The glitzy new musical version of “The Color Purple” maintains the talking points of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and Stephen Spielberg’s Oscar-nominated film adaptation, but adds in a touch of old Hollywood glamor and rousing gospel, blues and jazz songs.
Set in Jim Crow era rural Georgia, Fantasia Barrino reprises her role from the Broadway stage to play Celie Harris, a timid young woman whose life is marred abuse and separation from loved ones. Impregnated by her father when she was just a teen, her baby is given away. Later, when she is shipped off to live with the abusive Albert Johnson (Colman Domingo), a man she is forced to call “Mister,” she is disconnected from her beloved sister Nettie (Ciara).
The cruel and overbearing Mister tells his terrified wife she’ll never see her sister again and blocks any communication between the two. “Whatever I say, go,” he tells her.
Isolated from everything she has ever known, she perseveres through strength of will, the power of imagination and the friendship of the indomitable Sofia (Danielle Brooks) and flamboyant blues chanteuse Shug Avery (Taraji P. Henson).
Reimagined as a period drama with a healthy dose of magic realism, the new “The Color Purple” is a journey of self-discovery and triumph over adversity as Celie opts to take agency over her life and not be a docile victim. Despite her trauma, she has an eye to the future, hope and, above all, resilience.
Barrino plays Celie as soft-spoken, allowing the songs, like the moving “Superpower,” to stand out, fuelled by cathartic, powerhouse performances. The role is a weighty one, a stand-in for the evolution of many marginalized people, but this version of “The Color Purple” is an emotional Broadway-style crowd pleaser that turns Celie’s ordeal into a journey of empowerment.
The addition of musical weaves joy into the story.
Director Blitz Bazawule allows Celie’s flights of imagination to temper the story’s built-in oppressive tone. The film’s opening scene, featuring Mister playing banjo, while his horse’s hoof clomps keep time, is subtle, while a scene in which Shug, (a terrific Henson), takes Celie to the movies, becomes a luscious Art Deco fantasy reimagination of the song “What About Love?” It is lavish and lovely.
In terms of staging, one show stopping scene sees Celie sing to Shug while perched atop of spinning gramophone record. It’s a blast of old-school Hollywood glamour that cleverly demonstrates Celie’s use of imagination as a coping mechanism.
This isn’t the “The Color Purple” of old. Boldly stylized, it embraces humor, music, imagination and leaves some space for Mister’s redemption and a slightly more explicit depiction of the relationship between Celie and Shug than in the previous film version. More than anything, though, it is a tuneful, joyful journey from powerless to empowered, from heartbroken to healed that is sure to entertain and inspire in equal measure.
As the “PAW Patrol” franchise enters its 66th year—that’s in dog years—it shows no signs of slowing down. A new film, “PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie,” based on the canine first responder characters from the wildly successful Canadian kid’s show, now playing in theatres, is a big story about a small pup.
Featuring an all-star voice cast, the begins with a meteor crash in Adventure City. “It’s giving off some kind of energy,” says Ryder (Finn Lee-Epp), the leader of the PAW Patrol. The mysterious meteor imbues the PAW Patrol pups with superpowers, like super strength, elasticity, super speed and the ability to manifest fireballs. “Great, now the clumsy pup shoots fireballs out of his paws.”
For seven-year-old cockapoo Skye (Mckenna Grace), the smallest member of the newly dubbed Mighty Pups, the new powers finally levels the playing field, giving her the chance to make up in super strength what she has always lacked in confidence and size.
When Humdinger (Ron Pardo), the ex-mayor of Adventure City, and his Kitten Catastrophe Crew escapes from prison and teams with meteor expert and supervillain Victoria “Vee” Vance (Taraji P. Henson) to steal the superpowers, the Mighty Pups must fight back to save their city and possibly the world.
“When you go up against one of us, you go up against all of us,” Ryder tells Vance.
“PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie” is bigger and louder than 2021’s “PAW Patrol” or the television show. Returning director Cal Brunker pumps up the action, creating a sort of Marvel movie for the preschool set. Colourful action scenes will grab kid’s attention, but the spirit of cooperation, and messages of over-coming obstacles and never judging a book by its cover, that lie at the heart of the “PAW Patrol” franchise are never far away.
