Premise: An inner-city mom finds out she has family in Georgia and travels to meet them. She also has to struggle with the burden of being a single mother with three children, including a teenage son who is tempted by friends to follow a wrong path in life.
Stars: Angela Bassett * Tyler Perry * Rick Fox * David Mann * Lance Gross
Story: Brenda (Bassett) is a single mom living in Chicago with three kids, including teenage son Michael Jr. (Gross) She struggles to keep her kids in a safe, loving environment with a positive focus on the future. She gets laid off from work, and as the father of the children is a deadbeat dad with another family, he refuses to support her. She is about to hit rock bottom when a letter arrives, telling her of her father whom she never met as well as her new relatives. Before traveling to Georgia for the funeral, she meets Harry (Fox) a nice man who has discovered Michael Jr.'s basketball skills and wants to coach him.
When she arrives in Georgia, she meets the eccentric family, including L.B. (Mann) who wears flashy clothes, is a prima donna and preacher, as well as other members of her father's family. Harry also lives in the area and begins to romance her. She inherits a house, but leaves to take her kids back to Chicago where she believes things will better. After Michael Jr. starts to fall into drug-dealing and gambling, he gets shot - causing her to change her mind. She returns to Georgia at the end of the film.
Review: The movie is predictable. An inner city drama as well as the appeal of black families and eccentric characters, the film combines many elements popular in urban movies. That notwithstanding, Angela Bassett puts in a solid performance as a single mother trying to do right by her children. It's familiar pap, but it's a nice positive film.
Overall: Mediocre
Links: IMDb * Wikipedia * AllMovie * Rotten Tomatoes
Showing posts with label dramedy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dramedy. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Georgia Rule (2007)
Links: IMDb * Wikipedia * AllMovie * Rotten Tomatoes
Premise: A rebellious daughter is packed off to live with her grandmother when her mom can't control her any longer. As she stays in the country, the daughter reveals her pain and learns to move forward.
Stars: Jane Fonda * Felicity Huffman * Lindsay Lohan * Cary Elwes * Dermot Mulroney
The story: Rachel (Lohan) is a rebellious daughter who's broken the final straw: wrecking a new car given to her by her stepfather. Her mother Lily (Huffman), an alcoholic and also self-destructive, takes her from California to Idaho, to live with her grandmother Georgia (Fonda).
Once there, the rebellious teenager flirts and tries to seduce two men, Harlan and Simon. Harlan, presented as a young, naive and innocent Mormon about to go on a two-year missionary trip, falls victim to her big-city charms. Simon, more experienced and wiser in the ways of the world, resists her charm and remains true to his nature.
She also struggles with inner demons - being molested by her stepfather (Elwes) - and learns to move beyond the past with the assistance of Harlan, Simon and her grandmother. When she reveals the truth, her mother leaves her husband and comes back, attempting to reconcile with her daughter. But, being miserable herself, she continues drinking.
Eventually, all three come together as Lily discovers the truth when Arnold gives Rachel his prized Ferrari as a bribe to keep quiet.
Review: Sold as a comedy and a feel-good movie, this film is about incest and sexual abuse. If it did not have the approach of Garry Marshall - it's advertised as being 'from the director of Pretty Woman and The Princess Diaries' (both of which are decent) - and was taken as a serious drama film, it might have been worth watching. Instead, moments that are designed to be humourous are distracting and badly misplaced.
Fonda is nice, but given the role of a rock as Georgia, there's not much more than the 'crusty old country grandma/mom' the role calls for. Huffman is definitely wasted, and Lohan proved she was on a downward spiral. If her attempts at seduction are supposed to be humourous, again, they do a disservice to the film, but they are laughable - terribly unfunny but laughable.
I wonder what a serious take on this idea could've looked like.
Overall: Bad.
Premise: A rebellious daughter is packed off to live with her grandmother when her mom can't control her any longer. As she stays in the country, the daughter reveals her pain and learns to move forward.
Stars: Jane Fonda * Felicity Huffman * Lindsay Lohan * Cary Elwes * Dermot Mulroney
The story: Rachel (Lohan) is a rebellious daughter who's broken the final straw: wrecking a new car given to her by her stepfather. Her mother Lily (Huffman), an alcoholic and also self-destructive, takes her from California to Idaho, to live with her grandmother Georgia (Fonda).
Once there, the rebellious teenager flirts and tries to seduce two men, Harlan and Simon. Harlan, presented as a young, naive and innocent Mormon about to go on a two-year missionary trip, falls victim to her big-city charms. Simon, more experienced and wiser in the ways of the world, resists her charm and remains true to his nature.
