Raf

Oooh, did this just become a Mike thread? Sign me up! Just kidding. To each his own.

Ah, Japan. The nation with the highest vaccination rate, where everyone wears masks. Imagine that.

Free post. Signed, Raf.

That is a powerful analogy, STL. An instruction book that needs instruction books to interpret its instructions isn't much of an instruction book at all, is it? I would only answer that the "Word of God" is the instruction manual, that it is not complicated, and that it is not the Bible. If I were a believer, that is.

I was laughing because I just used the movies that you had already referred to in a previous clue. Gene autrey. I am crying.

Henry Church Jack McCall Reggie Hammond Chandler Jarrell

Not Gene Autry. This guy's movies are far more famous than his characters' names. I'm also fairly confident not one of these characters is a cowboy.

Evan Danielson Charlie Hinton Trey Sellars Kit Ramsay Thomas Jefferson Johnson

Lies about India, then blames politics. Pathetic.

Dude gets his facts prom demonstrated liars and calls other people "shallow." Why did you lie about India, Allan?

Typical b.s. You know who DOESN'T get to fact check the fact checkers? The people busted lying about kids and Covid. The people busted lying about India. People busted lying about Italy's death count and the role of comorbidities.

He played: James Early Jim Evans Randy Watson

Thank you, Waysider, for correcting the misinformation that gets spread in the name of open-mindedness. You know, just because people are feeding on bad Intel doesn't mean "the jury is out." Spreading that LIE endangers lives.

A playful dig about an older white guy's inability to recall a major movie centered on a Black main character and cast could have come off as funny or accusatory. So I chose not to go there. I did say in one of the clues we were overlooking a major theme, followed by "It matters." Too subtle?

I would take crap that doesn't work over science that does any day of the week, and if you don't agree with me you're in a cult! Honestly.

And yeah, I would say Denzel Washington's performance as Malcolm X was more iconic than whoever he played in Training Day. Not saying he did a bad job. I think an argument can be made that if Washington had won for Malcolm X 10 years earlier, Will Smith would have won the award for his performance in Ali.

Yea, keep doing that face palm thing there, buddy. I was gonna play the race card on this one, but decided that would do more harm than good. :) Denzel lost to Al Pacino Hooah! Spike Lee and the movie were not. even. nominated. James Baldwin wrote a draft of the screenplay, based on the Autobiography of Malcolm X, as told to Alex Haley, author of Roots. It's Malcolm X, not Malcolm Part 10. You don't need to watch the first nine. Dave Chapelle parodies the "hoodwinked, bamboozled, Plymouth Rock" speech, substituting Sherwood Forest, in Robin Hood, Men in Tights. Had I said ANYTHING about this being Black-centric, you'd have guessed it in 4.2 seconds. But Baldwin was known as a pre-eminent voice in Black America. I thought his name would be clue enough. Intersect it with Mecca being important to Muslims, and you have Black Muslims. If you didn't guess Malcolm X from THAT, you're playing the wrong game. Name that Tune from the Title is a few threads down. Denzel Washington, snubbed for Malcolm X, lost to Al Pacino but went on to win Best Actor for Training Day. Al Pacino, snubbed for Godfather II, lost to Art Carney, but went on to win Best Actor for Scent of a Woman. Spike Lee really did suggest kids skip school to watch his movie. It was self serving advice, but not bad advice, to be honest.

Hey, speaking of the whole country of India, did you see the one where the whole country of India said "hey, stop using Ivermectin to treat COVID: It doesn't work. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the National Task Force on Covid-19 have dropped the use of Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) drugs from their revised guidelines for the treatment of the infection. The decision was taken after experts found that these drugs have little to no effect on Covid-related mortality or clinical recovery of the patient. Studies also found there was no clarity on mortality benefit, no effect on length of hospital stay and recovery in case of Ivermectin. Recommending that Ivermectin be dropped from the clinical guidance, experts cited 13 systematic reviews of which “7/13 showed mortality benefit, 4/13 no mortality benefit, 2/13 inconclusive/unclear.” https://www.indiatoday.in/coronavirus-outbreak/story/why-hcq-ivermectin-dropped-india-covid-treatment-protocol-1857306-2021-09-26 https://www.precisionvaccinations.com/2021/09/25/india-de-approves-hydroxycholoquine-and-ivermectin

More on the guy who wrote a good chunk of the screenplay. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Baldwin

The majority of the movie takes place in the USA. Mecca is just a place visited by the main character, as required. It is NOT a sequel. You do not need to watch parts I-IX to understand what's going on.

Mecca might be throwing you off. It takes up only a few minutes of screen time. There's also a glaring thematic omission in your summary that you should have picked up on by now. It matters. The co-author of the book on which the movie is based is far more famous for writing another book that, years earlier, was adapted into one of the most acclaimed miniseries of all time. One particularly well-known scene was parodied, hilariously, by Dave Chapelle in a movie that was COMPLETELY unrelated.

I tried to hint: the events of this movie take place three or four decades before Rodney King. That puts Lawrence of Arabia at... WAY TOO SOON. The lead actor would go on to win Best Actor for a less iconic role. Funny, he lost Best Actor for THIS movie to another actor for a less iconic role than the one that really defined his career. THAT Actor should have won the Oscar that went to Art Carney.

I don't know where the shock is coming from that we're allowing this discussion. We allowed a discussion on people claiming to produce foreign languages through magic. We allowed a discussion on the health benefits of superoxygenated water. The one relevant rule we have on GSC is no politics. This topic skirts the line. When it has been crossed, we have deleted posts without warning or apology. Based on the feedback, we are content that we are striking the right balance in making sure this conversation can proceed without crossing that line.

Ok, so it's a movie about someone who wrote an autobiography with the cooperation of another author who had to finish it when he died. Now... To whom is Mecca important? What person fitting that category is known to have written an autobiography? James Baldwin contributed significantly to the screenplay. His area of social expertise intersects with the "who thinks Mecca is important" element. Cross reference the two topics and three people emerge as likely candidates. Only one had a movie about him significant enough to be included on this thread. Oh, there was nothing obscure about this movie. And, as a joke, you did NOT have to watch nine movies before this to get up to speed. It is neither sequel nor prequel.

The director drew the ire of some educators [and the praise of others] by suggesting people skip school to watch this movie in theaters. [As someone who went on a class trip to see "The Wiz," I should say this would have been a worthwhile unauthorized field trip]. The movie opens with footage of the beating of Rodney King by four Los Angeles police officers, which, aside from a broad theme, has nothing to do with the events of this film, which took place decades earlier.