The Screengrab : gabrielle union

Unwatchable #69: “The Perfect Holiday”

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Our fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.

Folks, I’m taking the rest of 2008 off the Bottom 100 beat. I need a break and there’s no time like the holidays, am I right? Your regularly scheduled Unwatchable series will resume in the new year, and there can be no doubt 2009 will be one for the history books as we count down the 57 worst movies of all time. But before I call it a year, we have a bit of catching up to do. As you may dimly recall, I had to skip #69 on the list because it was not yet available for home viewing at the time. That excuse has expired, so it’s time for a very special Christmas edition of Unwatchable: The Perfect Holiday.

For the most part, this is your basic, run-of-the-mill holiday warmedy tailored for African-American audiences. Beautiful, well-to-do Nancy (Gabrielle Union) is raising three kids on her own since divorcing hip-hop star J-Jizzy (Charlie Murphy), and all she wants for Christmas is a man under the tree. OK, not literally under the tree. Really, she’d settle for a compliment from a nice fella with no shady ulterior motives. Her daughter informs a department store Santa of this wish, little realizing that under the snowy white beard is a suitable nice fella, songwriter Benjamin (Morris Chestnut).

For reasons that eluded me, Benjamin passes himself off as an office supply salesman as he first compliments, then woos Nancy, much to the chagrin of eldest son John-John (Malik Hammond), who holds out hope of his parents getting back together. We know there’s not much chance of that happening, as J-Jizzy is a self-absorbed, womanizing jackass who can barely be bothered to cobble together a quickie Christmas album. His producer Delicious (Katt Williams) doesn’t smell a hit single until he accidentally plays a demo tape submitted by Benjamin. The tape contains a treacly holiday ballad that would make Lionel Ritchie weep hundred dollar bills, so J-Jizzy rings up Benjamin and offers him a recording deal. Benjamin is excited until he realizes he’s talking to Nancy’s ex-husband and sitcom-ish complications are about to ensue.

So far so bland, but on the family holiday movie scale, there’s nothing out of the ordinary to justify The Perfect Holiday’s place in the Bottom 100. Except…I haven’t mentioned Queen Latifah and Terrence Howard, have I? Well, they’re in the movie too, although I’m not sure I could tell you why. I guess they’re angels or magical elves or…some sort of shape-shifting Greek chorus, anyway. They keep appearing in different guises – security guards, hot dog vendors and such – and Latifah even introduces a little magical realism into the proceedings late in the game. She’s one of the movie’s producers, so I can’t stop her.

Still, that’s hardly enough to warrant a spot as one of the 100 all-time worst, particularly with an appealing and funny supporting cast (notably Murphy, Williams, and Faizon Love) to distract from the ongoing sappiness. The past couple of years alone have seen far worse Christmas movies, including The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause and the deadly Vince Vaughn duo of Fred Claus and Four Christmases. While channel-surfing the other night I came across that atrocity with Ben Affleck and James Gandolfini’s big scary beard. Surely that would have been a very special holiday Unwatchable for us all to enjoy. Ah well, fear not – cinematic sewage galore awaits us in the new year.

Previously on Unwatchable:
58. Ed
59. Don’t Go in the Woods…Alone!
60. Carry On Columbus
61. Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Movie
62. Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie

Chick Hits: The Girl Power Top Ten

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:00:00 GMT

After the big screen edition of Sex & The City exceeded the low expectations of industry gurus who were shocked...shocked...to discover that people were actually interested in a movie about, y'know, gurlz, Missy Schwartz wrote a depressingly familiar story for Entertainment Weekly: “It was an unqualified triumph...one the industry observed in a stunned, slack-jawed state. As the weekend rolled to a close, news outlets filed their reports with words like unexpected, surprising, and shocking. ‘What do you know?’ they all seemed to be saying. ‘Women go to the movies!’”

And if Sex and the City 2 (or The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 or Mama Mia!) or any other female-centric movie succeeds in the near future, Hollywood will be surprised all over again, and Entertainment Weekly and other publications will run similar articles about the American movie-going public’s "unexpected," "surprising" and "shocking" desire for strong female characters...a desire Hollywood will more or less continue to ignore as it continues its relentless pursuit of teenage boys, no matter how many Speed Racers crash and burn along the way.

Because, after all, many studio execs are just overgrown boys themselves. They dig gadgets, explosions and special effects, and CGI creations are easy to control and merchandise. Female-centered movies tend to rely on well-written screenplays, relatable characters, nuanced direction and...yecccch...feelings: all the things most studio execs pretend to champion but secretly hate.

But we here at The Screengrab aren’t afraid to get in touch with our feminine sides as we raise our Cosmos to these Top Ten “chick hits”: films that put their empowered female characters front and center (without resorting to stripper poles OR big gauzy Prince Charming/Bridezilla wedding porn).

