“He Must Have Thought it Was White Boy Day” Top 4 White Actors Sporting Locks and Rows
Well there have definitely been harder Best of lists to compose. After extensive google and wiki searches, sadly these were the only white actors, not including females, I could find worth mentioning that have sported either cornrows or dreadlocks for a role. Not surprisingly, the sporting of such a hairstyle seems to bring out performances that are a bit over-the-top. Could you blame them?
4. Edward Norton in Stone
Weave some rows on the head of a smart and talented actor and you’re sure to get a smart and layered performance, one I might add that even out acts his co-star Mr. DeNiro. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your point of view, once Norton’s eponymously named Stone discovers spirituality he also discovers a hairbrush and with that comes a more natural hairstyle as well as a more subdued character.
3. Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean
Of all the characters on this list, Depp’s hair seems to match his character’s personality the best. As if the crazy eyes, drunken swagger, and raggedy garb weren’t enough of an excuse for Depp to wildly emote for hours on end, add to that a disheveled crows nest that looks like it was styled by a barber as drunk as Captain Jack himself and voilà, the most iconic fictional pirate since Captain Hook is born.
2. James Franco in Spring Breakers
Now here’s an actor who, as if the cornrows weren’t enough, gets to sport a shiny gold grill too. No doubt, Franco was having a ball with this role. Clearly Harmony Korine (director) knew the comedy that would come gushing forth the second Franco was set free of any scripted dialogue. I imagine Korine’s direction going a little something like this, “Okay, James, your character’s name is Alien and you’re a drug dealing, gun toting, Scarface on repeat watching, Brittany Spears loving, gangster rapper. Got it? Good. Now, action!”
1. Gary Oldman in True Romance
It’s not even close. By far, this is the best performance by a white actor sporting locks or rows.
There are numerous memorable cinematic portrayals of pimps, and then there’s Drexl Spivey! This slick talking, dread lock wearing, self-identifying black man – who to this day holds the title for best line readings of a Quentin Tarantino written character – not only manages to get under the skin of his main adversary played by Christian Slater, but also manages to deliver the best monologue in the entire movie, which is no easy task considering both Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper have memorable monologues of their own in the film.
The fact is there are only a handful of great actors out there who are able to so deeply immerse themselves into a particular role that even their greatest of admirers would struggle to identify them. Gary Oldman just happens to be one of these actors. Even after his name appears on the opening credits, assuring me that he is indeed in this film, I still wasn’t sure which character Oldman was playing. My double-take didn’t occur until the cast credits at the end of the film when Oldman’s name was next to Drexl’s.
HONORABLE MENTION:
Nicky Katt in The Limey (Click here for picture)
Jared Leno in Panic Room (Click here for picture)
Hey you. Yeah you. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “I want to watch a documentary, and I want to watch one about a musician, and/or music, particularly one that was reviewed by Filmbalaya within the last three years.” You’re even probably asking yourself, “But where do I start?” Am I right? No? C’mon, you can admit it. You know I’m right.
The fifty-sixth incarnation of the San Francisco Film Festival is hot on the tracks for (at the time of this writing) another week and a half, and Filmbalaya is here to tell you what you should see and what you shouldn’t necessarily spend your time on! Our healthy and entirely objective star system filters out the fat from the meat like a tennis racket panning gold… A very, very finely woven tennis racket that is. You can’t always afford a perfect panning system.
They say the best things in life are free, and for once I can say they’re right. We at Filmbalaya are giving away 10 2-month trial subscriptions to a new online streaming service that offers a slew of independent films, ones in which you would be hard pressed to find on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, or any other streaming platform out there.
Jurassic Park was released twenty years ago and many movie goers remember this film as a breakthrough in effects for movies. Jurassic Park raised the bar for the production of action/adventure film winning three Academy Awards in sound effects, sound mixing, and visual effects. The characters in the film spanned stereotypes of humanity and the plot has elements of betrayal, sacrifice, healing, and survival. The theme of the film is human intellect versus nature; the quest for science and reason to overcome nature and chaos.
Following my 
The current era of Romanian film has been dubbed “The Romanian New Wave”. While the term is itself an obvious nod to the 1960′s French “Novelle Vague”, when separated from that context and placed in its own context, the term very well fits. Romania has produced a grand wave of rich cinema over the past decade and continuing to the time of this writing. However, I feel it’s important to recognize that, rather than lumping together all contemporary Romanian films venturing West of the Eastern Bloc in this category, as seems to be the desire, there is a notable style unique in the history of film and very particular to this section of them. Like that of the French New Wave, it is a small collection of auteur filmmakers creating films according to aesthetic philosophy, humanism, and love for the craft. As such, all of these films contain some similar stylistic elements, which can only lead one to believe that it is a veritable movement.