Voice work from Kim Kardashian, Chris Rock, Lil Rel Howery, Kristen Bell and James Marsden is solid, but Henson is having all the fun here. Her villain—don’t call her a “mad scientist”—is a blast, funny and fearless, she steals every scene she’s in.
“PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie” maintains what made the TV show so appealing for kids, but also has enough gags aimed at parents to round out the experience for the whole family.
Not since the Three Stooges has nonsense been this much fun. Over five movies, the frantic, Tic Tac-shaped Minions, the silly sidekicks to former supervillain Gru (voiced by Steve Carell), have brought the most kid friendly anarchy to the screen since Curly said, “Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk,” for the first time.
Their new movie, “Minions: The Rise of Gru,” now playing in theatres, sets a new standard for silliness.
Set in 1976 San Francisco, the story begins with awkward twelve-year-old Gru and his dream.
“There are a lot of villains in the world,” he says, “but I am going to be a supervillain.”
To make his evil wish come true, he interviews to become a member of the world’s top outlaw team, the Vicious 6. But, he is not taken seriously. At all.
“I am pretty despicable,” Gru says proudly. “You don’t want to cross me.”
“Evil is for adults who steal powerful ancient stones and wreak havoc,” says Belle Bottom (Taraji P. Henson), the newly-appointed head of The Vicious 6, who took over from the former, recently deposed Wild Knuckles (Alan Arkin). “Not for tubby little punks, who should be at school learning, taking a recess and sucking his thumb! Come back when you’ve done something evil to impress me!”
To prove he’s got what it takes to be a supervillain, Gru steals something near and dear to the peach-pit sized hearts of the Vicious 6, their prized Zodiac Stone. Instead of impressing Belle Bottom, the theft turns her against Gru and his loyal Minions. With the mad, bad and dangerous to know Vicious 6 on their tail, Gru is kidnapped by Wild Knuckles. “My favorite villain is also my kidnapper,” marvels Gru. “This is going to be a great opportunity if you don’t kill me.”
Cue the Minion mayhem.
“The Minions: The Rise of Gru” provides fans of the franchise exactly what they want, no deep thoughts, just sublime silliness.
If you want to get all film critic-y about this, I suppose you could say the leitmotif is that of sweetly-inspired mayhem that follows the Minions wherever they go. But this isn’t a movie with layers of subtext or loads of diegetic elements. There is a denouement, a resolution to the story, but why overthink this? It’s short, fast and stupid, with an easily digested message of, as Armistead Maupin always says, finding your logical, not biological family. Or, as Gru says, “find your tribe and never let them go.” More zesty than arty, it’s made for kids, who I’m sure will gobble it up, while parents sit patiently through the 85 minute runtime with visions of the Three Stooges dancing in their heads.
At the end of “The Best of Enemies,” a new historical drama starring Taraji P. Henson and Sam Rockwell, we meet the real-life inspirations for the characters. Like so many based-on-a-true story films that have come before it, it feels as though a documentary about the actual folks would have been more enjoyable than the recreation.
Set in 1971 North Carolina, Henson plays Ann Atwater, an African-American civil rights activist. Her group, Operation Breakthrough, aids local people with legal advice, housing and a multitude of other social concerns. It’s an uphill battle. Atwater often finds herself at odds with the openly racist town council. One member even turns his chair away when Atwater speaks. Providing unofficial support to the council is good-old-boy C.P. Ellis (Rockwell), president of the town’s KKK chapter.
When the council rules to send Black kids back into an unsafe school the NAACP gets involved, forcing the council to bring the issue before a community charrette, essentially a ten day a meeting in which town folk on both sides of the problem come together to debate. Community organizer Bill Riddick (Babou Ceesay) chooses two unlikely co-chairs, Atwater and Ellis. Both are unsure if they can work together but the stakes are too high on either side for them to decline the invitation. “Riddick is about to hand the keys to school integration,” says town official Carvie Oldham (Bruce McGill), “and you are going to lock the door.”
After a tense start the sworn enemies find common ground. Despite her personal feelings for Ellis, Atwater responds to his family situation with empath and compassion. Ellis begins to acknowledge the frustration and helplessness of the people he has held in such little regard for his entire life.