She also struggles with inner demons - being molested by her stepfather (Elwes) - and learns to move beyond the past with the assistance of Harlan, Simon and her grandmother. When she reveals the truth, her mother leaves her husband and comes back, attempting to reconcile with her daughter. But, being miserable herself, she continues drinking.
Eventually, all three come together as Lily discovers the truth when Arnold gives Rachel his prized Ferrari as a bribe to keep quiet.
Review: Sold as a comedy and a feel-good movie, this film is about incest and sexual abuse. If it did not have the approach of Garry Marshall - it's advertised as being 'from the director of Pretty Woman and The Princess Diaries' (both of which are decent) - and was taken as a serious drama film, it might have been worth watching. Instead, moments that are designed to be humourous are distracting and badly misplaced.
Fonda is nice, but given the role of a rock as Georgia, there's not much more than the 'crusty old country grandma/mom' the role calls for. Huffman is definitely wasted, and Lohan proved she was on a downward spiral. If her attempts at seduction are supposed to be humourous, again, they do a disservice to the film, but they are laughable - terribly unfunny but laughable.
I wonder what a serious take on this idea could've looked like.
Overall: Bad.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Sweet Home Alabama (2002)
Links: IMDb * Wikipedia * AllMovie * Rotten Tomatoes
Premise: A girl who fled the countryside to make something out of herself in New York City has to return home to clear up some skeletons in the closet before getting married.
Stars: Reese Witherspoon * Patrick Dempsey * Fred Ward * Candice Bergen * Josh Lucas
Review: Overblown hyperbolic caricatures surround the three main cast members - Dempsey, Witherspoon, and Lucas. Witherspoon - a capable actress given the right script and cast (Fear and Legally Blonde are perhaps her best roles, imo) - is given little to play off in Dempsey's character, leading the audience to know from the start which way her heart leads. It doesn't help that her skeleton - a husband she left some seven years ago in what can only be an allusion to 'The Seven Year Itch' as the time difference played no realistic role in their relationship - is a husband who was also her childhood sweetheart.
Lucas plays the country-born jilted ex-lover to a great degree, but literally has no chemistry with Witherspoon. Dempsey - the fiancee - does little besides act as a cause for Witherspoon's bickering with Lucas.
Add in stereotypes: the gay country lad who hides his secret but then is outed by one of his supposed 'best friends' during a drunken tizzy; the bar/pool scene with Sweet Home Alabama by Skynyrd in the background; the fat man with a supposedly comic mullet; the childhood friend who's now the local sheriff; the big-city mayor with a secret bias against country-folk; the old faithful hound dog who died while the main character was gone and his replacement; the husband's got a secret passion that's moving him beyond his country roots; the father with a penchant for Civil War re-enactments; the giving mother who dreamed of bigger things for her daughter than being stuck in BFE.... there are more.
It's like the writers just grabbed different items that sounded good, threw them in a blender and hit frappe'.
Overall: Bad
Premise: A girl who fled the countryside to make something out of herself in New York City has to return home to clear up some skeletons in the closet before getting married.
Stars: Reese Witherspoon * Patrick Dempsey * Fred Ward * Candice Bergen * Josh Lucas
Review: Overblown hyperbolic caricatures surround the three main cast members - Dempsey, Witherspoon, and Lucas. Witherspoon - a capable actress given the right script and cast (Fear and Legally Blonde are perhaps her best roles, imo) - is given little to play off in Dempsey's character, leading the audience to know from the start which way her heart leads. It doesn't help that her skeleton - a husband she left some seven years ago in what can only be an allusion to 'The Seven Year Itch' as the time difference played no realistic role in their relationship - is a husband who was also her childhood sweetheart.
Lucas plays the country-born jilted ex-lover to a great degree, but literally has no chemistry with Witherspoon. Dempsey - the fiancee - does little besides act as a cause for Witherspoon's bickering with Lucas.
Add in stereotypes: the gay country lad who hides his secret but then is outed by one of his supposed 'best friends' during a drunken tizzy; the bar/pool scene with Sweet Home Alabama by Skynyrd in the background; the fat man with a supposedly comic mullet; the childhood friend who's now the local sheriff; the big-city mayor with a secret bias against country-folk; the old faithful hound dog who died while the main character was gone and his replacement; the husband's got a secret passion that's moving him beyond his country roots; the father with a penchant for Civil War re-enactments; the giving mother who dreamed of bigger things for her daughter than being stuck in BFE.... there are more.
It's like the writers just grabbed different items that sounded good, threw them in a blender and hit frappe'.
Overall: Bad
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