Martin Luther King, the struggle for Civil Rights and the Movies.

Civil Rights. Martin Luther King is the great symbol of the civil rights struggle battle against racism of the last half of the 20th Century. For those of us who lived through it and participated in it marked us and framed who we are. It was all too real and violent and deadly.

Because the struggle against racism and for civil rights was so dramatic it has also been explored in film. But as dramatic and dark as the period and events were, some films actually managed to deal with racism with humor. But most civil rights films have a somber tone and are based in real-life occurrences. It also must be remembered (as Reverend King reminds us) that the civil rights struggle was not just about African-Americans and the south it was/is about poor people; it was also about such things as the farm workers struggle, and the struggle for gay rights.

Many films deal with persons involved in the Civil Rights movement, some deal with events. Some are fictional and some are documentaries.

Django Unchained is not listed here. I am not sure it belongs.


Mississippi Burning
This true story about the deaths of three civil-rights workers in 1964 was justifiably praised for its stellar acting and Alan Parker's direction. Critically acclaimed, the film was nominated for 7 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Perhaps the most important legacy of the film is its accurate portrayal of life in the south during the civil rights movement. It was a volatile time in American History, and Mississippi Burning captures that with it’s many complexities.

Ghosts of Mississippi
Rob Reiner directed this film about white supremacist who assassinated Medgar Evers and walked away free. James Woods is repellent. It clearly portrays the vitriol exhibited by some in the south in those years.

King
This was a mini-series about the life of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. A wonderful portrayal of Dr. King.. Paul Winfield really captures both the moral strength and the personal insecurities of the man. With Cicely Tyson and Ossie Davis.


Malcolm X
In Spike Lee's powerful film with, Denzel Washington as the controversial black nationalist

The Jackie Robinson Story
Game-changing ball player Robinson stars in his own life story, as the first black man to play in the Major Leagues.

The Long Walk Home
Sissy Spacek and Whoopi Goldberg star as a Southern housewife and her maid who become unlikely allies during the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955.

The Intruder
This Roger Corman drama stars a pre-Star Trek William Shatner as a racist rabble-rouser who incites his town against school desegregation.

Hairspray
John Waters takes a dim view of racial prejudice in this, the original Hairspray - not the musical - about the integration of the music scene in Baltimore in the 1960s.


The Defiant Ones
Stanley Kramer’s 1958 drama film which tells the story of two escaped prisoners, one white and one black, who are shackled together and who must co-operate in order to survive. It stars Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier,

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
Also by Stanley Kramer and also with Sidney Poitier. Pretty tame it was groundbreaking at the time it was produced. Inter-racial marriage was illegal in many states at the time. It was Spencer Tracy’s last film.


To Kill a Mockingbird
This is a classic. Released in the midst of the civil rights movement, the film takes a look at equality, prejudice, and the importance of courage under fire. Six-year-old Scout (Mary Badham) and her 12-year-old brother, Jem (Phillip Alford), are brought out of an era of innocence when their father Atticus (Gregory Peck) defends a black man in court.

In the Heat of the Night
Norman Jewison’s 1967 mystery film based on the John Ball novel of the same name published in 1965, which tells the story of Virgil Tibbs, a black police detective from Philadelphia, who becomes involved in a murder investigation in a racist small town in Mississippi. The film won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It stars Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger.

Blazing Saddles
I said there were films that dealt with racism with humor. Sheriff Cleavon Little in Ku Klux Klan robes skewers not only racism, but the stereotypes that populate Hollywood movies. The film is primarily meant for laughs, but underneath is one of the most comprehensive takes on the stupidity of racism.


Milk
The struggle for civil rights for Gays and Lesbians. This film is a biography of gay rights activist Harvey Milk who was shot and killed by Dan White.

The documentaries:

Eyes on the Prize
At 14 hours long, "Eyes on the Prize" is widely considered to be the most exhaustive accounting of the civil rights movement on screen. It documents the African-American fight for equality between the years of 1954 and 1985.

Chicano! History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement
Four-part documentary series "Chicano! History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement" chronicles the fight the Latino community waged for equality in the 1960s.

The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers’ Struggle
César Chávez may be the most recognized historical figure in Mexican-American history but his life story hadn’t fully been told on screen until the release of "The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers’ Struggle."

4 Little Girls
The Spike Lee documentary "4 Little Girls" chronicles the 1963 bombing of a black church in Birmingham, Ala. The explosion took the lives of an 11-year-old and three 14-year-old African-American girls.

