The US ruling class would probably rather we watch the gung-ho war film Black Hawk Down than Ali, a biopic about a black American Muslim who took on the system. But as Muhammad Ali himself said in 1967, "I am America. I am the part you won't recognise, but get used to me. Black, confident, cocky-my name, not yours. My religion, not yours. My goals, my own. Get used to me." The film begins in 1964, when the civil rights movement moved from pacifist protests in the apartheid Southern states to riot and rebellion in the North.
Gosford Park, the new film from director Robert Altman, is a whodunit-style murder mystery set in a stately home in Britain in the early 1930s. It has a cast list that reads like a who's who of top British actors. But Gosford Park is more than an Agatha Christie-ish murder mystery.
Alan Clark, the Tory MP who died in 1999, is often portrayed as an eccentric, lovable rogue. Everyone agrees he was lecherous, rude and arrogant. But the general view is that his diaries are tremendous achievements, and that he himself was cheeky but irresistible.
Tigerland First it was the film Behind Enemy Lines, and then the studios hit us with with Black Hawk Down. If, like me, you are sick of the jingoistic, racist and chauvinistic films coming out of Hollywood at the moment then Tigerland is a breath of fresh air. Don't be surprised if you haven't heard of this film-it had a very limited release in UK cinemas.
The sudden attack of sickness I experienced since the day I was asked to attend the preview of Black Hawk Down has not yet dissipated. I was expecting to see images of the dead. I did not anticipate the depths of the film's cynical use of the pain of a nation to bolster an immoral purpose.
Black Hawk Down does not even attempt to explain why the vast majority of Somalis hated the US forces by October 1993. When the troops arrived they were welcomed and greeted as friends come to help. Within months their behaviour had alienated people who had cheered them. Once the US forces began clashing with Somalis, the US helicopters began what they called "rotor washing"-hovering above houses and markets so that the downdraft blew walls apart and tore off roofs.
OVER A million people tried to log on to the new 1901 census internet site. The History of Britain series presented by Simon Schama was a huge success. It was followed by the popular Timewatch and Blood of the Vikings series which showed the massive audience interested in historical events. Faced with the growing popularity of history, BBC2 has come up with the four part series Civil War to be screened on Mondays at 8.30pm.
THE BELIEVER is a difficult film to watch. It is centred on Daniel Balint, a character at war with himself. He is a Jew, but also a violent Nazi in modern day New York. Balint despises all Jews, saying that "the modern world is a Jewish disease".
AT FIRST sight The Death Ship by B Traven seems nothing more than a Boys' Own style story of adventure on the high seas. However, in the pages of this book you will find no glamour or heroism. Instead The Death Ship is a wonderful indictment of the absurdities of capitalist society, and a gritty description of life as the lowest of the low, full of burning anger, black humour and razor sharp wit.
WHITE RIOT is the new book by co-editor of the anti-fascist Searchlight magazine Nick Lowles. It tells the terrifyingly true story of the assorted racist psychopaths and crackpots who make up the Nazi terrorist group Combat 18. Combat 18 was formed in the early 1990s out of the gangs of thugs who guarded the meetings of the Nazi British National Party (BNP).
A selection of films for all moods that are worth catching, or setting the video for, over the Christmas break.
Baby Boy is the latest work from John Singleton -the maker of the film Boyz 'n the Hood, made in 1991. With an all black cast, the movie is aimed at a black audience. Singleton says Baby Boy is his version of "What's Goin' On". However, unlike the song by Marvin Gaye that challenged 1960s America, this movie is described by its maker as "like watching the soul of a black man on screen".
