DA 5 BLOODS

Genre: Action

Rating: R

Running Time: 154 mins.

Where Can You See It?: Netflix

Premise: Four Vietnam vets (Delroy Lindo, Clarke Peters, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Norm Peters) return to the country to recover the remains of their respected captain Stormin’ Norman (Chadwick Boseman), along with the treasure of gold bars they buried long ago. Their past catches up with their present when an armed local militia sets its sights on the gold.

Behind-the-Scenes: Spike Lee shopped the film to multiple studios, all of which rejected, before Netflix picked up the $50 million tab. The script was originally written for four white actors. Lee and his co-writer, Kevin Willmott, flipped it. The names of each of the main characters (Paul, Melvin, Otis, Eddie and David) are the same names as the five members of the musical group, The Temptations. Lindo, Whitlock, and Peters have all worked with Lee before.

The Good: Da 5 Bloods is a singular film, one that covers several genres over its 2.5 hour runtime with turn-on-a-dime tonal shifts. It can get weird and a little clumsy. Some of its symbolism is anything but subtle, and its use of the medium is wholly theatrical featuring direct monologues to the camera, cutaways to photographs of historical figures when referenced on screen, and alternating aspect ratios that signal flashbacks. But throughout it all, the movie is 100% a Spike Lee Joint. And it’s a pretty remarkable one too. Lee directs the heck out of it – the action scenes are exciting, with grace notes of humor, some well-crafted tension, and a ton of loving homages to flicks like Apocalypse Now and Treasure of the Sierra Madre. The cast is great across the board, but it’s Delroy Lindo who stands out the most and makes a strong case for an Oscar nomination. Lindo has been good in so much for so long that it’s easy to take him for granted. His performance here makes that all but impossible to do now.

The Bad: Like other Lee movies, his passion sometimes overwhelms the proceedings. He’s having such a good time stirring the pot and thinking outside the box that some script basics, like character consistencies or established motivations, are thrown out the window in favor of whatever point Lee wants to make in a given scene. All of the actors play themselves in the Vietnam flashback scenes, which may have a thematic purpose but still took me out of the movie and proved distracting.

Should You See It?: Yes. Da 5 Bloods is the (very) early front runner for Best Picture in this weird movie year, and one of the best original Netflix films made to date.

Star Rating: **** out of 5 stars

Better Than: The Irishman

Worse Than: BlackKklansman

* * *

For more movie/TV commentary and other mischief, follow me on Twitter: @Hammervision and on Letterboxd: @Hammervision

“We say black lives matter, but we’re here to say black baby lives matter more.”

Three-year-old Mikhi James was one of 13 people shot to death over the weekend in Chicago, but where are the thousands of black lives matter marchers?

More than 100 people were shot during the same weekend, enough to squeeze COVID-19 patients out of neighborhood emergency rooms.

It was too much for Rev. Ira Acree of Greater St. John Bible Church. He lamented:

A line was crossed. This is a horrific Father’s Day. This 3-year-old baby lost his life. … I could not pastor this community and not say something.

We say black lives matter, but we’re here to say black baby lives matter more.

Do you think we could get tens of thousands of people to march on the South and West sides, demanding an end to violence–the kind that is inflicted on the black community by vicious black gangsters? Where are all the self-righteous white people who denounce the police for their brutal treatment of black men?

The police did not shoot Baby Mikhi. Nor did they shoot any of the 100 shooting victims. They were doing their best, working double 12-hour shifts to try to protect those very neighborhoods they are being accused of victimizing. 

Defund the police? Ask the people in the neighborhoods that are getting shot up? They might have a different view.

Before women could be seen-or even allowed-on the racing track, Vicki Wood was “the fastest woman in racing.” Known as a “Lady Speedster,” Wood began racing stock cars for ‘kicks,’ while raising a family in Detroit. If you were a woman racing at all back then, it was most often in the powder-puff events. The major races and speed trials were open only to men. Fortunately, Vicki never saw it that way and was eager to race against the boys!

