S2:E14 40 Years A Prisoner, Let Them All Talk

This week we talk about the doc 40 Years A Prisoner and the film Let Them All Talk. But first… Nothing! Our Xmas tree still hasn’t arrived and we have nothing to show you!

40 Years a Prisoner

This doc, directed by Tommy Oliver and available now on HBO Max.
It posts a celeb lineup of producers, including The Roots, Common, and John Legend.
40 Years a prisoner tells the sorry of the 1978 police raid on a peaceful group of hippies, mostly young, mostly African American, living in a house in the Powellton Village neighborhood of Philadelphia.

In 1978, Philadelphia’s mayor and former police commissioner Frank Rizzo ran the city. He was a loud, law and order type. He had no time for a group of long-haired, black hippies who kept lots of dogs and let their toddlers run around naked. No communes on Rizzo’s watch.
He tried to starve the group out of its home, preventing food and water from getting into the house using barricades. He sent in more than 600 cops armed with automatic rifles, armored vehicles, and bulldozers when that failed. Still, the MOVE members refused to “move.” They hid in their basement. In response, Rizzo and the PPD pumped 250,000 gallons of water and teargas into the Move house’s basement. Ultimately bullets started flying, resulting in the death of police officer James Ramp.
Nine adult Move members were dragged out of the house– five men and four women. One, Delbert Africa was savagely beaten by a group of police, his jaw broken by the butt of a rifle. All nine were convicted and sentenced to 30 years to life.
Rizzo quotes:
“The police will be in there to drag them out by the backs of their necks. They are going to go either the easy or hard way, either standing up or lying down.”
 “Get the death penalty back, put them in the electric chair, and I’ll pull the switch.”

Sgt (retired) Bob Hurst was a part of the team of police who raise the MOVE House.
When asked about the three police officers captured on video throwing Delbert Africa to the ground, kicking and stomping on his head with their police boots, and breaking his jaw with a rifle butt, he replied:
“He was being subdued, let me just put it that way. He was being helped out by three officers, and then promptly went to hospital. But should have went to the morgue.”
But this doc isn’t so much about Rizzo or the cops or what happened in 1978 (and the rest of the MOVE story.)

This is the story of Mike Africa Jr and his parents

Debbie and Mike Sr were members of The Move Nine who were arrested during that raid on trumped-up charges and convicted before he was born.
Mike Jr was born in a jail cell and ow in his early 40’s has never spent a moment with his parents outside of prison walls.

Director Tommy Oliver finished editing the movie just days after George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis.
He left his editing bay and walked out onto Hollywood Blvd and right into a George Floyd/BLM protest. He turned around, grabbed a stills camera, and took a series of pictures of the faces of the protestors. The collection will soon be featured as a special exhibition of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture on the National Mall.

Let Them All Talk

Also, on HBOMax, Let Them All Talk was not what we were expecting! We feared it was going to be yet another movie about people of a “certain age,” starring some of the greatest actors of their generation reduced to cute or quirky old folks on one last adventure.
We were pleasantly surprised by this story by directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Deborah Eisenberg.
It boasts a top-notch cast led by Meryl Streep, Dianne Wiest, and Candice Bergen with a stand out performance by Lucas Hedges. The film also features one of our fav actors from Humans , Gemma Chan.
Listen to the show to hear more about this unique, quirky movie and how it was made.
Stick around to listen to Elaine stretch the conversation around to Pleasantville! (Just because she can!)

We also gave a shot out to the Emmy AWard winning, Euphoria (also HBO Max.) Catch up now. Season 2 begins on January 24.

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