Current mood: giggly
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities
Yo Kids :)
So, this past Monday night, my friend I. Lo got a few free passes to see "Something New" the new movie with Sanaa Lathan (from "Love & Basketball", "Brown Sugar" & "The Best Man" - all GREAT movies) & I, as a romantic comedy fan, can only give it rave reviews! The acting, writing & just the whole movie were pretty top knotch & it was such a well done film - I'm saying for the genre they were trying to market it in (African American comedies) - sometimes in those type of movies, mostly, the characters can seem more like caricatures than real people & this one, well, it goes beyond the genre & besides being a romantic comedy, it has a bit of intelligence in the writing & has something to teach & say about dating or trying to figure out if you're dating your one true love (not just interracial dating - but there's a lot of that too but done well because you're not beaten over the head with it -so, it's not overly preachy about it) - it ultimately, sends out the message that you need to go beyond your own "lists" in your head of who you should date, marry, love...
starts having an affair with this 16-year-old kid that they become friends with (the 16 year old was the lead actor in that WB drama, "Everwood", which I only know about b/c my former roommate's nephew used to watch it @ our apartment whenever he'd hang out with us...baha!) - just good acting from the standpoint of a man trying to keep his "perfect" world together after his wife betrays him ...anyway, Simon Baker has been around in Hollywood for awhile playing various character actor-y type of roles & did I already mention he's Australian? What is it about Australian actors? Why are they so compelling & just supremely masculine on the screen? Masculine in the way that they're just comfortable in their skins - not afraid to beAlso, I am completely in love with the lead actor, Sanna's love interest in the movie - his name is Simon Baker & I've been following him for awhile - he was the guy in "L.A. Confidential" that was the murder victim/ film idol who got killed in the beginning of the movie...he was also in that TV show a couple years back called "The Guardian" where he played a child advocacy lawyer that I used to catch off & on just to LOOK at him - he's pure eyecandy but he's also a pretty, damn good actor - just a couple months back I caught him in an indie flick off the Sundance Channel & he was in something called, "The Book of Love" where he played this English teacher that becomes devasted b/c his life goes downhill when he finds out his wife well, MEN? It's natural too, like his easy going nature in the film is probably the same in real life, too...I read his biography off of the IMDB site that he used to surf in Australia competively as well ...*sigh*...also, well, the man has been married for like over 10 years & has 3 kids...the good ones always are soooo committed...all, I know is that when I. Lo, her cousin, my best pal & me were leaving the theater we all had FALLEN in LOVE with him at the end of the movie - they just made him the perfect man...one more thing, you're also left not wanting to leave the characters - like you love them so much, you want to know more about them, - you care for them like they're really friends or people in your life - that is for damn sure a good movie when you care about the characters as if they were your own friends...
The writer of the movie, also writes for "Everybody Hates Chris" that new Chris Rock show & the producer of the movie, also produced the critically acclaimed "Hustle & Flow" ...they're all African American women & if you watch the movie you can tell that females wrote & directed the movie catering to female tastes (like the director has nice close-up shots of Simon Baker's biceps & then the writing, the speeches from him are like dream lines any girl wants to hear - plus, I won't give it all away but there's touching dialogue between Sanaa & the guy who plays her dad in the movie) ...anyway, I read somewhere the critic described it as a "good Harlequinn" romance...baha! Not quite Harlequinn but to me, more of a modern day fairytale & again, as a romance comedy fan, I wanted to buy my DVD copy of it right away when I finished watching it - so, yes I LOVED it that much...
So, if you won't take my opinion...here's a review that I've cut & pasted below that I thought was great, honest & touched upon a discussion I had amongst the girls after the movie, what it meant to us after seeing it...she couldn't have wrote it any better :)
Have a great Super Bowl Sunday too everyone...I'll be in Hercules celebrating my brother's bday for the Super Bowl party he's throwing all day tomorrow & also, I get to see how much little baby Kylee has grown in the past month...I can't wait :)
Take care,
El -
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Saturday, February 04, 2006
'Something New' offers black women the chance to see themselves
Leslie Gray Streeter / Cox News Service
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Chris Rock once joked that as a black man, he was born a suspect. And judging by most romantic Hollywood movies, black women are born sidekicks.
Or, even worse, nonexistent.
"As a human being, you want to see your experience on-screen, and they're too few and far between for us," says Sanaa Lathan, the top-billed and undisputed star of the nifty romantic comedy "Something New."
By "us," Lathan means educated, non-crazy, single black women. And she oughta know, because of the handful of those few-and-far-between movies made in the past five years or so,such as " The Best Man," "Love and Basketball" and "Brown Sugar," she's been in most of them.
So it's not surprising to find her in "Something New," playing an upscale career sister named Kenya who has a very long and rigid list of requirements for the perfect black Mr. Right, but finds herself in initially reluctant love with Brian, her very handsome, very rugged and very white landscaper (Simon Baker).
Even when she does meet the perfect black man, played by the perfect-looking Blair Underwood, she has to decide what's perfect, and what's perfect for her.
Opening herself up to date a white boy, Kenya's so-called "Something New," is "a metaphor for stepping outside of your comfort zones and the boxes you put yourself in," Lathan says.