THELMA AND LOUISE (1991)

Okay, so I’m not sure how empowering it is to drive off a cliff in real life, but this Ridley Scott film (based on an iconic script by wunderkind, zeitgeist-tapping Academy Award-winning screenwriter Callie Khouri) caused a sensation upon its release by (A) objectifying Brad Pitt as a hunky slab of beefcake (thus electrifying and pretty much launching his career) and (B) allowing Susan Sarandon’s Louise to gun down the scumbag who was raping Geena Davis’ Thelma (and later blow up the truck of a leering male chauvinist pig) without even feeling all that bad about it, just like any number of male actors in any number of male-centric revenge fantasies...except in films like Dirty Harry, Death Wish, Taxi Driver, etc., the male heroes didn’t have to die in the end to satisfy Hays Code-style notions of karmic retribution for stepping outside the lines of acceptable social conduct. Still, the film’s outlaw motif energized female audiences by (melo)dramatizing the common stereotypical perception of men as either (a) dangerous assholes or (b) hapless boobs while providing enough action and sex to attract audiences of every gender.

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA (2006)

There’s a beloved feminist koan that goes something like this: ruthless, aggressive men who go after what they want are called winners, while ruthless, aggressive women are called bitches. Of course, most thinking people realize that ruthless, aggressive men are actually called assholes...and it’s the universal, gender-blind nature of the eternally confusing success vs. happiness equation faced by Anne Hathaway’s aspiring fashionista “Andy” Sachs that helped to make the film version of The Devil Wears Prada a $300 million dollar monster hit. And, let’s see...two seconds of Googling and...yep! There’s a TMZ article from 2006 with a, shall we say, certain familiar ring to it: “Blah blah blah, female-centered film exceeded all expectations...yadda-yadda-yadda...industry analysts surprised,” etc., etc. etc. As Meryl Streep’s formidable Gordon Gekko-in-stilettos magazine mogul Miranda Priestly might say to those industry Suits who stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the existence of fifty percent of their audience, “Details of your incompetence do not interest me.”

BRING IT ON (2000)

This broadly played late-summer sleeper is actually packing a lot of heavy metaphorical lumber for a teen flick about a cheerleading competition. Kirsten Dunst is the new head of the Toros, who cheer for the (rich, white) Rancho Carne High School in Los Angeles; they're gearing up for the national championships, which they've won the past six years with the spectacular routines provided by departing team leader Big Red. But when a new girl with a gymnastics background and an attitude -- Eliza Dushku, who was too cool for Buffy the Vampire Slayer's school -- joins the squad, she has unsettling news. It turns out that Big Red was stealing her plays from the fly girls who cheer for the (black, poor) East Compton Clovers, thus making the Toros the cheerleading equivalent of Pat Boone to the Clovers' Little Richard. Dunst actually does her best to rationalize this cultural parasitism rather than destroy her cheerleading institution overnight, but the situation becomes intolerable after the Clovers attend a Toros game and mock their blonde plagiarists by performing the stolen moves in the stands. In the end, both teams attend the finals and show that they can use their brains and talents to compete honorably on the field of battle. There is, however, one scene that shows that contemporary standards of empowerment may be thornier, and weirder, than is commonly acknowledged. Dunst offers the Clovers, who have been prevented from attending the national competition by financial hardship, the chance to come by talking her father into getting his company to sponsor them, but the head Clover (Gabrielle Union) contemptuously rejects the offer, telling Dunst that they don't need her charity; they'll raise the money themselves, their own way. Their own way turns out to be going on an "Oprah"-like TV show and raising contributions by guilt-tripping viewers with their tale of woe. I guess it's honest labor and not charity if it helps "Oprah" kill an hour.

JACKIE BROWN (1997)

Such '70s blaxploitation films as Coffy and Foxy Brown may have made Pam Grier a cult star, but it was always a degraded form of stardom, and not just because the movies were cheap genre knockoffs; she may have had the chance to show that she could hold the camera and kick ass in the final reel, but she still also had to get her top ripped off before being raped by guys who looked like the Ku Klux Klan's answer to Uncle Fester, while being called things like "this big-jugged jigaboo." Jackie Brown catches up with Grier more than twenty years down the road, when she's at an age when Hollywood regards actresses as disposable. It's not a great age to be a flight attendant, either, which is why Jackie is working for a low-grade Mexican airline and acting as a courier for Los Angeles-based gun dealer Ordell Robbie (Samuel L. Jackson). Both Ordell and the federal agents setting up a case against him regard Jackie as a pawn who can easily be taken out of play at any moment. But -- and here's the key difference between this and Grier's '70s vehicles -- the movie respects her. The way she looks through Tarantino's lens, you sort of picture the camera shuffling its feet nervously as it tries to work up the nerve to ask her if she's been seeing anybody lately. And so Ordell, whose fearsomeness would cut him a lot more ice in a different Tarantino movie, is reduced to a comic figure; for all his bluster and firepower, his assumption that the middle-aged black woman with the low-paying job must be a bit player (which Jackie will use against him, and against the feds, too), makes him ridiculous. The only man in the movie who can see Jackie for what she is remains Robert Forster's bail bondsman Max Cherry, who, unlike the film's younger, strutting cocks, lacks the ego and capacity for self-deception that might get in the way of his seeing clearly what's in front of him. Tarantino included a riff (borrowed from Jules Feiffer's The Great Comic Book Heroes) on the arrogance of Superman in the second Kill Bill film, and Jackie Brown is in some ways a black, female Superman fantasy, except that Jackie doesn't have to put on a pair of eyeglasses to trick the dull-witted into thinking she's no match for them.