Freedom Riders
In the "Freedom Riders," filmmaker Stanley Nelson tells the story of the racially mixed group of 400 men and women who risked their lives in 1961 to end racial segregation in interstate travel. Although the Supreme Court had earlier ruled that segregation in interstate travel facilities violated the Constitution, Jim Crow remained alive and well on transport in Southern states.

Visiting the Denver Area? Experience the Lariat Loop

Are you in Denver for the National Western Stock Show? Or maybe you’re planning a visit later this year. In any event you might want to make the Lariat Loop part of your visit.

The Lariat Loop National Scenic Byway is a 40-mile motoring adventure reminiscent of the early 1920s. It runs through the historic towns of Morrison, Evergreen, and Golden, which have maintained their integrity and authenticity over time. These towns supplied the miners and trappers in the 1850s and the early tourists in the early 1900s. Initially, railroads brought tourists to Golden and Morrison, delivering them to the bases of three mountains, where funiculars transported people up to world-class views of the Front Range and the plains. But it is not just a drive, there is plenty to see and do along the way, not to mention the spectacular views. There are more than three dozen historic sites and buildings that line the route and interpret primary themes of the mountain west, from mining and ranching to homesteads and tourism

The Byway is a combination of two historic routes: the Lariat Trail Scenic Mountain Drive that ascends Lookout Mountain and the Bear Creek Canyon Scenic Mountain Drive. These routes were part of several of the ‘scenic circles’ that were developed and promoted by Denver beginning in 1915 to help visitors experience the mountains in close proximity to Denver. The roadways were designated to the National Register of Historic Place in 1976.

The Lariat Loop provided early automobile access to the Denver Mountain Parks system. Denver has a series of Mountain Parks, some 14,000 acres in four counties along the Colorado Front Range. The Mountain Parks came into being with the acquisition of Genesee Mountain in 1912. Many of the sites you will want to visit on your excursion are part of the Denver Mountain Parks.

The ‘Loop’ gets its name from the historic Lariat Trail, a 5-mile road from Golden, Colorado up the front of Lookout Mountain, where Buffalo Bill is buried.

Here are just three places you might want to visit along the Lariat Loop.

Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave Site

When Buffalo Bill Cody died in 1917 he was buried where he wished to be, atop Lookout Mountain. The site of his grave as well as the Buffalo Bill Museum and Pahaska Lodge are part of the Denver Mountain Park system. The Museum houses a large number of artifacts including many personal items belonging to Buffalo Bill and items from his famous Wild West Shows.

May 1-October 31, the Museum is open daily from 9 am to 5 pm. November 1-April 30 it is open Tuesday – Sunday 9am to 4pm.

Colorado Railroad Museum.

There is just something beguiling about trains. Hearing the distant whistle in the night; the rock of the cars as they roll along the rails. Americans have a love affair with cars, but trains have an even greater emotional pull.

The museum has over 100 narrow and standard gauge steam and diesel locomotives, passenger cars, cabooses and a G-scale garden railway. It also has exhibit galleries, a roundhouse restoration facility and a working turntable. There are train rides every Saturday.

Open Daily from 9am to 5pm

Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre

This world famous park and Amphitheatre has hosted concerts from Sting to the Beatles. It is a geological phenomenon – the only naturally-occurring, acoustically perfect amphitheatre in the world. But it is more than that. It is in a unique transitional zone where the Great Plains meet the Rocky Mountains. The diverse environment allows visitors to see plants, birds and animals of both regions. The view east to the Denver Skyline and the Great Plains beyond is spectacular.
The Amphitheatre was built by Mother Nature with some assistance from the WPA and the CCC and opened in 1941. Two, three hundred-foot red sandstone monoliths provide the backdrop to the amphitheatre and are responsible for it unique acoustics.

Concerts are held during the summer. The Visitor Center is open from 8am to 7pm May through September, 9am to 4pm October to April.

You can start the Lariat Loop in Golden, Colorado. From Denver, take I-70 or US 6 west. Follow US 6 into Golden and start the Loop at 19th Street. Oh, you might want to pay a visit either before or after your excursion to the Coors Brewery in Golden for a tour there as well. They do offer free samples to those old enough to enjoy.

