Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with another look at some of the flicks from BNAT... another attendee fell all sorts of in love with Craig Brewer's BLACK SNAKE MOAN... as he should have. That movie is what the kids call "teh awesome." Enjoy the reviews!
Hey Harry, Kijo here, I’m stilll recovering from the body rape that was BNAT. What a line-up. I was happy with every film that played and ecstatic with each of the premieres. There wasn’t a bad one and you’ve got a lot to live up to next year. I thought I’d write in a couple of reviews for the new films that played, seeing as most of the readers have seen the vintage ones. I’ll start it off with the festival opener… BLACK SNAKE MOAN ignited the audience’s passion and started out BNAT with a positive bang. Some dickhead has inevitably already made the comment, “What’s Sam Jackson’s deal with snakes and shit!?” This movie has nothing to do with snakes in the literal sense. I don’t want to give too much of the plot away but it opens on Rae (Christina Ricci) going freakaleek to the extreme with JT-Lake. We are then introduced to the biggest badass this side of the Mason-Dixon line, Lazarus (Sammy L.). The story follows the struggles that each of these characters tries to endure until they come into contact with each other and form a relationship that cures both of them of their blues. The performances in the film are amazing. I wish that this was being released in 2006 so that both Jackson and Ricci could get nods for the Oscar. The level of attention that Jackson demands in every scene owns balls. As far as Ricci is concerned, she has grown up considerably since her more underdeveloped days of Casper. The things that Casper might do to this woman now would cross the realm of inappropriateness. She is damn fine and her performance is the best that I’ve seen out of her to date. Craig Brewer did us all a favor and took a minimalist approach to wardrobe in the film and has Ricci in as little clothes as possible for the majority of the film. When I imdb-ed the film a while ago I remember that I saw the name Justin Timberlake and immediately scoffed at the casting decision. And while he is by far the weakest performance in the film, it isn’t that bad. The kid’s from Memphis and has had his accent completely removed through his career. It wasn’t really believable to have him as Rae’s army bound white trash boyfriend after having watched the Bi, Bi, Bi video a million times, but he wasn’t in it that much so it all worked out. The music in Brewer’s film is quite frankly what I found to be the greatest aspect. It complements the film extremely well. The film is essentially a new, better breed of musical. The characters don’t break into dialogue driven song, but there are a number of gritty blues numbers that had tears of awesomeness welling up in my eyes. Brewer said after the film was over that Samuel L. Jackson really learned to play the songs in the film and sang all that were performed. When you hear this dude’s voice, you’ll see what I mean. Not only can he kill snakes, the mutha fucka can sing. After the film Craig Brewer did a brief Q and A and told us about his interest in music-heavy films that take place in his home town of Memphis. He’s made his rap movie and his blues movie and told us that the next on his agenda is one based around the world of soul music. And one after that for country (oh my). In my opinion, this guy is one of the greatest directors working today. Granted, he’s only made two well-known films, but he’s batting a thousand and shows now signs of relent. BLACK SNAKE MOAN is a must see for anyone who really loves good cinema or likes to rock out to gritty, guitar blues music. DREAMGIRLS was the next movie that played. Two premieres in a row, Harry’s trying to knock us out early. The plot is the typical musician’s biography. They start at the bottom, rise to the top, experience success, experience conflict and hardship on all fronts, overcome hardship, come together in the end despite the hardships. I don’t have a problem with this formula but something that I do not particularly enjoy is musicals. The film is beautifully shot and staged, but there is just something about characters breaking out into song mid dialogue that really rings false for me and therefore nullifys my feelings for the characters. If BLACK SNAKE MOAN is a well balanced, subtle form of the musical, DREAMGIRLS is a heavy-handed throwback to the days of old. I couldn’t stop thinking about how absurd it was that they were singing out loud to each other about their feelings and the actions that they were taking/about to take. The performances are great. Beyonce doesn’t embarrass herself or Bill Condon too badly. Jamie Foxx takes a back seat and plays the money driven manager of the group who loses sight of everything that is of real importance, leaving his friends and lovers in the dirt. I don’t know if the male race can get much cooler than this guy. He achieves awesomeness without effort. Eddie Murphy’s performance was hyped up a lot before the screening and I think a little too much. There was nothing in it that I haven’t seen before on screen or in his previous roles. I’m among the contingency that’s ecstatic that he’s not making Dr. Doolittle 3: The Gerbil Adventure, but at the same time, I felt that he could have brought a little more originality to the role. The main standout performance was from Jennifer Hudson. Condon talked after the film about how he found her and said that she had come in 9th place on American Idol a couple of years back. After the show Simon Cowell apparently approached her, urging her to give up on showbusiness. He said that she’d had her chance and she blew it. This film is Jennifer’s giant “eat my ass!” to Simon. When she belts out the lyrics, they come from a place that is genuine. She has lived the DREAMGIRLS story and it comes through beautifully in her voice. Overall, the film is something that I might watch again, but not something that I would gush over. It may be my disdain for musicals but this was a film that besides a couple of the musical numbers, didn’t quite hit me on an emotional level. Kijo
