Superfly District
Ex-con-turned-DJ Petey Greene keeps it real in the Nation’s Capital
by Phillip Valys Entertainment Editor
Right off the bat, the film Talk to Me is daring enough to profile an oft overlooked bookmark of the 1960’s civil rights movement: a radio disc jockey who singlehandedly stopped a massive breakout of neighborhood riots.
You probably haven’t heard of community activist Ralph “Petey” Greene, the loose-lipped, jive-talkin’ mouthpiece of Washington, D.C. who soothed the collective tensions of the black community after Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination spawned rebellious mobs and mutiny against government.
Green encouraged despairing listeners to lay their strife on the air rather than on the streets, luring listeners to the phone in by famously proclaiming, “I’ve been incarcerated almost half my life and some of my best friends are pimps, whores and gamblers.”
Well, at least he’s honest. That’s probably his appeal, ya dig?
Don Cheadle is smartly cast as the ex-con who blasted the airwaves with nuggets of truth on the cusp of the Vietnam War. In fact, those pearls of wisdom convinced station program director Dewey Huges (a deliciously strait-laced Chiwetel Ejiofor, who never met a bad acting gig in his life) launch the radio sensation to a career beyond the friendly airwaves.
Greene went on to spout culture-savvy jargon on his own televised talk show and several stand-up comedy specials, but his career promptly nosedived after he mouthed the “N” word on The Tonight Show. It’s not easy being Greene, after all.
Greene was the original “pimp-walking” shock jock, and Cheadle’s pitch-perfect superfunky performance has Oscar gold written all over it.
Cheadle rounds off his raucously entertaining performance against a turbulent backdrop of American history, and his compelling supporting cast (Martin Sheen, Cedric the Entertainer) help Talk to Me strike a ideal balance between comedy and message-heavy drama.
Talk To Me Trailer To the Rescue
Pilot flees POW camp in Werner Herzog’s riveting Vietnam saga of survival
by Phillip Valys Entertainment Editor
If you’ve ever seen Vietnam gems Apocalypse Now or Platoon, you probably know what napalming a village looks like. You’ll also have witnessed the grotesque spectacle of fire ants and leeches wriggling across a soldier’s chest.
Sitting on the receiving end of those hazards would cripple the spirit of most soldiers marooned in far-flung POW camps, but not Dieter Dengler. He’s the subject of director Werner Herzog’s Rescue Dawn, a massive retooling of his earlier 1997 doc, Little Dieter Needs to Fly.
This low-budget mindtrip ditches explosions and enemy crossfire for a gritty psychological jaunt inside the psyche of Navy pilot Dengler (Christian Bale), who successfully led a half-dozen captives from a Pathet Laotian POW camp to freedom just four months into his internment.
Subjected to various forms of torture by day (bamboo shoots shoved under fingernails, anyone?) and flung into huts and shackled head-to-foot with captives by night, this role was no easy task for Bale. He shed much poundage and muscle mass in order to resemble a famished POW, not to mention slurping down live worms when the camp ran out of provisions-all in the service of Herzog’s extraordinarily gritty vision.
And much like the highly eccentric Dengler, Bale does it with a smile on his face.
Honorable mentions belong to Steve Zahn and Jeremy Davies, who portray fellow prisoners who’ve already mentally cracked under the strain of starvation, disillusionment and depression.
All three actors looked like pogo sticks during filming, but it’s a small price to pay for executing Herzog’s compelling portrait of a pilot who wouldn’t let a little thing like torture and malnourishment get in the way of escape.
Rescue Dawn screens Friday through Sunday at Sunrise Cinemas at Deerfield Mall (3984 W. Hillsboro Blvd., Deerfield Beach).
Rescue Dawn Trailer