Often beating them, Ms. Wood became one of the first women to compete in NASCAR events in 1953. Retiring 10 years later, she was then in her mid-40s and had won 48 racing trophies and set the record for the fastest run across the sand in Daytona Beach, FL, at 150.376 mph in 1960. At first, she couldn’t imagine driving on the beach. Finishing third in the speed trial championships, she navigated the sand just fine. She went on to receive special permission from NASCAR founder Bill France to try for a speed record in 1959. Almost prohibited to drive, France stood up for her saying “Vicki Wood is not a woman…She’s a driver, and she’s allowed in the pits.” She topped 130 mph in a Pontiac and the following year at Daytona, set a women’s record with the fastest one-way run on the sand in history.

“I just love speed,” Wood said, “and the racetrack is the safest place for it.”

Ms. Wood was 101 when she died on June 5 in Troy, MI of a heart-related illness. She often remarked how she ‘got bounced around a little bit,’ but never hurt badly. She often told the story of flipping over another car at Flat Rock Speedway in Michigan. She went sailing over the wall into the track’s retaining screen. Taken to the hospital, Wood was kept under watch for two days before she returned to the cockpit the following week!

Standing just 5-foot-3, Ms. Wood was a striking figure on the racetrack, wearing colorful scarves and at times walking through the pit in a skirt and high heels. When it came to racing, though, she was all business, drawing on her knowledge of automobiles that she gained as a child. Having six brothers didn’t hurt, she’d joke. She either joined in tinkering with cars, or be left out, she noted.

Vicki Wood was born Victoria Rose Raczak, one of seven children, who grew up in Detroit. In fact, she began to race when her husband challenged her after his own racing career was cut short due to injuries. The first woman to race with the men, Ms. Wood was invited to Daytona Beach for NASCAR’s 1955 Speed Week, where she was given the keys to a Chrysler

Wood later shared with Autoweek that those ‘women in the race were so bad; all over the track, running into the wall….” She told her husband if she couldn’t drive better than that, she wouldn’t bother. Challenging her, he led her to the track and a 1937 Dodge coupe. Without any training experience, she finished ninth. The following night she won a powder-puff race at Mount Clemens. A week later she won the asphalt at Flat Rock.

A few years later, Wood was confronted by a male driver warning her if she continued to race, the men would go on strike! Seems a few of the male drivers couldn’t handle the possibility of being beaten by a women driver! She told Autoweek later that she decided to retire. She had “had enough.” Although she didn’t race into old age, she did continue to drive, almost to the very end. At age 98, Wood’s Florida license was revoked. For someone who loved to drive, it was the worst thing they could have done to her, she said.

When racing at Daytona and Atlanta International Raceway, Ms. Wood completed short-track races, following in the heels of such women as Sara Christian, Ethel Mobley and Louise Smith. She competed in NASCAR shortly after the association held its first sanctioned race in 1948.The sight of women racing in later years was more common. Many enthusiasts remember Lyn St. James, Janet Guthrie, Shirley Muldowney and Danica Patrick, among others.

Ms.Wood raced sporadically, and only locally, so did not have the global impact that a female racer might today. She not only raced, she drove in research demonstrations to determine hoe much wear and tear a car could take. At one time she worked in sales at Jordan Marsh in Florida. Driving against men was easier than driving against women, she remarked. “Female drivers were too unpredictable. They were rough drivers. They would get mad, especially if they lost, team up and ram you,”she said.

Although competitive on the track, Ms. Wood only had one speeding ticket in 80 years of driving. And contrary to some beliefs about women race drivers, she wasn’t coarse, nor did she chew tobacco. Just a gal who loved racing cars!

We kicked off this week’s Consumer Guide Car Stuff Podcast discussing a couple of 2021 virtual reveals: Lexus IS and Nissan Rogue. We arrived a consensus that the 2021 Nissan Rogue is a big deal as a next-gen vehicle and that the 2021 Lexus IS is phoning it in.

Everything is new on Rogue — plus it gets some nifty new tech — whereas the IS gets Apple CarPlay and Android Auto — and not much else.

