Enlarge Matt Elliott/WDET

WDET staff members and Tell Me More producers help host Michel Martin prepare for her broadcast from Detroit.

Matt Elliott/WDET

WDET staff members and Tell Me More producers help host Michel Martin prepare for her broadcast from Detroit.

A moody wintertime fog drifts through the skies as our plane lands early in Detroit. The city is in the midst of a financial crisis and could be on the verge of a state takeover. But signs of a comeback in the auto industry bode well for the Motor City's long-term economic recovery.

"The greatest thing that could happen for us is job creation," Mayor Dave Bing said. He joined Tell Me More's Michel Martin in a live broadcast from member station WDET in Detroit. "My job is not to create jobs but to create the environment for jobs," he added.

Matt Elliott /WDET

Michel Martin talks with Detroit Mayor Dave Bing.

Mayor Bing said Detroit's downtown is leading the way. Businesses like the Detroit Medical Center, Blue Cross and Quicken Loans offer cash incentives to employees who are willing to move and live in the city.

Dan Gilbert, founder of Quicken Loans and majority owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team, said he is determined to recruit the "brightest and best businesses" to come to the city. There is a "brain drain in Michigan," Gilbert told Michel Martin. "We are trying to turn it around to a brain gain," he added.

Enlarge Santa Fabio

Dan Gilbert is Chairman and Founder of Quicken Loans Inc. and Majority Owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Santa Fabio

Dan Gilbert is Chairman and Founder of Quicken Loans Inc. and Majority Owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Gilbert has become one of Detroit's most influential landlords. He just added the Federal Reserve building to a growing list of properties he's bought in the city as he tries to make Detroit a destination of young and old. Although parts of Detroit feel like a ghost town, the lines at the Fillmore Theatre last night were winding across the street as fans waited for a Lenny Kravitz concert with Raphael Saadiq opening the show. It was a reminder that this still is a vibrant music town.

Singer, songwriter K'Jon is a Detroit native. His 2009 song, 'On the Ocean,' set the record for the longest run on Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. K'Jon told Michel Martin that Detroit continues to be a source of inspiration for his work.

Enlarge Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Recording artist K'Jon is a Detroit native.

Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Recording artist K'Jon is a Detroit native.

"There's a pressure to succeed because, of course, you have Motown and all the great entertainers that have come out the city. We still carry the torch," K'Jon said. "We have some of the biggest names in Detroit, like Eminem and Kid Rock and Aretha Franklin ... but Detroit has been very inspirational to what I write about and what I sing about, and how I've developed into a man and as a businessman."

In anticipation of our live broadcast from Detroit, WDET asked its listeners online and on the radio to tell us, in 25 words of less, what we should know about Detroit.

John Luther, a director and choreographer in the metro Detroit echoed the views of a vibrant and robust artist community in the city, "Detroit equals Theatre! The Fisher, The Masonic, The Opera House, The Gem, Detroit Rep, Mosaic, The Baldwin, The Ringwald, The Century, The Fox, The Music Hall." And he asked Michel to check out the theatre scene on her next reporting trip to the Motor City. You can check out all the other comments by going here.

And for this trip, we sought Instagram photos tagged #Detroit, illustrating the city's past and present.

It's time to lift the curtain on what's happening in the Tell Me More blogosphere.

A few weeks ago, guest host Tony Cox spoke with Lindsey Lyons, the mayor of Albertville, Ala., who defended the state's immigration law, which is considered the toughest in America. Lyons said:

"I tell you why I support it and why I'm grateful right now. We've had nine percent unemployment for a number of months now. We've got close to 4,000 people in Marshall County out of work, and one of our local poultry plants, Wayne Farms, just had a job fair recently. And we had hundreds of Americans apply for these jobs that in the past could not get the jobs because they would hire the illegal workforce."

Wayne Farms contacted the program about those comments, providing a letter they sent to Mayor Lyons. They said they stringently adhere to all local, state and federal regulations surrounding employment eligibility and proof of citizenship. They also said that they were one of the original companies to participate in a federal pilot program using electronic verification to check worker eligibility.

