Rych McCain Hollyhood Notes : 2016-03-27

Friday, April 1, 2016

Meet The Blacks - Film

(C) 2016 by Rych McCain, All Rights Reserved. No part of this column may be reprinted, re-posted or duplicated without written permission from Rych McCain Media/Syndication. Violation is subject to applicable laws.

Meet The Blacks - Film

Rych McCain Nationally/Internationally Syndicated Entertainment Columnist
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Mike Epps

Extending A String Of Convincing PerformancesWith

Meet The Blacks

Displaying a wide range of acting and comedic ability for many in the biz can be a bit challenging but for some it comes as a natural ability. Comedian/actor Mike Epps is definitely one of the latter category. Yes we know he can make us laugh on stage but on film he has more than surprised us with serious roles In “Repentance,” where he had to deal with a serious psycho played by Forrest Whittaker; “Sparkle” where he portrayed a vicious, woman beating husband and “Jumping The Broom” where he blew everybody’s mind being the voice of reason in the film and waltzed off an NAACP Image Awards for “Best Supporting Actor.” Of course we know the TV sitcoms “Survivor’s Remorse” and the resent ABC-TV series “Uncle Buck,” plus the many standby comedy films. Epps has more than proven that he has the acting range to do it all.

Mike Epps as Carl Black

In his latest film “Meet The Blacks,” Epps performs a mixture of serious and funny as a dad who comes into some serious money (unscrupulously) and moves his family from the hood in Chicago to Beverly Hills. Unfortunately for them, they get there in time for the annual Purge. The cast in this film is as good as it gets in terms of how they naturally flowed with each other to make their performances unbelievably real as well as funny. What was it like for Epps to have that type of actors who could piggyback off of each other so effortlessly? He laughs, “I’m glad you enjoyed it. That comes from working with professionals; when you work with professionals and someone who knows how to cast. I think that casting starts in the imagination. When you get a group of people together like Deon the director; he was so good at being the head man, the chairman of everybody, making sure everybody is in the right place, making sure these two are working together, making sure these two are in the scenes. When you put all of that together, it works.”

Mike Tyson as James Clown

Former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson plays James Clown who has his own business catering children’s parties and entertaining them as a clown. He will shock a lot of people who see this movie because he does an excellent acting job. They will say is that Mike? Epps explains, “What a lot of people fail to realize about Mike Tyson is that he’s a natural kind of guy. Even though he’s an athlete; if he gets a hold of a role or an opportunity to do something that’s right up his alley, he’s going to be good at it. And this was right up his alley.”

Carl Black (Epps) aurgues with Mr. Wooky (Michael Blackson)

How did the cast get in the moods that were required for the different sets from funny to scary gloomy? Epps says, “Well you know how the film world is. We just do the work and put it out there and hopefully people will go see it. I believe in it and I think it was good because to be able to get all of those different types of entertainments together. I mean everybody in there did a different type of entertainment. All of the comedians are different. We had kids to old people. We had the little boy all the way up to Paul Mooney. So when you’re able to mix a gumbo of talent together, hey, you get a good bowl of food man.”

Lorena Black (Zulay Henao) Epps

The lines in this script are outrageously funny because they spare no sacred ground on which to tread. This should be a block buster and the ending has sequel written all over it. Epps thinks that will happen with an all new cast. If so, this may be the beginning of a series.

The Blacks take a walk L-R Alex Henderson (Carl Jr.) Zulay Henao (Lorena) Epps Bresha Webb (Allie) and Lil Duval (Cronut)

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3 1/2 Minutes Ten Bullets - Film

Rych McCain Nationally/Internationally Syndicated Entertainment Columnist
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Film Director Marc Silver Breaks Down The Making Of

3 ½ Minutes, Ten Bullets

This interview was previously published in June 2015 but was not included in this blog

On Black Friday 2012, four Black teens stopped at a gas station to buy gum and cigarettes. The music from their car was blasting too loud for a White man named Michael Dunn who was parked adjacent to them. Dunn got out and ordered the teens to turn their music down. One of the teens, Jordan Davis objected and an argument ensued between him and Dunn. The confrontation escalated to point where Dunn went to his vehicle and retrieved a gun. He then fired ten rounds into the car of the unarmed teens as they were trying to back out to escape.

Jordan Davis

Unfortunately, Davis was hit and killed instantly Dunn obviously acted bold and brazen assuming that Florida’s Stand Your Ground self-defense laws would give him immunity from his heinous act. 3 ½ Minutes, Ten Bullets is a documentary on this tragic event that give us a close look at all out the parties involved both in and out of the courtroom.

Marc Silver The Film's Director

The film was directed by Marc Silver who joined on to the project after Producer Minette Nelson was challenged by her son to use her position as a film maker to help correct the Jordan Davis incident. How did Silver get involved? He says, “I was lucky enough to be invited to meet Jordan’s parents. We spent a week together in Jacksonville and Atlanta where his parents lived separately. We just hung out and we learn more about who Jordan was and what happened and kind of just started to think about what these three and a half minutes, the time that these two cars were next to each other in the gas station, what they came to represent. And in that time, I was looking at this idea that in that tiny amount of time you could look at racial profiling, access to guns and these laws that give you the kind of confidence to use their guns. That is how we began the journey and we manage to get access to film in the courtroom and then as time unfolded as we were in the edit Ferguson happened and obviously many other cases since Ferguson, and that’s when the film started to speak back to us differently although we didn’t change anything. Then suddenly those three and a half minutes became more than we had originally envisioned.”

Protesters rally

What did Silver learn from this experience particularly in the courtroom? He laughs and says, “Shocking. I found two things that were shocking during the trial and I also wouldn’t have ever understood unless I had been sitting and filming the whole trial. And those two things were one, that race was never allowed to be discussed in the courtroom because Michael Dunn (the gunman) wasn’t apparently racist in the moment of the shooting because no witnesses heard him say anything that was racist. Therefore, the defense lawyer, in pre-trial hearings had convinced the judge that it wouldn’t be fair if we talked about race during the trial. I thought that was an incredible revelation. Then there became this crazy juxtaposition where we were inside the court filming, race not being allowed to be discussed, and then you go outside and everybody whether physically in front of the courthouse or on the airwaves in Jacksonville, they all knew it was about race. That revealed and element of institutional racism.

Then I thought the other interesting thing for me was in the courtroom was Ironically you have the seal of Florida with in “God We Trust” as if this is a hollowed type justice happening and really I just felt like watching the defense lawyer and the prosecuting lawyer I almost felt like it was a bit like being an editor. Like whoever can edit the best story of what happened during this three and a half minutes is going to win.”

Convicted Murder Michael Dunn serving life in prison

After the first trial ended in a mistrial justice did prevail in the second trial and Michael Dunn was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life.

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