Movie Review Princess and the Frog

Princess and the Frog (2009) 

Directed by John Musker, Ron Clements

Written by Rob Edwards 

Starring Anika Noni Rose, Bruno Campos, Keith David, Jennifer Lewis, Oprah Winfrey, Terrence Howard, John Goodman

Release Date December 11th, 2009 

Published December 10th, 2009

Many of you are of the classic tale of The Princess and the Frog. For the uninitiated, it's about a Princess who meets a frog. They kiss, he magically transforms into a handsome prince and they live happily ever after. Disney's take on this story transfers the settings to early 1900's New Orleans, and instead of having the frog turn into a prince, they turn a prince into a frog and then the princess as well.

It's 1916 and Tiana dreams of living out the dreams of her late father. He wanted to open a restaurant and serve the best gumbo in Nawlins. Tiana has worked day and night for years and has saved enough to buy just the right space. When she is invited to cater her rich friend Charlotte's costume ball it should give Tiana all the money she needs to buy her restaurant.

Also attending the party will be the selfish, self involved Prince Naveen. All the Prince wants is to dance, play jazz and meet pretty girls. Unfortunately for Naveen, he's broke. His parents have cut him off and if he cannot charm Charlotte into marrying him, he may have to do the unthinkable: Get a job.

Before the Prince can get to the party he and his squirrelly assistant Lawrence are accosted by a voodoo witch doctor called Doctor Facilier. It is Facilier who places the frog curse on Naveen while replacing him with Lawrence in his guise. Naturally, Prince Naveen and Tiana's paths will cross and in trying to reenact the fairy tale, Naveen passes along his curse to her.

What follows is a trip deep into the Louisiana bayou, an encounter with a friendly, trumpet playing crocodile, a brave Creole firefly and a visit to Mama Odie, a powerful voodoo priestess who may be able to reverse the curse. More important on this journey are a series of jazzy tunes courtesy of the legendary Randy Newman.

The Princess and the Frog marks a return by Disney to classic hand drawn animation, a genre they abandoned nearly a decade ago. The ascendance of Pixar and Shrek had rendered hand drawn animation a dinosaur and Disney was right to place its bet on Pixar, it may pay off with a Best Picture nomination for Up, but that doesn't mean there isn't a place for the classic style.

The Princess and the Frog makes a strong case for the warm, comforting lines and colors that hand drawn has always thrived on. Combined here in The Princess and the Frog with a welcoming story, wonderful characters and great tunes, we see the form revived.

Princess and the Frog doesn't compare to say any of the Pixar movies, it lacks the story sophistication of those remarkable films. As a film specifically aimed at kids, this is the kind of movie you want your kids to enjoy, if there isn't a Pixar movie to watch. The Princess and the Frog is sweet and funny with characters of conscience, bravery and loyalty. I take issue with the anti-feminist aspects of the story (why can't a woman be happy and accomplished without a man around?) but that stuff will go over the head of kids.

Race is another topic, on the fringe anyway, in The Princess and the Frog. The movie does not explicitly address race but it is notable that Tiana is the first African American Disney Princess. Beyond that, the film's main cultural ingredient is New Orleans with its unique mix of African American and French traditions.   

With great songs, terrific characters and some laughs, The Princess and the Frog is great family entertainment.

Movie Review Not Easily Broken

Not Easily Broken (2009) 

Directed by Bill Duke 

Written by Brian Bird

Starring Morris Chestnut, Taraji P. Henson, Kevin Hart, Wood Harris, Jennifer Lewis 

Release Date January 9th, 2009 

Published January 9th, 2009 

I think we can all be forgiven for mistaking Not Easily Broken for yet another Tyler Perry production. A serious minded drama about a middle class African American couple with marital problems who often turn to religion for answers. All you need is Madea head snapping her way through some life lessons and you have a typical Tyler Perry product.

If that sounds like a negative critique it's not meant as such. The fact is, Perry has grown as an artist over his relatively short feature film career and with his good heart and great intentions, any film would be lucky for the comparison. The makers of Not Easily Broken can be thankful for the comparison. Though the film is not as thoughtful and compelling as Perry's Why Did I Get Married? It has similar goals and ideals and comes close to the quality.

