I was changing channels and went past some skinny blond b*tch tryna sing. It looked like a big production, and I wondered what big show would have some chick on there that wouldn't even make it through an American Idol audition.
Turns out it was that chick Taylor Swift at the Grammy Nominations Concert. WTF???! A number one album, tons of accolades and awards, and that b*tch sings like Kim on Real Housewives Of Atlanta? I'm tellin' ya, YT has huge balls of steel...it is the same syndrome that has folkses going bananas over Britney's Spears' comeback.... sometimes I hate America...
Adding to my surliness is the fact that I'm in Oakland, and it has been cold as a polar bear's weenie. Los Angeles it ain't.
Anyhoo, rant over, on to Black Cinema stuff...
Here is the plot to "Beverly Hills Cop Part 4" if you care. From Filmwad:
That new partner is Goodwin, a fat rookie with low self-esteem who has a crush on a lady cop in the facial recognition department. When he's not solving the mystery of who tossed Billy out the window, Axel is playing matchmaker with these two. He's also teaching Goodwin how to be a better cop. It's like the Axel Foley Finishing School.
Along with Goodwin, Axel teams up with a limo driver named Elliot, who is the wise cracking comic relief. You wouldn't think you would need comic relief in an Eddie Murphy movie, but Axel Foley has no funny lines. I don't know if Brandt and Haas wrote the character unfunny to give Eddie room to ad lib or if they just think having him drop f-bombs every third line is the height of laughs, but Axel Foley is pretty much a Terminator in this movie. He just keeps moving forward no matter what like a shark in the water trying to find out who killed Billy.
From IW: There was more, but I fell asleep before I finished reading it.
First take Billy Dee Williams, who slowly walked around the movie and mumbled all of his lines like he was in a Colt 45 stupor.

Add Rae Dawn Chong, whom I haven't seen in years, looking like 10 miles of bad road, as they say.
Combine Hill Harper giving these weird, long, pensive looks to everyone, a convoluted storyline about a woman who was intensely in love with a man for 50 years but never let him see her, despite his begging, Melissa De Sousa with 13 packs of Yaki, and poor YT Lesley Anne Warren looking completely lost and uncomfortable.
Add extremely liberal amounts of sap, dramatic "feel melancholy" string music, tons of drawn out sentimental flashbacks, and once promising Glenn Plummer playing "Man At Barbeque" and you have this movie.
I should mention that the film is about an estranged family who reunites to attend a funeral of a relative (Gabrielle Union). Secrets are revealed, broken relationships are mended, forgiveness is given, and everyone is healed, except the viewer, who has lost 2 valuable hours of their life.
Can I say what is the deal with Gabrielle Union? I have no problem with her, but her acting is so very, very lightweight, and I've never seen her seem genuine, even for a second. But she's always working, so I guess I have to give her some credit. I guess.

0 comments:
Post a Comment