Smooth Documentary Already Lined Up

Wassup, Y'all!

I have to admit that ol Ty is a sucker for historical documentaries so I was happy to hear that HBO recently struck a deal with Class 5 Films (Edward Norton's production company) to air their Smooth Barack documentary in Spring '09.

I've always been a fan of Edward Norton's in front of the screen work (Primal Fear remains in my Ty's Top Ten Movies list) but I also have to give him serious behind the screen props for having the foresight to lock down permission from the Smooth camp for 2 1/2 years of '"unprecedented" access to the candidate, his family, friends and campaign volunteers'. The cameras started rolling before Smooth's Springfield presidential announcement and kept rolling right through the election. It should be good stuff, but I'm wondering how noted southside actors and directors got caught flat-footed on this one? Spike? Denzel? Oprah? Will? I know y'all really don't need any more paper, but E-Norton did score a seven figure deal with HBO for thinking ahead. Not to mention ol boy was savvy enough to use the same cat - Sam Pollard - who edited Spike's own groundbreaking Katrina documentary, 'When The Levees Broke'. Dang, Spike! As NS Shorty is known to say, 'ooooo, ouch'...

But ol Ty ain't takin' nothing away from fast Eddie - the early bird gets the worm and I'm just happy that someone had the good sense to keep the cameras rolling on this history making run. Now hopefully, some new crew (or the same crew) will keep the cameras rolling for all that good behind-the-scenes footage that just keeps getting better with age. I just caught a documentary of the Kennedy days in office just a couple weeks ago and it's amazing the things you learn when you get an inside look at just how things were going down. Very cool.

At some point though, I'm expecting Will Smith to follow through on Smooth's notion of Big Willy Style playing the President-Elect in a future bio-pic. I expect his Overbrook Production company is already working behind the scenes to secure those rights. Now I'm just wondering who they would cast as 'Chelle? Any thoughts, y'all?

Peace@Least,

Tyrone