Not Easily Broken stars Morris Chestnut and Taraji P. Henson as Dave and Clarice, a married couple on the verge of divorce. After nearly 15 years of marriage the spark is gone and the couple spends most of their time arguing. Clarice can't stand that Dave spends so much of his time coaching a little league team in the inner city. He says he might be more inclined to stay home if he had a son of his own.

Clarice is making great money in real estate and feels that having a child would derail her career ambitions. The dispute is made worse when a car accident leaves Clarice with a shattered leg that will require a lot of time and therapy. The injury invites Clarise's overbearing mother, Mary (Jennifer Lewis) to move in to care for her daughter and further drive the wedge between husband and wife.

Mary has never liked Dave. Then again, as we learn throughout, she's never really liked any man since her husband ran out on her. To make matters more complicated, Dave develops an off work relationship with Clarice's physical therapist, a white woman named Julie (Maeve Quinlan) that could develop into something more than flirtation.

Julie has a son that Dave takes an interest in much to the chagrin of Clarice and the suspicion of even his closest friend, Brock (Eddie Cibrian), who has his eyes on the single mom.

Whether Dave and Clarise can save their marriage or if he might be better off with Julie is not so much the subject of Not Easily Broken as it is a plot point, albeit a dramatic plot point. What is of more interest to director Bill Duke is observing the little ways in which people who love each other can find ways to hurt each other.

Whether it's husband and wife, mother and son in  law, mother and daughter or just friend and friend, the people we care about are often the people who can hurt us the most. Duke observes this idea well even as it gives the movie a little bit of distance from a narrative drive that would make it more compelling.

In that way it's quite similar to Chris Rock's similarly themed I Think I Love My Wife. Both films are driven by the observation of behavior rather than in telling stories that are truly compelling in a classical movie fashion. There is nothing wrong with that approach except that it can leave many audiences expecting a plot that moves them along from one scene to the next wondering when something is actually going  to happen.

As this movie is based on a novel by the Reverend T.D Jakes, things do often come back to religion and director Bill Duke could not have chosen a more authoritative voice for the church than actor Albert Hall. In his brief scenes as the pastor who presided over Dave and Clarice's wedding and later as their counselor and confessor, Hall conveys wisdom and power with his words without being overbearing or relying on religious homily. It's a common sense approach that happens to be backed up by the moral force of religion.

Not Easily Broken is not a typical movie. The plot moves glacially and is more interested in the mini-moment than in moving audiences toward expected conclusions. The conclusions come eventually but they take a while. This will bore some audiences. However, if you're like me, you may be compelled by the little observations. You have to fill in a few of the blanks yourself to make the time pass and the film cheats a few times to score emotional points, but Not Easily Broken, for me, is a moving, well intentioned work of care and honesty.

Movie Review Madea's Family Reunion

Madea's Family Reunion (2006) 

Directed by Tyler Perry 

Written by Tyler Perry 

Starring Tyler Perry, Blair Underwood, Lynn Whitfield, Boris Kodjoe 

Release Date February 24th, 2006

Published February 25th, 2006 

One of the most memorable moments of my critical career was a conversation with a colleague about how I got sucked in by Tyler Perry's drag queen melodrama Diary Of A Mad Black Woman. While my fellow critic stared through me as if I did not have a head, I recounted that I was taken with Perry's broad comedy and earnest social concerns. 

My colleague was, to say the least, not of the same mind regarding Diary of a Mad Black Woman. She could not get past Perry's bizarre drag-queen grandma, who she felt was even less convincing than Martin Lawrence's big momma. I would compare Madea more realistically to basketball star Larry Johnson's Grandmama commercial character in terms of believability, but I was willing to look past the bizarre drag queen escapade and allowed myself to be sucked in by the film's good intentions and big heart.

A similar feeling overtook me a few times during Perry's new film, Madea's Family Reunion. Unfortunately, those good feelings were less frequent as Family Reunion breaks down too often into pure melodrama and forgets to mix in the broad comic persona of Madea who, despite her appearance, was a reliable comic foil in Diary of A Mad Black Woman. In Family Reunion Madea is too often on the sidelines and in the scenes she's not in, she is missed.