“The Best of Enemies,” comes with the best of intentions. Writer-director Robin Bissell details the lives of the two main characters but, it must be asked, How, in a movie about school integration, is the focus on Ellis? It seems tone deaf to present a story of integration in schools that features a climactic speech by a KKK president. Ellis’s life is presented in detail. We learn about his family life, business and spend time inside several KKK gatherings, including one where he is named the region’s Exulted Cyclops. Trouble is, we don’t get the same info on Atwater. Henson does an admirable job of breathing life into the character but Atwater is more or less treated like a supporting player in her own story.
It’s not to say “The Best of Enemies” doesn’t have some interesting moments. Civil rights icon Howard Clement (Gilbert Glenn Brown) delivers a stirring speech detailing a parent’s love for their child, adding “our kids have a whole different menu of pain to deal with.” In smaller moments like that the film’s message of bridge building and empathy ring loud and clear. It is just a shame that this historically significant tale suffers from a skewed POV and predictable plotting.
Given the movie’s subtext “Ralph Breaks the Internet” could have been called “Ralph Wants You to Think About the Ramifications of Internet Usage.” Not as catchy, I’ll admit, but amid the fun and games the sequel to “Wreck-It Ralph” is a strong message about the dangers of Internet culture.
It’s been six years since we met Wreck-It Ralph (voice of John C. Reilly), a disgruntled video game character who demanded respect. This time around the action begins when the steering wheel controller on the Sugar Rush game console breaks. “It might be time to sell Sugar Rush for parts,” says Stan Litwak (Ed O’Neill), owner of Litwak’s Family Fun Center & Arcade.
Before Litwak unplugs the machine Ralph and the game’s racer Vanellope von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman) rescue Sugar Rush’s characters by moving them to other games.
To get the game up and running Ralph and Vanellope hit the Internet, using the Arcade’s wifi to explore the net in search of a replacement steering wheel. They find the wheel at eBay, trouble is, they don’t have any money. “I left my wallet at home,” Ralph tells the eBay cashier. “In the wallet room and the door is locked!”
When they befriend Shank (Gal Gadot), a racer in Slaughter Race, their problems seem to be over. The violent racing game overs a source of money but as Shank’s influence on Vanellope grows Ralph worries that his friend is drifting away.
“Ralph Breaks the Internet” is at its best when it’s subversive. The colourful animation, coupled with an imaginative take on what it would be like to be inside the internet—eBay is an actual auction house, and “likes” are sucked up by a vacuum cleaner—will make eyeballs dance but it’s the messaging that is memorable. Woven into the story are clever lessons on toxic friendship, how insecurity can infect a relationship like a virus on the computer and the dangers of obsessing about getting likes on social media posts.
Even better is a scene where Vanellope, while visiting OhMyDisney.com, stumbles into the Disney Princess break room. Here the film makes fun of Disney’s bread-and-butter, the stereotype of the princess. “Do people assume all your problems get solved because a strong man came along?” Fans of the first film know that Vanellope is a reluctant princess, preferring the title president. Her, among her spiritual sisters, she helps them shed some of their stuffy weays and they help her along the way to figuring out her path in life. “I stare at the important water and all of a sudden I start singing about my problems? I don’t think so,” Vanellope says, bursting one of Disney’s most familiar princess tropes.
The princess scene is a highlight in a film that has laughs but isn’t exactly a comedy. It’s more a heartfelt examination of friendship—“It’s not right to hold a friend back from her dreams.”—with some wild cartoon action and satire.
“Ralph Breaks the Internet” is a very specific story about two animated characters that illuminates universal themes from the real world.
The title “Hidden Figures” has a double meaning, On one hand it refers to the mathematical calculations that went in to making John Glenn the first American man into space in 1962. On the other hand it describes Katherine G. Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, three African-American NASA mathematicians who did many of those calculations. “They let women do things at NASA,” says Johnson, “and it’s not because we wear skirts, it’s because we wear glasses.”
Taraji P. Henson is Katherine Johnson, a math prodigy who can, “look beyond the numbers.” At the beginning of 1961 she, and her two car pool pals, mathematician Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and aerospace engineer Jackson (Janelle Monáe), were working in the segregated West Area Computers division of Langley Research Center.
With just weeks before the launch each are singled out. Johnson’s genius with analytic geometry lands her a spot with the Space Task Group to calculate launches and landings. Vaughn takes over the programming of the new IMB computer and Jackson works with on the Mercury capsule prototype.