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (1992)

Long before Joss Whedon was a small-screen institution, he was just a fresh-faced young script doctor with a dream. That dream was to create a richly detailed fantasy world featuring nubile teenage girls. Sure, you’re saying: how does that make him any different than millions of other guys? Here’s how: his nubile teenage girls kicked ass. And not just any ass, but demonic vampire ass! Within a decade, Buffy the Vampire Slayer would find its way onto television and prove a major cult hit, giving the country a brand new definition of girl power and adding an entirely new dimension to teen angst as Buffy Summers and her Scoobies battled monsters and bloodsuckers at Sunnydale High. But it all started with this low-budget big-screen number. Whedon, once he’d decided he was a highbrow auteur, more or less disavowed the Buffy movie, but in many ways, it holds up a lot better than people give it credit for: it doesn’t take itself so deadly serious, it has tons of terrific comic turns from Paul Reubens and Stephen Root in supporting roles, and while Kristy Swanson’s Buffy may not carry the emotional weight that Sarah Michelle Gellar’s did, she looks mighty fine in a half-shirt, and she furthers the cause of female empowerment the way only a vampire slayer can. She’s rough, she’s tough, and she maintains her keen fashion sense: what could be more feminine than that?

Click here for Part Two!

Related Posts: Girl DisemPowering: Nine Films That Didn't Do Feminism Any Favors (Part One & Part Two)

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Phil Nugent, Leonard Pierce

Unwatchable #99: “The Honeymooners”

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:30:00 GMT

Our fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.

The kernel of almost any bad movie is a really terrible idea, and at first glance it appears that 2005’s big screen version of The Honeymooners fits the bill. It reeks of a concept dreamed up in a corner cubicle at Paramount Pictures by a junior development executive desperate to hang onto his job. “I’ve got it!” he shouts, jumping up from his chair and dumping his coffee all over his never-used keyboard. “The Black Honeymooners! Eddie Murphy IS Ralph Kramden! Chris Rock IS Norton!”

Alas, the junior executive’s dream cast fails to develop, and eventually it is Cedric the Entertainer who tries to fill the Great One’s shoes, with Mike Epps as his long-suffering sidekick. As The Honeymooners opens, it is 1999 and Brooklyn bus driver Ralph Kramden (Mr. Entertainer) is putting his “Bustin’ Loose” moves on passenger Alice (Gabrielle Union). He unveils the first of his get-rich quick schemes: a Y2K Survival Kit that’s sure to make him millions when the new year arrives and everything comes crashing down.

Six years later, Ralph and Alice are married and living in a dumpy apartment. Sadly, Ralph’s anticipated global chaos never arrived, so he’s busy with new and even more ill-fated schemes while Alice works at the diner and dreams of home ownership. A little old lady is selling her duplex, which would be perfect for the Kramdens and their neighbors, Ed and Trixie Norton (Epps and Regina Hall), but a slimy developer (Eric Stolz) has his eyes on the property as well. With the help of Jon Polito and John Leguizamo, Ralph and Ed pin all their hopes on a greyhound they find half-dead in a dumpster. Can this abandoned stray win the big race, or is Ralph doomed to a life of sharing a small apartment with Gabrielle Union?

Drained of all that hilarious domestic violence humor that might prove upsetting to a modern audience (Ralph’s “To the moon, Alice!” is transformed into a lovey-dovey sweet nothing), The Honeymooners is a decidedly mediocre but good-natured family comedy that has no business being on the Bottom 100 list. Ralph says it best: “You just a regular UPN sitcom, huh, Alice?” It’s true that the comedic stylings of Mike Epps are so low-key as to be undetectable to the human eye, but Cedric the Entertainer has his effectively blustery moments. And of course, where there’s Polito, there’s quality. In the tradition of Burt Reynolds’ greatest contribution to cinema, the end-credit bloopers prove to be the movie’s high point. Still, I’ve seen at least 100 worse family comedies in my capacity as movie janitor for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, so The Honeymooners rates only a single Maury.

Previously on Unwatchable:

100. Devil Fish