Screened: In the theater
What a two-headed monster of a movie. The performances were pretty uniformly great, especially Thandie Newton and Kimberley Elise, but the monologues from the original stage work never gelled with Tyler Perry's dialogue or his script's tendency toward over-the-top melodrama. (Michael Ealy's character dropping his children out of the apartment window? Good grief.) Add to that the fact that various of the actresses had pretty clearly performed the work in some prior theater experience, giving the cadences of their readings of most of the monologues a disconcertingly stagy quality. I admire Perry for even trying to adapt the work for the screen, but this was kind of a glorious mess.
November 13: Oklahoma!; The Young Victoria
Screened: At home, DVR from TCM and Netflix Instant Watch
I spent the better part of this day having an epic neurotic meltdown, so this was my movie night. A soothing inoffensive-film-romance balm to my weary soul. Oklahoma! holds up pretty well for material that's nearly seventy years old, even if the dream ballet is really boring if you've seen it more than twice. And The Young Victoria is exactly the kind of British period romance that's useful to have around for woe-is-me weekends. (Although I always sort of wish the epilogue added some sort of title card about how Victoria and Albert's descendants messed Africa up. But I digress.)
November 22: Dead Presidents
Screened: At home, on HBO
I probably wouldn't have checked this movie out if my TV hadn't already been tuned to HBO. I always thought it was predominantly a heist movie that was emblematic of some of the issues of the post-Do the Right Thing/Boyz n the Hood "Will there be a Black film revolution? No? Okay, then!" moment in the mid-nineties. But I was pleasantly surprised to find a film that mostly mused on urban discontent in the Vietnam years, then in the last twenty minutes devolved into a heist movie that felt like it got edited in from somewhere entirely different. It's really interesting to read the comments on the movie's Netflix page - half say something like, "I thought this was a heist movie, what an interesting surprise!" and the other half are like, "I thought this was a heist movie, WTF?"
November 24: Burlesque
Screened: In the theater
Sometimes it's really nice to go to the movies and see a film that is exactly what it was advertised to be. Nothing more, nothing less. Just a cheesy-bordering-on-trashy "country girl dreams of stardom" movie. The movie benefitted from having as good a cast as they could've hoped for - where a lower-budget endeavor might have looked for a "Cher type" or a "Stanley Tucci type" or an "Alan Cumming type," here they actually had those actors, which made it as classy as possible within the constraints of the central premise of the film. A delightful trifle of a film - I envision errant cable viewings for years to come.
November 25: Babies
Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix
A totally perfect movie to watch while lying around like a beached whale after Thanksgiving dinner and dessert.
November 27: The Family That Preys
Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix
November 29: I Can Do Bad All By Myself; Madea Goes to Jail
Screened: At home, Netflix Instant Watch
I always sort of knew that being interested in race and cinema meant that I would have to familiarize myself with the Perry oeuvre sooner or later. To some extent, I land a bit on the Spike Lee side of the argument - like, "Some people like minstrel shows!" is not a valid response to criticism, Spike Lee knows some people like minstrel shows, it's central to the core premise of Bamboozled - but I respect the extent to which he's employed a lot of black actors who aren't getting a huge amount of work or attention in Hollywood, even if that employment is situated within some of the heaviest melodrama I've ever seen (and I own three seasons of Dynasty on DVD).
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