Each face hurdles do to their race. When Johnson first walks into her new, shared workspace, one of the men hands her an overflowing garbage can. “This wasn’t emptied last night.” Personnel supervisor Mrs. Mitchell (Kirsten Dunst) thinks Vaughan is too aggressive in her requests for a supervisor’s position and Jackson, despite her degree, is told she can only become a NASA qualified engineer if she attends classes at a local, segregated high school. “Every time we have a chance to get ahead,” Jackson says, “ they move the finish line.”
The film focuses on Johnson but by the time the end credits roll all three have risen above the societal challenges placed on them to make invaluable contributions to the NASA space program.
“Hidden Figures” is a feel good, crowd pleaser of a movie. Based on true events, it portrays an upbeat version of the past. It’s set in the same time frame as “Loving,” Jeff Nichols’ recent look at the legalization of interracial marriage, but values broad moments over Nichols’ more nuanced approach. A blend of history and uplift it is occasionally a bit too on the money—“We are living the impossible,” says Jackson’s boss Karl Zielinski (Olek Krupa)—but engages with its subject and characters in an entertaining and heartfelt way.
Henson is the movie’s center and soul. Even when she slips into slapstick while doing extended runs to the “Coloured Bathroom” in a building located blocks away from her office. Those scenes are played for comedy but make an important point about the treatment of African American people in a less enlightened time.
Monáe is a feisty presence and Spencer brings a hard-earned dignity to Vaughan. In the supporting category Kevin Costner does nice, effortless work as Al Harrison, head of the Space Task Group.
“Hidden Figures” details a little known but vitally important part of American history. It’s a good-hearted look at a time of great change both in the macro—American cultural shifts in the space race and in terms of race—and in the micro universe of how African American women made their mark at NASA.
The internet helped Ben Affleck land the role of Nick Dunne (Affleck), the prime suspect in his wife Amy’s (Rosamund Pike) disappearance, in this weekend’s mystery thriller Gone Girl.
Director David Fincher told Playboy he’s very concerned about what facial expressions actors can bring to his movies so when casting Gone Girl he imagined a scene where Nick Dunne smiles while standing next to a poster of his missing wife.
“I flipped through Google Images and found about 50 shots of Affleck giving that kind of smile in public situations,” Fincher told writer Stephen Rebello. “You look at them and know he’s trying to make people comfortable in the moment, but by doing that he’s making himself vulnerable to people having other perceptions about him.”
There is already Oscar buzz surrounding Gone Girl’s actors. Chris Nashawaty of Entertainment Weekly called Affleck’s work “the most natural performance of his career,” while Digital Spy’s Simon Reynolds said Pike’s performance, “should bag her an Oscar nomination come awards season.”
Fincher’s careful casting has bagged Oscar nods for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’s Brad Pitt and Taraji P. Henson, Rooney Mara of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Jesse Eisenberg of The Social Network.
The director has an unerring eye when it comes to casting, but it’s not always a smooth process. When he signed on to direct The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo he had actress Rooney Mara in mind to play hacker Lisbeth Salander. She won the role, but not before auditioning five times and beating out better known hopefuls like Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson and Jennifer Lawrence. “We didn’t make it easy for Rooney, and there was no way to dissuade her.”
Recently Fincher walked away from a big budget remake of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea when the studio rejected his casting choice Brad Pitt or Channing Tatum in favor of Chris Hemsworth.
One of the director’s best-known films, Se7en, starred Kevin Spacey as serial killer John Doe who offed his victims in the order of the Seven Deadly Sins. He’s fantastic but he wasn’t Fincher’s first choice. The director wanted Ned Beatty, a shorter, rounder character actor who starred in Deliverance and Nashville. “He should look like a postman,” said Fincher. Beatty turned down the role—“This is the most evil thing I’ve ever read,” he said.—opening the door for Spacey. Trouble was, Spacey wanted too much money. It wasn’t until star Brad Pitt intervened and called the studio to ask that Spacey be hired. The moral of the story? “It pays to be blond,” says Fincher.
The idea of turning self-help books into movies isn’t new. Fifty years ago Helen Gurley Brown’s guidebook “Sex and the Single Girl,” which featured advice on “How to be Sexy,” among other useful tips, was made into a film starring Natalie Wood and “Mean Girls” was an adaptation of the high school survival manual “Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughters Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence.”