Furthermore, last week, Tell Me More spoke with Brit Kirwan, co-chair of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics. He was preparing to meet with NCAA President Mark Emmert and share some recommendations. Here's what he told host Michel Martin about college athletics:

"All of this additional revenue that has been generated over the past several decades hasn't gone back to improve the quality of the academic institutions, or, quite frankly, the lives of the student-athletes. They're still getting the same thing they did several decades ago: a scholarship. Where has this money gone? It has gone to pay coaches' salaries. ... The athletes aren't the beneficiaries of all this money. They, the coaches, are the ones. And the athletic directors and the commissioners are the ones that are making all the money."

On Thursday, the NCAA approved some major changes to its rules. Conferences have the option of letting schools give more money to student-athletes to cover living expenses. There are also multi-year scholarships and tougher academic standards for recruits and teams.

Finally, Tell Me More received an overwhelming number of responses to Wednesday's interview with rapper Kreayshawn, who has a love-hate relationship with hip-hop fans.

On NPR.org, Marzette Henderson said that she's been listening to hip-hop since the beginning of the Beastie Boys and Run DMC days, and she thinks that Kreayshawn captures that same hip-hop spirit with her song "Gucci Gucci." Henderson thanked us for introducing her to the song.

However, a commentator calling himself Fred Nietzsche wrote:

"OMG "Gucci Gucci" is quite possibly the worst hip hop song I have heard in a decade. Its popularity says nothing of the artists talent, it instead is an indictment to the ignorance of the human race."

With Tell Me More, the conversation never ends. To tell us more, you can call our comment line at 202-842-3522, and please remember to leave us your name. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

Enlarge Magali Bragard/AP/Columbia Pictures

In this film image released by Columbia Pictures, Zoe Saldana portrays Cataleya in a scene from "Colombiana."

Magali Bragard/AP/Columbia Pictures

In this film image released by Columbia Pictures, Zoe Saldana portrays Cataleya in a scene from "Colombiana."

Jimi Izrael is the author of The Denzel Principle: Why Black Women Can't Find Good Black Men and a regular contributor to Tell Me More.

It's hard for me not to love a film featuring beautiful women and guns, but reviews for Colombiana (which opens today in a theater near you) are torn between declaring this the (re)birth of a new kind of action hero and dismissing the film as big and silly. I'm going to see it, because Luc Besson is at the helm, and Besson does vendetta films like only a few other writer/directors. As politically incorrect as the genre has been in years past, a few films featuring girls with guns and a grudge stand out.

Jackie Brown—For every heroine in the canon of blaxploitation movies —often filmed with her breasts popping out if her shirt at random intervals for no good reason at all— Pam Grier redeems every shirtless character she ever played in this film about a double-cross gone awry.

House of Flying Daggers – Xiao Mei, played by Ziyi Zhang, is blind and blood-thirsty in this deceptive, beautiful wuxia thriller about love, loss and lying cops and robbers.

Kill Bill Vol. 1 – Uma Thurman plays "The Bride," out to find her stolen child and kill her former partners in crime to avenge their treacherous deceit. S'hard to get more campy than that, although Quentin Tarantino would try in Kill Bill Vol. 2, which wasn't as funny or well-done as the first. Still, worth seeing.

The Long Kiss Goodbye – Geena Davis is Samantha Caine, the soccer mom/amnesiac who finds visions of her former life as lethal secret agent Charly Baltimore creeping into her back into her conscious mind. Naturally she hires a cheap detective named Mitch (played by Samuel L. Jackson) to help her find the she nobody knows.

Alien Trilogy—Sigourney Weaver is Eileen Ripley, the right woman on the right spaceship at the wrong time. Ripley dominates the series of films that proves if you want revenge done right, or if the life of a child or a cat is at stake, don't send men to do a woman's job.

Jimi Izrael is the author of The Denzel Principle: Why Black Women Can't Find Good Black Men and a regular contributor to Tell Me More.

