Inspired by the real life exploits of an African American man who impersonated everything from a lawyer to a surgeon to a foreign exchange student in the 1970s, 'Chameleon Street' might sound a lot like 'Catch Me If You Can', but this is a distinctly different sort of film. In the hands of writer-director Wendell B. Harris Jr., the protagonist is a curiously pitied character: one who cannot help but "intuit" the needs and desires of everyone he meets and "become that need" - far closer to the title character in 'Zelig' than Frank Abagnale Jr. There is a lot to like in how his dilemma feels like a hyperbolic metaphor for the way we all function, acting differently in different situations depending on who else we are with. The film's dramatic crunch comes from how his chameleonic nature impacts on his ability to be the father and husband that his family wants, though this area feels a tad undernourished due to a very false performance by the actress playing his daughter as well as the script's constant inflection towards comedy. And yet, while the laughs tend to overshadow the drama, the funny moments work incredibly well. Highlights include the protagonist lecturing a drunk on how to conjugate the F-word, a fake epileptic seizure that gets out of control and him rambling off a whole string of "J'accuse" sentences while trying to speak French.
Chameleon Street is a film about a black con man from Detroit who specializes in being a master of plain-sight disguise. Doug Street can enter a room and upon meeting someone understand what they want to see reflected back, and after cutting through the "emotional baggage" of his own personality, assume the role like an actor taking a part. Throughout the course of the film he becomes a surgeon (going so far as to perform several successful operations), a lawyer for a human rights organization, journalist, and a French exchange student. His greatest role and the one he seems to struggle with the most throughout the film are the roles of husband and father. These he only seems capable of, as long as he has another more exciting identity to supplement his "real life". The film is considered to be far ahead of its time in it's critique of the performative and trans formative nature of identity, race, and class, a sort of spiritual cousin to Samuel R. Delany's short story "Time Considered As A Helix Of Semi-Precious Stones".Street as a character is a clever anti-hero, similar to, but less psychotically unpredictable than Alec Baldwin is in "Miami Blues", but infinitely more entertaining than Leonardo Dicaprio in "Catch Me If You Can". Street survives by his wits and chance, and has an unconcerned Dandylike air about him. He quotes Oscar Wilde "the divine Wilde" and refers to "Vivaldi, Hendrix, Sly Stone, The Sex Pistols, and Ipso Facto" as "the classics" he listens to on his newly fashionable (at the time the film takes place, in the early 80's) Walkman. Essentially he follows in a long tradition of the charming rouge, only viewed through the mind of a clever black man in the early 90's (hence the po-mo, multi-culti stuff). Several people who knew the real Doug Street as one of his personas, including the Mayor of Detroit, appear in the film playing themselves, adding another layer of identity confusion that Hsiao-hsien Hou's "Puppetmaster" and Jason Rietman's "Up In The Air" would similarly use to greater acclaim. Harris has a voice reminiscent of Orson Wells, especially when he narrates, which is for most of the film, and has matching ambitions for a first time director. Harris wants to include everything he's ever thought or felt into a single film as if it would be his last. In fact this is his first and only film, so better too much, than not enough.Beyond easy designation of social relevance (race, class, etc.), Street's chameleon like behavior is in microcosm the way everyone behaves at a certain basic level, learning to read the people and situations life brings us to, often playing them to our advantage (maybe more than we are even fully aware of), and only occasionally putting our foot down to announce what we are not, at those times when we either cant or refuse to cut through the "baggage of our personalities". You can't be everything to everyone, and the film asks even if it's possible to be yourself to yourself. Doug Street's narration throughout the film is the story he recounts to amuse himself, creating a pleasant illusion to stave off his own boredom, impatience, and dissatisfaction with being, on top of intelligent enough to perform surgeries though luck, mimicry, and quick study) poor black, lacking a high school diploma, working in his father's burglary installation company and living in his parents house in Detroit. Why go to school, why get a job, when you can be senator tomorrow, or a police officer, or anyone you can imagine (quite literally) with the right combination of confidence and creativity. "All the world's a stage And one man in his time plays many parts." that old chestnut."Chameleon Street" is not a perfect film, not the funniest ever, or featuring the best cinematography, no one is going to clamor about the use of soft-focus, shadows, mood, blah, blah, blah, and it will not be praised for it's soundtrack (typical of it's time and unimpressive), but like Hal Hartley, Bill Gunn, David Blair, or Mark Rappaport, Wendell B. Harris Jr. is sui generis in his sense of style, focus, and concerns, and if nothing else deserves praise as a great neglected American auteur. There is more personality in this one movie than in some director's entire oeuvre's. Personally, this is my new favorite film the kind you watch twice back to back because you can't believe what you've seen, and pick up your jaw up off the floor hours later. The kind you rant and rave about to everyone you know, fully aware most wont like/get it/care about it. It's okay if you don't like this as much as me, I can't expect you to. If you don't, tomorrow is always available for you to take on a new personality, perhaps one with better taste.
