I took a bit of a break from the blog. Not sure how noticable it was, especially since I still had a few future dated posts ready to go. In the wake of all the Black Lives Matter protests, it didn’t feel right to talk about something so frivolous as movies. That wasn’t the conversation that needed to be happening, and I wanted to keep my socials free to listen to those on the front lines fighting for basic human rights. I didn’t even post on Stardust for two weeks. In three years, I hadn’t missed more than a day. Even though I may be wading back into social media, I recognize that the fight is far from over. There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done. Now and always, black lives matter.
Those first few days in my particular, my heart was so heavy. I was hearing so many heartbreaking stories of injustice and inequality. I’ve always been a very empathetic and compassionate person, so it both hurt to see so much pain, and infuriated me that so many people (especially ones in power) don’t share an ounce of that compassion. It would only take the most basic level of caring about others over yourself to solve many of the world’s problems.
While I was really sitting in my feelings, I tried to watch movies that reflected that. Screw the positivity rule. I needed to sit with this. Most of them I’ve already written up (movies like Fruitvale Station or Attack the Block). One that I haven’t talked about yet is Malcolm X.
It doesn’t feel appropriate to switch gears and just talk about the cinematic aspects of this. I don’t want to be dropping any criticisms right now. But I will say what I felt watching this was more of that rage and confusion towards the world. This movie is nearly twenty years old, set even further back in the past. And yet it reflects everything that’s happening today. The same ideas and cries and thoughts I’m seeing blasted across twitter are all woven in the DNA of this movie. Are we really still in the same place? God, I hope not.