Yes, he gives her the recording -- but she's the one who gets it where it needs to go, while Lenny goes off and deals with his terrible taste in relationships.
That's the growing up I was thinking of. He gives her the tape rather than using it for selfish bargaining purposes. He wouldn't have had even the fingers-crossed chance of that joyously apocalyptic millennium kiss if he hadn't figured out that his personal romantic angst does not trump the needs of black America to learn what happened to one of its heroes.
I agree that it's essential that Mace delivers the tape. Especially since Lenny could have walked into that restroom full of older white men without raising an eyebrow and Mace walks right in anyway. There's also the thing where Strange Days is an American movie that's unambiguously on the side of a black woman with a gun. I have trouble coming up with a comparable character to Mace without going back to blaxploitation or skipping ahead a decade or so. In the film noir on which Strange Days perfectly riffs—with sociopolitical concerns intact, not just style—she would have been the best friend, male, white, platonic, essentially Max if he hadn't been a nihilistic wirehead murderer. But she's not and it makes a difference to the film. It makes a difference that she gets what she wants, justice and love.
I will put up with a lot more from a character who has an actual brain and skill and has just chosen to stop using them for a while than one who just kind of slimes his way through the plot on luck.
Makes sense to me. That's the engine of Small Town Crime (2017), speaking of things riffing perfectly on noir.
no subject
That's the growing up I was thinking of. He gives her the tape rather than using it for selfish bargaining purposes. He wouldn't have had even the fingers-crossed chance of that joyously apocalyptic millennium kiss if he hadn't figured out that his personal romantic angst does not trump the needs of black America to learn what happened to one of its heroes.
I agree that it's essential that Mace delivers the tape. Especially since Lenny could have walked into that restroom full of older white men without raising an eyebrow and Mace walks right in anyway. There's also the thing where Strange Days is an American movie that's unambiguously on the side of a black woman with a gun. I have trouble coming up with a comparable character to Mace without going back to blaxploitation or skipping ahead a decade or so. In the film noir on which Strange Days perfectly riffs—with sociopolitical concerns intact, not just style—she would have been the best friend, male, white, platonic, essentially Max if he hadn't been a nihilistic wirehead murderer. But she's not and it makes a difference to the film. It makes a difference that she gets what she wants, justice and love.
I will put up with a lot more from a character who has an actual brain and skill and has just chosen to stop using them for a while than one who just kind of slimes his way through the plot on luck.
Makes sense to me. That's the engine of Small Town Crime (2017), speaking of things riffing perfectly on noir.