In the abundance of water the fool is thirsty....

My first reaction...(and the reaction of most) upon hearing the voice of Jimmy Scott was....hey, he sounds like a woman/he sounds eerily like Nancy Wilson......he was a seminal influence on Wilson,Dinah Washington and was(in fact) singled out by Billie Holiday as her single favorite singer and a personal favorite of Ray Charles....Scott is a pre_eminent stylist... (still alive and occasionally performing today) who knows_well how to get the most
out of a song_lyric(especially a romantic ballad)...his skillful phrasings and utilization of arrested_tempo's echo with a nuance and pathos of one who should be recognized as one of the most influential singers of American popular musics....

Jimmy was born in 1925 in Cleveland...afflicted with a hormonal disorder, Kallman's syndrome, that interferes with normal sexual maturation (a la Gary Coleman)...Scott struggled with the stigma and ignorance about his condition.....but accepted and properly recognized his ethereal boys_choir voice as a gift...he began performing professionally in his teens and joined Lionel Hampton's band where he became known as Little Jimmy Scott...he was another who at some point became disenchanted with the music industry and disappeared from the scene working for a time as a nursing home aide and elevator operator...finally re-emerging in the late 80's to begin performing again....

Interview with Jimmy Scott

My first reaction upon hearing about The Last King of Scotland...(particularly after hearing that Forest Whitaker was under consideration for Best Actor)....i had to wonder if this would be another instance of an already_accomplished Black actor getting recognition for playing another cartoonishly_evil black character...a la Denzel's (admitttedly_brilliant) turn in Training Day...so i will give some credit for the screenplay....a fictional story set against historical events....told from the point-of-view (of course)of a european....the depiction of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin at least hints at underlying aspects and dimensions of complexity..he was after_all among the first generation of post-Imperial puppet_dictators spectacularly unprepared for the reigns of power (and intentionally so)...who predictably got out of control....providing just the kind of tragic character, who's descent into the (seemingly_intrinsic) baser impulses of intolerance and violence allows artists and actors an enticing pallete to practice and perfect their craft....

And i say yes....the performance by Whitaker is masterful...a performance not-to-be-missed....the casting of Whitaker assured that the most buoyant aspects of Amin's personality would be conveyed...the only question would be, would Whitaker be able to embody the darker side...man's evil_shadow....well let me just say that there comes a point in this film where the performance by Whitaker is so compelling...(a la Denzel in Malcolm X, Jamie Fox in RAY )...where the actor disappears and becomes the character such that when the film almost_imperceptibly shifts to footage of the real character it is such a small step that one is left with tremendous respect for both actor and director...

I was also....ummm... impressed by the appropriately_alluring performance by actress Kerry Washington as one of Amin's wives..

i will probably be keeping an eye on her (coming off her previous performance as Ray Charle's wife) as she may be primed for a
breakthru (of course)...

Still, despite the admittedly_notable performances....I am left to beg the question....of all the subjects deserving of definitive artistic documentation .....what exactly does Idi Amin represent that makes him deserving of an enduring biopic...ultimately, there is very little of real value in revisiting the story of Idi Amin...unless we are to view him as sort-of a template for several generations of post-colonial tin-pot dictators that survive even_today as painful pimples on the asshole of the world...