This week marks the 25^th anniversary of Spike Lee's "She's Gotta Have It," a masterful film about walking in the shoes of a liberated black woman in the 80s. She's Gotta Have It was director Spike Lee's first feature film and stars Tracy Camilla Johns as Nola Darling, a layout artist living in Brooklyn, New York who has surrounded herself with an army of lovers – not really for any reason beyond the fact that she can. The story of Nola's travails navigating the dating pool remains as relevant now as it was then: professional black women still can't seem to find a man on their level. Like Nola, they've "gotta have it." But what is "IT," exactly? Sex? Money? Power?

All of the above.

In the 80's the new professional black woman seemed to be grappling with traditional mores and questions about whether locking herself down to one suitable male counterpart was practical or even desirable. Lee's film captures all the angst of that quandary. I enjoy this film because it gave its characters agency and choices. From The Dogs to Nola to Mars Blackmon and all the other players, they players lived in a world of their own making – especially Nola.

People always see this film and its title, and assume the "IT" Nola has to have is sex. I think that oversimplifies the narrative. This movie endures because the audience struggles with the notion of what Nola has to have while the question still goes unanswered. The empathetic sisters and daughters of Nola remain confused about how to fold career aspirations and a sense of independence into the conventional template of Western Wifery, that includes finding and marrying a "good man" and having children.

After a life of happy hours and guilt-free sex, Nola plans to settle down and become the Good Wife – have two "rusty-butt" boys. This was Nola's American Dream. Sex was not the "IT" in "She's Gotta Have It." The "IT" was the pervasive idea that many women feel as if they can have—and richly deserve – everything. Nola had to have it all. She's probably still in that loft in Brooklyn with her 16 cats, waiting for "IT."

Jimi Izrael is the author of The Denzel Principle: Why Black Women Can't Find Good Black Men and a regular contributor to Tell Me More.

Are you missing a few faces of color on your local newscast?

Don't call the Rev. Al Sharpton or the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission just yet — your favorite black newscaster or reporter is probably at the 2011 National Association of Black Journalists convention in Philadelphia — That Dude, among them.

It's hard to walk the streets here without acknowledging the wonderful architecture and the tapestry of faces that make up Philly's diverse backdrop — a diversity that has inspired filmmakers to set their movies in these streets.

Trading Places – One of my favorite 80's era comedies Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy make movie magic as men who switch places and become the unlikeliest of buddies. Frank Oz does a great job of choosing wonderful shots of the city, including 30^th Street Station, Society Hill and Rittenhouse Square.

The Rockys – Sly Stallone's odes to hard scrabble life and boxing are set in Philly. Just about all the films (but most notably the first one) have scenes where Rocky Balboa visits the Italian Market on 9^th and Passyunk.

Philadelphia – The irrepressible Denzel Washington stars as a slightly scummy lawyer (as if) who consents to representing an AIDS patient (an Oscar winning performance by Tom Hanks) in a discrimination suit. Philadelphia's City Hall figures prominently in many scenes of this film, inspired by true events.

Limitless – Professional cad Bradley Cooper plays to type in this film about a writer/slacker who takes a synthetic drug that enhances all his senses and taps into his inner genius. There are scenes shot in the Avenue of the Arts throughout this ode to smart drugs.

The Sixth Sense – Before his formula turned sour, Philly's own M. Night Shyamalan wrote great scripts with unpredictable twists, like The Sixth Sense, with Bruce Willis as a psychologist and the underrated Haley Joel Osment as a patient. Much of it was filmed in the Grant's Ferry and Point Breeze neighborhoods of Philadelphia.

What's your favorite Philly film?

And, you thought it couldn't get any hotter in August...

Michel Martin will bring the heat when she hosts a special LIVE broadcast of Tell Me More on Friday August 5, 2011 from the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) conference in Philadelphia.

As part of the broadcast, Michel will explore what a new jobs report — expected out Friday, August 5^th — means for state of the U.S. economy.

Our LIVE guests will include Pennsylvania Congressman Chaka Fattah, who will share the stories of how his Philadelphia district is weathering the tough economic climate. Award-winning financial journalist Stacey Tisdale — featured on PBS, NBC's Today show, and the Oprah Winfrey show — will add her unique perspective to that conversation.

