My, My

Why the hell is the great American character actor Yaphet Kotto stuck doing a role--as a hapless FBI agent, much like the one he played in Midnight Run (1988)--in the upcoming film Witless Protection, starring Larry the Cable Guy? You do recall Kotto from his years as Al “Gee” Giardello, the African American-Italian lieutenant in Homicide: Life on the Street, don’t you? Or as the doomed spaceship engineer in the original Alien (1979)? And for some of us of a certain age, he was the idealistic cop in the tough Across 110th Street (1972), which contained probably the best performance Tony Franciosa ever gave, and featured a title song (sung by Bobby Womack and written by him and arranger J.J. Johnson) that has been used since in the soundtracks of Jackie Brown and, more recently, American Gangster. But I digress. The question is, what the hell is Yaphet Kotto doing in this witless movie? Jeez. I named a character after him, man: Deke Kotto, my wayward undercover cop in an upcoming graphic crime novel that I wrote for DC/Vertigo Comics. Well, everybody’s gotta eat, and given Larry the Cable Guy’s popularity, I’m sure the film will do well in its opening weekend.

My, my.

There are two other movies I’ve seen on DVD which, I gather, did not perform well at the box office, but I’d still recommend you give them a look. One is Slow Burn (2005), with Ray Liotta, L.L. Cool J, and a host of other folks you’ll recognize. Wikipedia states that this movie was based on a book by Sabina Murray, but this doesn’t seem to be substantiated anywhere else--like, say, the film’s credits. Nonetheless, don’t read the synopsis online for the spoilers, just rent the DVD and enjoy it with some fresh-popped popcorn and a sody pop. Or, for the more hard-boiled among you, try my favorite snacks: Hawaiian-style barbecue chips and vodka over ice. In moderation of course. By the way, there’s another film with this same title, but starring Minnie Driver. I haven’t seen that one, but why not make it a friggin’ Slow Burn festival and rent both of them?

Slow Burn at least made it to the theaters, albeit briefly, but Shattered (not to be confused with the early ’90s flick of the same name, itself not a bad little thriller) seems, at least here in the United States, to have gone straight to disk. I stumbled across it at the fine 20/20 Video near my home. For a chain, 20/20 does carry an eclectic, often surprising mélange of cinema offerings. Shattered--the original title of which was Butterfly on a Wheel (that name is explained in the movie, but I still don’t get it)--stars a nasty Pierce Brosnan, the swell Maria Bello, and a post-300 “This is Sparta, fool,” buffed-physique Gerard Butler as, well, a prick. A rather insufferable prick, if you must know. The ending contains a nice twist, somewhat overdone, but definitely worth the watch.

Finally, as to the matter of my contest to name Magrady, the protagonist in my mystery novella, The Underbelly, I’m liking both Hew, suggested by commenter “Elizabeth,” and Wilberforce, tossed my way by--can you say “the fix is in”?--Rap Sheet editor J. Kingston Pierce. Hew--as in hewing the line, to hew to one’s task--works because one of his parents could have been very religious, and it does seem to me this name would reflect that. But of course everybody would think it’s Hugh, and how many black men have that name, huh? Wilberforce also works; it has a significance to African Americans, since Ohio’s Wilberforce University is the oldest private black college in the country, and it brings to mind last year’s film Amazing Grace, about British abolitionist William Wilberforce. Maybe the solution is to name my man Hew Wilberforce Magrady--a heavy-duty name he’d feel awfully burdened by.

My, my.