ugh

i adore my film professor and i'm enjoying her class, but why she can't pick a happy movie for us to watch is beyond me. last week it was birth of a nation followed by within our gates. gates was considered so potentially-inflammatory in its time for its depiction of the lynching of innocents that it wasn't even released in america.

the week before we had the searchers. john ford + john wayne = john racist texas propoganda.

this week, the jazz singer followed immediately by the crowd. easily one of the most dismal message movies i've ever seen, the crowd tells the story of a man who desperately wants to be Somebody but must realizes he never will and become content with that.

from the first twenty minutes or so of the jazz singer i could have sworn i'd seen the thing before. then i realized i was thinking of the simpsons take off with krusty and his father. if you happened to find that portrayal stereotypical, you should see this one. still, the jazz singer's treatment of jews is nothing to the blackface routine.

together it's overwhelming. i think i need to crawl into bed, pretend schwartzenegger is not about to elected to office, & not think about movies for a while.