Plus, we will explore the question of Diversity in the Media. Michel will be joined by CNN Executive Mark Whitaker, NABJ's Vice-President of Broadcast Bob Butler, Journal-isms' Richard Prince and Latoya Peterson of the popular blog Racialicious.com.

And we're bringing one of our hottest segments to Philadelphia - The Barbershop. Freelance journalist Jimi Izrael, author of the book, "The Denzel Principle," is joined by Arsalan Iftikhar, a civil rights attorney, founder of themuslimguy.com and Managing Editor of The Crescent Post; and Ron Christie, a Republican strategist and former aide to President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. And to give this Barbershop that unique Philadelphia flavor, native son and self-described hip-hop intellectual Professor Marc Lamont Hill joins in to talk about everything from politics to sports.

Tell Me More's Sanaz Meshkinpour, John Ketchum and Davar Ardalan will also join host Michel Martin at the NABJ broadcast.

Enlarge Sony Pictures

Ice Cube's first-ever acting role was as troublemaker Doughboy in Boyz N The Hood.

Sony Pictures

Ice Cube's first-ever acting role was as troublemaker Doughboy in Boyz N The Hood.

Jimi Izrael is the author of The Denzel Principle: Why Black Women Can't Find Good Black Men and a regular contributor to Tell Me More.

A lot of the nostalgia around the 20^th anniversary of writer/director John Singleton's "Boyz N The Hood" misses something: namely that, above everything else, its appeal lay in the fact that its a movie about poverty and what seems like the lack of options that come with it. It's about making choices when, in the moment of need, none of the options look that great. The story follows a young boy who grows up in a place where he and his neighbors have to choose between a long-shot college scholarship and the careers of hood-life...hustling, drug-dealing or gaming the system. This was the face of urban poverty – and to some degree, it still is. But I believe that Singleton could have made this film in Appalachia, replaced crack with Oxycontin and had much the same movie.

"Boyz n the Hood" is not just a story about black people, so much as a coming of age story about a part of America the middle class thought (wished?) was fading away. It's about how Ronald Reagan escalated Richard Nixon's "war on drugs" which ultimately became a war on poor people, and remains so today. Near the end of the film, Ice Cube's "Doughboy" argues that people didn't know, show or care about what goes on in "Da Hood". Twenty years later, I think we can safely say he was right.

More remarkable than the movie itself is the timing of its original release. There was a burgeoning black middle-class that was distancing itself from this life and this narrative. The Cosby Show sold the fiction that choosing college was an instant entre to mainstream America and a better life. This film reveals another truth – a college education looks like a gamble to people who need help surviving now. Besides, many of Singleton's characters didn't want a road into the mainstream, so much as relief from the cycle of poverty. But it seems as if the characters from "Boyz N The Hood" still end up getting punished, no matter what decisions they make.

The success of the film is in the strength of the story, but also as a barometer of its time. I wonder, if we go back to the streets where the film was made, what has actually changed? I wonder if the people of South Central Los Angeles have any better options than they did 20 years ago, and how they are exploiting those options, if at all.

Jimi Izrael is the author of The Denzel Principle: Why Black Women Can't Find Good Black Men and a regular contributor to Tell Me More.

The Casey Anthony verdict caused a lot of Americans to ask whether the justice system needs a serious rewrite. And many of us think we know what justice is supposed to look like because we've seen the movie. The issue of crime and punishment frequently gets the Hollywood treatment, and here are just a few of the best silver screen stories of justice going right...and wrong.

12 Angry Men (1957) – In perhaps the Gold Standard of court room cinema, Henry Fonda is Juror #8 in a nameless crew of testosterone-driven malcontents. They wrestle with the evidence, their own demons, and each other as they decide the fate of an 18-year-old murder suspect.

