The Hat Trick

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Written by Stephen Vittoria
(Washington, D.C.)

When it comes to the film showing around the country, three cities have especially significant meaning in terms of what they represent to Mumia Abu-Jamal’s story as well as his career-long critique of the American Empire: Beverly Hills, Washington D.C., and of course the so-called “City of Brotherly Love,” Philadelphia.

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A Bright and Guilty Place
When we knew we were opening in Los Angeles, my home, we had a choice of various locales. As you know, LA sprawls out forever. We chose the Laemmle Music Hall in Beverly Hills because more than any other theater it was centrally located and it’s a great old venerable theater with a giant marquee – and on March 1 it advertised “MUMIA.” Then it hit me: Mumia (the long distance critic regarding the inherent evils of capitalism and class oppression and how wealth skews the reality of the human condition) is headlining at the theater that’s right in the heart of a city that symbolizes the opulence of greed and avarice… the materialism that warps the soul and buries our goodness even deeper beneath the surface. Plain and simple: Beverly Hills is the iconic representation of financial gluttony.

When I told Mumia about the play date in Beverly Hills on the main artery that dissects Tinseltown, that “Long Distance Revolutionary” was opening in the playground of those who just lavished praise and gold on two myths (Lincoln & Argo) at their masturbatory Academy Awards, he had a long and hearty laugh.

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The American Rome
Playing Washington D.C. was also über important because it positions the critique of Empire and all its associated murderous tendencies right in the belly of the beast of New Rome… and the audience embraced the film, the story, Mumia, and the critique of the American mandarins with inspired passion.

One of my journalistic heroes, Dave Zirin, was in attendance (he’s also in the film) and began the Question & Answer session with an impassioned statement about the importance of the film and that LDR was a much-needed alternative look at Mumia’s life that rightly focused on the magnitude of his journalistic wherewithal. That meant a great deal to me.

DC was also a triumph because Eisa Nefertari Ulen’s piece in
yesterday’s Washington Post was incredible – she got the film in a way that restores (for a nanosecond) my faith in the Fourth Estate – albeit a government-run entity. I guess this outstanding look at the film slipped through the proverbial cracks. Thanks Eisa.

My only regret in DC is that the current resident triggerman in the White House didn’t stop by. He needs to see the film. Badly.

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Philos Adelphos
On May 3, this Friday, at Landmark Theater’s “Ritz at the Bourse,” Philadelphia’s native son, Mumia Abu-Jamal, once known as Wesley Cook, comes home… this time with his life story intact, unabridged, and sans the lies, innuendo, and mythical gibberish. This is the city where on 9 December 1981 lives changed forever. It is a day that will live in infamy, especially between the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers, between Germantown to the west and Holmesburg to the east.

In many respects, May 3 – the day “Mumia: Long Distance Revolutionary” opens in Philadelphia – is a day of reckoning for a kid friends called Wesley, and for a man we now call Mumia. No t-shirts, slogans, bumper stickers, or yelling – either in support of or with malicious intent. It’s a story about courage, about overcoming the repressive apparatus of forces hell-bent on enslaving the human spirit. Ultimately, it’s a story that offers an alternative to Beverly Hills (avarice), Washington D.C. (Murder Incorporated), and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (lies).