Sinners: A Review (Review #2030)

SINNERS

Gather around, brothers and sisters, to hear about those who pursued the Devil to find that the Devil pursued them back. Every year without fail, I find that there is one movie that is wildly and irrationally overrated. This year, it looks like Sinners is a strong contender for that title. Overly long, sometimes unintentionally hilarious, Sinners thinks it is saying a lot when it actually says nothing.

Twin brothers Elijah "Smoke" and Elias or "Stack" Moore (Michael B. Jordan in dual roles) have returned to Mississippi after stealing money from Chicago mobsters. 

At this point, I want to stop to say that "Smoke/Stack" is the first thing that I found hilarious. I figure that writer/director Ryan Coogler meant it to have them called "Smoke" and "Stack". However, I cannot take characters whose nicknames are "Smoke" and "Stack" seriously, let alone see them as menacing. It's as idiotic as having the twins nicknamed "Wrist" and "Watch". Yet, I digress.

Smokestack want to start a juke joint. They get their cousin Sammie (Miles Caton) to join their venture, as Sammie is a skilled blues guitarist. He is also a PK or preacher's kid. Sammie's father Jedidiah (Saul Williams) disapproves of this devil's music and wants his son to follow in his steps to be a preacher. However, the call of the blues and of beautiful women like the married Pearline (Jayme Lawson) is too strong to get Sammie on the path of righteousness.

Smokestack get blues legend Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo) to drop his weekly booking at another juke joint to be the headliner for their new establishment, Club Juke. They also get their friends the Chows to supply both the booze and the signage for Club Juke. Smokestack finds Cornbread (Omar Miller), a large man working the sharecropping cotton fields, to be the bouncer. One person who probably wouldn't get bounced out is Smoke's estranged wife, Annie (Wunmi Mosako), the Voodoo Queen of the Delta. Smoke/Elijah and Annie lost a child despite her powers. She is, however, an excellent cook. One person who would get bounced out is Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), Stack/Elias' former lover who is, if my calculations are correct, 1/8th black (she says that her mother's daddy was half-black, making her mother's makeup as quarter-black). Mary has been passing as white, so any association will be dangerous for both Mary and Stack.

There is a more dangerous force out there. For once, it is not the Klan. It is Remmick (Jack O'Connell). He is an Irish vampire who has managed to escape the nearby Choctaw community and found delicious refuge with KKK members Joan and Bert (Lola Kirke and Peter Draimanis). At the juke joint's opening, Sammie (whose stage name is Preacherboy) plays some mean blues that has summoned the music of the past and future. Everything from traditional African dancers to hip-hop DJ's float onto Club Juke. However, that also summons Remmick and his growing vampire clan. Not to be left out, Remmick, Joan and Bert try a little bluegrass before being rejected entry.

However, you can't keep white vampires out permanently. They turn Mary into one, who in turn turns Stack into one. Annie, in tune with the spirits, realizes the danger that they are in. Now, the remaining survivors find themselves besieged at Club Juke by a multicultural vampire horde. Who will live to see the sun rise? Who will continue to play the blues long after October 16, 1932? Will Preacherboy Sammie become a musical legend, or will he turn towards the light?  

I rarely criticize fellow film reviewers publicly. I still will not mention specific names here. I will say, however, that a certain reviewer that I see on the YouTube stated that Jack O'Connell was "terrifying" as Remmick. I literally burst out laughing at this statement and though, to quote Sophia Petrillo, "You're nuts". I did a lot of laughing while watching Sinners, but I figure that Coogler did not mean for me to do so. I do wonder though, what kind of reaction he thought I should have had when I see a group of vampires break out into Will You Go, Lassie? outside the juke joint? I do not know if a trio singing a folk song is "terrifying", but I was more puzzled as to what exactly this was doing in this very long film. Less terrifying is seeing O'Connell break out into an Irish jig while singing All the Way to Dublin, with a group of new vampires dancing along.

I was howling with laughter at this. To be fair, I may be among the few Mexican Americans who loves Celtic music, so I did enjoy the soundtrack. 

It is not as if I do not get what Coogler was aiming for. There is the scene when through Annie's voiceover, we get to the I Lied to You dance section. Here, Coogler makes an overt call-out tying in Preacherboy's blues to both traditional African music right down to twerking dancers and gangster rap. I get that Coogler was stating how all this music ties itself together, past, present, future. The sequence, however, felt self-indulgent, almost comical. I suppose it would have been too much to ask that singers in the Mahalia Jackson, Marion Anderson and Ella Fitzgerald manner pop up in this elaborate fantasy number.

What would any of those women know about the African American musical experience?

I know many people simply loved that sequence and think that it is a highlight of Sinners. That is their right. I watched thoroughly bored, thinking that Honeydripper covered a similar subject better. Granted, there were no vampires in Honeydripper. Sinners was meant to be horror. Again, I get that. Also again, I was laughing when I was not counting down the time in a film that at over two hours is simply too long. Honeydripper, sans vampires, is almost fifteen minutes shorter. Granted, it might be longer than it needed to be too. However, it is well over half an hour before we even get to the juke joint opening, and I felt as if the film was just spinning its wheels. At an hour and fifteen minutes, I was bored and felt as if it ran out of story.

I think Sinners lost me early on, when we get the Smokestack Twins. Try as I might, I cannot take characters named "Smoke" and "Stack" seriously. That others never commented on how they were Smokestack, let alone did it without breaking out in giggles, I cannot explain.

I also cannot explain the performances. I felt that almost all the acting was a bit too stylized and unnatural. Michael B. Jordan in his dual role felt far too forced in the Smokestack swagger. I never believed that Smoke or Stack were real people. They were more caricatures of men working to look tough and menacing. 

That sense of exaggeration extended to almost everyone in Sinners. Hailee Steinfeld felt very overly dramatic as Mary, the woman who longs for Stack but whose fair complexion gives her a little white privilege. She was a bit overwrought before she became a vampire. Once she got the bite, she just became comical. Jack O'Connell was nowhere near "terrifying". He was hilarious and not in a good way. Except for Delroy Lindo (underused) and Mosaku as Annie the Voodoo Queen, I think the acting was pretty lousy.

As a side note, if Annie got the bite too, how does she narrate after she makes her sacrifice? Moreover, we see Annie and Smoke reunite postmortem with their child. I did not care, and I won't delve into any theological matters involving how the Voodoo Queen can achieve an almost heavenly resolution. 

I will say that I did like the music. 

Sinners got its mojo working, but it don't work on me.  

DECISION: F

Nickel Boys: A Review (Review #1930)

 

NICKEL BOYS

Nickel Boys has a fascinating subject that uses a unique and rarely used cinematic method to tell its story. In a curious twist, the concept that most people praise Nickel Boys for left me cold and removed from the characters rather than inviting me in.

In segregated Florida, young Elwood Curtis is becoming active in the growing Civil Rights movement. He also has a supportive Nana Hattie (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) who is part of a group that encourages him to go to the Melvin Griggs Technical School where he could advance. On his way to the technical school, he accepts a ride from someone who stole the car. Elwood is arrested as an accessory.

He is sent to the Nickel Academy, a reformatory school where he will ride out his sentence. Nickel is segregated, where the white pupils get nicer accommodations and a chance to play football while the black pupils are de facto slaves in this orange plantation.

Here, Elwood (Ethan Herisse) bonds with Turner (Brandon Wilson), a fellow Nickel detainee whoEvewants to finish out his time and move on. As Elwood and Turner continue serving their time, they see how the Nickel administration favors the white students, down to telling a fellow black inmate to throw a boxing match in favor of the white boxer. Elwood wants to expose the abuses at Nickel to inspectors, but it is Turner who manages to get the info to the inspectors. That only causes the Nickel Academy to target Elwood. That requires an escape, where not everyone will survive. 