Norma Rae – Not every movie about justice happens in a court room. Sally Field won an Oscar for her role as Norma Rae, a textile worker fighting to unionize her shop in the face of opposition in the community and pressure at home. Featuring one of the the most memorable scenes in any film about workers rights, "Norma Rae" allowed Field to soar in this fictionalized tale of activistCrystal Lee Sutton's rage against the machine.

A Time to Kill – When the system fails, some movie heroes take the law into their own hands. In this adaptation of a John Grisham novel, Samuel L. Jackson plays a vengeful father who kills the men who raped his daughter. Matthew McConaughey co-stars as the lawyer trying to save him from the electric chair

To Kill a Mockingbird — I obviously love Gregory Peck, right? But beyond Peck in his legendary role as Atticus Finch, viewers should appreciate the appeal of the ridiculously underrated Brock Peters as rape suspect Tom Robinson. This adaptation of Harper Lee's classic novel is a textbook study on class and race, and the death of innocence.

A Few Good Men – YOU can't handle the truth, but Tom Cruise can in his turn as military lawyer Daniel Kaffee who defends two Marines against murder charges. Adapted from the stage, this 1992 movie has a tiny part for future Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Junior, and a larger role for Demi Moore. But Jack Nicholson really earns his stripes as the patriotic and lethal Colonel Nathan Jessep, who tries to evade responsibility for ordering a beating that leaves one of his men dead.

Enlarge ASSOCIATED PRESS

Gregory Peck embraces Mary Badham, 9, a Birmingham Alabama acting discovery who plays his daughter in "To Kill a Mockingbird" March 1963.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Gregory Peck embraces Mary Badham, 9, a Birmingham Alabama acting discovery who plays his daughter in "To Kill a Mockingbird" March 1963.

Jimi Izrael is the author of The Denzel Principle: Why Black Women Can't Find Good Black Men and a regular contributor to Tell Me More.

Father's Day is a great day to fix a big meal and share a movie with the family. Why brave the throngs at the theater when you could rent or Netflix a selection and enjoy the company of your family? To be certain, there are traditional Father's Day movies, but there are other films you probably have not seen in a while or forgotten about that would be perfect to share.

Five Great Father's Day Flix:

The Godfather — Al Pacino as Michael Corleone is the young son conflicted by the prospect of carrying the legacy of his father, the aging patriarch of an organized-crime dynasty played by Marlon Brando. He eventually gives in but finds it an incredible weight to carry. Known mainly as a "gangster film," 'The Godfather' is more about how sons reconcile their own destiny with the sins of their fathers. A powerful film adapted from a great novel.

Finding Nemo — The second highest grossing G-rated film ever made, this animated film deals with a young clown fish that is stolen and his father who must take to the wilds of the deep blue sea to recover him. Voiced by Albert Brooks and Ellen Degeneres, this kids' film has a very adult message about the power of a father's love.

To Kill a Mockingbird — This adaptation of the novel stars Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, the single father and liberal lawyer trying to teach his kids how to live right by example. Finch defends a client against lynch-mob justice and shelters his children from the racism of the antebellum South.

Kramer vs. Kramer — Dustin Hoffman is Ted Kramer, the career-man and workaholic, who neglects his wife and son only to find them both slip from his hands. He desperately tries to secure his rights to his son but runs up against the bias of family court. This story about a couple's struggle with divorce also deals with a father's discovery of what's important in his life.

Fantastic Mr. Fox — A crazy father fox unwittingly puts his family in jeopardy for one last taste of careless abandon. Based on a book, this film employs George Clooney voicing the ego-maniacal Mr. Fox and Meryl Streep as his steady wife in this stop-motion film dedicated to the hubris of middle-aged men and their forgotten glories on the Whackbat field. Hotbox!

iStockphoto

In 2000, the U.S. government — for the first time — gave census takers the option to identify themselves with more than one race. That year, 6.8 million Americans selected two or more races. In 2010, 9 million did.

These numbers paint a portrait of an increasingly diverse America — and of Americans who are becoming more comfortable identifying themselves as multicultural and mixed race. And it's no surprise that this shift has been reflected in the country's literature as well.

