After 1968: Contemporary Artists and the Civil Rights Legacy High Museum of Art June 7–October 5, 2008 Contemporary art isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but, if there was ever a moment when museum-grade contemporary images for/by/about black people could have particular crossover appeal, this would be it. Many of the headlines from this increasingly chaotic…

First things first: Ben Stiller’s new movie Tropic Thunder, is neither as offensive as some feared nor as wry as I had personally (perversely?) hoped. In an age where repetitive, moronic attacks on the dignity of various groups are often met by tactical shows of manufactured outrage, Thunder, with its kitchen-sink jumble of provocations—blackface, Jewface,…

Making films is hard and making good ones even harder, so the American Black Film Festival, held last weekend in Los Angeles, adheres to the old adage that 90 percent of life is just showing up. To paraphrase a panelist during one of the festival’s events, “I’ve seen Citizen Kane and that shit was boring.…

We actually don’t know yet what killed Bernie Mac, born Bernard Jeffrey McCullough in 1957, so it’s hard to say just yet what lessons grieving fans should be reading into the comedian’s demise. (Keep your weight down? Rest? Eat right? Take your statins? None or all of the above?) Mac did suffer from an inflammatory…

While you weren’t looking, no doubt tracking the fortunes of the Hope, Will Smith became the world’s biggest movie star. With the financial success of his superhero comedy Hancock ($62 million domestic on opening weekend, $190 million in its first full week global), Smith can claim five films that opened at No. 1 on July…

The box office has given its ecstatic verdict on the film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. ($482 million in gross ticket sales and counting.) But one little discussed metric that some people have been using to judge Skull (or, at least, that I have) is: How offensive was it compared to…

In Brooklyn-based artist Dave McKenzie’s tantalizing first solo show “Screen Doors on Submarines,” our conversation about race spins and spins like a broken record, our thinking trapped in cycles and rituals like a buggy program stuck in a loop. The work on display at downtown Los Angeles’ REDCAT gallery through June 15 doesn’t necessarily show…

In Ishmael Reed’s 1972 novel Mumbo Jumbo, a dangerous epidemic, “Jes Grew” threatens 1920s America. For the uninfected, the virus’ symptoms are troubling and sudden, centering on an obsession with the dances, lingo and clandestine locations associated with ragtime and jazz. Jes Grew infections start in the country’s colored precincts, but the virus soon shows…