Damon and Tom discussed the new Volkswagen Atlas Sport Cross, and I had nothing to add because I haven’t driven it, and, frankly, I don’t really like the three-row Atlas. And that’s coming from a Volkswagen owner. I do get the Sport Cross as a test vehicle in a couple weeks, so maybe it’ll surprise me, but until then, meh.

The best part of the show, however, included our guest Jeff Miller, the Super Cruise program engineering manager at General Motors. He tells us a bit more about this self-driving assist technology and updates us on what’s coming for 2021. I’ve had the chance to test Super Cruise on the Cadillac CT6, going from Chicago to Milwaukee and back, and it’s pretty damn cool. With some of the enhancements, it’s going to be even cooler.

While I will continue to post the podcast to my blog each week, you can subscribe to the Consumer Guide Car Stuff Podcast on any podcast subscription service or visit the Buzzsprout link. New episodes are usually posted on Friday, and then the show itself airs on WCPT 820 AM on Sundays from 1 to 2 p.m.

Be sure to let us know if you have questions or if there are any topics you’d like us to cover on future podcasts.

You can follow us on social at:

• Jill: @jillciminillo (instagram/twitter)
• Tom: @car_guy_tom (twitter)
• Damon: @DamonRBell (twitter)
• Consumer Guide Automotive: @cgautomotive (twitter/facebook)
• Consumer Guide Car Stuff on facebook

My almost two-year-old and I have been taking a lot of walks. Last week I logged 8 miles in one day, and coming from someone who never jumped on the 10k-steps-a-day bandwagon, well…that’s a lot.

Anyway, I’ve found that around 10 a.m. in my neighborhood, there is what I like to call the stroller parade. On sunny days, the sidewalks are jammed with moms and caregivers pushing their Uppababy strollers (is there any other stroller?) down the tree-lined streets of Chicago.

I am lucky enough to join this daily parade because my normal 9-5 office job has been temporarily condensed into a part-time, couple-hours-a-day job until we have childcare set up this summer. Which means I am effectively a stay-at-home-mom most of the day. This new setup has allowed me to spend hours upon hours with my spunky little toddler. But, it’s also confirmed one crucial thing: I love to work.

And so with that, I’m very excited to be returning to work full-time in a couple of weeks! But that means things are about to get complicated.

My husband and I have been waffling over our childcare options since daycare closed in mid-March. Every option seems flawed and none are without risk. Over the past couple of months, I’ve surveyed friends and colleagues to see what they were doing – some had kept their nannies this whole time or had grandparents close by that insisted on helping out, while others, like us, were trying to make it work without any help.

When most daycares reopened a couple weeks ago, we had a decision to make. But before I share more about that, I think it’s important to explain that we, as a family, have been on the strict end of the spectrum since mid-March. We’ve essentially seen no one and done nothing.

In early June, I started to see people on the street wearing clothes with purpose – like they were going to go to a restaurant patio to have a spicy margarita. I saw a woman in a dress and cute sandals and I stared at her, with envy, for way too long.

Despite Chicago opening up, we’ve continued to hold off on venturing out for a few reasons, one being that we want to go see our parents, and we don’t want to put them at any greater risk. Another, less concrete reason is, well, we’ve done it for THIS long and we’re still in a pandemic, so why would we change our behavior just because Lori Lightfoot says we can eat in the street! (Even though I am dying for that spicy marg).

Because we’ve felt so strongly about quarantining ourselves this whole time, we really struggled with making a childcare decision. I know many, many others who were (and are) dealing with this struggle too. (There is literally a new discussion thread on this topic in my pandemic parenting Facebook group almost every other day.)

One of the things I’ve found to be most challenging about the pandemic is figuring out how to make decisions about…everything. Everyone you talk to has different points of view based on so many factors: Their own health and their family’s (is anyone high-risk?), the status of their loved ones (are they near or far?), where do they live (in an area with widespread cases?), and ultimately, their personal tolerance for risk.

