Why did I watch “Carlito’s Way: Rise to Power”?

A waste of a good 95 minutes. O.K., I watched the first “Carlito’s Way” back in the day to see why everybody and their brother were making quotes from it. It seemed pretty simple, straight forward gangster tale, and since I enjoy Al Pacino’s acting generally, I watched the movie. It was surprisingly good, and it had a few morals (which were ultimately lost on most of the crowd who wished to emulate Carlito as opposed to seeing that he ultimately reaped what he sowed). Soooo, even with P. Diddy in the cast, I figured, I could watch the prequel.

Wellllll, lets just say I would have been better off watching a Law and Order CI rerun. This stuff was of the same ilk of the silly gangsta fairy tale’s that come out straight to video starring Ja Rule or whatever has been rapper of the month (and of course with Vivica Foxx or Nia Long). Not that I have anything against this type of low brow entertainment, occasionally to my wife’s chagrin I suspend my intellect and watch “The Parkers” or a rerun of “New jack City” on BET so I can laugh at G-Money Wells repeatedly while he is stupid enough to meet Nino Brown on top of that building hollering: “CMB Man, its all we got” lol

But seriously, these gangsta fairy tales are part of the reason I can’t stand so-called “Black Movies”. Come now, can we just write a story showing African Americans in a positive light? You know, instead of “It’s hard out there for a pimp” how about “it’s hard out there for a brother working two jobs, going to school online and taking care of his wife and kids”? I still haven’t had a chance to see the “Pursuit of Happiness”, I intend to, however; I’d like to see some “regular” ole stories about people, things and life made by African Americans.

What do you all think, what types of films would you like to see made?

Comments

[Anali]

I agree about the regular stories about black people. That's what I loved about "Love Jones." It was a regular movie about some pretty cool creative people who fell in love, were focused on their careers and hung out with their friends. They all just happened to be black.

Some of these pimp/thug type movies, I just wonder who the heck are these people? My family and friends aren't like this. This shouldn't be so much of what is put out there for public consumption.

[plez...]

Keep in mind that the movie making business is just that: a business. By pandering to the lowest common demoninator, Hollywood knows that they can make good money with low budget Black movies instead of spending considerably more money on production and good writing for something along the lines of "Love Jones" or even "Dreamgirls." If recent memory serves me correctly, "Dreamgirls" received a number of Oscar nominations, but it never cracked the Top 5 in the box office (not even on its opening weekend during the Christmas holiday)! On the other hand, "Stomp the Yard" (which I enjoyed) had a much lower budget than "Dreamgirls", will never get an Oscar nomination (unless there is one for choreography), but it was the Number 1 film for 2 straight weeks.

"Stomp the Yard" isn't a gangster-type movie, but it was written to a strict formula, was highly predictable, was written for a Black audience (the movie was panned by just about every white reviewer that I read, and it didn't ask the audience to do much work to interpret what was going on).

It's a sad commentary on the state of affairs in this country that we still have "Black" movies... sad indeed.

[DJ Black Adam]

I hear you on that, especially the catering to the lowest common denominator. I guess that’s Hollywood’s modus operandi with all groups, with our numbers it might be harder to justify stories of better quality fiscally speaking.

I guess it’s the same story with Music. I also agree movies should be “movies” as music should be “music” not Black, White or whatever. I think we have gotten to that point where we as African American writers should focus on the story moreso than the race of the characters.

The screenplay I wrote and am working to produce is just that, a story with a mixture of characters.

[Thom]

So...no one called for more films like Soul Plane?

But seriously, I would like to see more the hard working families and less "Thug Culture"(Mainly because over the years, the filmmakers seem to miss the point of films like Carlito's Way as much as some of the fans did). I guess, movies that reflect the realities of life (for any race). But the fact that "the Black Movie" has almost become a genre unto itself like Horror or Sci-Fi is disappointing. I think it helps divide more than bring together. Not to mention, there are three formulas (Violent Thug Drama, Dope Comedy and Dance Movie). I just want ordinary people who struggle in the day to day, maybe love their kids and significant other...am I asking to much?

[DJ Black Adam]

Hello Thom, you wrote:

“I just want ordinary people who struggle in the day to day, maybe love their kids and significant other...am I asking to much?.”

I am inclined to agree, but it seems like for the moment, that is too much to ask from Hollywood.