Now the mantel will have to be taken up by someone else to eventually, decades later, reveal the mass graves and abuses at Nickel Academy. It will be time for a reckoning.

The twist that Nickel Boys has is that director RaMell Ross (who cowrote the screenplay with Joslyn Barnes from the Colson Whitehead novel) uses a first-person point of view where we see the events from sometimes Elwood's perspective and sometimes from Turner's perspective. The notion behind this cinematic venture is to put you in the character's shoes. 

I can think, off the top of my head, only one other film that did this first-person POV: the Robert Montgomery film Lady in the Lake. As I have not seen Lady in the Lake, I cannot say how well or poor the effort work. Here, the first-person POV had the opposite effect that I think Nickel Boys intended. For myself, rather than place me in either Elwood or Turner's world, I found myself more removed and separated from them than had Nickel Boys adopted a more traditional manner.

I think it is because somewhere in the middle of the film, we shift from Elwood's POV to Turner's. That shift is indicated by how the film repeats the scene from Turner's perspective after we saw it from Elwood's. Once we got that switch, Nickel Boys goes between them, rarely allowing us to see from both of them simultaneously. I get that this was the intention. For me, it ended up looking like a cold, aloof gimmick.

I could not connect with either Elwood or Turner. I found Nickel Boys to have a certain coldness, distance even. This comes from how in what would be the present or non-Nickel Academy scenes are shot. We do not get in these scenes a direct POV from Elwood/Turner but with the back of the character's head visible. Try as the film might, I just felt so removed from them that I was never invested in the story.

This aloofness extended to almost all the performances. I think that because we had the actors look directly at the camera when speaking to us or to other characters, it felt again like a gimmick. Even in moments that would call for more gripping drama, such as when Elwood finds himself in a hot car, everyone seems to be surprisingly slow and calm, almost catatonic. The stateliness made the film feel longer than its already long two-hour-twenty-minute runtime.

Another issue that I found was how the film would sometimes jump to what would be the future. We get bits of Elwood's future as a moving company president. We meet a fellow former inmate at somewhere in what I think was the 1970s, but I don't think anyone knew who he was. The impact is lost because we are so cocooned with just Elwood and Turner. There is a minor character whom we are told is half-Mexican, so the poor kid gets shifted between the black and white sections, with Nickel Academy leaders unsure where to place him. I was more curious about his story than on Elwood and Turner. 

It is a shame that Nickel Boys, despite its best intentions, failed to take me into this world. The abuses that the Nickel Academy detainees, down to the mass graves, is like the film itself to me: at arm's distance, unwelcoming. I never felt part of or invested in these Nickel Boys. For me, that was a wasted opportunity.  

DECISION: D+

The American Society of Magical Negroes: A Review

 

THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MAGICAL NEGROES

The term "Magical Negro" is shorthand for a black character whose entire existence is to offer sage wisdom to the white protagonist. Perhaps a good film mocking this trope could be made. The American Society of Magical Negroes is not it. Boring, insipid and in its own way racist, The American Society of Magical Negroes fumbles badly whatever ideas rattled in its head.

Meek artist Aren (Justice Smith) is quickly recruited by Roger (David Allen Grier) into a secret society of black people whose entire purpose is to placate white people to prevent said white people from going on murderous rampages against black people. After practicing with an insecure white policeman whom he gives confidence to, Aren's first official assignment is Jason Monk (Drew Tarver), a web designer at Meetbox,  a facial recognition company. 

Unbeknownst to Aren, also working there is Lizzie (An-Li Bogan), a pretty girl whom he met at a coffee shop (after accidentally spilling coffee on her). To his dismay, Aren must fix Jason's professional and romantic life, one that includes Lizzie. Meetbox is in the middle of a scandal due to its failure to distinguish between faces in Ghana, a glitch that was of Jason's making. Despite this, Jason has been selected to present the new and improved facial recognition system to Jason's idol, Meetbox CEO Mick (Rupert Friend). It might have been Lizzie's work, but Jason still gets use out of his white male privilege.

Aren, however, is starting to get a sense of himself. So are other Magical Negroes, causing Magical Negro Queen Dede (Nicole Byer) to lose her ability to float. She has already expelled one Magical Negress, forcing her to live as a "regular black woman" (and thus, removing her protection from certain death at the hands of white people). Now she faces greater rebellion by Aren. Will he be able to lead his people to the promised land while still landing the "ethnic" Lizzie?

I remember hearing something about some kind of outrage over the word "Negro" appearing on black crayons. I figured that this was some kind of Internet joke, but apparently not. I came across a petition to remove the word "negro" from Crayola crayons because "negro" was offensive. Never mind that "negro" is the literal Spanish word for the color "black" and that the offensive crayon also contained the French word for "black" (noir). To the creator of this Change.org petition, the word "negro" had to be expunged in the same way that Confederate statues, the country music groups Lady Antebellum and the Dixie Chicks (now Lady A and The Chicks respectively) and Gone with the Wind needed to be removed. I read the comments by those signing the "No Negro Crayons" unsure if they are serious or seriously stupid.

Watching The Magical Society of Magical Negroes, I am reminded of this faux-rage because its thinking is as shallow as those who find a foreign language needs to be altered due to their own sensibilities (and as a side note, the creation of "Latinx" falls into that mindset). Writer/director Kobi Libii is not subtle about his ideas. The film climaxes in an America Ferrera in Barbie-like rant about how "this country wants (Aren) dead". I would argue that this country does not give a damn about Aren, but it has nothing to do with his race.

Rather, it is because Aren is, to use a good Yiddish term, a nebbish. Right from the opening, Aren is so meek and docile that it would be a wonder if anyone actually cared about him to even bother hating him because he's biracial. There's a quick mention by Aren that his mother is white, but this is irrelevant to The American Society of Magical Negroes. Whatever conflicts already existed within Aren about his identity are not explored in this blink-and-you-miss it moment.

As a side note, Aren's art is ugly and the gallery owner is right: if he won't fight for his artwork, why should she? His yarn art is being rejected because it is awful, not because he is black. This may be a subconscious recognition from Libii that he may believe his creative output is rejected because of his race versus the fact that it isn't good. 

Libii stumbles greatly in his worldbuilding. Within the first ten to fifteen minutes, Aren gets swept into the world of the ASMN, but there is no sense of mystery or logic to this universe. Who is Dede? Why is she the Queen of the Magical Negroes? Why does she float in the air? What does Thomas Jefferson and Monticello have to do with anything? None of these questions are answered. I am not sure they are even asked. Why not just jump into Jason's story rather than take up time with the insecure cop? Why also would Ghanaians actually want facial recognition? I figure this was to suggest that "all black people look alike", but again, would the lack of facial recognition in Ghana cause this much worldwide outrage?

The American Society of Magical Negroes ends with Lizzie herself being part of a secret society: SOSWAG (The Society of Supportive Wives and Girlfriends). I figure this was meant to be a great twist. I push back against that because Lizzie was neither a wife nor girlfriend to anyone, let alone a supportive one. It's the last unclever moment in a film that imagines itself much funnier and smarter than it is.

It is curious that Libii could have had a better story if he had put a greater focus on the love triangle between Aren, Lizzie and Jason. The accidental encounter between Aren and Lizzie in another other film would have been the beginning of a "meet-cute" story. We could have even made Aren a magical being, one of a long line of them, who finds himself falling for his assignment. There is potential in that idea. However, The American Society of Magical Negroes is more interested in trying to find racism everywhere than in mining its potential.

I cannot say what kind of actor Justice Smith is. The two other films that I have seen him in (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves) have him playing the same type of character that he played here. In The American Society of Magical Negroes, he is playing what I think of as Woody Allen's illegitimate black son: a total nebbish, weak, meek, halting and stumbling. It is to where I now genuinely wonder if Justice Smith is acting or being. He has played the same character three times, so my growing idea that this is how he is in real life is not without some evidence.

No one really "acts" in The American Society of Magical Negroes, though I think Grier and Bogan are better than the material. To be fair, the brief parodies of The Legend of Bagger Vance and The Green Mile, heavy-handed as they were, did have the potential to be amusing (though the former used billiards rather than golf). I would argue, however, that 1923 and 1955 were different from 2024. 

The American Society of Magical Negroes is too convinced of its own moral rightness and cleverness to be good. It is not funny, it is not romantic, it is not insightful. It is worse than nothing; it is boring. I was nodding off by the end, awakened only by Justice Smith yelling about how American wanted him dead. I know America would not care one way or the other.  

DECISION: F

The Book of Clarence: A Review (Review #1788)

 

THE BOOK OF CLARENCE

Is there such a thing as black blasphemy? The Book of Clarence, I figure, thought of itself as a more inclusive representation of Scripture by having an almost all-black cast. However, it ended up playing like a spoof of Biblical films that was in turns bizarre, silly and downright offensive.

Separated into three Books (The 13th Apostle, The New Messiah and The Crucifixion), we start in Jerusalem, 33 AD. Street hustler Clarence (LaKeith Stanfield) and his little buddy Elijah (RJ Cyder) are doing their best to survive the rough streets of the Roman occupied Judean capital. Clarence is dismissive of the newest Messiah to come through Jerusalem, even if one of His disciples is Clarence's own twin brother Thomas (Stanfield in a dual role). Clarence has gotten into trouble with local boss Jedediah the Terrible (Eric Kofi-Abrefa) and needs to come up with a lot of shekels to pay back his debt.

Now, during a marijuana-induced hallucination where the smokers literally get high, Clarence hits upon two good ideas (at least good to him). First, he will join Jesus' crew and become the 13th Apostle. After that causes the other apostles to break out into laughter, Clarence decides he will become a rival Messiah. He does become successful in his Messiah hype, aided by Elijah and a gladiator slave Clarence managed to free, Barabbas (Omar Sy), who claims to be immortal save for his heel.

Clarence becomes so intoxicated with his growing wealth and influence that he can afford to dismiss the claims of Jesus' mother Mary (Alfre Woodard) and adoptive father Joseph (Brian Bovell) about Jesus' miracles, such as bringing clay pigeons to life. He can romance Jedediah's sister Varinia (Anna Diop) but cannot escape the wrath of Pontius Pilate (James McAvoy). Will Clarence end up showing he can rival Him? What of Benjamin (Benedict Cumberbatch), the dirty unkempt beggar who comes through the story and finds himself alongside Clarence? Will he look like a literal white savior?

The Book of Clarence is for those who thought Monty Python's Life of Brian was too reverential towards Christ. In many ways, The Book of Clarence plays like a whacked-out parody of Biblical epics, with a little representation thrown in. After all, isn't it time we had black Hebrew Israelites? 

You can read the casting in The Book of Clarence one of two ways. One is to have the Jewish characters played by black actors because for some reason people just assume Jews in the time of Christ were not black. This line of thinking also allows for the Judeans in The Book of Clarence to be reflective of our times, as the oppressive Romans are all played by white actors. It might have been daring to have a literally all-black cast and had the Romans also played by black actors. However, since The Book of Clarence appears, in part, to try and "reflect the modern world", it was not about to suggest black people were anything other than oppressed.

As a side note, it is interesting that representation via casting black actors in historic films and television applies only to white historic figures (Jodie Turner-Smith as Anne Boleyn, Adrian Lester as Lord Randolph 2018's Mary Queen of Scots). To my knowledge, there has never been a call for LaKeith Stanfield to play Cesar Chavez or Jodie Turner-Smith to play Anna May Wong. I am curious as to what the reaction would if Turner-Smith were indeed cast as Wong. Yet, I digress.  

The other way of looking at things is to see The Book of Clarence as being about the Black Israelite movement, which then makes the film closer to propaganda. The Black Israelite movement maintains that black people are the true Jews, and that is one of their less eccentric ideas. They have been labeled anti-Semitic, racists and Holocaust deniers. I do not know if writer/director Jeymes Samuel had that in mind when crafting that film. However, having literal black Israelites does leave him open to accusations as such.

I have no way of looking into Samuel's soul. I can look at The Book of Clarence and declare it simply awful separate from any real or unintended propaganda elements. In many ways, the film plays like a joke, and an unoriginal one at that. Certain times, Samuel's music plays like Miklos Rozsa's Ben-Hur score on steroids. Other times, the hip-hop soundtrack makes things look even odder than people literally floating after smoking weed.

Perhaps a little leeway can be granted when you have Elijah's sole character characteristic be smoking joints. However, The Book of Clarence's determination to be simultaneously of its time and of our time makes the dichotomy look nutty.

What is one to take when your performances are all over the place? David Oyelowo's John the Baptist is playing things for laughs, slapping Clarence for trying to fake his way to baptism (which John does anyway). Cumberbatch too seems to think the film is spoof until he meets a grisly end, one filled with bitterness. One moment he's camping it up (I think he did the "Buddy Christ" from Dogma meme), the next he's going on about how humans are "God's only mistake". 

The worst is McAvoy, who is so hammy as Pilate to where one could see he isn't bothering to try and make this remotely serious. That may be the point, and perhaps The Book of Clarence is meant as a spoof. If so, no one informed Stanfield, who is so stoic for most of the film. With an affected theatrical accent, Stanfield thinks he is in a serious film. Everyone else appears to think they are in a comedy, intentional or not. 

I will touch briefly on the theological aspects of the film; limited as my knowledge of Scripture is, I am aware that the story Mother Mary told about the clay pigeons is from the gnostic Infancy Gospel of Thomas, which was seen as heresy even in the third century after Christ, though apparently is accepted as fact in the Koran. The story of the woman caught in adultery (the Gospel of John 8:1-11) is similarly far off from actual Scripture. For reasons unclear, the wanton woman being stoned was Mary Magdalene (Teyana Taylor), whom was condemned as "that whore who sexes the Romans". In a more bizarre twist, the woman was saved when Jesus (Nicholas Pinnock) literally raised His hand and stopped the flying stones midair.  

Granted, Biblical knowledge may not be strong among even self-proclaimed Christians, but why add these elements when they are not needed?

Clarence is rejected by the Apostles, in part, because he rejects the Immaculate Conception. The Apostles literally use the term "immaculate conception". It is the laziness of The Book of Clarence to confuse the doctrine of The Virgin Birth (Christ being conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit to a virgin) with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception (the Roman Catholic belief that Mary herself was conceived free from sin). They are not the same. Moreover, if we go by The Book of Clarence, Clarence is theologically correct to reject "the Immaculate Conception" as it is about Mary, not Jesus.

I think The Book of Clarence, far from being about representation in Biblical films, is a comedy. It is unclear if it was meant to be a comedy. I do know the audience was laughing at various points in the film. It is not well-acted. It is not well-directed. While one song, Nights Over Egypt, is good, it feels so wildly out-of-place even in the hip-hop soundtrack. As a side note, referencing King Tut is so out-there since it would not make sense on any level.

Those who would look upon The Book of Clarence as blasphemy might miss something entirely. Yes, it is blasphemous. It is also idiotic, boring and a waste of everyone's time: cast, crew and audience. 

DECISION: F

The Color Purple (2023): A Review

THE COLOR PURPLE 

It is a bit difficult for me to look on the musical adaptation of The Color Purple because I am familiar with the 1985 film adaptation. As such, I already know the story and cannot help thinking of the original film. With that said, 2023's The Color Purple does have some good elements despite my familiarity with the subject.

Going from 1909 to 1947, we get the life of Celie Johnson. Young Celie (Phylicia Pearl Mpasi) is abused physically, emotionally, and sexually by her father Alonso (Deon Cole). She is on her second child by Alonso, who promptly takes her child away after birth. If not for her sister Nettie (Hallie Bailey) life would be unbearable.

It is not long before Nettie catches the eye of Mister (Colman Domingo). Alonso would rather pass Celie off to him, and with that, Celie goes to marry Mister. Mister is as abusive to Celie (Fantasia Barrino) as Alonso. In one respect, he is worse: he drove Nettie off his land when she refused his advances. Celie lives forever under the shadow of Mister's true love, blues chanteuse Shug Avery (Taraji P. Henson). Shug is her own woman, unbossed and unbought as they say. She is not afraid of Mister, down to calling him "Albert", his actual name.

Also unafraid of Mister is his son's wife Sophia (Danielle Brooks). She's large and in charge, telling Mister and his son Harpo (Corey Hawkins) what's what. She won't allow Harpo to beat her and promptly leaves when he so much as tries. Shug eventually comes to stay with Albert and bonds with Celie, finding in her a kindred spirit. Harpo turns his house into a juke joint, where Shug is Queen of the scene.

Celie, through time and the encouragement of Shug, Sophia and Harpo's new girl Squeak (pop singer H.E.R., billed as Gabriella Wilson H.E.R.) slowly comes into her own. Able to at long last stand up to Mister after discovering a cache of letters from Nettie, she embarks on her own as Shug's traveling companion and eventual career as a seamstress of renown. Things come full circle for Celie, able at last to reconcile her past and future through curious twists of fate.

When you have a film as well-known and beloved as 1985's The Color Purple, one runs the risk of merely copying the original when making a remake. 2023's The Color Purple has the difference of being a musical adaptation of Alice Walker's novel. I would not have thought that the story would lend itself to a musical. I was somewhat wrong, in that The Color Purple can work as a musical.

I say "somewhat wrong" not out of ego. Rather, it is because try as the film might, it could not shake off its Broadway roots. My mind kept going to the phrase "too staged". Almost every musical number felt unrealistic. I know that is a strange criticism of a musical, but I hope to clarify myself. In the most successful film musicals, like The Sound of Music or 1961's West Side Story, the musical numbers were as organic as possible. There is, granted, an unreality to people singing and dancing on film, but those films did not feel unnatural or exaggerated in how that was presented.

The Color Purple, conversely, made almost every musical number grand, big and obvious that it veered very close to parody. The opening number, Mysterious Ways, was so massive in the choreography that I thought I was watching a stage presentation versus a film. Another number, She Be Mine, is almost bizarre when young Celie is walking through a group of men in a chain gang keeping rhythm before she ends up walking through a group of women who choreograph a dance at a waterfall while doing laundry.

Intentionally or not, She Be Mine brought to mind Sam Cooke's Chain Gang. Again, I know this is a strange criticism for a musical, but The Color Purple was curiously big on choreographing its musical numbers with elaborate dance numbers that looked more suitable for a theater stage than a film. I can see how a number like Push Da Button might be big and almost over-the-top. It is Shug Avery's debut performance at Harpo's juke joint. However, why have an elaborate dance number for Workin, where Harpo is singing and dancing with his work crew when building said juke joint? 

I understand that several numbers from the stage musical were cut from the film version, with only Keep It Movin and Superpower (I) being written for the film. Both new songs are fine, the former catchy and the latter well delivered by Barrino. However, I think some of the other songs could have been cut, or at the very least not delivered in such an elaborate fashion that only served to call attention to themselves.

On the whole the performances were quite good. The standout was Brooks as Sophia. Big, bold and brassy (as Mister, Senior observed, "more entertaining than a radio show"), Brooks dominates whenever on screen. That is not to say that she does not have quiet moments. When softly pleading with Celie for her to stay when Sophia is locked up, Brooks is deeply moving. 

Henson is commanding as Shug Avery, though at times I felt she was making the character less bold and assertive as she should have been. Wilson aka H.E.R. had a smaller part but she did well as Squeak (real name Mary Agnes). Barrino, who played Celie on Broadway, really came into her own late in the film, particularly her solo number I'm Here. She and Henson also had a wonderful scene in What About Love? (not the Heart song), an Art Deco fantasy that subtly suggests a Sapphic relationship between them. 

I think that we did not see as much acting as we could have from Barrino or Henson due more to director Blitz Bazawule and screenwriter Marcus Gardley, which despite the film's two-hour-plus runtime felt oddly rushed. The directing of the male actors showed a curious element. Domingo and Hawkins came across as almost too nice to be these harsh men. Yes, Domingo's Mister slapped Celie hard. As I watched, however, I never felt that Domingo was brutal. In short, I think he was playing someone who was cruel, but he never convinced me that he was Mister. He was Colman Domingo playing Mister. Only Louis Gossett, Jr. as Old Mister in a small part did well. 

I would say that David Alan Grier as Reverend Avery, Shug's disapproving father, was the most cartoonish in his portrayal.

The Color Purple does have excellent production work and cinematography, capturing the look of early Twentieth Century rural South. It also has some nice bits of dialogue. "If they're rough around the edges, you know they soft on the inside," Celie tells Shug. While talking about seeds, the double meaning is well-crafted. 

It is hard to shake the memory of the 1985 original in this adaptation. Using Miss Celie's Blues (Sister) from the original here helps. It is not a bad inclusion, but those kinds of callbacks don't help separate the new from the old. Ultimately, I think it did not translate well from stage to screen, yet while The Color Purple fails to get away from the past, it does decent enough in its crowd-pleasing presentation.

DECISION: B-

The Blackening: A Review (Review #1720)

 

THE BLACKENING

Now with Juneteenth an official federal holiday, one should not be surprised that a Juneteenth-related film is released. The Blackening, however, struggles to decide whether it is comedy or horror, ending up as neither. 

A group of college friends reunite to celebrate Juneteenth by going to a cabin in the woods for a night of drinking and playing Spades. Shawn (Jay Pharoah) and Morgan (Yvonne Orji) arrive early to set things up, and they come upon "The Blackening", a board game which asks them questions involving black history. A wrong answer will get them killed. Shawn couldn't name a black character who lived in a horror film, leading to his death and Morgan's capture.

Now the other guests arrive. There's Lisa (Antoinette Robinson), her biracial BFF Allison (Grace Byers) and the requisite gay friend Dewayne (cowriter Dewayne Perkins). Lisa's on/off lover Nnamdi (Sinqua Walls) is also a guest, joined later by sassy Shanika (X Mayo) and King (Melvin Gregg). The odd man of the bunch, metaphorically and literally, is Clifton (Jermaine Fowler), whom no one remembers inviting but whom they know. 

As they begin to bicker about past issues, they too stumble upon The Blackening board game. Now, the serial killer forces them to play this game or be killed. Clifton is sacrificed first, ostensibly for being "the blackest" but really for admitting to voting for Donald Trump...twice. Now the rest of them must unite and separate to stop the killer from slaughtering them. Who could the killer be? Why are they targeted? Will they survive this bloody Juneteenth?

The Blackening has an identity problem. It cannot decide if it is a horror spoof, a straight up horror film, or a social commentary. It appears to opt for all three, which makes the tones wildly uneven. 

In the "horror spoof" part, we get very odd sections where the characters appear to communicate telepathically and attempt to prove their lack of blackness through increasingly odd ways (one uses her biracial status, another uses being gay). 

In the straight-up horror section, we get crazed killers trapping them and forcing them to play games in the Saw tradition. For the social commentary, we have mentions of how Alison is afraid of her white father and Ranger White (Diedrich Bader) will not allow them into the cabin because the owners usually rent to certain types. One immediately pipes in "WHITE!" only for Ranger White to say "families".

As a side note, since when did park rangers have the right to allow or not allow people into private homes?

It is curious that The Blackening has this group of friends getting together given that based on their interactions they hardly seem like friends. They seem rather to hate and resent each other, the constant bickering and sniping suggesting less lifelong friendships and more barely tolerant of each other. They don't come across as "frenemies" because they seem to constantly go after each other. 

Inter-group antagonism isn't the only predominant situation in The Blackening. Each character has a MASSIVE chip on their shoulders. Most of their grievances revolve around race: how many seasons "dark-skinned Aunt Viv" vs. "light-skinned Aunt Viv" was on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and the presumption that every white character was against them. Other times, they seemed to carry grievances over their connections: how for example Dewayne was irritated that Nnamdi and Lisa had gotten back together. 

The Blackening again could not decide whether to spoof horror conventions or go straight towards them. If director Tim Story or Perkins and his cowriter Tracy Oliver had opted to go fully-in one way or the other, the film would have done better. A horror spoof would have been fun, allowing the actors to play around with stereotypes and conventions of the horror genre. Some poking fun at films like Us, Get Out or The Cabin in the Woods would be amusing. A straightforward horror film would still have allowed a chance to tackle subjects like how African Americans are still thought of as "collateral damage" versus leads.

Instead, The Blackening shifted from one to the other, unwilling to go all-in to the film's detriment. How can one take the situation seriously when they sing the O'Reilly Auto Parts theme song? That element was introduced when Lisa remarks that on Twitter she was threatened by saying that jingle is more relevant than the National Anthem. Why exactly that was part of The Blackening only the filmmakers can answer. 

One aspect that I found odd was how while we were asked to believe the characters were good, they were all one-note and veering close to stereotypes. Of particular note is Mayo's Shanika, a loud, obnoxious woman whose defining characteristic is the liberal use of a racial epitaph. When, for example, Lisa is killing an attacker with a candlestick and starts shouting how it is always black women who saves everyone, I wondered why she would be saying anything at all, let alone while crushing someone's head.

Perhaps if she had said that after she killed the attacker it would have been funny. If she had said nothing, it would have been horror. Instead, it was emblematic of how it tried to be both and couldn't.  

There were no real performances because there were no characters. They never came across as individuals or complex. They were just there. Curiously, the only one that did stand out was Fowler in his Urkel Meets Norbit performance. I am nowhere saying it was a good performance, merely that out of all the ones in The Blackening, it was the only one that was different. So many felt forced and unnatural. When Perkins as Dewayne tells Ranger White he's "never happier to see a white savior", not only is the line a bit cringe but also delivered in a surprisingly bored way. 

As a side note, if you cannot figure out who the mastermind of The Blackening game is, you are a fool. It was so obvious that I was waiting for "the big reveal" that was anything but. 

To be fair, there were a few moments where I did chuckle. Calling the Blackening board game "Jim Crow Monopoly" was funny. The scene where Morgan loses her wig was amusing, as was when Lisa is chastised for selecting a candlestick for protection. "What, are you in Clue?" she's asked, later to be called "Colonel Mustard". Again, if they had gone for a straightforward spoof, we could have had something.

Instead, The Blackening is like so many of the characters: a film with a big chip on its shoulder and not funny or scary enough to care over. 

DECISION: D-

House Party (2023): A Review

 

HOUSE PARTY (2023)

In 1990, a small film featuring a rap duo became not just a big hit but a beloved film, so much so that it was inducted into the National Film Registry. The original House Party was a light, charming affair. Its 2023 remake is anything but. Trading in cringe-inducing stereotypes, with a cavalcade of cameos that might puzzle anyone outside of hip-hop circles, House Party is insulting on a myriad of levels.

House cleaners Kevin (Jacob Latimore) and Damon (Tosin Cole) find themselves in financial straits. Kevin wants to make enough money to pay for his daughter's schooling from pre-K through college. Damon fancies himself a major club promoter but owing to their own incompetence (and being caught on camera literally smoking weed and apparently dry-humping statues), they are fired from their cleaning jobs.

However, there is hope for them both. Damon comes up with the brilliant idea of having a massive house party at their last job site. That mansion just happens to be LeBron James' home. Putting out an APB to party at the King's house, the more eager Damon and more reluctant Kevin have a party that eventually involves crazed koalas, random hip-hop, R & B and basketball stars popping in, a trio of thugs threatening Damon and even the Illuminati. All things, however, end well for all concerned.

I am loath to compare the original film with a remake because both should stand on their own. I know that the remake may throw in some nods to the original, and I don't object to having cameo appearances from the original cast. It also helps that my memories of the original House Party are not the strongest. What I do recall is that the plot was nowhere near as dumb or insulting as this version.

I think a large part of that is due to how the remake House Party duo is at least a decade older than their original counterparts. Kid & Play were playing high school characters. Latimore and Cole are playing characters who are pushing if not already past 30. As such, we have a wild imbalance between goofy but innocent teen hijinks and grown men (one already a father) who do not shrink from irresponsible to illegal acts. Worse still, the trio of thugs from the Young Threats are just awful, awful stereotypes that are there merely to provide some kind of threat.

Damon and Kevin come across not as lifelong friends but as buffoons who are awful on so many levels. House Party trades in nothing but stereotypes, diving in headfirst into some truly grotesque ideas and acting that in our-post George Floyd/Black Lives Matter era are terribly shocking, even a bit depressing.

Early on, we learn that Kevin's parents are retiring and selling the house to move to Florida. When he asks if he could at least keep some of their kitchen machines, they laugh it off. "Half of this stuff we got in the riots," they chuckle. I do not know if screenwriters Jamal Olori and Stephen Glover thought that was funny, let alone how they thought that was funny. Strange flashbacks to bad DJ jobs by their unreliable DJ come out of nowhere and don't advance the plot.

Perhaps the worst element was on how Kid Cudi, who somehow is a party guest, takes our duo to a gathering of the Illuminati to get a replica of LeBron James' Cleveland Cavaliers' championship ring. It shows how House Party was out of ideas with nowhere to go. It was not going to bother trying to have Kevin and Damon attempt to find this one-of-a-kind ring. Instead, we were going to have this Eyes Wide Shut parody that similarly proved itself pointless. 

It even somehow ended up being gruesome, with some person's head being cut off quite graphically. I am absolutely astonished that there is more graphic violence in House Party than there was in M3GAN. 

House Party is already at a disadvantage for being dumb before the Illuminati get into the picture. Venus (Karen Obilum), the more sensible, upwardly mobile character, would never agree to help these two essentially break and enter as well as put her own job at risk. Yet there she is, dancing up a storm and helping them at nearly every turn.

