A DAY IN BLACK AND WHITE

Playing the race card as smoothly and sneakily as a three-card monte dealer on a busy street corner, Desmond Hall's funky Socratic dialogue-cum-feature breakdances back and forth across America's ethnic dividing-lines, as Michael Grey, a successful black writer, is invited to address students in a big-city high school on the topic of color and racism in the USA. As Michael brainstorms possible speech angles with associates like Richard, a lifelong white buddy (but no pushover), their heated conversations fork off into uproarious sketches, object lessons, and thoughtful subplots ? things that make you go “Hmmm…” all over again, about the O.J. verdict, gangsta rap, interrracial dating, slavery-guilt, nappy hair, DWB, even why the jivey black sidekick is usually doomed to die in mainstream action movies. Hall uses disarming humor ? and hope ? to buoy some particularly heavy subjects, in a film guaranteed to start folks talking.