So the idea of the 2012 farce “Think Like a Man” based on Steve Harvey’s best-selling book, “Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man,” wasn’t a stretch.
But now a sequel? The question is: How do you conjure a second story out of a book with no plot? Set it in Vegas and let Kevin Hart do all the heavy lifting.
The idea of Harvey’s tome is to give women an inside look into the workings of the male psyche and take control of their relationships. It’s typical battle of the sexes stuff and on film they play it for laughs.
The four couples from the original movie— Maya and Zeke (Meagan Good and Romany Malco), Dominic and Lauren (Michael Ealy and Taraji P. Henson), Jeremy and Kristen (Jerry Ferrara and Gabrielle Union) and Tish and Bennett (Wendi McLendon-Covey and Gary Owen)—plus the almost single Cedric (Kevin Hart) reunite in Las Vegas—“The number one destination in the world for people who do the craziest thing… get married.”—for “Think Like A Man Too.”
They’ve gathered for the wedding of Candace (Regina Hall) and Michael (Terrence Jenkins) but you know as soon as someone says, “I’m going to give you the perfect wedding… nothing is going to go wrong,” that, of course, everything is going to go wrong. The romantic getaway is jeopardized when the bachelorette and bachelor parties spin out of control.
“Think Like a Man Too” plays like a tamer version of “The Hangover.” There’s even a cameo from a world champion boxer but “TLAMT” doesn’t have the cynical edge of the Bradley Cooper movie. Instead, it plays it safe, making Sin City look like a wild but not terribly dangerous place to get married. All the usual Vegas clichés are well represented, from the gambling montage to the glaring neon lights to flaming cocktails to skimpy bikini-clad women to male strippers. What happens in Vegas also happens in the movies… quite often. The only thing missing is an Elvis impersonator or two.
Director Tim Story moves the story—what there is of it—along faster than a spinning roulette wheel. Montages and music video interludes keep the pace up, disguising the fact that there isn’t much going on. The story is thin, despite the multiple storylines crisscrossing throughout.
Kevin Hart seems to be trying to singlehandedly make up for a dearth of story by pulling out all the stops. No pratfall or face pull is beyond him. He even recreates Tom Cruise’s “Risky Business” underwear dance. His hyperactive performance stands in stark contrast to the more laid back work from his co-stars, but it does add a splash of life to every scene he’s in. Only his enthusiastic reading of a line like, “I’m sick of this non-tourage,” could pull laughs from some of this material.
“Think Like a Man Too” is a thin story bolstered by a few laughs (courtesy of Hart) and good-looking people navigating the choppy waters of modern romance. The advice contained within has more Hart than actual heart and is unlikely to provide much self-help, but has the same kind of bland appeal as its predecessor.
Well, instead of directly basing the story on comedian Steve Harvey’s non-fiction bestseller “Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment” the movie uses the book as a springboard.
The book appears alongside four women—Mya (Meagan Good), Candace (Regina Hall), Lauren (Taraji P. Henson) and Kristen (Gabrielle Union)—who are using the self-help tome to better understand their men–Zeke (Romany Malco), Michael (Terrence J), Dominic (Michael Ealy) and Jeremy (Jerry Ferrara). Of course the men figure out what’s going on and pick up the book and get in on the game.
Despite playing a bit like an infomercial for Steve Harvey’s book, “Think Like a Man” is a funny and charming. It’s a bit overlong, a tad too theatrical, has too many overlapping stories—any one of the four relationships could have been a stand-alone rom com—and a predictable sitcom ending, but the cast fights to overcome the pigeonholes they’re saddled with—Mama’s Boy, The Woman Who Is Her Own Man—and turn the movie’s negatives into, if not exactly positives, then at least elements that don’t bring ruin the good natured romp on display.
The key player here is Kevin Hart, who serves as narrator and comic foil throughout. He doesn’t so much act as he does “deliver” his lines, but his over-the-top style livens up what might have been a much more by-the-book rom com.
“Think Like a Man” purports to be about modern relationships but the battle of the sexes seems a bit old fashioned, but there are consistent laughs all the way through if you can look past the stereotypes.