But for me, the new thing is also finding the rare romantic mainstream movie where the "It" girl, the object of desire and adoration, and the most sought-after lady in the joint, happens to have brown skin.
This is notable, because in most romantic movies, the black woman is:
A) the secretary, maid or third-string buddy on hand strictly for moral support;
B) the sassy underprivileged homegirl at the community center or finger-snapping, "You go girl" comic relief who teaches the star to triumph over adversity, let her hair down, live free and love again;
C) tragic, misguided or destined to be rejected, brutalized or some sort of symbol that Julia Roberts or Sandra Bullock can learn from on their way to happiness;
D) sitting in the row in front of you eating nachos, because it's likely for dang sure she's not up there competing with Reese Witherspoon for a man.
Usually second banana
At this late and ridiculous date, Hollywood still cannot, with few exceptions, wrap its silly small mind around the concept of black women as worthy of being that non-second banana "It" girl. Yet here, deliciously, is "Something New," directed by first-time feature helmer Sanaa Hamri -- yes, she and her star have the same beautiful Swahili first name.
Both Sanaas, like Kenya -- and heck, like me -- are single, professional black women in their 30s, who don't think it's too much to ask to see themselves, or something close to themselves, on-screen.
"I wanted to (show) a woman who has a job, who just bought her house. Other characters are doctors, lawyers. There are no gangbangers," Hamri says.
"We're not used to seeing ourselves," the other Sanaa agrees. "We've seen one particular story of black people. It's getting better. But we have a huge rainbow of experience that we still usually don't see."
Look, I want the same things that my white counterparts in this crazy jungle of singlehood want -- a good man with his own teeth, his own place, a job with a tax ID number, a command of the English language and a minimum of drama. "Something New" gets a lot closer to my experience than your average Meg Ryan or Sandra Bullock flick, even though Sanaa Lathan is vastly more movie star perfect-looking than I will ever be.
And that's because "Something New" actually bothers acknowledging that I exist, or at least a thinner, richer, prettier version of me.
Think about it -- not even Halle "Drop-Dead Gorgeous Oscar Winner" Berry can usually get a man in the movies since she's busy being a sad, fragile tragedy magnet ("Monsters Ball"), nearly lasered to death by a power-mad evil genius ("Die Another Day") or brutally murdered and then licked back to life by a million stray cats, thus reincarnated with some weird kitty DNA ("Catwoman").
Kenya's world of cotillions and landscapers in "Something New," or even the Huxtables' Brooklyn brownstone existence on TV's "The Cosby Show," is much more upscale than mine, but it's a heck of a lot closer to me and most of the black people I know than, say, the gold-toothed country bumpkins in BAPS or the neighborhood hoochies in "Friday." It's not better or worse than the accepted norm. It's just different. And it's true.
And besides, if everyday white people are allowed to fantasize about wearing Jimmy Choos with Carrie Bradshaw or living in the O.C., then you need to back up off me. Now.
"Some people see "Something New" and think 'That's me!'?" says Hamri. "And when non-African-American audiences see it, they are educated. .?.?. The point is that we have to talk about the things we brush under the table."
And in her movie, Hamri's spread those things right smack in the middle of that proverbial table. Rich and pretty though she may be, Kenya has a lot of everyday black girl concerns. She doesn't want to talk about her weave, even though she knows she has one. She freaks at the prospect of getting her immaculate, straightened hair wet in a rainstorm -- "That's the worst! We all know that! And it was pouring. It wasn't just a mist," Lathan says.
More seriously, Kenya and her friends confront the disturbing statistic that almost 50 percent of black women never marry, maybe because the appropriate men are already married or incarcerated or dedicated bachelor commitment-phobes or gay or strictly into white girls.
Understand that I have no problem with interracial relationships -- I've been known to date a white dude or two myself, as there are too few nice professional, moral, non-crazy men without baggage going around for me to quibble over a little melanin. My problem is that sometimes in real life, and even on screen ("Save The Last Dance," "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?") black women are not the choice. And too often it feels like we're playing second fiddle to everybody. Can't you understand how profoundly and deeply that blows?
Kenya knows this. And even though she's gorgeous, and has everything going for her, she burrows into her high-thread count sheets in her fancy ZIP code afraid that she might wind up alone.
I want the same thing that Kenya and almost every other woman of any race that I know wants in life, and in our movie dreams. We want to be the first and adored choice of that someone, as Hamri puts it, "who fits you, no matter what. The message was not to go and date a white man (but) a universal message that you have to 'let go and let flow,' as the movie says and allow nature to take its course.
"If I couldn't get that across, I didn't do my job right," Hamri says. "Brothers have said they liked the movie. I wasn't dissing Blair's character. He was a great guy who may fit (Kenya) on paper. But does he fit her heart? .?.?. It really is about love."
We all want that love. We want to be the star, and not the sidekick, in our own little movie, where the flowers are always for us, where we're not picked by default and where, when the credits go down, it's us walking into the sunset with the stirring musical montage.
Currently reading:
Little White Lies : A Novel of Love and Good Intentions
By Gemma Townley
Release date: By 29 March, 2005
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