Great. Now I'm falling behind on my auteurs. What little I do these days about auteurs, and I can't even keep up on that. Well, I am getting older, and priorities are shifting, and I'm old enough to remember a brief moment in cinema history when it was becoming more inclusive to voices other than Spielberg or De Palma or Smith, and one title stuck out in particular, for some reason, and that was Once Upon a Time When We Were Just Another Black Girl on the I. R. T. Did I mis-remember something else again? Did they... wasn't the word "Black" in the long-ass title of that? Or did the Lame Stream Media press just get it wrong again? They tend to do that with movies sometimes. They made the leap that most of us do... what, it's about a black girl? And it's called Just Another Black Girl on the I.R.T.? Oh, it's just Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.? No Black? No one will notice. I mean, it's WWII France and the telegraph lines are down... it's like a whole 'nother world over there! We might never make it home! It goes to press as is. That kind of deal.
And so, that's the alpha project for director Leslie Harris, and lead actress of it Ariyan Johnson could not be more grateful. But that was a whole 'nother world ago and... hmm! A black woman named Ariyan? This changes everything. And she's a director too! Looks like the student is now the teacher! But she does have her pride, and even in this age of more and more consolidation on the web, with celebrities just having a homepage on the Facebook out of laziness, she's kept her WWW domain. And there's even a link on her IMDb "External Sites" page. I didn't think anyone used those things anymore!
Anyway, back to Leslie Harris. When we last left her, she was the toast of Sundance with her first film with the long-ass title. The gates of Paramount were now open... well, really, all these studios have gates, but Paramount's are probably the most lavish. Time for her sophomore slump, time for her to make her bloated Heaven's Gate vanity project. And she did, apparently! It was called Bessie Coleman's Dream to Fly, and... even though it's from 1993, we still don't have cast or crew information on it. Um... what's the deal here, people? Is this a real film or what? Does no one care about Bessie Coleman or his or her dream to fly? Is this one of those icky dreams where it's not about actual flying, just more of a pragmatic wish to not be raped by the evil stepfather anymore? I can't find this at my local library, can't find it at my local greatest video store in the history of the universe... is this like Wang Dang or 12 Steps to Death? Something that even Paul Allen is not willing to waste money on for a completion guarantee? As Chris Rock once said, boy, this Leslie Harris must've really a-holed her way out of the biz on that one. Clearly, the industry was not what she expected, and she never vowed to direct again. And God bless her, she stuck by her vow, if only by societal fiat. Kinda like how Sister Souljah has yet to enjoy a Second or Third Act to her once supernova-like career. The nineties weren't all tofu and futons, just sayin'. And of course, even though we're almost knee-deep in the '90s nostalgia hoopla, the Cocteau Twins are still too weird for my local radio station to play. A damn shame.
But Leslie's not so disenchanted with her time in the Hollywood machine. She's found a new career as... what else? Herself! An authority on directing. Appearing in such titles as Directors on Directing and what not. Don't forget to call Spike Lee a genius! And a way-paver for us all... something like that. Wonder if Spike ever wears jeans when he directs.
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