Friday, April 20, 2012
Film Your Lucky Weekend Avoiding These Movies
Posted by Jesse Hassenger on Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 9:46 AM
Think Like a Man: There are so few good roles for black actors in mainstream productions that even cheap-looking ensem-romcoms like this one can attract a deep roster of talented, attractive, and/or appealing performers: Taraji P. Henson, Regina Hall, Michael Ealy, Romany Malco, 30 Rock's Sherri Shepherd, stand-up comic Kevin Hart, black-ensemble-movie mainstay Gabrielle Union, future Gabrielle Union Meagan Good, and, ugh, Chris Brown, apparently in a hilarious cameo as a love-em-and-leave-em player. As long as we're thinking it's okay to hire abusive, delusional nonactor Chris Brown for movies, why don't we just include some winking references to his unhinged-asshole persona while we're at it?
Besides Brown, the biggest detriments working against that cast of people I'd see in a movie are less directly present, at least visually. First, there's Steve Harvey, whose self-branding as a sassily practical advice guru seems to drive the story; rather than using advice-book examples to inspire even-more-fictional situations, the characters in the movie are aware (and presumably in awe) of Harvey's best-seller and, based on the trailer, spend at least a few minutes explaining it to each other in between Harvey explaining it to everyone on staged talk-show appearances. I'm not sure why I find this off-putting—maybe sort of a don't-quit-your-day-job-except-you're-kinda-unfunny-at-your-day-job-too thing with Harvey, probably the weakest of the Kings of Comedy, offhand.
The other point against is visible if you look closer: director Tim Story, who made the charming Barbershop and the less charming Fantastic Four series. Although Think Like a Man reps a return to light comedy after his work as Fox's go-to action director who doesn't know how to direct action, it looks astonishingly cheap in the trailers—more like the stretched budget of Story's woeful action-comedy Taxi than, you know, attractive actors well-lit. [Taxi was among the very first movies I reviewed for The L. I advised: "Don't Tax-see this movie, because it Tax-sucks." -Ed.]
Chimpanzee: I'm sure the chimps in this movie are adorable, but once you've seen a chimp play hockey, watching them in the wild just isn't as exciting anymore. If anyone would like to test this theory, my VHS copy of MVP is available for borrowing.
The Moth Diaries: If I see any movie released this weekend, it will probably be Mary Harron's boarding-school horror movie, if only to encourage Mary Harron to make more movies [I don't think it's really up to her but I get your meaning. -Ed.] and to encourage more horror movies to be directed by cool people. Violet Lucca says it's not great, but says it has some visual kick, which I'm guessing many of the other weekend's releases lack.
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