When I tried to do some research around how to make this decision about childcare, the information I found was impossible to break down into usable advice. The resources I would normally turn to for decisions about my child or my family were lacking in any concrete advice that I could turn into confident action. And of no fault of their own – there are just so many unknowns right now that even the experts aren’t really experts.

And so I came to the realization that you can go round and round in circles and read every social media comment on this topic that exists, but at the end of the day, you have to combine the knowledge that you do have with your gut, making sure that in addition to the health and safety of you and your loved ones, you include your own sanity in the mix too. As economist and ParentData blogger Emily Oster smartly put it:

“In the end, you’ll need to make all of these decisions knowing there is no way to be sure they are right, or wrong. That is the uncertainty that we need to accept to move forward.”

With that mindset, we made a decision. It involves a combination of options to get us through the summer and fall, and while I’ve got about a dozen fears and concerns about our plan, the real win here is that a decision was made.

Living in this weird pandemic bubble can feel so permanent, even when we know it’s not. As parents, impermanence is our bread and butter. We are used to uncertainty and constant change. We’ll watch our kids go from bottles and diapers to crayons and superheroes to cars and dating. And with that change builds resiliency, strength and patience – putting us in the perfect position to weather life’s challenges and make hard choices, like the ones we’re facing now.

I hope that making the tough decisions now will make our daily lives feel that much lighter when we’re not living in a pandemic. Hopefully a year from now, when I’m craving a spicy margarita, the decision to go to a Mexican restaurant will be less painstakingly difficult.

*Just a note that my heart goes out to all the working moms and dads who’ve either had less freedom of choice, or who lost their jobs due to the pandemic, or were pushed out of the workforce because they had to stay home with their kids. While the U.S. economy is on the rebound, there are still many people who are sick, many who have lost loved ones, and many who are out of work. Let’s continue to keep things in perspective.

(Special thanks to Karlyn Meyer for her time and insights)

In its first year of existence, the Lighthouse Foundation has driven several successful initiatives ranging from assertive advocacy to developing a mutual aid fund to benefit the black LGTBQ+ community. Recently, I spoke with Board President Karlyn Meyer (my old colleague from the Chicago Nerd Social Club) about the Foundation’s origins, its philosophy, and this Friday’s Raks Inferno (a project of Raks Geek) online fundraiser on Facebook.

Can you provide some background on the Lighthouse Foundation?

Lighthouse Foundation (LF) grew out of a community need observed by members of a church. The organizers who have gone on to form the Foundation met through Lighthouse Church UCC, which is a predominately Black, predominately queer and LGBTQIA-affirming faith community led by LF’s Executive Director, Jamie Frazier. So one year ago, there were a number of racist incidents involving Boystown businesses, and they all came to light in relatively quick succession. This hit some major intersections for us as a church, so we did some organizing in response; but at the same time, we did a lot of listening. In the process, we learned two things. One was the sheer depth of macro- and microaggressions, threats to safety, and deep unwelcome experienced by Black queer Chicagoans in Boystown (and beyond). The other was how many people outside the church community supported our work and wanted to join us in this movement. So we launched a nonsectarian nonprofit to move our social-justice work forward.

What motivated you to get involved with the Lighthouse Foundation? What keeps you going?

I’d been a member of Lighthouse Church for almost as long as it’s been around; I love its unapologetic focus on justice and celebration of diversity. So the formation of the Lighthouse Foundation has been a clear and logical application of the values that brought us all together in the first place.

Can you provide some insight into the inner workings of the Foundation – how does it interface with the community? (Both the Lakeview/Boys Town neighborhood as well as specifically the Black LGTBQ+ community)

Lighthouse Foundation has a bifurcated structure. Part one is our caucuses: groups that represent a cross-section of identities within the Chicagoland Black LGBTQ+ community. For example, we have a trans caucus and a 50+ caucus, each led and facilitated by a member of that group. The caucuses raise issues to our leadership–they let us know what they need and what they’re interested in, and provide programming as well. The second part is our direct-action organizing arm, CARE: the Coalition of Allies for Racial Equity. CARE is open to both individuals and organizations–anyone committed to the pursuit of justice for Black LGBTQ+ people. The caucuses are more behind the scenes, with CARE doing the public work.

