February 13, 2019 The Skanner Portland & Seattle Page 7
Arts & Entertainment
FILM REVIEW: WWII Vet Plays Hero Again in ‘The
Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot’
FILM REVIEW: Traffic
Stop Death Triggers
Revolt in ‘Black’
Sam Elliott plays Calvin Barr, the World War II vet who supposedly assassinated Hitler, and decades later tracks Bigfoot in ‘The Man Who
Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot.’
‘Black’
By Kam Williams
For The Skanner News
J
oseph Grant (Tous-
saint Morrison) was
riding in a car with
his brother Cole
(Malick Ceesay) and BFF
Derek (Geoff Briley) one
afternoon when they
suddenly found them-
selves being tailed by a
police cruiser. Although
they hadn’t violated any
rules of the road, they
were inexplicably pulled
over by a couple of over-
ly zealous cops (Addison
Pennington and Matt Ce-
darberg), ostensibly for
merely “driving while
Black.”
Sitting in the back seat,
Cole asked the officers
for an explanation for
the stop, if they weren’t
being profiled. Their
response was that he
matched the description
of a suspect they were
looking for.
After being asked for
his ID and ordered him
out of the car, Cole lost his
temper. The next thing
you know, he wound up
on the ground with a pis-
tol to his head. And the
bigot with a badge in con-
trol of whether he lived
or died yelled, “What
you looking at, boy?” be-
fore callously pulling the
trigger.
Witnessing the sense-
less shooting of his only
brother leaves Joe trau-
matized and Derek is
understandably shaken,
too. But the two have dis-
tinctly different feelings
about what to do next.
The former has no faith
in the criminal justice
system, given the long
history of police being
found not guilty for the
deaths of unarmed Af-
rican Americans. So,
he would just like to get
some guns, recruit an
army, and lead a violent
revolution against the
U.S.
By contrast, Derek is
interested in mounting
a traditional protest,
like a Black Lives Matter
march; he has no confi-
dence Joe will be able to
find any. The ensuing
debate of how to respond
to Cole’s untimely de-
mise sits at the center of
“Black,” a thought-pro-
voking morality play
written and directed by
David J. Buchanan.
Besides the badinage
between the buddies, the
film intermittently takes
a break from the dra-
ma for brief, revealing
tete-a-tetes with real-life
Black folks about their
first encounters in life
with the cops. The heart-
felt recollections shared
in these mini-documen-
taries combine to paint
a widespread pattern
of discrimination and
abuse on the part of the
police.
A compelling polem-
ic revolving around a
grief-stricken sibling’s
relentlessly making his
case, like a latter-day Nat
Turner, for armed insur-
rection!
By Kam Williams
For The Skanner News
E
very now and then, a film
turns history on its head.
For example, “Abraham Lin-
coln: Vampire Hunter” made
more than $100 million dollars at
the box office by suggesting that
the 16th President of the Unit-
ed States was also a legendary
stalker of the undead. And Quen-
tin Tarantino’s “Inglourious
Basterds,” which had Hitler dy-
ing in a movie theater fire rather
than by committing suicide, made
three times as much money.
Playing fast and loose with the
truth can be pretty profitable
in other arenas as well. Donald
Trump sealed the Republican
“
presidential nomination by par-
roting the National Enquirer’s
patently ridiculous assertion that
JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald
hadn’t acted alone but with the
help of Senator Ted Cruz’s father,
Rafael.
Well, in “The Man Who Killed
Hitler and Then The Bigfoot,”
we have a film that contradicts
conventional wisdom not once,
but twice. The picture stars Sam
Elliott as Calvin Barr, the World
Excellent HHHH
Unrated
Running time: 80 min.
Production Studio:
BLACK Productions
Studio: We-Co Films
To see a trailer for
Black, visit TheSkanner.
com.
L !
A
FIN EEK!
W
We have a film
that contradicts
conventional
wisdom not
once, but twice
Hazardous
Beauty
presents
War II vet who supposedly suc-
cessfully assassinated the Fuhrer
on a top secret mission.
This picture unfolds decades
later when an aging Calvin is
coaxed out of retirement by an
FBI agent (Ron Livingston) to
track down the legendary Bigfoot
(Mark Steger) that is rumored to
be living deep in the Canadian
forest. It seems that the mythical
beast is responsible for a deadly
plague that is threatening to dec-
imate the population.
Turning down an array of
007-level, state of the arts gad-
gets, Calvin
stoically sets
out with just
a rifle, a scope
and a Bow-
ie knife. He
doesn’t even
don goggles,
gas mask and
a protective
suit to pre-
vent his prey
from infect-
ing him. Sam
Elliott plays
it
straight,
here, but you
can’t
help
but wonder
whether the
veteran thes-
pian’s embar-
rassed by the
fact that this
campy B-flick
has been re-
leased right
when
he’s
been nominated for an Oscar for
the first time in his career.
An amusing mix of fantasy and
revisionist history bordering on
cheesy that’s strictly for the very
gullible!
Good HH
Unrated
Running time: 98 minutes
Production Companies: Epic Pic-
tures Releasing / Title Media
Distributor: RLJE FILMS
To see a trailer of the movie, vis-
it TheSkanner.com.
featuring local artists,
Quigley Provost-Landrum
and Trish Egan
Make The Skanner
part of your daily routine
by Portland playwright
Bonnie Ratner
Directed by
Josie Seid
JAN. 25 - FEB. 17, 2019 • Fri/Sat 7:30 pm & Sundays 3 pm
Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center (IFCC), 5340 N Interstate Ave, Portland
During the 2016 Fertile Ground Festival, audiences called Hazardous Beauty “Wonderfully provocative, witty,
complex and brilliant. It was awesome to see two strangers meet and peel through the world’s stereotypes and
misconceptions to reveal the hearts of two such richly talented, yet scarred individuals. Brava!”
Ronni
LaCroute
PassinArt.org
PassinArtTheatreCompany
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