Lee Daniels’ The Butler (2013) Film Review

Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker) was a butler at the White House under eight different presidents during over many years of the civil rights movement.

What I enjoyed about this film was the journey of Cecil’s son, Louis (David Oyelowo) through the Freedom Riders, with Martin Luther King Jnr, into the Black Panther movement and beyond. It was a well told story, with the structure of the interactions with the presidents to show the way things didn’t change at the same time that everything changed. Still, you do need to suspend your belief a lot – it is a big ask to have a film span such a long time and have the same actors. Both Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey looked far too old for their young years, though the aging of the other actors was more effective. The story is strong enough to beat those flaws.

The Butler was nominated for BAFTAs for Best Supporting Actor (Oprah Winfrey) and Best Make Up/Hair.

 

Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) Film Review

If you are a fan of the eighties, and in particular of cinema of the eighties, you must love this. It’s worth seeing for the cast alone: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold, Pheobe Cates, Forest Whitaker, Eric Stoltz and Sean Penn as constantly stoned surfer boy Jeff Spicioli.

The film is an ensemble piece covering a wide range of teenage issues, but most notably sex and drugs. It’s fun, it’s fast, it’s dated, but in that glorious eighties way of being dated. And it is heaps and heaps of fun.