Our leadership consists of a nine-member strategy team that is primarily Black and queer and includes white “accomplices” (a more active term used in favor of “allies”). Our team includes organizers, clergy, and professionals of many kinds, all sharing a passion for Black queer justice, with Jamie as our Executive Director.

The Foundation has taken a very active stance in advocating for the Black LGTBQ community in Chicago, from security issues at Center on Halsted to creating a Black Queer Mutual Aid Fund in the wake of COVID-19. What are the key issues that Black LGTBQ individuals in Chicago, and what are the challenges in organizing around those issues?

With Black Chicagoans disproportionately affected by COVID-19, disproportionately serving as frontline workers, and many out of work and facing housing insecurity, an immediate need in the pandemic was for financial assistance. With our roots in the Black queer community and our familiarity with the high barrier and inaccessibility of many aid programs, we decided to create the Black Queer Mutual Aid Fund of Chicagoland. Our initial plan was to distribute $100 microgrants, but support of the fund has allowed us to increase this amount. This is completely digital, which is especially helpful because a major challenge in organizing during the pandemic is our inability to gather. We’re thankful that we’ve been able to launch this and other initiatives since going virtual, and that we’ve been able to extend our reach and participation in CARE.

Recently, the Foundation released a guide for white individuals and institutions to assertively help the Foundation. What can we do on a day-to-day basis that moves beyond simply posting hashtags and graphics? How can we make an impact on a smaller scale?

One of the items in that email is a live webinar we just hosted, called Antiracism for White Folks. You’ll find the recording on our Facebook page, and I encourage anyone who is asking this question to watch it. This webinar was run by white members of our strategy team–and I think that’s significant, for two reasons. One is that it’s important for white folks to talk to each other when it comes to the work of antiracism; that education is labor that’s often requested of people of color. But on the flip side, it’s incredibly important to defer to people of color and follow their lead when it comes to working with them for their liberation. I love that Lighthouse Foundation addresses both of these things: It provides spaces where non-Black/non-queer folks can receive that education, clarity, and instruction; and it does so under the direction and agency of Black queer people.

Another very concrete thing people can do is financially support our organization, so we can continue providing trainings like it, mutual aid, programming, and organizing wins. You can donate through the website of our fiscal sponsor, PHIMC, at https://www.phimc.org/donate.

Raks Geek is holding a June 26^th online fundraiser to benefit the Lighthouse Foundation. Can you describe some of your other partnerships/collaborations with community organizations?

We’re excited about Raks Geek and grateful that they are providing entertainment that can be experienced at home during the pandemic. Our other partnerships and collaborations have been rich and varied. For example, we’ve worked with public health organizations like Howard Brown for our campaigns; and we’re partnering with the Census for part of our upcoming Black Queer Pride (online) celebration over the 4th of July weekend. But another thing our partnerships look like is our organizational members within CARE. One thing I appreciate about LF is that it’s both nonsectarian and, due to its origins, works with a number of faith communities. Churches have a great deal of power that we’ve all seen used to actively harm LGBTQIA people and maintain racist structures. As progressive churches seek to redress these harms, Lighthouse Foundation serves as a partner to help them take aim at those structures where they continue to be erected; and it provides tools for individuals and nonprofits to deepen their commitment to dismantling them as well.

Finally, do you have anything to tell us that we didn’t think to ask?

We had to adjust our 2020 strategy pretty profoundly in light of the pandemic, and we’re now going strong on digital organizing, programming, and education. If you’d like to be involved with Lighthouse Foundation, your involvement can happen from your laptop, wherever you are. You can join as an individual, on behalf of your faith community, or as the representative of a nonprofit. And if that’s not for you, but you’ve still read this far, we appreciate your time and welcome your support through phimc.org/donate.

Thanks for the chat, Gordon!

We would like to thank Karlyn Meyer for her time and insight, and invite you to leave your comments below or join us via Facebook page. And as always, thanks for reading!