This summer, Tell Me More read stories and novels — by and about people — exploring what it means to be mixed race. Heidi Durrow, author of The Girl Who Fell From The Sky, helped us kick off the series.

Here are all the books in our series — click on the title to read an author interview and an excerpt.

• You Are Free by Danzy Senna
• The Latte Rebellion by Sarah Jamila Stevenson
• Pym by Mat Johnson
• Take One Candle Light A Room by Susan Straight

Thanks for joining our Summer Blend Book Club!

Jimi Izrael is the author of The Denzel Principle: Why Black Women Can't Find Good Black Men and a regular contributor to Tell Me More.

Although the new trailer for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is breathtaking, there seems no possible way for a studio to avoid watering down the Swedish sadomasochistic snuff noir so it will play in America. In cinema, there is the homage to the past, and there is the wholesale remake or re-imagining of a film. A remake often involves updating a story with a narrative that transcends time — like the many, many remakes of The Four Feathers for instance. Other times it involves translating the story into another language entirely for commercial gain. There are foreign remakes of American films, but most often, foreign films are remade to sync to American sensibilities. Something will undoubtedly get lost in translation. Remaking is not an exact science.

So, here are my Greatest Hits and Misses in Foreign Film Remakes.

Point of No Return, based on Luc Besson's Nikita (1990) – Bridget Fonda brings about as much gravitas to the screen as she can muster playing the convict turned government assassin. It was a great film for it's time, with lots of car chases and explosions. It even managed to capture some of the dark, romantic moments of the original. But barely. HIT

Scent of a Woman, based on Profuma di Donna (1974) – The American remake is a good film that relies too heavily on the singular performance of Al Pacino. Profuma di Donna explores friendship, love, maturity and mortality in a way the knockoff barely touches. If you have not seen the original, get it on DVD, or put it in your Netflix cue. MISS

Godzilla: King of The Monsters, based on Gojira (1954) – Raymond Burr plays reporter Steve Martin bearing witness to the destruction of Tokyo at the hands of Godzilla, a 50-story deity displeased with the people of Japan. Burr's steady voiceover replaces the campy reporter from the original. A wonderful film that splices together the best from both worlds. HIT

Death at Funeral, based on Death at a Funeral (2007) – Chris Rock is better on stage than on screen, and this movie makes that case like no other. This shot-for-shot remake tries to replace wry British humor with broad comedy and the results are disastrous. I was a fan of the original, but wasn't sure it was good enough to be remade. 'Twas a bad idea, poorly executed. MISS

What are the most notable — or notorious— remakes on your list?

Enlarge David James/Paramount Pictures

Robert Redford (as John Gage) and Demi Moore (as Diana Murphy) in "Indecent Proposal," 1993.

David James/Paramount Pictures

Robert Redford (as John Gage) and Demi Moore (as Diana Murphy) in "Indecent Proposal," 1993.

Jimi Izrael is the author of The Denzel Principle: Why Black Women Can't Find Good Black Men and a regular contributor to Tell Me More.

Arnold Schwarzenegger didn't invent marital infidelity, but rarely have we seen such a spectacular confluence of political drama and brazen husband misconduct since the Clinton years; it's a drama made for cinema. Hollywood has explored infidelity with fairly uneven results. Yet there are a few standout cheating films that have gone under the radar.

Without further ado, I present:

Five Great Films About The Perils of Infidelity

Indecent Proposal – If someone wanted to pay your wife a million dollars for one night of passion, how could that possibly go wrong? Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson play the young couple that finds out and Robert Redford co-stars as the checkbook lothario. "Indecent Proposal" was built around a jerky script dependent on better actors. An adaptation of author Jack Engelhard's novel of the same name, it was a gut-wrenching study on love, money and trust that sparked dinner party conversations for years afterward.

A Thin Line Between Love and Hate – Not a film about infidelity so much as the folly of philandering, Martin Lawrence gives one of the two best performances of his career as a nightclub impresario who can't settle down with good girl Regina King, instead opting for the richer, slightly batty, Lynn Whitfield. With appearances by Bobby Brown, Della Reese and Tracy Morgan, this film looks as if it were cast by phone. But somehow they all choke a thin script to the ground and make a comedic turn on "Fatal Attraction" that manages to be pretty entertaining.

