April 10, 1972: the biggest fake fur bow tie and fake fur lapels you’ve ever seen. His grandmother was his date that night, days before her 80th birthday.
Now here’s the performance!
A relatively understated costume, but only relatively: bare-chested and draped in gold chains, a blatantly political statement. Something along the lines of: “You think Black men belong in chains? Here I am, wearing chains worth more than everything you own combined.”
It was the first time a composer performed his own work on the Oscars, and Isaac’s win represented the first time a Black performer won an award outside the acting categories. Indeed, this ceremony was co-hosted by Sammy Davis, Jr., the first Black performer in that role too.
I may be remembering wrong, but this is also the first time I can recall a full-scale production number for a Best Song performance – before this, they’d all been one person and microphone, and that’s it.
This is not that! Hit play and get ready to lose your mind!
(Note that this clip has come and gone half a dozen times since I’ve been doing this blog, so please search for it even if this embed breaks.)
James Brown died 10 years ago – during that bizarre week in 2006 when James Brown and Gerald Ford and Saddam Hussein all died basically at the same time.
This is my favorite James Brown story ever. It is from James McBride’s recent book, Kill ‘Em and Leave, which I enjoyed (and learned a lot from) this past summer.
This is a Movie Health Community evaluation. It is intended to inform people of potential health hazards in movies and does not reflect the quality of the film itself. The information presented here has not been reviewed by any medical professionals.
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut has a brief moment of severe strobe effects as a dying character flies through a tunnel. There are very sudden strobe effects that happen twice as a ghost appears, each instance lasting about half a second. A late scene has rapidly-flashing lights from explosions in the middle of a war zone, and bright lights coming from electrical effects.
A character falls through a vortex of fire, and the spinning may be disorienting.
Flashing Lights: 7/10. Motion Sickness: 2/10.
TRIGGER WARNING: A romantic relationship with nearly-constant emotional abuse is depicted. A child vomits several times with little to no warning. Other potential mental health triggers in this film include cartoonish gore, anti-Semitic humor, racist humor including stereotypes and blackface, misogynistic humor, use of the R word, and a suicide by jumping.
NOTE: Our evaluations of Top Gun: Maverickand The Bob’s Burgers Movie are now available on the $1 Tier and above on our Patreon page!
Image ID: A theatrical poster for South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut