August Home Video Roundup
Not a great month for new(ish) video rentals, unfortunately, though I have been catching up on plenty of TV show box sets (Mary Tyler Moore, Angel, Buffy. I think I'm giving up on Clamp's X, though, even though I'm more than halfway through -- it's totally a show where after the first three or four episodes you know exactly where it's going, and exactly how it's going to end, and then have to sit through a maddening 7 more discs before you get there). Also finally saw The Specials (sort of a wittier, lower-budget Mystery Men) starring Rob Lowe and Thomas Haden Church, which I found enjoyable (warning to Melissa Joan Hart fans: she's only it for all of forty seconds. Warning to Melissa Joan Hart haters: Melissa Joan Hart's in it).
On to the new(ish) movies!
Off the Map (dir. Campbell Scott, wr. Joan Ackermann) - Actor Campbell Scott's directorial debut, unfortunately, is notable only for the fact that it is actor Campbell Scott's directorial debut. His story about a tax-dodging Wilderness Family (Joan Allen, Sam Elliot, Valentina de Angelis) (remember The Wilderness Family? That shit used to be on tv ALL the time! Now it's NEVER on. I haven't seen that movie on TV since maybe 1989. Also, Pipi), the IRS guy (Jim True-Frost) who is sent to track them down, gets stung by a bee, decides to live with the family and inexplicably become an artist was all over the map (sorry) thematically. I get the sense that Scott wanted to make a subtle, ensemble, alt-family drama, but never really got a handle on what this movie was actually about. I know I certainly did not.
Diary of a Mad Black Woman (dir. Darren Grant, wr. Tyler Perry) - I saw this movie for the exact same reason I suspect a lot of people wound up seeing this movie: I wanted to see if it really was as bad as I'd heard. My conclusion is: yes, it is. But it's also a little more interesting than most people are giving it credit for.
Yes, the humor (courtesy one multiple-role-playing, cross-dressing Tyler Perry, whose character Madea is the subject of many a highly-popular stage production, all written by Perry himself) is unbelievably corny, vaudevillian at best, and it's made all the more awkward because it is completely tacked onto an extraordinarily self-important and melodramatic story -- Kimberly Elise plays Helen, the titular "mad black woman" (and it's "mad" as in angry, though she does have her moments, and completely contrary to popular wisdom, not to mention common sense, that the titular character is in fact Madea, and it's "mad" as in "insane", which Madea gleefully is, and I love grammar, don't you?) is left by her husband (Steve Harris) for a white woman - will she ever learn to love again? (It's Shemar Moore so, you know, duh) -- which is derivative of any number of Terry MacMillan novels or every Lifetime movie, ever (and don't even get me started on that final scene of the movie, derivativeness-wise). It's like simultaneously watching two completely separate movies, with the "serious" plot infitely funnier than the "comedy".
Much of the criticism/discussion of the film that I read dealt with how unfunny the film was (yes), how derivative it was (yes), and whether or not such-and-such characters are or are not incredibly offensive racist stereotypes (possibly, though no more so than Eddie Murphy in any of his Klump roles, or the very existence of Chris Tucker), but I don't think anything I've read deal with what this movie is actually about: forgiveness. And when the final act of forgiveness comes, it actually comes against the wishes and expectations of the Madea character, and I'd imagine against those of much of the audience as well. In this sense, I find it very interesting the way that Perry portrays Madea as a sort of vox populi, even as Perry the writer subverts even his own expectations. It's a complex dynamic in a film that celebrates actions which are radical in their very Christian-conservativeness.
I don't recommend the movie, because on top of it being very corny and unoriginal, it is also just plain not very good. I'm just saying, don't believe everything you read.
On to the new(ish) movies!
Off the Map (dir. Campbell Scott, wr. Joan Ackermann) - Actor Campbell Scott's directorial debut, unfortunately, is notable only for the fact that it is actor Campbell Scott's directorial debut. His story about a tax-dodging Wilderness Family (Joan Allen, Sam Elliot, Valentina de Angelis) (remember The Wilderness Family? That shit used to be on tv ALL the time! Now it's NEVER on. I haven't seen that movie on TV since maybe 1989. Also, Pipi), the IRS guy (Jim True-Frost) who is sent to track them down, gets stung by a bee, decides to live with the family and inexplicably become an artist was all over the map (sorry) thematically. I get the sense that Scott wanted to make a subtle, ensemble, alt-family drama, but never really got a handle on what this movie was actually about. I know I certainly did not.
Diary of a Mad Black Woman (dir. Darren Grant, wr. Tyler Perry) - I saw this movie for the exact same reason I suspect a lot of people wound up seeing this movie: I wanted to see if it really was as bad as I'd heard. My conclusion is: yes, it is. But it's also a little more interesting than most people are giving it credit for.Yes, the humor (courtesy one multiple-role-playing, cross-dressing Tyler Perry, whose character Madea is the subject of many a highly-popular stage production, all written by Perry himself) is unbelievably corny, vaudevillian at best, and it's made all the more awkward because it is completely tacked onto an extraordinarily self-important and melodramatic story -- Kimberly Elise plays Helen, the titular "mad black woman" (and it's "mad" as in angry, though she does have her moments, and completely contrary to popular wisdom, not to mention common sense, that the titular character is in fact Madea, and it's "mad" as in "insane", which Madea gleefully is, and I love grammar, don't you?) is left by her husband (Steve Harris) for a white woman - will she ever learn to love again? (It's Shemar Moore so, you know, duh) -- which is derivative of any number of Terry MacMillan novels or every Lifetime movie, ever (and don't even get me started on that final scene of the movie, derivativeness-wise). It's like simultaneously watching two completely separate movies, with the "serious" plot infitely funnier than the "comedy".
Much of the criticism/discussion of the film that I read dealt with how unfunny the film was (yes), how derivative it was (yes), and whether or not such-and-such characters are or are not incredibly offensive racist stereotypes (possibly, though no more so than Eddie Murphy in any of his Klump roles, or the very existence of Chris Tucker), but I don't think anything I've read deal with what this movie is actually about: forgiveness. And when the final act of forgiveness comes, it actually comes against the wishes and expectations of the Madea character, and I'd imagine against those of much of the audience as well. In this sense, I find it very interesting the way that Perry portrays Madea as a sort of vox populi, even as Perry the writer subverts even his own expectations. It's a complex dynamic in a film that celebrates actions which are radical in their very Christian-conservativeness.
I don't recommend the movie, because on top of it being very corny and unoriginal, it is also just plain not very good. I'm just saying, don't believe everything you read.
posted by mike. at 10:35 PM
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