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| | For Colored Girls |  |
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Shale
...is a Chamber Royal.
Join date : 2010-09-27
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| | Subject: For Colored Girls Sat Nov 06, 2010 8:48 pm | |
| For Colored Girls
Movie Blurb by Shale
November 6, 2010
Altho I have missed a lot of Tyler Perry's movies exploring black-American culture, I had planned to see this one because it is from a classic play, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf, written in poetic prose by Ntozake Shange in 1974. OK, I've never seen the play, nor read the verse, but I was around in 1974, exploring cultural changes in New Orleans - including new intimate exposure to black people, which was still frowned upon by the mainstream. I remember seeing a poster for the play at my artist/musician friend Katrina's French Quarter warehouse apartment in the late '70s but paid it little attention at the time.
Finally it has come to the big screen and I felt obliged to see this moment of American social history. Since I planned to see it I ventured to read the local review by Rene Rodriguez in The Miami Herald - who pretty much panned it with one star out of four and a headline "Great play is suffocating as a movie." So, I checked Rottentomatoes online and his assessment was consistent with the aggregate reviewers, only 32% of whom liked the movie. However, 77% of moviegoers liked it, which makes me think that professional reviewers overthink movies and make the error of comparing movies to written works or plays. They are different media!
I am seeing this movie freestanding. I know nothing of the play or the prose. I went to see it because of the list of current black actresses involved.
Anika Noni Rose, Kerry Washington, Janet Jackson, Kimberly Elise, Phylicia Rashad, Loretta Devine, Tessa Thompson, Thandie Newton.
My only expectation was that it would be dated (altho Shange updated the play on its 20th anniversary to include the new venereal disease - AIDS). Much of the monologue from the play was in the script but the movie set and technology was modern. It gave me a sense of the 1997 Leonardo DiCaprio Romeo & Juliet which was set in modern LA but delivering Shakespeare's lines.
I invited my 40-something daughter Rosalyn and 20-something granddaughter-in-law Taisha to see it with me. I figured it would be of interest to them, even tho the original play was before both their times. However, a lot of the problems for colored girls in the '70s still exist today.
Colored Girls Consultants
As I suspected they and I are with the majority of audiences that liked this movie. Taisha said she loved the way the characters were all linked in some way. She also said it should not be considered just for colored girls but for all women. I ran down some of the history of the moment for them, the new feminism that was emerging in the '70s and especially its impact on black women when this poem was written. I also explained how this was originally portrayed as a play with only women doing the lines on a minimalist stage. Much of that could be sensed when the women delivered these words, altho there was now dialogue given to the males in the movie.
Rosalyn said she enjoyed the poetic prose but Taisha felt that less poetic monologue would have communicated better to young black girls. I guess that is the difference in communication over the generations and as a movie I agree the dialogue could have been in common vernacular.
This is a story of black female experience as told thru nine different protagonists whose lives intertwine around the Harlem tenement where many of them live.
Gilda the Bldg Sup (Phylicia Rashad)
This R-rated movie has some tense and sad moments as it explores many common problems of alcoholism, abuse, rape, sexually transmitted disease and looking for love in all the wrong places. | |
| | | | Shale
...is a Chamber Royal.
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| | Subject: Re: For Colored Girls Sat Nov 06, 2010 8:50 pm | |
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| | | | GrayWolf
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| | Subject: Re: For Colored Girls Sat Nov 06, 2010 9:13 pm | |
| Opened at #3, grossing 21 mill. | |
| | | | Nystyle709
...is a 20G Chamber DIETY.