To Die For – Based loosely on the story of Pamela Smart, a woman convicted of hiring her 15-year old lover to kill her husband, this mockumentary about love, sex and ambition was ahead of its time. Nicole Kidman plays a wannabe newscaster who will do anything to be famous, and Joaquin Phoenix plays the young man who will do anything for her. A sad commentary on fame and fidelity you should see before dying.

Lolita (1997) - Jeremy Irons kills it as Humbert Humbert, the teacher who letches after young girls in general and Dolores Haze – aka Lolita—specifically, going so far as to marry her mother to be closer her. More faithful to the novel than Stanley Kubrick's 1962 take on this same material, this film dares to combine sickness and sensuality to question the boundaries of love.

Little Children – Kate Winslet is bored with her life as the housewife to a distracted husband, so she finds love at the playground. Patrick Wilson plays the lucky stay-at-home dad in a similarly disposable marriage. Planning a new life together, they both find love in the last place they were looking for it. Lust brings them together and lust tears them apart in this incredible film based on an equally well-done novel by Tom Perrotta.

Seems like there should be more, but no great American films come to mind. Which ones do you think I missed?

Enlarge Getty Images/Getty Images

The Emperor of Rome (played by Joaquin Phoenix) has reason to question the loyalty of his sister Lucilla (played by Connie Nielson) in the movie Gladiator. Russell Crowe (not pictured) plays Maxiumus, a gladiator seeking to avenge the murder of his family.

Getty Images/Getty Images

The Emperor of Rome (played by Joaquin Phoenix) has reason to question the loyalty of his sister Lucilla (played by Connie Nielson) in the movie Gladiator. Russell Crowe (not pictured) plays Maxiumus, a gladiator seeking to avenge the murder of his family.

Jimi Izrael is the author of The Denzel Principle: Why Black Women Can't Find Good Black Men and a regular contributor to Tell Me More.

A vendetta is far more than revenge — in the eyes of the transgressed, it's a blood oath to right a wrong in the name of all that is right and honorable. A vendetta is not justice always, but is consistently cathartic, which is why it remains a popular theme in cinema.

Everybody wants to get somebody back for something. We all know someone who needs to be taught a lesson. We could certainly argue about whether the killing of Osama bin Laden versus his capture was justified, but there is no doubt that his death feeds a certain post 9/11 blood-lust some Americans have; many of us wanted revenge, and we got it. In that spirit, I give you ...

Top Five Cinema Vendettas

Leon: The Professional — Mathilda Lando (played by Natalie Portman) witnesses her family get shot up by corrupt cops. With no where to go, she ends up living and training with the hitman Leon to even the score. Gary Oldman is the worse kind of psychotic cop: the kind who doesn't mind killing children to make a point. Icky, for the pedophilia-esque undertones, but completely watchable otherwise. Because no one can even a score quite like a tween with a .22.

Payback — Mel Gibson is brilliant in this perfectly-paced saga of the comedic triple double-cross based on a great novel by Donald Westlake. The moral of this story is that —more often than not— vengeance is not about the money, it's the principle of the thing.

Girl With the Dragon Tattoo — As Lisbeth Salander, actress Noomi Rapace takes out her sadistic rapist in a scene that makes "The Burning Bed" look like a romantic comedy. This is not a revenge movie strictly speaking, but justice, served cold and leathery, is a recurring theme. Not a date movie, but a must-see none the less.

Gladiator — After his emperor and family are killed by a corrupt dictator, Maximus decides to avenge them. Russell Crowe is impressive opposite Oliver Reed as Proximo as the conflicted sports-killer with the weight of Rome on his back. Are you not entertained?

Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song — Sex show performer Sweetback (Melvin Van Peebles) gets caught up defending another brother. On the run, he spends much of the movie striking down racism and political inequity before he hits the Mexican border. Part performance art, part Black Power manifesto (and rated 'X!) "Sweetback" kicks ass, takes names.

