Black Like Me (movie review)

I grabbed this on impulse from Movie Madness.

This film was made in the mid 1960s.  The running joke, if you can call it that, is he continues to look just like himself.  Like Buzz Lightyear out of his bubble.  He's too grumpy for the job of undercover spy.  Waaaay too grumpy. But we can understand, as the audience, that one feels offended.

He's mostly exposed to other men's sexual fantasies, which you'd think, as a journalist, he'd not be unfamiliar with.

The flashbacks are classically inserted.  The jazz soundtrack is emotive.  They smoke all the time, Buzz Lightyear in bed.  The actors are into it.  The Strange-colored Man would be a fun title.  He's having identity problems much deeper than which side of the Civil War he'd fight on.  A deeper nut case.  Fits into America just great.

I used to hitchhike around the east coast, up and down (as they say, we say)...

Scary man.  If that's what white guys are like, line me up for a vacation.  He's properly grateful to that country guy for not being a dick (short ride, hero not on best behavior).

I tell ya, if you're gonna send spies, at least train 'em first.  He was lucky to recruit that shoe polish guy early, but the training in the field seemed to make zero difference.  See this movie in sequence with The Spy Who Sat Next to the Photocopier.

I don't usually write my reviews right as I watch 'em.  This is the hundred and some minute enhanced edition, the 2nd of 2 DVDs.  I'm 99% sure I read the book in Rome, Italy, part of my parents' collection.  But not until now do I see the movie, in 2013.

There's a guy dancing all machine-like, proto robot.  That set of moves went a long way (Michael Jackson a pioneer / popularizer), kept morphing.  007 would have stuck out too, what with those ears 'n all...  just train 'em first, OK?

Speaking of which, I've been brainstorming on Math Future about my rural Oregon school for diplomats, a pastiche / montage of the best from my cullings.  I've got the "math is an outdoor sport" meme going.

A lot of the trauma is more class than race related.  "You're too serious about everything, ruins a fella from having fun" -- yes, girl, your diagnosis is on target.  It's number 3, 2, 1 experiences all the way (invoking est jargon -- appropriate given toilet access is a theme), a bumpy ride.

The business school project where I yak about Yankee types help with the truck fleet twixt Istanbul and Kabul and those:  not a spy ring, just strong STEM, high level training, and risky to some degree, though we hope not from stupid / random acts of violence.  Roads are dangerous enough...

He's being stalked at the moment, prey.  Prays to St. Jude.  Good Catholic, we learned that earlier.  The KKK didn't like Catholics either right?  Uh oh, PTSD melt down.  The Breaking Bad dad, the meth cook, was a little tougher.  "I'd a known you anywhere".  These whites are geeks (meeting up with his friends).

Somalis are having a "black like me" episode in their history these days.  Shelbyville, TN instead of Shelby, TX.  Talking about the documentary, Hawo's Dinner Party.  It's one thing to be black in Somalia, something else to be Somali in the North American south, maybe forced to relinquish at least one of your husbands.  No wait, I got it backwards, at least one of your wives.  You get the idea.

"You might be interviewed on TV".  How do you not offend people?  That's not the liberal's question.  A healthy conscience is worth a high price in Vienna, makes for better music appreciation.  Offend them if you must, with your revelations, be a Freud, a Woody Allen.  Be one of those bleeding hearts.  Be a muckraker if necessary.

Waaay too grumpy (he's strangling his interviewee -- torture is not professional guy).  Yeah, go see a priest, good idea.  You've got problems.  Uh oh, girl on the beach, another bump.  That ticket booth lady at the bus station isn't very professional.  The sets are theatric.  Movie's were still more "on stage" back then, not surprising.  Some are still made that way, classic.  Gas station, Memphis. Uh oh, cover blown, he's in the newspaper.  Reminds me of the Hillsboro, Ohio story.

Nice character review at the end here, a quick look.  The white line on the road again.  Stands for "color line" right?  Yep, the trailer says so.  Thanks to the film restoration people.  I'll check the special features next.