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| | Subject: Re: For Colored Girls Sun Nov 07, 2010 4:37 am | |
| I was going to see this on Friday....but then I knew that since it was opening weekend, the theaters would be crazy. I'm going to catch the matinee on Thursday. Hopefully I can watch the movie without any side commentary or interruptions. It looks really good.....and like I said a while ago....Tyler Perry has really been stepping his game up as a filmmaker. I was never a big fan of the Madea antics and his movies in the beginning, but he's grown on me. I hope this film shows that he's gotten even better. | |
| | | | Chris
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| | Subject: Re: For Colored Girls Sun Nov 07, 2010 6:56 am | |
| - Nystyle709 wrote:
- I was going to see this on Friday....but then I knew that since it was opening weekend, the theaters would be crazy. I'm going to catch the matinee on Thursday. Hopefully I can watch the movie without any side commentary or interruptions. It looks really good.....and like I said a while ago....Tyler Perry has really been stepping his game up as a filmmaker. I was never a big fan of the Madea antics and his movies in the beginning, but he's grown on me. I hope this film shows that he's gotten even better.
I expect FCG to have a bit of a different flair, if only because this one isn't based on one his plays. Still, he did write the screen play, so I don't know. I started to go see it tonight, but decided to wait until next week. | |
| | | | Nhaiyel
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| | Subject: Re: For Colored Girls Mon Nov 08, 2010 7:38 pm | |
| I both appreciate and tire of the fact that when it comes to TP movies, you cannot trust critic's reviews. You really have to see it and decide for yourself if it was worth it. I will see it on Thursday, because that is the next day that I am off. | |
| | | | alter_native
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| | Subject: Re: For Colored Girls Tue Nov 09, 2010 3:14 am | |
| It really isn't on my Must See list but I'll see it eventually. I think I've seen all of Tyler Perry's films. | |
| | | | Nystyle709
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| | Subject: Re: For Colored Girls Thu Nov 11, 2010 7:14 pm | |
| Okay, I've seen it. And I'm guessing that the critics will just always have this penchant for panning any Tyler Perry movie. This movie was good. Great adaptation of the play and I would recommend anyone to go see it. What I didn't like about it was that it did have the 'Tyler Perry preachy monotones' throughout the flick, but you can get past that. Didn't make me cry like everybody said it would, but I was definitely gripped by one part of the film. When you see it, you'll definitely know what I'm talking about. Overall, I give it a B+. | |
| | | | Shale
...is a Chamber Royal.
Join date : 2010-09-27
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| | Subject: Re: For Colored Girls Thu Nov 11, 2010 7:53 pm | |
| - Nystyle709 wrote:
- ... What I didn't like about it was that it did have the 'Tyler Perry preachy monotones' throughout the flick, but you can get past that. ...
This was the first Tyler Perry movie I have seen and just read that all his movies began as plays, so maybe there is a pattern here but I was assuming the monologues were from the original author.
The play was based on 20 poems by Ntozake Shange. From a review by Melissa Anderson; "...Her play, touted at the time as 'a celebration of being black and being woman,' is a collection of 20 prose-poems punctuated by dance and music and performed by a cast of seven women on a spare stage, each identified only by the color of her dress. Recounting rites of passage (losing one's virginity), horrors (rape, domestic violence), and pleasures (intellectual and carnal), Shange's text, whether seen live or read silently, soars with the power and precision of her language."
I could enjoy the poetic prose as did my 40-something daughter, but the 20-something woman with us found it too distracting from the rest of the movie. I can agree with that. The verse seemed a bit out of context in the movie, where it would have been the play. | |
| | | | Nystyle709
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| | Subject: Re: For Colored Girls Fri Nov 12, 2010 7:22 pm | |
| The monologues are from the original author, but it was the way they were presented. Tyler Perry has a penchant for being 'preachy'. Watch any of the rest of his movies and you'll know what I'm talking about. | |
| | | | RiteDiva
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| | Subject: Re: For Colored Girls Sun Nov 14, 2010 3:34 pm | |
| Saw it a few days ago and thought Janet was the weakest link here. She had her moments were she was bad, ok and good but never great. I think the best lead performances in this film were given by Kimberly Elise, Anika Noni Rose, Phylicia Rashad and Loretta Devine (though Devine pretty much played the same character she's been playing for the last 15 years.) Dare I say also that it's a blessing that Mariah pulled out of this movie, because there is no way I could see her playing Tangie. Thandie Newton was just perfect for that role. | |
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