Though Tyler Perry's Madea character is the star in title, the film's two lead performers are Madea's troubled nieces Lisa (Rochelle Aytes) and Vanessa (Lisa Arindell Anderson). Lisa is engaged to an abusive lawyer, Carlos (Blair Underwood), who made her his object of obsession at the behest of her own social-climbing mother Victoria (Lynn Whitfield), who sees the marriage as a boon to her flagging social standing.

Poor Vanessa is estranged from Victoria and has moved with her two children into Madea's welcoming home. She has a tentative romance with a bus driver, Frankie (Boris Kodjoe), who has a child of his own and a strict faith in God. He's also an elegant artist who values Vanessa's talent as a poet. It's a romance almost too good to be true that is nearly undone by dark family secrets that keep Vanessa from getting too close to the earnest and loving Frankie.

The film is not content, however, with these two highly melodramatic storylines. Perry, who wrote and directed the picture, cannot help tossing in snippets of his Christian values and an uplifting pair of monologues from the majestic Maya Angelou and the legendary Cicely Tyson. In a pair of speeches bemoaning the lack of manners, good taste and pride in the modern african-american community, these two elegant voices of reason address the family reunion on the virtues of faith, love and self respect.

These are admirable moments, but they are out of place. They are tacked on and distract from the main storylines. The speeches, no matter how well delivered, suck the air out of the room and leave the once boisterous, occasionally cheesy, and over-the-top film gasping. Most egregiously these scenes do not involve Madea, whose homespun politically-incorrect wisdom might have avoided the burdensome weightiness of the speeches.

In fact most of the film longs for more Madea. The main storyline involving Lisa, Vanessa and Victoria flies off the handle and into Dynasty-style kitsch melodrama. Whitfield especially vamps like Joan Collins and bullies her way through scenes like a Joan Crawford impersonator screaming for wire hangers. The plot twists are wildly dramatic with each of the sisters suffering in Jovian proportions their harridan mother's abusive past and present.

These scenes cry out for Madea to take the edge off with her sharp insults and 'get over it or I'll slap it out of you' style. Madea is outsized and unbelievable, but Perry makes her the funniest and by far most compelling character in the film. This is not vanity either. Perry gives his actors ample room to establish themselves apart from Madea but no one, aside from Whitfield's camp villainess, is able to take the reins and make the picture their own.

It is bizarre to think that Madea's Family Reunion needed more of Perry's drag queen grandmother but the fact is that the film's one true virtue is Madea's broad comic presence. Every scene that Madea is not the center of, you search for her. During the ponderous speechifying she is spotted in the crowd but does not speak. As each of the sisters' stories unfold Madea is consulted, but unlike Diary which brought Madea into the action as the heroine's violent protector, Family Reunion only allows Madea the occasional consultation.

You wait to see Madea open up a can of sassy whoopass on either Underwood's pompous abuser or Whitfield's witchy mother, but it never happens. Instead, Perry tries to rely on his young actresses to carry the day and neither Aytes or Anderson steps into the limelight.

The film's most entertaining moments are, like it or not, Madea's. A storyline that is sadly discarded, quite early in the film, has Madea assigned as the foster mother to a troubled runaway played by Keke Parker. As the rebellious child attempts to show Madea who's boss, the matronly Madea turns things around quickly with a swift backhand and, later, her belt. This sounds more controversial than it is. Madea is a caring foster mother who turns the child's life around with her old-school brand of tough love.

The scenes with Madea and the child are too few but they crackle with vitality, humor, warmth and justice. Madea is hardcore, but that is what we love about her. She is the parent as raging id, indulging the kind of freewheeling discipline that many parents grew up with in their own homes, but had drilled out of them in the age of Dr. Spock and, now, Dr. Phil. In Madea's world a spank and a hug are not too far apart in showing a child you care. Her approach is refreshing.

Madea's Family Reunion lacks the spark and originality of Diary Of A Mad Black Woman but ,most of all, it lacks Madea. I am almost embarrassed to admit it, but once again Tyler Perry managed to charm me with his good-hearted drag performance. Campy, kitschy, borderline ludicrous--I cannot help but enjoy Madea's outsize personality and heart.

