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PHOTO SPECIAL TO THE GAMECOCK
“Lumumba” documents Congo leader Patrice Lumumba’s coup.
Film festival
kicks off Black
History Month
in Columbia
BY TITAN BARKSDALE
THE GAMECOCK
Green slime, Marc Summers,
Mr. Wizard, “Wild and Crazy
Kids” contestants and “Rugrats”
characters all will be conspicu
ously absent as the first film fes
tival of its kind in Columbia
takes place just a few feet from
campus.
USC faculty, however, will be
at the event, along with renowned
I
film directors and some of
Columbia’s elite.
The Nickelodeon Theatre of
the Columbia Film Society pre
sents Columbia’s first African
American/International Film
Festival today through Jan. 28.
Along with Benedict College,
the theater presents critically ac
claimed or award-winning inde
pendent films that document
African-American culture’s di
versity and history.
Urica Pope, community educa
tion coordinator and film festival
director, realized this would be the
ideal kick-off for Black History
Month when she helped concep
tualize the festival last July.
As the Jewish Film Festival
came to a close a month earlier,
!
Charles Ashe, community leader
and festival sponsor, suggested the
event be duplicated for the
African-American community.
Shortly after, Pope, Ashe and oth
er contributors made this festival
a reality.
“The Jewish Festival was the
catalyst for this film festival and
others to come,” Pope said.
The African-American/Inter
national Film Festival features
five films about various subjects.
“Freestyle,” which will be shown
at Benedict, is an examination of
hip-hop’s impact on society, while
“Lumumba” is a chilling docu
mentary about the coup of Congo
leader Patrice Lumumba’s demo
cratic state.
USC African-American Studies
director Cleveland Sellers, along
with a foreign language professor,
will be panelists in a discussion
following Saturday’s 6 p.m.
“Lumumba” screening.
“This festival allows us resur
rect those heroes that have been
vilified and made to appear as
something they weren’t. Anybody
can relate to the ideals embodied
by ‘Lumumba,’” Sellers said.
“These documentaries are so
important in the lives of young
people because we’ve become a
visual society, and when we have
the opportunity to present the
correct picture of history, it be
comes important that we make
that available to those who are in
need of that corrected informa
i:_»
Math student Phillip Murray
plans to attend the festival and
urges other USC students to do
the same.
“This is a multicultural and di
verse society; therefore, every as
pect of our social structure
should be represented at all
times. This opportunity allows
non-African-Americans at USC
to get a glimpse of how we feel
and relate to each other because
they need to know.”
Nickelodeon executive director
Anne Rayman says the feel
Murray speaks of comes from the
movies’ authenticity. Most of the
films’ creators embrace a stark
realism, enhanced by the the
atre’s ambience, that can over
whelm the audience. These
movies, mostly devoid of pricey
special effects, allow for honest
depictions of their subjects.
At the Nick
On Jan. 28, The Nickelodeon will
start Columbia’s first African
American film festival.
FRIDAY, JAN. 25: “Our Song”
7 p.m., 9 p.m.
SATURDAY, JAN. 26:
“Lumumba”
3 p.m., 6 p.m., 9:15 p.m.
SUNDAY, JAN. 27; “Love Come
Down”
7 p.m., 9 p.m.
MONDAY, JAN. 28: “FaatKine”
7 p.m., 9 p.m.
Theaters like the Nickelodeon
have traditionally been outlets
for local and national indepen
dent filmmakers. Often, the films
present eye-opening findings and
produce some Oscar and Emmy
award winners. But they can lack
the luster of most mainstream
movies, a factor that tends to de
ter potential audiences.
“You won’t see a ‘Rush Hour’
here; plus, many of our movies
have subtitles.... That’s proba
bly the biggest turnoff,” Pope
said. “Nickelodeon is a nice,
small, intimate theater, and the
movies shown here are not for
entertainment purposes only.
They provide you with educa
tion.”
And for the next three days,
Nickelodeon and Benedict will
provide an education rooted in
African-American culture that
has a universal theme.