For more information: The Lariat Loop

Grauman's - what's in a name - and Movie Palaces

Grauman’s isn’t Grauman’s anymore. One of the most famous – if not the most famous - movie theatres in the world will not be called Grauman’s Chinese Theatre anymore. As you may have heard, the naming rights to the movie palace on Hollywood Boulevard have been sold to the Chinese (at least the Chinese part is appropriate) TV maker, TCL. TCL stands for ‘The Creative Life’ the company’s slogan. The theatre with the foot- and hand-prints of movie stars in its foyer will now be known as the TCL Chinese Theatre.

This is not the first time that the theatre was known as something else. For a number of years, the theatre was part of the Mann Theatre Chain (now bankrupt and out of business) and was known as Mann’s Chinese Theatre. At least the corporate name was that of the theatre chain which was consistent with the practice that many theatre chains in the early years of the 20th Century had of naming individual theatres after the chain. There were Fox and Paramount Theatres everywhere.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. The invidious move to name almost everything after corporations seems ever-present. Is there a major league sports stadium anywhere in the country that is not named for a corporation?

In Denver, for many years the local baseball team, the minor league Denver Bears played in Bears Stadium. That stadium became Mile High Stadium and the newly minted Denver Broncos began playing there in 1960. Now of course, we have Sports Authority Field because Mile High was torn down and a new stadium built. Originally, the new stadium was known as Invesco Field, named for the now failed and defunct financial services company. Ahh, the vagaries of business and naming rights in the corporate world.

We also have Coors Field where the Colorado Rockies play and the Pepsi Center home of the Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche. The Rockies originally played at the old Mile High and the Nuggets began life and played for many years at McNichols Arena, a swell location and facility that stood right next to Mile High. It was torn down so as not to compete with the Pepsi Center – ‘The Can’.

So it goes. Many performing arts complexes now also wear a corporate logo as arts organizations seek sources of revenue beyond grants and ticket sales, but I think it is unfortunate. I don’t mind so much when a major donor makes a significant gift and some part of a building or complex is named for the benefactor – The Sie Film Center, for instance - at least it is a person or persons.

But back to the Chinese Theatre.

Sid Grauman built the theatre in 1927. He had been successfully operating the nearby Egyptian Theatre since 1922 and wanted to expand to take advantage of the demand of patrons for movies. Grauman’s partners in the venture were silent film stars Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. It opened with Cecil B. DeMille’s epic The King of Kings.

Sid Grauman sold his share of the theatre to the Fox Theatre Chain in 1929 but stayed on as the managing director of the theatre until his death in 1950. The Fox Chain was owned by Willam Fox of the Fox Film Company which eventually became 20th Century Fox. Many of the Hollywood Studios had their own movie theatres.

The Egyptian and Chinese theatres wwere part of golden age of the movie palace. In the years of the early Twentieth Century grand theatres were built for the express purpose of showing movies. Many of these theatres were built in an ‘exotic’ style and named to reflect that style. The Egyptian and Chinese were typical examples.

The Egyptian Theatre is just down Hollywood Boulevard from the Chinese. The Egyptian theme and décor of the theatre was chosen because of the excitement at the time of the discoveries of ancient Egyptian artifacts such as King Tut’s tomb. There were other theatres around the U.S that mimicked the Egyptian Revival style.

The El Capitan started life in 1926 as a legitimate theatre but in 1941 Orson Welles premiered Citizen Kane there. In 1942 it was remodeled in the Art Moderne style and reopened as the Hollywood Paramount Theatre, the flagship theatre of Paramount Pictures. The theatre has been renovated and is again known as the El Capitan. It was renovated and is owned by the Walt Disney Company and is its flagship theatre.


The Pantages Theatre, also on Hollywood Boulevard opened in 1930. It was built in the Art Deco Style and operated by Fox West Coast Pictures Theatre chain. Howard Hughes acquired the theatre as part of his national RKO Studio chain of movie houses. While built as a movie theatre, it also had a live stage show capacity and is used now as a legitimate theatre. It is where I saw Richard Burton’s final performance in Camelot.

Warner Brothers Hollywood Theatre was also a grand movie palace on Hollywood Boulevard. It is no longer in use as a movie theatre but rather as a church. Opening in 1928, it did not follow the Art Deco or exotic style but a combination of styles including Renaissance Revival, Moorish and Rococo. I saw 2001, A Space Odyssey at the theatre in June of 1968.

