My Movie Journal is Better Than Yours

Notes History

Date Viewed	Venue	Note
07.02.08	Weird Wednesday	So when Fanaka was here last, I actually bought this along with his three other available DVDs. The cover and the title however (Black Sister's Revenge) kind of kept it on the shelf for me all this time. I think I was subconciously waiting for it to play Weird Wednesday again since I'd heard so many great things about it from when it played before. Lucky for me, it did! For starters, the movie is absolutely nothing like what I thought it would be. I havn't see Killer of Sheep or any of Charles Burnett's work but I picture it being like this but more depressing. Very casual, tonally perfect, intimate and personal; a minor-key masterpiece along the lines of Marty and Claudine. Very slice-of-lifey, very charactery, and more than anything authentic. This is the work of a humanistic artist such as Cassavetes or Sydney Pollock, certainly not from the guy who just brought us midget prison bulls and strangling-penis Soul Vengeance, right? The tone of this movie was a bigger shock to me than anything in Pen 3, that's for sure. I really loved this movie. It really has everything that a film like this needs and it's done with the perfect mix of competence and rough-edged inexperience. This is by far Fanaka's best film. It got a standing ovation.