The Nickelodeon Theatre is on
937 Main St. Festival passes are
$41 for the general public and $35
for students and seniors. The pass
includes film and reception ad
mission, reservation privileges
and special screenings.
Individual tickets are $6.50 and
$5. Matinee prices are 50 cents
cheaper.
A summary of the movies fea
tured in Columbia’s first
African-American/International
Film Festival is available outside
the Nickelodeon. But don’t ex
pect to see anything close to the
programs on that cable TV net
work the theater’s often confused
with.
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MOVIE REVIEW
‘Mothman ’falls flat
THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES
Starring: Richard Gere
★★ out of
BY TUG BAKER
THE GAMECOCK
One reason the American
public found “The Blair Witch
Project” so terrifying is that
they assumed it was real. A
brilliant marketing campaign
preceded the movie with, not
one, but two Blair Witch
documentaries on the Sci-Fi
Channel and a Web site devoted
to the creature’s legend. Of
course, it was all fake, a simple
ploy to add some realistic
horror for moviegoers.
Mark Pellington’s new film,
“The Mothman Prophecies,”
evokes fear in much the same
way. The film’s Web site,
www.themothmanlives.com,
has been set up as a Mothman
sighting headquarters.
Users can not only browse
the Mothman’s history and
legend, including dozens of
stories by eyewitnesses, they
can also report their own
Motnman signtmgs. me site
boasts that, in the past week, it
has received 20 sighting reports.
The main catch here is that,
unlike the tale behind “The
Blair Witch Project,” the story
of “The Mothman Prophecies”
is retd. (Insert shiver here.)
The movie’s basis is a book of
the same name by John A. Keel
published in 1975. The book is
Keel’s account of paranormal
events in the small town of Point
Pleasant, W. V., that led to a
terrible tragedy on Dec. 15,1967.
Pellington’s modernized
version stars Richard Gere as
John Klein, a reporter for The
Washington Post. John and his
wife (Debra Messing) have just
bought a new house. While
driving home, John’s wife sees
a strange shape fly toward the
car, causing her to lose control
of the vehicle and crash.
She dies a few days later, but not
before telling her husband about
the strange shape she saw and
drawing pictures of the creature.
Two years later, John’s car
breaks down, and he discovers
that, in less than 90 minutes, he
has inexplicably traveled more
than 400 miles to a tiny town
called Point Pleasant. There, he
discovers that many people in
the town have reported seeing
the same creature, dubbed the
Mothman by
some.
Through this
series of bizarre
events, John
meets Gordon
(Will Patton), who
claims to have
Richard seen the
Gere plays Mothman and
Ses talked with him,
his wife In a an^ Sgt. Connie
paranorm^ Parker (Laura
car crash. Linney), a
character
obviously influenced by Frances
McDormond’s role in “Fargo.”
There’s also an ill-conceived
side plot in which John
consults paranormal expert
Alexander Leek (Alan Bates) to
shed some light on the mystery.
Producer Richard Wright said
about the film, “We’re looking at
Mothman as a presence. We’re
not going for the full latex
‘Creature from the Black
Lagoon’ version. Ours is much
less obvious and more creepy.”
While the film refrains from
ailUWl*lgCA<lULiy Wlldl U1C
Mothman does looks like, it
gives the audience a very real
idea of what it should look like.
Though the film succeeds with
the “less obvious” route, the
“more creepy” part just doesn’t
happen. The filmmakers seemed
to think the film couldn’t be
creepy and scary at the same
time, so they just went for
creepy with a few cheap scares
and didn’t do a very good job.
In actuality, the legends and
eyewitness accounts of the
Mothman on the film’s Web
site are creepier and more
frightening than any part of
the movie; when one reads the
stories, the Mothman is a pure
piece of imagination rather
than a funny lighting effect.
The only parts of the movie
that convey anything close to
the same feeling are the
strange phone calls from the
creature. These reaffirm that
not being able to see the danger
but knowing it’s there is the
worst fear of all.
Combine this conception
problem with a sedated cast
and a mediocre-at-best
director, and you have
something worse than a B
movie. This movie’s greatest
tragedy is that it had such high
potential and ruined it.
Comments on this story?E-mail
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