Interestingly, the theatre building also housed the original studios of radio station KFWB (still broadcasting in L.A.) which was owned by Warner Bros. The broadcast towers were on the roof of the theatre.

The boom of movie theatres, many of them movie palaces being built in the early years of the Twentieth Century was not limited to Hollywood. They were everywhere, including Denver. But more about that later.

Author Evan S Connell, Custer and his connection to Sand Creek

Evan S. Connell passed away yesterday in Santa Fe, New Mexico at the age of 88. He was a wonderful and eclectic writer perhaps best known for his novels Mrs. Bridge (1959) and Mr. Bridge (1969). The two novels were the basis for the 1990 film, Mr. and Mrs. Bridge starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.

But I will always remember him for his 1984 book, Son of the Morning Star: Custer. It was a not very flattering look at the vainglorious boy-General George Armstrong Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

In the late 1980s I was touring a one-man show about Frederick Benteen, who served in the 7th Cavalry and was at Little Bighorn. Custer had split his regiment into three battalions, one commanded by Major Marcus Reno, one by Captain Benteen and the third Custer took with him to attack the Sioux and Cheyenne encampment along the Little Bighorn River. It was only Custer's command that was annihilated. Benteen went on to have a long career in the Army.

Connell's book was very useful to me as I put together the material I used in my portrayal of Benteen. Thinking about the book, now, I may go back and re-read it. It really was quite good.

Something else of note comes to mind about the boy General.

Many are familiar with the Sand Creek Massacre in which some 700 hundred members of the Colorado Territorial Militia under the command of Colonel John Chivington attacked Black Kettle's encampment along Sand Creek in southeastern Colorado on November 29, 1864. It is estimated that 163 Cheyenne and Arapaho were killed – almost all women and children. Black Kettle survived.

However four years later, almost to the day, George Armstrong Custer led an attack by the 7th Cavalry on Black Kettle's village, this time on the Washita River in what is now western Oklahoma. This time Black Kettle did not survive, he and his wife Medicine Woman were shot in the back and killed. Estimates vary as to the number of Native Americans actually killed but all estimates agree that a number of women and children were included in the dead.

Eight years later, Custer himself would be killed at Little Bighorn. One of the principal Sioux Chiefs at the battle was Sitting Bull. He would later join Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show. As I wrote earlier, there is a wonderful Museum devoted to Cody on Lookout Mountain west of Denver, it is also the site of his grave. Included in the museum is a lot of material, photographs and artifacts about Sitting Bull.

Oscar - jaws drop and the buzz and intrigue begin

The buzz is deafening. That other sound is jaws dropping. The announcement of the Oscar nominations this morning has indeed generated a lot of buzz and some head-scratching. In every major category the nominations carried a number of surprises – some more than others, however the Best Picture nominations were not a surprise for me. What is surprising are the Oscar nominations in the Directing, Acting and Foreign Language Film categories.

In my earlier reflections on the DGA and SAG Awards nominations, I noted that I thought that Oscar nominations would generally reflect those nominations. I was wrong.

Kathryn Bigelow, Ben Affleck and Tom Hooper each received a DGA nomination but did not get an Oscar nod - only two DGA nominees also got an Oscar nomination, Ang Lee and Steven Spielberg. This flies in the face of what has happened historically when the Oscar nominations generally do reflect the DGA. It will now really be interesting to see who wins the DGA award and who wins the Oscar. Will they be one and the same? It will also be interesting to see how the DGA award, Best Director Oscar and Best Picture Oscar might – or might not – align.

Of the 20 Oscar acting nominations only 14 reflected SAG Award nominations. That too is in contrast to past years when the nominations were much more closely aligned. The three biggest surprises for me were the failure of John Hawkes, Helen Mirren and Maggie Smith to garner an Oscar nomination.

Perhaps I should also be surprised that I actually picked each of the Best Picture nominations. I listed ten films while noting that the Academy might not nominate ten. I listed them in the order of the number of first place votes I thought each would receive. My tenth pick was Skyfall which did not receive an Oscar nomination.

However the most interesting nomination is Amour. This film is nominated for an Oscar in the Best Picture category and as Best Foreign Language Film – it is Austria’s entry in that category. Moreover, Amour also received nominations in the Best Actress, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. Can one picture win two 'best' picture awards?

Which brings me to the Foreign Language category: The biggest surprise for me was the failure of The Intouchables (France’s entry) to receive a Best Foreign Language Film nomination. I thought it had everything going for it and would be a lock – but again, I was wrong.