What was surprising is how lethargic House Party is (and no, that is not a reference to all the pot smoking going on in the film). There doesn't seem to be a sense of urgency or anticipation when they are setting up the actual party. At one point Kevin tells Damon that the party is "out of control", but from what I saw the actual party was remarkably restrained. Did we really need that basketball battle between Damon and LeBron? 

My own sense is that no one involved in House Party thought it was any good and knew it. The acting was nonexistent. The various cameos were pointless (though to be fair, I had only the vaguest idea who some of the cameos were and was completely lost on others). The token white character, neighbor Peter (Andrew Santino) was there for no reason apart from providing the koala into the film. 

Again, I dislike comparing the original film to its remake. However, it is hard when you have something as wildly divergent as the original House Party and its remake. The original was charming, funny, sweet and openly silly. Its remake is crass, crude, insulting, dumb and unpleasant. There is no joy, no pleasant aspect to it. It is unfunny and a waste of time. Let's call the party off.

DECISION: F

Till (2022): A Review

 

TILL

There are, for the most part, two types of biopics. There is the insightful biopic, the type that works to get into the mind of the subject and explore his/her world. Then there is the reverential biopic, the type that works to canonize the subject to where you think he/she almost walks on water. Lawrence of Arabia is a good example of the former. Gandhi is a good example of the latter. Till, the biopic of Mamie Till-Bradley, veers closer to the latter. While it suffers from a perhaps excessive running time and a lack of strong vision, Till is also elevated by a strong central performance.

Mamie Till (Danielle Deadwyler) is forever fretful for her only son, Emmett "Bo" Till (Jalyn Hall). She warns her precocious fourteen-year-old about how different life is for a "Negro" in Mississippi than it is in their hometown of Chicago. Nevertheless, Emmett goes to the Deep South to visit his cousins in August 1955.

Mamie still worries for Emmett, mentioning at least twice that this is the longest they have been separated. Mamie's fears are sadly and horrifyingly founded. While down in Money, Mississippi, Emmett forgets that there are unwritten rules for blacks when they interact with whites. In a wildly misguided effort to compliment shopkeeper's wife Carolyn Bryant (Haley Bennett), Emmett whistles at her. This one wolf whistle sets off a chain of events that sent shockwaves throughout the world.

A few days after the incident, Carolyn's husband Roy (Sean Michael Weber) and his half-brother JW Milam (Eric Whitten) force their way into Emmett's uncle Reverend Moses' (John Douglas Thompson) house and take him by force. As news hits Mamie, in her heart she knows Emmett is dead. His mutilated body is found three days later.

Mamie, against advice, decides to have an open casket so the world can see what was done to her son. This horror is too great for even the Mississippi justice system to ignore, and a trial of Roy and JW is set. Mamie, despite the best efforts of black activists, knows too that these white men will not be convicted. Using her mother's pain, Mamie Till-Bradley will now advocate for true justice for all.

Till tackles a necessary story, particularly in these deeply troubled times when race relations have become so fraught. Till is very respectable, and therein lies the issue. Everyone involved in Till acts as if they are fully aware of the importance of telling Mamie and Emmett Till's story to where it comes close to being remote, a dry history lesson versus a story of a mother's grief turning into courage. 

I could not help thinking how strong Till would have been if a more experienced writer and/or director had helmed the film. My mind thought of someone like a Spike Lee or Harriet's Kasi Lemmons, if they or someone else had helmed the project. Instead, it is Chinonye Chukwu in her third feature film who directed and cowrote the film (with Keith Beauchamp and Michael Reilly). 

Till feels terribly distant, remote, removed from both the horror of Emmett Till's murder and Mamie's grief & courage. There is something a bit off about most of the acting. I found many of the performances very stiff, ones that suggest the actors were again fully aware that Till is "an important story". It is, and the subject matter merits being treated with compassion and delicacy. Instead, there is an almost odd restraint in most of Till that keeps viewers slightly separate from things.

I do not think it is the fault of the actors, but of their directing. There was an unfortunate element of forced foreshadowing to Mamie's deep anxiety. It might be historically accurate, but it also pushes audiences to be forever waiting for the moment when the situation comes upon us. I in no way advocate for a graphic depiction of Emmett Till's torture and killing. However, by keeping things restrained to the degree they were, the full impact of the horror does not hit the viewer to the degree that I think it should.

There is also a curious element of introducing us to important figures who should be more impactful. The closing credits mention how Medgar Evers (Tosin Cole), who drove Mamie to where she was staying during the trial, was himself murdered. However, given he and his wife Myrlie (Jayme Lawson) share one if two scenes at the most, it does not have the impact it should have.

As a side note, Whoopi Goldberg, who plays Mamie's mother Alma Carthan in Till, played Myrlie Evers in Ghosts of Mississippi. 

That is not to say that we do not get flashes of what Till could have been if helmed by more experienced hands. The scene where Mamie is at the morgue, looking over the mutilated corpse of her only child, is deeply heartbreaking. The entire scene is well-crafted: we are held back from seeing Emmett's brutalized corpse for a long time, then we get bits of what remain, until Mamie finally lets out the deep, shattering wails of grief. It is impossible not to react to this scene of unbearable agony, and Deadwyler is deeply moving here. It again is impossible not to shed a few tears at this moment.

Deadwyler gives a strong performance as Mamie, a woman of true courage who pushes her grief and anger down in the pursuit of justice for both her son and other mothers' sons victimized by hate crimes. It is, however, again the screenplay that restrains her from time to time. For example, I thought Till could have benefitted from a moment where Mamie's firm resolve to show her son in his horrifying condition came about. 

Instead, she just comes in and says she wants an open casket. What motivated her to take this step? What struggles, if any, did she have about her taking this momentous step? Till does not reveal them, opting to just move forward. It is curious that later in Till, we get a long take of Deadwyler on the stand, with only the voices of the defense and prosecutor speaking to her. Deadwyler rises above the material, but once again I sense a hesitancy to show the mix of anger, courage and a mother's grief while testifying.

Till was respectable. What it should have been was fiery, passionate, firm. I am glad that Mamie Till-Mobley's story now has been told on film. I only wish it had been done both sooner and better. 

Emmett Till: 1941-1955
Mamie Till-Mobley: 1921-2003

DECISION: C+

Coming 2 America: A Review

 

COMING 2 AMERICA

You can't go home again. Those words of wisdom should have been heeded by Eddie Murphy and everyone else involved in Coming 2 America, a dismal, disastrous sequel to his brilliant 1988 romantic comedy. 

Prince Akeem of Zamunda (Eddie Murphy) is celebrating 30 years of marriage to his wife Lisa (Shari Headley) along with his three daughters. However, therein lies the problem: only a male can inherit the throne of Zamunda. With his father King Joffery (James Earl Jones) dying, Zamunda risks invasion and conquest by its next-door neighbor, Nexdoria.

Yes, the nation bordering Zamunda, which can be called its "next-door neighbor", is called "Nexdoria". Meditate on that for a moment. Now, let's move on.

Unfortunately for the Zamundan monarchy, Nexdoria's dictator General Izzi (Wesley Snipes) threatens the nation unless Akeem's oldest daughter marries his son. Fortunately for the Zamundan monarchy, Akeem had while in Queens, under the influence of drugs, lost his virginity to a woman who bore him a bastard son.

Now let us meditate on the idea that a major plot point of Coming 2 America revolves around Akeem being raped. Akeem had sex with someone he did not know while drugged and without consenting to having sex with her. It is rape, pure and simple. Now, let's move on.

