Word: smokes
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...reservation is beautiful this morning--it's a good day to be indigenous," crows a disk jockey at the beginning of Smoke Signals, the first commercial feature film entirely written, directed and acted by Native Americans. It's also a good time to be Sherman Alexie, the film's 31-year-old screenwriter, who previously penned eight books of verse and three highly acclaimed works of fiction, and is now bringing his contemporary tribal sensibilities to Hollywood...
...movies and on television, Indians have traditionally been cast as powerful shamans, ruthless savages or downtrodden drunks living in tar-paper shacks. Not in Alexie's world. Throughout Smoke Signals--which he adapted from his 1993 short-story collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven--he doesn't just challenge stereotypes, he pokes fun at them. In his tale of two young dudes who leave "the rez" on a road trip of personal enlightenment, the characters ruminate about everything from Dances with Wolves to a native staple known as fry bread. They also shoot hoops, eat at Denny...
...Beverly Hills, Calif., hotel lobby a week before the movie's release, he's clearly stoked at the prospect that it might crack open doors for other budding Native auteurs. "Right away, we've given the whole idea of Indian filmmakers credibility," he says, beaming at the notion that Smoke Signals could do for his people what Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It did for African Americans. "Spike didn't necessarily get films made as much as he inspired filmmakers to believe in themselves. That's what's going to happen here. These 13-year-old Indian kids...
Bankrolled by a Seattle multimedia firm, Smoke Signals was shot on a $1.7 million budget after being developed at Robert Redford's Sundance Institute, which sponsors a program for fledgling Native American filmmakers. Though he had been approached by producers eager to adapt his works to the screen, Alexie bided his time until he found an Indian director with respect for the material. Enter Chris Eyre, a 28-year-old Cheyenne-Arapaho director of shorts and documentaries, who read Alexie's book and cold-called him for a meeting. Their film, later acquired by Miramax for close to $3 million...
...Tobacco Wars are far from over. Following the defeat of a critical anti-tobacco bill last week, President Clinton directed the Department of Health and Human Services to begin documenting which brands of cigarettes kids smoke. "It's a clever move," says TIME White House correspondent Jay Branegan. "This helps Clinton back up his claim that he's really interested only in keeping kids from smoking and not in punishing the tobacco companies...