It’s shocking how tough it was to find cinematic heroes that are minorities. If I wanted to make a list about minority gang members, or thugs in movies, I’d have a list a mile long, but heroes? It’s tough. In the end I tried to compile a list of ten great minority heroes of the movies that wasn’t too obvious, but it’s slim pickings out there.
In either case, if we missed anyone, let us know in the comments!
Paul Verhoeven’s science fiction revenge picture is a film that’s thankfully shown very little wrinkles since its introduction in 1987. While “RoboCop” is by no means a masterpiece, it surely does succeed in placing itself in the higher echelons of science fiction where its hero is a victim, even when suited in a heavy metallic coat of armor, blasting away every criminal within eye sight.
I wasn’t too crazy about the first “Kick Ass.” The attempts to take Mark Millar’s homophobic misogynistic fantasy and tame it for broader audiences failed. And it failed fantastically once it watered down the cynicism and introduced that stupid rocket pack. I never understood the appeal of adapting the comic, either. Since I never really bothered to finish “Kick Ass 2” the mini-series (Millar’s “edginess” gets exhausting after the thirtieth anal sex joke), my frame of reference is nil, so “Kick-Ass 2” is a fairly fresh experience as a sequel to a movie that could have done without one.
n his “stunning” (Psychology Today) and “powerful” (San Francisco Chronicle) feature debut as writer/director, actor Leland Orser (“ER,” Taken) and Jeanne Tripplehorn (“Big Love,” “Criminal Minds”) star as a married couple reeling from the tragic death of their only child. For each of them, grief becomes a private torment that threatens to destroy their world. Driven apart by sorrow, they try to find their way back to each other and the chance to love again. Laura Linney (“The Big C,” John Adams), Elliott Gould (Contagion, “Ray Donovan”), Kyle Chandler (“Friday Night Lights,” Argo, Zero Dark Thirty) and Jason Ritter (“Parenthood”) co-star in this devastating but ultimately hopeful look at heartbreak, healing and the strength of the human spirit to defy darkness and embrace the light of MORNING.
I love in “Mutant Hunt” how after the hero Riker fights off the goons who can stretch their arms, cut off their limbs, smash walls, and explode when stabbed, the heroine looks on and proclaims “They’re not human.” NO SHIT! You think?! And you also have to appreciate a guy who lives in a house with white concrete walls, but still finds the time to hang weapons along the walls. All of which can work when he wants them to. No replicas for this schmuck. And seriously, who the hell hangs machetes on their walls?
In the eighties and nineties, there were tons of movie studios trying their hardest to create their own versions of “Karate Kid.” The movie made Ralph Macchio a star for a while, and helped fuel America’s love for the underdog. So naturally, someone had the bright idea to cast Billy Blanks in a lead role for their own “Karate Kid” movie. Like Macchio, Blanks was a celebrity for a short while before becoming a fitness guru, and here he basically plays Miyagi, except as a washed out janitor for a high school filled with students all of whom look well in to their twenties.
I remember the first time I ever sat through “Fight Club.” Like many of American audiences I expected an action movie about brawlers and didn’t see this gritty, ugly, and grimy tale about psychos and self-mutilation coming to me. And I hated it. Not just that, but I despised it. And the larger my internet presence became, the more it became something I was largely about. People always questioned by credibility through my hatred for “Fight Club,” and once I even received an e-mail from a reader begging me to post his own review for “Fight Club” on Cinema Crazed since he insisted I missed the entire point of the movie.
And perhaps I did.