Monday, August 28, 2006

3 African Countries, 3 Decades, 3 Stories



Film: The Blood Diamond
Director: Edward Zwick
Release Date: December 15, 2006
African Country: Sierra Leone
Decade: 1990s
Lead African Male: Djimon Hounsou
Lead Caucasian Male: Leonardo DiCaprio
In Five words: Two Search for Conflict Diamond










Film: Catch A Fire
Director: Phillip Noyce
Release Date: October 27, 2006 (limited)
African Country: South Africa
Decade: 1980s
Lead African-American Male: Derek Luke
Lead Caucasian Male: Tim Robbins
In Five words: Police Investigate Man During Apartheid

Film: The Last King of Scotland
Director: Kevin Macdonald
Release Date: September 27, 2006 (limited)
African Country: Uganda
Decade: 1970s
Lead African-American Male: Forest Whitaker
Lead Caucasian Male: James McAvoy
In Five Word: Scotish Physician Dilemna With Dictator

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10 comments:

Kimberly Ann said...

cool synoposis...and map.

Carlos Reyes said...

I believe the strongest film is "Catch A Fire", is a big contender for Best Picture.

However, Forest Whitaker is the current front-runner for best actor, and the poster is awesome!!

Emma said...

VERY cool! :)

Anyway, yes! It seems England is getting all the good movies before you Americans this year! Teehee.

Anonymous said...

good observation and break down...

FYI: Djimon Hounsou is African (from Benin) not African American.

I too believe that "Catch A Fire" is the strongest and will be the best.

RC said...

Andrea, thank you for your note on Hounsou...I've updated the post to read Lead African Male for him, not African-American.

Anonymous said...

RC, this is a great post. Could you do something like this again in the future? Not necessarily a map, but with similar films.

Anonymous said...

Blood Diamond looks interesting. Looking forward to that.

elasticwaistbandlady said...

I felt oddly attracted to James McAvoy as furry little Mr. Tumnus. Does that make me a pervert headed down the road of being targeted by PETA activists?!!!??!

Pfangirl said...

Oooh, thanks for pointing out the Last King of Scotland. I hadn't heard about it before now and it sounds really interesting. Whitaker really looks the part as well - quite scarily so!

I'm curious to see how the cast handle the accents of Catch a Fire. South African accents are notoriously difficult to pull off convincingly.

Unknown said...

great post RC,
I second pfangirl's take on Whitaker. He is seriously underrated actor and just from the look on the picture, he is a dead ringer to Amin Dada (I am not sure dada is the one he is portaying but...)scary...