If the film was more Madea and less the road show of Dynasty, I could give this film a hearty recommendation. As it is, Madea's Family Reunion is a good-natured but highly flawed melodrama, sprinkled with big laughs, but lacking a true center.

Movie Review The Cookout

The Cookout (2004) 

Directed by Lance Rivera 

Written by Laurie B Turner, Jeffrey Brian Holmes 

Starring Queen Latifah, Jennifer Lewis, Storm P, Danny Glover, Ja Rule 

Release Date September 3rd, 2004 

Published September 4th, 2004 

Not being African-American myself it's difficult for me to complain about the way African-Americans are portrayed in the movies. Still I find the segmentation of black actors to be one of the most disturbing things about the movie business. It was something that crystallized with the release of the movie Soul Food in 1997. Hollywood took notice of that film’s breakout success and saw the potential of films with all black casts to make money only appealing to black people.

That's not an indictment of Soul Food, which did appeal to a number of people beyond African-Americans. It is the way that subsequent films of similar appeal have been so cynically made and marketed to African-Americans that I find disturbing. Hollywood marketers underestimating the savvy and intelligence of moviegoers began packaging cheap stereotypes and recycled clichés with all black casts in the hopes that the paucity of quality entertainment featuring African-Americans would draw in that segment of the audience. It is with that same cynicism that The Cookout reaches theaters.

Cobble together loose stereotypes under a banner of one big star (Queen Latifah) and just hope that at least black people will come and see it. The cynicism and dare I say racism that comes from that approach flows from the screen and what is supposed to be a comedy feels disturbing and uncomfortable to watch.

The film stars Storm P as basketball star Todd Henderson. Todd has just become the number one draft pick of the New Jersey Nets and is ready to celebrate. With his mother Emma (Jennifer Lewis) and dad JoJo (Frankie Faison), Todd is ready to throw a traditional Henderson family cookout at his brand new multi-million dollar pad. The place is perfect with a big backyard and Todd's expendable millions. This should be the best family cookout ever, but if it were that easy we wouldn't have a movie.

Todd has a new girlfriend Brittany (smokin hot Meagan Good) who complicates everything by getting on mom's nerves. Brittany was raised in the suburbs, obsessed with social climbing and has no idea what a cookout is all about. She does know how to spend Todd's money, on the decorating of the house, on fancy European chef's and expensive cars, and anything else that might drive Todd's mother crazy, especially since Todd and Brittany have no plans for marriage.

Todd's family is a collection of movie cliches so tired that they aren't worth mentioning other than to mention that Tim Meadows, Godfrey and Reg E. Cathey play various family members too dull to name. The supporting cast outside the family is actually quite good, especially Eve who plays Todd's childhood best friend who's grown a lot from the awkward girl he knew as a kid to challenge Brittany for his affection. Sadly, her part is very small.

The other good supporting role is that of the security guard played by Queen Latifah. Latifah is credited with writing the screenplay, which if true is mind blowing. Maybe she only wrote her part, which is by far the best thing in the film. Latifah gets all of the film’s big laughs, which are few and far between. The remaining supporting players are treated worse than the cliched family members, especially poor Danny Glover who sacrifices all dignity in a poorly written stereotype of a black man acting like an uptight white guy.

The less said about Ja Rule in the film’s unnecessary bad guy role the better. I would tell Ja to not quit his day job but his recent album sales leave him few options.

What Cookout really comes down to essentially are its two disparate lead performances by Storm P, real name Quaran Pender, and Jennifer Lewis. When I say disparate I mean they are two very different performances. Where Pender melts unnoticeable into the scenery while Lewis stands out and damn near makes this thing work with her sheer force of will. Lewis' role is an underwritten cliche, clipped together from pieces of other movies featuring domineering black mothers. Yet Lewis manages to make many of her scenes work. Were the film about her and not Storm P's character the movie might have had a chance.

Sadly, who am I kidding, this film never had a chance. Cookout is the cynical invention of a marketing department salivating at the opportunity to appeal to what they see as a reliable niche market. They aren't concerned with making good movies starring African-American casts, the studios simply want them cheap and fast with the thought that just having black people in starring roles is enough to draw small segmented audiences, just enough to make a little profit. Cynicism is bad enough but combined with racism as it is here it's disturbing.