It is back to America to find his bastard son, Lavelle Junson (Jermaine Fowler). He and his boorish, trashy mother Mary (Leslie Jones) go to Zamunda so that Lavelle can be trained to succeed the throne as Crown Prince. While Lavelle struggles with completing his tasks to show his worth, he forms a bond with his hairstylist Mirembe (Nonzamo Mbatha). Lavelle, aided by his father figure Uncle Kareem "Reem" Junson (Tracy Morgan), now must rise to the task of kingship.

That is, unless Lavelle finds true love and King Akeem finds feminism.

My mother (RIP) had an expression when she saw people behaving shamefully, "Que no les da verguenza?", which I translate as "Do they not feel shame?". Watching Coming 2 America, I felt genuine embarrassment for everyone involved, an embarrassment that everyone involved should have felt for him or herself.  I was not even twenty minutes into Coming 2 America and could see that it was a disaster. That there was another hour to go in this cringe-fest fiasco filled me with pure dread.

I do not think that I have seen a worse film than Coming 2 America. Perhaps The Hangover Part II or The Green Hornet, but those films made me genuinely angry. Coming 2 America just made me sad. It boggles the mind that the original writers of Coming to America (Barry W. Blaustein and David Sheffield) along with Kenya Barris, could have worked on a script and thought naming the bordering country "Nexdoria" was in any way clever or funny.

Every single thing about Coming 2 America should offend any person with an ounce, a milligram of intelligence or decency. The movie trades in wildly offensive stereotypes that if not for Murphy's involvement would be accused of being flat-out racist. The most overtly racist character is Calvin Duke (Colin Jost), the grandson of the original Duke Brothers. 

As a side note, it should be noted that the Duke Brothers were from Trading Places not from Coming to America. Their whose cameo in Coming to America was a nice in-joke from Murphy's filmography. They were not essential to Coming to America, but somehow, we needed a Duke to interact with Lavelle. Having Jost (who may be the literal poster boy for "white male privilege" as I find no genuine talent to justify his success) say such things as telling Lavelle that Neil deGrasse Tyson is "your guy" is bad enough. However, Jost did not act in this film. He spouted words.

Leslie Jones and Tracy Morgan traded in stereotypes as the trashy woman and uncouth man respectively. Jones' character was more than just a boorish idiot. She was also loud, abrasive, arrogant, sexually voracious and unapologetic about having raped Akeem.

Again, that plot point is something I cannot get over. Semmi drugged Akeem and brought this vulgar woman to take advantage of someone incapacitated, who was not able to consent to sexual intercourse and who clearly was so drugged he thought the whole incident was a dream about a large boar riding him. If the genders were reversed and Semmi had drugged Mary with Akeem getting on top of her to have sex without her consent, people would have been outraged.

There would have been protests. Demands to fire the writers and director Craig Brewer. Loud condemnations from women's rights groups. Feature stories on news networks. I would argue rightly so. However, because it is a woman taking advantage of a man, somehow it is meant to be funny.

Akeem did not consent to have intercourse with Mary. He was incapacitated by drugging. He was raped, and that Coming 2 America thought that this was necessary, let alone funny, is disgusting.

Not that Jones' performance made anything of this better. Her whole career, at least from what I know of it, consists of playing a stereotype of a vulgar, uneducated woman. Clueless and insulting, I cannot believe Jones was proud of her work here, though her MTV Movie Award for "Best Comedic Performance" says more about MTV viewers (and perhaps the whole of Western civilization) than about how good she was.

The effort to make Morgan and Hall enemies transcended cringe. A scene where they are debating on ZNN with Daily Show host Trevor Noah as a Zamundian news host was lazy and stupid. Seeing Uncle Reem move from the split screen to strangle Semmi showed that they were in the same room, making the entire sequence illogical. 

Eddie Murphy looked pained at times to be there. Perhaps he was aware that Coming 2 America was bad. He has been in film too long to not realize that the film was monstrous. He also should have been aware that Coming 2 America was trading in terrible African American stereotypes of the black community comprising of poor, uneducated buffoons. 

He has done much good in trying to elevate black characters in film. Coming to America was a celebration of black life, with successful, well-educated and well-rounded characters. Both the African and African American characters were elegant, wealthy and humorous without being boorish or vulgar. 

Coming 2 America, conversely, felt like a massive step backwards. What I was thinking was, "Why couldn't Lavelle be highly educated but frustrated by his lack of upward mobility" or his mother be successful or at least reformed from her early party-girl days to becoming a strong woman working to support her son. Instead, we got Lavelle be a ticket scalper for his uncle (albeit a reluctant one), his mother still trashy, stupid and vulgar and his uncle crude and equally vulgar. Seeing Wesley Snipes do bizarre dances and be a parody of a parody of an African dictator was just sad. 

Only Mbatha and Fowler to a lesser extent gave anything close to decent performances. Mbatha had at least a decent character to play (though seeing her recite the plot of Coming to America was depressing even if she had no control over things). Fowler showed promise as Lavelle early on, though the bad sitcom-like script kept him down. 

Above all else Coming 2 America is not funny. I laughed once, when barbershop owner Clarence called Akeem "Idiot Amin". Apart from that, Coming 2 America was an exercise in horror, a cringe-worthy nightmare that should never have been made as it was. Bringing back bits that reminded one of the original just made things worse.

Coming 2 America will be in the pantheon of "Worst Sequels Ever" if not "Worst Movies Ever". 

Que nos le da verguenza?

DECISION: F-

Coming to America (1988): A Review (Review #1645)

 

COMING TO AMERICA

Long before Wakanda was the great and uber-wealthy African nation ruled by a powerful, benevolent absolute male monarch, there was Zamunda. Coming to America is a delightful romantic comedy with a dynamic Eddie Murphy performance (or rather, series of performances) that has not lost its power to entertain and delight. 

Zamundan Prince Akeem (Murphy) is pampered by his parents, King Joffery (James Earl Jones) and Queen Aoleon (Madge Sinclair). He, however, does not want to be pampered but to be his own man. Moreover, he does not want to have an arranged marriage, wanting a woman who will love him for himself and not his royal status. King Joffery, believing Akeem's delay is a desire to "sow his royal oats", allows Akeem and his best friend Semmi (Arsenio Hall) 40 days of freedom. Akeem decides to search for his future wife in America. Where to find a woman to rule beside him?

Queens, New York City of course. 

With that, Akeem and Semmi go to NYC, where they masquerade as simple African students, Akeem delights in doing menial labor, much to Semmi's horror and disgust. They eventually find jobs at McDowell's, a small fast-food restaurant that bears much more than a striking similarity to McDonald's. Cleo McDowell (John Amos) likes his African boys, and Akeem finds himself enchanted by Cleo's daughter Lisa (Shari Headley). Like Akeem, Lisa is being pushed into marrying someone she clearly does not love, hair-product heir Darryl Jenks (Eriq LaSalle). Will Akeem be able to win his fair maiden over? Will the Zamundan Court discover what he's up to and put a kibosh on the whole matter?

Coming to America is hilarious thanks to the situations that the characters find themselves in. Right from the start the melding of grand statements to oddball situations as well as how some situations are played out. As King Joffery attempts to dissuade his son from going against tradition to marry someone of his own choosing, the king remarks how nervous he was when meeting his intended. "There is a very fine line between love and nausea," Joffery remarks in Jones' stentorian tone. 

The fact that he speaks this bizarre line with his distinct voice and with a straight face makes it all the funnier. Here is one of the film's successes: no matter how silly things are, everyone plays it straight. 

