The enormous success of 2009's 'The Blind Side,' in which Sandra Bullock makes a black teenager one of the family, demonstrates that America isn't post-racial. It is thoroughly mired in race - the myths that surround it, the guilt it inspires, the discomfort it causes, the struggle to transcend it.
Wesley MorrisEverybody brings their thing to their criticism. I bring this wealth of opinions and feeling and knowledge about race and gender and sexuality. I feel like I have it, I may as well express it, and if it's applicable to what I'm writing about and I'm not forcing it, I should try to use it, because it's interesting. It speaks to more than some people.
Wesley MorrisThe Dictator' lands somewhere between wan Mel Brooks and good Adam Sandler, whose 'You Don't Mess With the Zohan,' about an Israeli Special Forces soldier at a hair salon, manages to strike better contrasts with vaguely similar culture differences - it's a nuttier movie, too.
Wesley MorrisIf I like a movie, I'm definitely advocating for it, but it's not "you should see this" or "you shouldn't see this." I try to take a longer view about what the movie is doing and where it fits in the context of other things, in the way that certain good literary criticism tries to do the same thing.
Wesley Morris