do.

                    Before I end this section and this post, I have to quote a particular scene from Red Tails that I find so bad-ass. Terrence Howard, the Colonel, has just finished a meeting with the other Colonels who have congratulated him on his men’s success with Operation Shingle. One of them, after the meeting, says to Howard, “8 Germans, or 80 Germans, it doesn’t change what I think of you and your boys.”

With the steely serenity of a man who’s already won, Howard replies, “We don’t care.”

Blinking, the other man says, “Respect the Uniform, Colonel.”

“Trust me, the uniform is the only thing I have any respect for,” says Howard, before turning on his heel and walking out the room.

Swag.

Catch me in another week or two for the next update on what’s going on now and what’s going on forever!  Peace!

-CDM