Chameleon movie download hd
The chameleon is probably best known for the ability to change colors - but when the ancients named this lizard, they apparently had other qualities in mind. "Chameleon" comes to us, via Latin, from Greek chamaileōn, a combination of "chamai" ("on the ground") and "leōn" ("lion") - a tribute, perhaps, to the lizard's fearsome aspect. It is the ability of the chameleon to change colors, however, that has led to the figurative use of "chameleon" for someone or something that is quick to change. Such figurative use dates back to at least the late 16th century, as demonstrated by King James VI who, writing in 1586 or 1587, requested "I praye you not to takk me to be a Camelion."
She is not a bad actress but she is nothing special but with that said is NOT lead material and that is so evident here. As stated she is not bad, but she just can NOT lead a series, she has no charisma and plays the part of Kam as almost a Terminator cypher even in scenes were the character is meant to have emotional reactions. This could be the fault of the script or the direction by veteran TV movie director Stuart Cooper who is not really known for being anything but dull as a director.
This time though the movie comes off better as it is (partially) helmed by Craig R. Baxley who had gifted us years earlier with the superb I Come In Peace and Stone Cold. The action scenes are standard as stated previously but standard for a movie and honestly above that of a TV pilot.
Many chameleons, and panther chameleons in particular, have the remarkable ability to exhibit complex and rapid colour changes during social interactions such as male contests or courtship. It is generally interpreted that these changes are due to dispersion/aggregation of pigment-containing organelles within dermal chromatophores. Here, combining microscopy, photometric videography and photonic band-gap modelling, we show that chameleons shift colour through active tuning of a lattice of guanine nanocrystals within a superficial thick layer of dermal iridophores. In addition, we show that a deeper population of iridophores with larger crystals reflects a substantial proportion of sunlight especially in the near-infrared range. The organization of iridophores into two superposed layers constitutes an evolutionary novelty for chameleons, which allows some species to combine efficient camouflage with spectacular display, while potentially providing passive thermal protection.
Ever since their description by Aristotle, chameleons have populated myths and legends because of a number of features such as a long projectile tongue, independently movable eyes, zygodactylous feet, a very slow pace and the striking capacity of some species to rapidly shift from one vivid colour to another1,2,3. Many vertebrates can rapidly change colour for camouflage, communication and thermoregulation2,4,5,6,7, but these so-called physiological colour changes are generally mediated by modifications of skin brightness (that is, diffuse and/or specular reflectivity) through dispersion/aggregation of pigment-containing organelles, especially melanosomes, within dermal chromatophores6,7. On the other hand, rapid active tuning of skin hue has been described in only a handful of species and generally involves structural, rather than pigmentary, components, that is, multilayer nano-reflectors with alternating high and low refractive indices that generate interference of light waves. For example, some species of squid can rapidly tune skin iridescence through periodical invaginations of plasma membrane deep into specialized cells called iridophores, generating arrays of alternating cytoplasmic protein-rich lamellae and extracellular channels8,9. In fish, amphibians and reptiles, iridophores containing transparent guanine nanocrystals generate a large variety of structural colours, and modifications of the multilayer reflector geometry has been suggested to generate colour change in a few species10,11,12,13,14. Finally, it must be emphasized that the colour of a reptile skin patch is often the result of interactions among pigmentary and structural elements14,15. 2ff7e9595c
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