Finally, I am sorry Sister, from Switzerland did not receive a nomination. The film is disturbing but emotionally very powerful. Nonetheless I am surprised that Kon Tiki from Norway made it and Sister did not.

Ahh, the vagaries.

Best Picture Oscar Nominees?

So tomorrow morning we will know the Academy Awards nominees. There will be at least five Best Picture nominees and as many as ten. The Academy’s uses a weighted voting system which is based on the number of first place votes from the members and no film can be nominated unless it receives at least five percent of the total votes cast. Nomination voting ended on Monday.

This year the voting schedule has been accelerated and this has complicated things. More importantly, perhaps, voting is being done online and there have been significant problems and glitches with a lot of grousing by Academy members about it. The real fallout may be a diminished turnout.

If there is a diminished turnout, what impact will it have? Equally important to the size of the turnout is who votes and who doesn’t: Older members, younger members, actors, directors? Different demographics may favor different films.

Nonetheless, fearlessly, here are my picks of the films that will be nominated. I say, fearlessly but frankly, no film on the list (certainly the top five) will be a surprise.

I am picking ten even though I don’t think there will be ten nominees. Here they are in the order of the first place votes I think they may have garnered from the voting members:

Lincoln
Argo
Les Miserables
Zero Dark Thirty
Silver Linings Playbook
Life of Pi
Django Unchained
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Amour
Skyfall.

As I noted above, the demographics of the voters can make a real difference. A controversial film like Zero Dark Thirty or even Django Unchained (a violent film in the aftermath of Newtown, Connecticut) can be helped or hurt by who votes.

We’ll know around 6:30 AM, Denver time, Thursday.

DGA nominations are out - Only Oscar remains

The last of the major feature film award nominations are now out with the Director’s Guild of America (DGA) announcing their nominations today. Previously, the PGA, Writers' Guild, SAG and the Golden Globe nominations have been announced

The DGA nominations look very much like what I think we will see for both the Best Director Oscar Nominations and Best Motion Picture Oscar Nominations that will be announced Thursday.

It is a strong list with Steven Spielberg for Lincoln, Ben Affleck for Argo, Kathryn Bigelow for Zero Dark Thirty, Ang Lee for Life of Pi and Tom Hooper for Les Miserables.

In making the announcement of the nominees, Guild president Taylor Hackford said:

"DGA members have chosen an incredibly rich and varied group of filmmakers to nominate for this year's Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film Award. These directors represent the highest standard of filmmaking, and their films are a testament to artistic achievement, innovative storytelling and the passion that filmmakers share with their audiences."

It is extremely likely that the winner of the DGA award will also be the winner of the directing Oscar. Only six times since 1948 (when the DGA began giving the award) has the DGA winner not also won the Oscar:

1968 Anthony Harvey won the DGA Award for The Lion in Winter but Carol Reed won the Oscar of Oliver.

1972 Francis Ford Coppola won the DGA Award for The Godfather but Bob Fosse got the Oscar for Cabaret.

1985 Steven Spielberg won the DGA for The Color Purple but Sydney Pollock got the Oscar for Out of Africa.

1995 Ron Howard won the DGA for Apollo 13 while Mel Gibson won the Oscar for Braveheart.

2000 Ang Lee got the DGA Award for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon – Steven Soderbergh took the Oscar for Traffic.

2002 Rob Marshal was DGA’s pick for Chicago but Roman Polanski won the Oscar for The Pianist.

Best Picture Oscar? The DGA nominations enhance the chances of that award going to either Lincoln or Argo. Those two films have been nominated in the ‘best’ category by the DGA, the PGA, the Writer’s Guild and an ensemble-cast nomination from the Screen Actor’s Guild. Academy members of each of these guilds will be voting for Best Picture once the nominations are announced.

While those two films chances are enhanced, 'it ain’t over till it’s over', as Yogi said.

Les Miserables was nominated by the PGA, DGA and SAG but was ineligible for the WGA award (WGA has very strict eligibility requirements for consideration).

Zero Dark Thirty, which was released late in the SAG voting period and did not send screeners to the nominating committee, was nominated by the WGA, PGA and DGA, but only received an individual nomination for Jessica Chastain from SAG.

Silver Linings Playbook did not get a DGA nomination but did from the other Guilds. Life of Pi did not receive any nominations from SAG.

DGA Awards are February 2nd.