Brother Future

When I was in eighth grade, every single class watched "Glory". Great movie. Plus, who doesn't like Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington, Cary Elwes, Morgan Freeman and Andrew Braugher. Depending on time and everything, I may even show it to my own kids. What I had never heard of before was a movie called "Brother Future". Mark and Hau told me about it and I later went to go google it. The first thing that popped up was "science-fiction story...." and I was like "wow, um, OK...." Then I read further and got a little more worried. Basically, "Brother Future" is a story about a black kid named TJ from Detriot who's got a lot of street cred and basically thinks that he can do better hustling and making money from the street than goign to scool. He doesn't care about his past or his heritage- he's jsut interested in making money. One day, he's running from the police, gets hit by a car and wakes up in Chartleston, 1822. When I read that, I thought "Oh man, the kids are going to laugh me to Kalamazoo and back." While in Charleston, he is caught and thought to be a runaway slave. He's sold to a man name Mr Cooper at a slave auction and goes to work on Master Cooper's plantation. He meets a bunch of peope there- a friend named Josiah who is trying to read, Josiah's gf Caroline, the black slavedrive Zeke and Mortilla, a paml reader who tells TJ that in order to get home, he must help another slave without getting anythign in return and then find the big tree. Again, kind of cheesy and I'm getting concerned with the reactino of the kids.

Over the course of TJ's time in the plantation, he gets himself whipped, accidentally gets his friend Josiah whiped, hits on caroline, tries to run away and then ends up going to meet Denmark Vesey (woohoo! Real person!) He becomes involved with a slave revolt, led by Vesey and other slaves, including Josiah. Josiah, TJ and Caroline all try and escape after Zeke rats out the plan to Cooper and the two evil men chase after the three slaves. TJ stalls them while Josiah adn Caroline escape. Cooper shoots TJ and he falls from the shot, right under the big tree (after, of course, helping out someone without getting something in return.... cue cheesy music....). He awakens and leanrs that he really needs to know about his past and his heritage in order to know himself and learns that to help yourself, you have to help others. The end. Happiness all around.

So, by the time I decide to show this, I'm worried. I was borrowing the video from Mark, so I didn't know how the kids were going to react. But it turns out they were captivated. It really ended up not beign cheesy at all. The acting was decent, there weren't to omany bad lines, and best of all, the kids really got a sense of what like was like on a plantation in pre-Civil War times. I was really quite relieved. Incidentally, TJ was played by a young Phill Lewis, who now is apparently a character named Mr. Mosely on The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, whcih the kids loved, and Denmark Vesey was played by none other than Carl Lumbley, who played Dixon on Alias.

So, I definitley will be showing Brother Future again in the future (no pun intended....)