What are your favorite vendetta movies?

On April 20, 2011 we interviewed Ilyasah Shabazz, a daughter of late black nationalist leader Malcolm X, about a controversial new biography about her father. The book, "Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention," contends that as a young man, Malcolm Little (his birth name), had a homosexual encounter with an older white man. The biography also reexamines the circumstances of Malcolm X's assassination, suggesting that the New York police department declined to act on information it had obtained that might have thwarted the plot.

In our interview with Ms. Shabazz, she said she believed that one of Mr. Marable's lead researchers on the book, Zaheer Ali, hadn't known that these claims about her father would make publication.

It should be noted that Mr. Ali was a guest on our program on April 6. (Mr. Marable had died just days before the book was published in early April.) Mr. Ali wrote the following response to Ms. Shabazz's remarks:

As one of the lead researchers on the Malcolm X Project, I often discussed and debated various aspects of Malcolm X's history with Dr. Manning Marable, unaware if and how those discussions would eventually play out in his book. So for me, reading "Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention," was my first opportunity to see how Dr. Marable was able to synthesize the many sources and voices he researched, and discussions and debates he had while completing the biography. It is my belief that he would want those discussions and debates to continue, as we continue to grapple with the life and legacy of Malcolm X.

Also, listener perspectives on our interview with Ms. Shabazz can be heard in the April 22 edition of the program's weekly BackTalk feature.

Enlarge Jason Merritt/Getty Images

Director/Writer Tyler Perry arrives at the Lionsgate premiere of Madea's Big Happy Family in Hollywood on April 19.

Jason Merritt/Getty Images

Director/Writer Tyler Perry arrives at the Lionsgate premiere of Madea's Big Happy Family in Hollywood on April 19.

Jimi Izrael is the author of The Denzel Principle: Why Black Women Can't Find Good Black Men and a regular contributor to Tell Me More.

The battle between Spike Lee and Tyler Perry is less a battle about film than class and the popular black aesthetic.

Spike Lee imagines himself the keeper of a flame that, in many ways, he extinguished some years ago. During the 1990s, his films, while important, had become too preachy and pedantic to entertain, culminating in "Bamboozled," a remarkable film so heavy-handed it remains difficult to sit through. His films became his personal pulpit instead of stories well-told.

Perry's movies don't pretend to be high-art or heavily message-oriented. The irony may be that Perry and Lee tell basically the same stories, about the importance of spirituality, black pride and self-reliance. The key distinction is that Perry's films speak to a different audience than do Lee's, and less artfully so.

Perry's films have gained a reputation, fairly or not, as low-class. Lee's work is usually described as high-brow—somewhere, but not actually in theaters lately.

That said, this fact is clear: Tyler Perry does broker in coons and buffoonery. His stories rely heavily on popular caricatures of black people behaving badly.

But so what? Could we name a dramatic film that doesn't feature one negative ethnic, racial or social stereotype? Nope. Woody Allen's work is packed with yukels and yentas; Martin Scorcese's canon was built largely on plots about gangsters and gumbas, and John Hughes made a career of pitting 1980s' working-class whites against drug-addicted yuppie puppies and their dim parents.

Stereotypes feed drama, and drama makes good cinema. So, Perry's use of stereotypes is not a valid criticism.

The big knock against Perry is that he seems compelled to tell exactly the same stories over and over again, while a good number of blacks want to see more diverse fare. Notably, when Perry tried to step out of that bag, he was castigated.

Lee's work has evolved. Perry's detractors should allow for his films to undergo the same process.

Moviegoers shouldn't depend on just a handful of artists to tell the wide variety of stories that need telling. Spike Lee and the dreadlocked, open-mic, finger snappers should spend less time taking Perry to task and more time supporting independent black film.

Some black people think Perry's work reinforces some white people's negative perceptions of blacks and generally paints a negative portrait of an entire race of people, as if any single film or filmmaker is capable of that.

The bottom line is black people want more choices in the mainstream, and not just art-house films that are difficult to find.