Nick Cannon – Memphis Flyer

Redneck Chronicles

At the Walmart in Eunice, Louisiana, police were called around 3:30 p.m. on June 22 about a group of women who were fighting, KADN-TV reported. They arrested Brionka Benjamin, 38, and her niece, Makatelynn Benjamin, 20, for simple battery, but Brionka got an additional charge: When the fight began, police discovered on surveillance video, she allegedly tossed her baby into a trash can near the entrance to the store so her hands would be free to slug another woman. She was charged with cruelty to juveniles; the baby was unharmed and released to relatives. [KADN, 6/24/2024]

It’s Good to Have a Hobby (Horse)

Some 260 riders from 22 countries showed up to the 11th annual Finnish Hobby Horse Championships in Seinajoki, Finland, on June 15, AFP reported. We could stop right there, but why would we? Hobby horsing involves people riding stick horses through a series of jumps, intricate dressage moves, and Western riding events. While hobby horsing is not recognized as an official sport in Finland, participants take it seriously. “We have faced so much bullying and judgment,” rider Nara Arlin, 24, said. Even so, the sport “is growing every year,” said Julia Mikkonen, chair of the Finnish hobby horse association. She notes the athleticism involved in some of the events: “If you jump over obstacles, your hip mobility has to be absolutely insane,” she said. She estimates there are about 10,000 hobby horsers worldwide. [AFP, 6/26/2024]

Awesome!

Fans of 1960s kitschy TV show Batman will not be surprised to learn that trusty sidekick Robin (also known as Burt Ward) has received the President’s Lifetime Achievement Award for rescuing more than 15,000 pets. WTOP-TV reported on June 26 that at the same ceremony, Ward and his wife received the United Nations Association of the United States of America Humanitarian Award for their work saving 45 different breeds of dogs. The former Boy Wonder said he and his wife “want to leave this planet better off than when we found it.” (We must have missed the episode when Robin found Earth.)

News That Sounds Like a Joke

• On June 24 in a federal by-election in Toronto, Canada, candidate Felix-Antoine Hamel, 45, made history: He received zero votes. The CBC reported that Hamel was approached by a friend to add his name to the ballot, one of the longest in Canadian history, as part of a protest against Canada’s electoral system. “Well, I am the true unity candidate,” Hamel said. “Everyone agrees not to vote for me.” Hamel couldn’t even vote for himself, as he is from Montreal, not Toronto. “I’m one of the last people that would be expected to make Canadian history in any way,” the musician said. [CBC, 6/27/2024]

• Jillian Uygun, 22, of Seminole, Florida, just wanted a cuddle from her boyfriend on June 29, The Smoking Gun reported. But when he refused her, they argued about the “victim’s disinterest,” police said. The next morning, Uygun repeatedly tried to snuggle with the boyfriend — then allegedly took it up a notch, grabbing his chest hair, scratching his face, biting him on the forehead, and breaking his phone. She was arrested for domestic battery, and a judge ordered her to have no contact with her cuddle-resistant boyfriend. [Smoking Gun, 7/1/2024]

Saw That Coming

Rolling Stone reported on July 2 that prolific baby daddy and host of The Masked Singer Nick Cannon has recently insured his “most valuable assets” for $10 million. “You hear about, like, all these different celebrities insuring their legs … so I was like, ‘Hey, well, I got to insure my most valuable body part,’” Cannon said. Even better, the “Ball-to-Ball” policy was taken out with Dr. Squatch, a men’s grooming company that invites users to find the “value of their balls.” The father of 12 (with five different mamas) said he’s “doubling down on … my future kids.” [Rolling Stone, 7/2/2024]

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NEWS OF THE WEIRD
© 2024 Andrews McMeel Syndication.
Reprinted with permission.
All rights reserved.

There’s so much to say about Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq, I don’t know where to begin.

One of the film’s themes is the nature of power. Since its inception, the film industry has been characterized by a struggle for power between directors, producers, stars, and writers. As seen in Trumbo, the first to lose the battle were the writers, so they decamped to television. The power of the old-line Hollywood studios declined in the late 1960s, so the 1970s saw the ascendance of the director and, as a result, a second golden age of American film. In 1980, the directors’ power was broken on the rocks of Heaven’s Gate, and by the end of the decade, movie stars like Arnold Schwarzenneger and Tom Cruise were in charge, commanding high salaries and exerting creative control. The indie film revolution of the 1990s, which Spike Lee helped kick off, was on some level an attempt to reclaim the directors’ power. Now, in the twilight of the movie stars, power has reverted to the producers, and so resources are tied up in making endless sequels and reboots of proven properties. Enter Amazon, the internet retail powerhouse who is making a big push into video. For their first foray into theatrical film, they tapped Lee and apparently gave him free rein. Lee responded by going absolutely insane.

Teyonah Parris as Lysistrata

2015 finds Lee in a familiar state: energized with righteous rage. The director could have taken a look at widespread reports of police brutality against people of color and the resulting Black Lives Matter movement, pointed at his 1989 masterpiece Do the Right Thing, and said “I told you so!” Instead, he made Chi-Raq, which is like nothing else in theaters today. It’s a satire, a comedy, and a musical. It’s also based on a 2,500-year-old Greek play called Lysistrata, and so it is written mostly in rhyming verse. And yet, Chi-Raq is even weirder than it sounds. The first five minutes or so are essentially a lyric music video for “Pray 4 My City,” with nothing but text and an animated image of a map of the United States made up entirely of guns. When we finally do see someone on screen, it’s the rapper Chi-Raq (Nick Cannon) rocking a packed club. Then the action freezes, and we meet Dolmedes, the narrator/chorus played by national treasure Samuel L. Jackson in full Rufus Thomas mode.

I would be content listening to Jackson speak in rhyme for two hours. Fortunately, Lee introduces us to Teyonah Parris as Lysistrata, a powerhouse of confidence and sexual energy. After witnessing the horrors of street violence and having her apartment burned down by a rival gang out to kill her boyfriend Chi-Raq, Lysistrata is inspired by Miss Helen (Angela Bassett) to organize a sex strike, asserting their power by “seizing the means of reproduction.” The gangs will either end their senseless violence or go without booty. The sex strike spreads until, as Dave Chappelle says in a hilarious cameo as a strip-club owner, “Even the hoes is no-shows.”

The sprawling cast includes Wesley Snipes, Jennifer Hudson, and token white guy John Cusack as a priest who shouts himself hoarse at a funeral for a little girl killed in the gang crossfire. Cusack looks more engaged and passionate onscreen than he has in years, but his big scene is also a symptom of what’s wrong with Chi-Raq. In isolation, it’s a powerful scene, as Lee and screenwriter Kevin Willmott indict the whole sociopolitical system that keeps African Americans locked in cycles of poverty and violence. But in the context of the film, it’s a momentum killer. Free to follow his wildest impulses, Lee constructs one killer image after another, but little thought seems to have been given as to how it all fits together, which means Chi-Raq adds up to less than the sum of its impressive parts.

It’s inspiring to see a talent of Lee’s caliber swing for the fences. Chi-Raq may not be perfect, but I can’t stop thinking about it.