Written and directed by John Singleton in his twenties, Boyz n the Hood (1991) is no two-bit feat.  It’s explosive.  Even so, Singleton’s youth hamstrung him into a great naivete, and a certain decadence develops in this film about South Central L.A. 

Hood‘s political significance goes no further than to show an African-American boy giving a picture of Ronald Reagan the finger, which is meant to express Singleton’s own anti-Reaganism, anti-rightism.  Or to put into the mouth of a decent man acted by Laurence Fishburne words about how drugs, guns, and even liquor are being transported to the inner cities so that whites can see to it that blacks are gradually polished off.  Absolutely nothing belies our suspicion that this is Singleton’s view too.

The film’s early scenes include some lame, idiotic material about an arrogant black boy (sympathetically viewed by our director) who disturbs a white teacher’s (unsympathetically viewed by our director) grade-school class.  In the religion department, there is some trite philosophical talk about God, uttered by the South Central “boyz n the hood” themselves, and a Roman Catholic girl named Brandi who, despite her moral beliefs, opts to comfort Cuba Gooding Jr. by losing her virginity to him—a decision Singleton finds touching.  After all this, how could I not pronounce Hood decadent? 

Cover of Boyz N the Hood [UMD for PSP]

Here we go.  Two gay men take a Colorado baker, Jack Phillips, to court because he declined to bake them a wedding cake.  The judge rules that Phillips either prepares the cake or pays a fine, his religious beliefs be damned.

This is hardly the first time something like this has happened.  Advocates for same-sex marriage demand that people violate their consciences in the interest of something the State has legalized.  They are coerced into “recognizing” its “legitimacy” (the quotation marks are necessary), but nothing but the impulse to deny religious freedom is at work here.

Such advocates say to all of us, “I want you to be a Follower.”  Not a Follower of God, to be sure, but a Follower of today’s ultra-egalitarianism.  I say:  LET’S GO TO WAR AGAINST THIS MADNESS!

Of all the 2013 movies I saw (there are a good number I didn’t see), the best are American Hustle, The Spectacular Now, Gravity, Blue Jasmine, Populaire and probably Renoir.

Honorable mention goes to The Place Beyond the Pines, Enough Said, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Kick-Ass 2, and World War Z.

English: Peter Jackson promoting the 2009 film District 9 at San Diego Comic-Con. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If there are any people—I mean creatures—who have problems and struggles galore, it is the hobbit (Martin Freeman) and the dwarves inhabiting the world of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013).  They strive and fight and run all the way to the cliffhanger ending, and the Peter Jackson serial goes on.

Granted, I couldn’t keep up with everything that happens here, but at least I knew the stakes were very high.  Orcs, giant spiders and especially, a stupendous talking dragon called Smaug kept them that way.  Jackson has had a very uneven career, but Smaug is an eminently watchable pop movie with Lord of the Rings visual poetry and properly built excitement.

A cramped, old-world town on a cold lake, thin blankets of spider webs in a forest, lovely vistas beyond numerous treetops—-these images and more splendidly enrich a not-so-important enterprise.