JasonEvans
04-04-2019, 02:01 PM
A quick story about critic choices…
Last night I had a dilemma. The wonderful people who schedule press screenings had given us two movies in the same night. I could either see Pet Sematary or The Best of Enemies. Nearly every critic I know went with Pet Sematary, which has been getting some buzz and is being marketed in a pretty big way, over the smaller Best of Enemies that some described as “another Green Book” (which isn’t a good thing in my crowd).
Best of Enemies is a film about race and bridging the divide. It takes place in Durham, NC in 1971 as the city wrestles with the issue of school desegregation. My grandfather ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_J._Evans ) was mayor of Durham for 12 year in the 1950s and 60s and was noted for the great progress he made on race relations in the city. So, given my family background, I decided I would buck the trend and go see Best of Enemies.
The Grail Knight would have been proud of my choice…
https://media.giphy.com/media/ZgYBhq1x7L1bW/200.gif
Best of Enemies isn’t a perfect film. It feels a little too simplistic at times and I am betting some folks will be upset that the KKK leader (played by Sam Rockwell) isn’t depicted as all that bad a guy from the start. It follows a rather predictable formula. But, it is still a very enjoyable film, full of emotion and heart with some clever moments of humor mixed in. It feels entirely real (it is based on a real story and several of the characters in the movie consulted on the film). This not another “white man rescues the black folks” film, not by a long shot. The idea that you could put a KKK leader in a room with a black activist and not end up in a fistfight seems ludicrous, but it works. The hero of the film is not the KKK chapter president (Rockwell) or the feisty black community organizer (Taraji P. Henson, in an absolutely transformative performance), but the mediator Bill Riddick (played by Babou Ceesay) who manages to bring the two of them together and somehow forges a compromise that changes Durham’s history.
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/04/03/arts/03bestofenemies/03bestofenemies-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale
I am not ashamed to say I was wiping tears off my cheeks when this film ended. The entire theater gave it a standing ovation. It is a good film for all of us to see to understand the power of just listening to each other a little bit. In these fractured times, we could all use a lot more of that.
-Jason "Oh, and when I walked out and ran into my critic buddies, they all said Pet Sematary was awful. Yes!!" Evans
Last night I had a dilemma. The wonderful people who schedule press screenings had given us two movies in the same night. I could either see Pet Sematary or The Best of Enemies. Nearly every critic I know went with Pet Sematary, which has been getting some buzz and is being marketed in a pretty big way, over the smaller Best of Enemies that some described as “another Green Book” (which isn’t a good thing in my crowd).
Best of Enemies is a film about race and bridging the divide. It takes place in Durham, NC in 1971 as the city wrestles with the issue of school desegregation. My grandfather ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_J._Evans ) was mayor of Durham for 12 year in the 1950s and 60s and was noted for the great progress he made on race relations in the city. So, given my family background, I decided I would buck the trend and go see Best of Enemies.
The Grail Knight would have been proud of my choice…
https://media.giphy.com/media/ZgYBhq1x7L1bW/200.gif
Best of Enemies isn’t a perfect film. It feels a little too simplistic at times and I am betting some folks will be upset that the KKK leader (played by Sam Rockwell) isn’t depicted as all that bad a guy from the start. It follows a rather predictable formula. But, it is still a very enjoyable film, full of emotion and heart with some clever moments of humor mixed in. It feels entirely real (it is based on a real story and several of the characters in the movie consulted on the film). This not another “white man rescues the black folks” film, not by a long shot. The idea that you could put a KKK leader in a room with a black activist and not end up in a fistfight seems ludicrous, but it works. The hero of the film is not the KKK chapter president (Rockwell) or the feisty black community organizer (Taraji P. Henson, in an absolutely transformative performance), but the mediator Bill Riddick (played by Babou Ceesay) who manages to bring the two of them together and somehow forges a compromise that changes Durham’s history.
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/04/03/arts/03bestofenemies/03bestofenemies-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale
I am not ashamed to say I was wiping tears off my cheeks when this film ended. The entire theater gave it a standing ovation. It is a good film for all of us to see to understand the power of just listening to each other a little bit. In these fractured times, we could all use a lot more of that.
-Jason "Oh, and when I walked out and ran into my critic buddies, they all said Pet Sematary was awful. Yes!!" Evans