At the heart of Coming to America's success is the sweetness the film has. Akeem is an innocent in many ways, unaware of how odd his actions and behavior come across to others. After two Zamundans recognize him and pay homage with one of them particularly worshipful, Lisa asks who he was. "Just a man I met in the restroom," is his reply. He clearly does not get that this statement could have different interpretations, and that makes it all the funnier.

The performances are all top-notch, everyone playing things straight but with just enough humor to make the film fun as well as funny. Coming to America is one of Eddie Murphy's best roles, or rather multiple roles. He not only plays Prince Akeem, but also Randy Watson, the highly untalented lead singer of the band Sexual Chocolate and two men at the nearby barbershop: the owner Clarence and most surprisingly, Saul, the longtime Jewish customer. To flip seamlessly from one to another is a credit to Murphy's skills.

As a side note, Rick Baker's makeup work is masterful. Granted, you could tell that either Murphy or Hall were the characters, but Baker did such great work that Murphy could possibly pass as an old Jewish man. 

Hall also donned makeup as the loutish preacher Reverend Brown, another barbershop employee Morris, and as a particularly unattractive and aggressive potential date. His performance is also pretty good, not as naive as Akeem but also not able to do anything to stop the prince. They made for a good double act, making the on-screen friendship sincere.

Headley is beautiful as Lisa, though at times a bit weak. Amos' Cleo, forever stubbornly insisting McDowell's and McDonald's were quite different only to see that they were not, was hilarious. Having him call Akeem "Kunta" is a nice in-joke. It probably is not as appreciated as the Trading Places in-joke where Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy recreate their Duke Brothers bit for a funny cameo, but there it is.

LaSalle showed a different side in his arrogant and bigoted Darryl, showing he can play comedy even if it is as broad as the others. 

It is interesting that save for Louie Anderson as a McDowell's employee, the entire cast was African American (Anderson being the token white guy). It proves that Americans of all backgrounds can enjoy a predominantly black film if the material is there. Coming to America does not trade on stereotypes, though the sleazy preacher and loquacious barbershop denizens do dive into the African American experience.  

Coming to America does such a good job in how it shows its characters. It has overall positive portrayals of almost all the characters. Barry W. Blaustein and David Sheffield, working from Murphy's story idea, set up situations for our characters, which allows the characters in turn to act or react in straightforward ways even in the silliest of situations.

Coming to America is a sweet and more important funny romantic comedy. It is perhaps a bit long with occasional tangents (I don't think we need so much Sexual Chocolate or barbershop ramblings). On the whole though, I think people will like this fish-out-of-water film where love and laughter are greater than all the gold in Zamunda.

DECISION: B+

Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul: A Review (Review #1643)

HONK FOR JESUS. SAVE YOUR SOUL.

The megachurch is already parody to many and despite what many secularists and atheists believe, these types of bodies are quite disliked among many rank-and-file Christians. Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul imagines itself funny and insightful into the megachurch mentality. Sadly, it is as delusional in its ideas of itself as those it seeks to ridicule.

Pastor Lee-Curtis Childs (Sterling K. Brown) and his wife, "First Lady" Trinitie (Regina Hall) have brought in a documentary crew to chronicle their comeback. Once riding high with a massive congregation, their Wander to Greater Paths Baptist Church is brought low by allegations of sexual misconduct against Pastor Childs.

The actual allegations are never overtly stated but it is obvious that the homophobic Pastor Lee-Curtis pursued young black men. His accusers were all young men. He wants to have anal sex with his wife. He hugs a former male congregant a bit too long and too strong. Pastor Childs even caresses the face of a young black documentary crewmember, until the crewmember tells him his boyfriend likes his facial hair. 

As Pastor Childs and "First Lady" Trinitie continue working to reopening WGPC they face various obstacles. Chief among them are the copastors of rival Heaven's House Church, where the majority of the Childs' congregation went to after the scandal. Heaven's House leaders Keon (Conphidance) and Shakura Sumpter (Nicole Beharie) are young and outwardly pleasant, but they too are pretty nasty people. Unwilling to move the opening day of their new church from Easter which conflicts with WGPC's reopening, the Childs now dive into more desperate methods to attract new congregants. Will the Childs' return to the top of the evangelical food chain, or will they fall on their faces?

Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul is a mockumentary in how the scenes are shot and in how the actors behave.  A good mockumentary has affection for its characters. A bad mockumentary has contempt for them. Honk for Jesus is squarely, flatly, decidedly in the latter category. Few comedies have gone as far out of their way to declare how much they hate their characters as Honk for Jesus does.

The thing about mockumentaries, especially good ones, is that the subjects are completely unaware of how they come across. We laugh but we also feel for them. There is a sweetness, an innocence in the characters' obliviousness and/or stupidity. No matter how awful their actions, how eccentric their behavior, how narcissistic their worldview, they at heart are not horrible people. Clueless, dim, perhaps delusional, but never mean.

Honk for Jesus has nothing but mean characters: vain, shallow, nasty, unpleasant, arrogant. Worse, they are overt about how awful they all are. Writer/director Adamma Ebo gives audiences no one to care for, no one to like, no one to root for. Instead, Ebo creates situations where even a former congregant that "First Lady" Trinite runs into turns into a bitch. 

I could not help wondering during Honk for Jesus if Ebo could not have toned down some of the characters' actions or made them more sympathetic. For example, instead of making the Sumpters this younger version of the Childs, Ebo could have made them eager young preachers, unaware of how their new success irritated their rivals. Ebo could also have made Lee-Curtis and Trinitie clueless about how their lavish lifestyle and wardrobe made them look to others. 

That, however, would require sympathy for the characters, which Ebo clearly did not have. There was a contempt bordering on hatred that blocked the viewer from caring not just about Lee-Curtis or Trinitie but even their five sole members. Trinite, ostensibly the most sympathetic of characters, apparently is undisturbed at the thought of buying a $2000 hat from Bathsheba's Bonnets (the name of the millinery being the only thing in Honk for Jesus that made me laugh). 

Ebo also directed the actors poorly. Each performance seemed a race to see who could play his/her character the most openly insincerely. Brown and Hall are good actors, but Honk for Jesus made them behave so broadly and overtly unpleasant that they came across as cartoons of cartoons. Brown at one point stripped to his underwear. We later see that it is to be baptized again, but his striptease seems to initially come out of nowhere that it makes Lee-Curtis look genuinely insane.

To be fair, it does allow Brown a chance to show off his incredible body, but I do not know if that was the purpose of this.

At times, Honk for Jesus forgets that it is a mockumentary and thinks it is a serious drama. I doubt, for example, that even for a documentary would we be allowed into the Childs' bedroom to see them attempt intercourse. Hall, at what is meant to be a serious dramatic moment when she breaks down, clearly was trying. However, it is hard to take Trinitie's meltdown seriously when she looks like a Kabuki actor in drag. 

Yes, I did laugh here, but it was funny in the worst possible way.

As a side note, while I have wandered through the world of evangelical Christianity, it was not until Honk for Jesus I learned of something called "Praise Mimes". I really do not know if this is a real thing in the African American church or something dreamt up for the film. Add to that my intense dislike for calling the pastor's wife "First Lady". They are starting to use this term at the church that I attend, and the pastor and his wife are Hispanic.

I simply cannot call her or any other pastor's wife "the First Lady". I think it is a silly term to use and will not submit to it. 

The imbalance between trying to be a funny mockumentary and a serious drama, the broad acting, the open hostility for the subject all combine to make Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul an unfunny film. There is no salvation to be found in Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. 

DECISION: F