D.C. MOVIE GUYS

MOVIE REVIEW:”DIARY OF A MAD BLACK WOMAN”

In recent years, a new style of theatre has become quite popular, primarily
in major urban markets, such as Washington, New York and Chicago. These
theatrical productions mix a number of elements and themes with broad-some
would say outrageous-humor and a heavy dose of spirotuality. These show are

always aimed at African American audiences and, almost like old fashioned
tent revivals, only play in a town for a limited number of days before
mobing on to another town. The first-and the most sucessful-of these
productions was Tyler Perry’s “Diary of A Mad Black Woman”. A film version
of the play has finally been made and, while it provides an opportunity for
some talented black actors to ply their craft, there’s little entertainment
or cultural reward provided to those who will attend this movie.

Kimberly Elise, who has turned in fine performancers in such films as
“Beloved” and last year’s remake of “The Manchurian Candidate”, stars as
Helen, the devoted wife of a powerful lawyer in Atlanta. Though she loves
and supports her husband, he is cold to her, openly having affairs and
ignoring her needs. On their eighteenth anniversary, he announces he’s
divorcing her and kicking her out of their sumtous home. Cut off from all
community property and funds by the pre-nuptual agreement she signed many
years earlier, Helen is forced to go to the modest but loving home of her
aunt Madea, who reluctantly takes her in.

Helen tries to restablish her ties with her family, bonds her hgusband
insisted she break when they were first married. Helen’s initial rage at
being dumped, the discovering her husband had a secret wife and children on
the other side of town he now plans to legitimize, leads her to hate and
mistrust all men, including Orlando, a decent young man who tries to help
her. As Helen spends more time with her family, her attitudes soften and
she begins to pull her life together. When the tables of fate are turned on

her husband, Helen faces a difficult choice between true love and a chance
to gain a measure of revenge.

Tyler Perry has adapted his play into a screenplay for the movie, while also

taking on the roles of the outspoken Madea (a role he also p;ayed on stage),

Madea’s son and Helen’s attorney and Joe, Mafdea’s brother and Helen’s mean
spirited and lecherous uncle. Perry has opened up the story a bit for the
screen, while retaining the basic elements of the stage version. It is
those basic elements in this story, and most of the other shows of this
type, that damage the film’s believablity.

The movie comes off as one-third overwrought, unrealistic melodrama,
one-third way over the top comed and one-third gospel music
extravaganza/revival meeting. Steve Harris, the fine actor from “The
Practice” television series, might as well be twirling a big black moustache

as he portrays Helen’s dog of a husband, Charles. Perry’s scriipt totally
wastes the skills of the talented Elise, primarily casting her as the
wimpering woman long suffering. It is a real shame when the only work a
great talent like Cicely Tyson can get is as Elise’s equally ill-treated
mother. Most of the time, director Darren Grant seems perfectly happy to
train the camera on Perry so he can act the fool in either gender as the
sterotypically tough talking MNadea or the sex hungry Joe.

There’s nothing wrong with a film or play that endorces religon and pure,
unchasened love as a cure for the pain of a bad marraige and a difficult
life. But when the route to that final affermation is littered with bad
writing, terrible stereotypes, outright stupidity and wasted potential,
there’s little good that can be said. Avoid becoming an angry moviegoer of
any race and skip “Diary of A Mad Black Woman” at all costs.

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for mild profanity and violence, drug content and crude
sexual humor
JOE’S RATING: ONE STAR.

Diary of a Mad Black Woman
Directed by Darren Grant
Feeling the rage nationwide 2/25/2005
1 *
Once upon a time there was a little boy who knew from an early age that a mistake had been made. He knew that he was a little boy because everyone told him so. But he was just as sure that he was supposed to be a little girl. When he put on girl clothes he felt pretty even though a blind man could see that while passable as a little boy he was one butt ugly little girl. A more courageous little boy would have done as he wanted with no concern for the thoughts and scorn of others, but young Tyler lived in a small, insular community where little boys could only act in a certain way and anyone that deviated from that one path would be ostracized from the group and Tyler would become even more marginalized. But the inventive lad thought that if he went into show business, he could put on pretty girl clothes and could pass off the whole thing as being part of an act. He would write plays and ensure that at least one girl part would go to him or else he would not allow his plays to be performed. Unfortunately, though Tyler was a clever little boy, he was not a very talented one. But none of that mattered because Tyler could still dress up in girl clothes and that was the important thing.
Presuming that the title Diary of a Mad Black Woman means enraged rather than insane, I can empathize. Diary of a Mad Black Woman is a vapidly transparent morality tale adapted from the stage play by Tyler Perry. The movie is also a cry for help. Its transvestite playwright Tyler Perry has created a writing career just so that he has an excuse to prance about in women’s clothing. In doing so he fuels a segment of the theatre-going world known derisively as a “momma on the couch” play. Aimed at African American audiences, these traveling troupes play limited runs in urban areas with all advertising and marketing aimed at serving only this segment of the community. And, if only to judge from Diary of a Mad Black Woman, these modern-day minstrel shows pander to audiences offering a pile of scraps unfit for intelligent consumption. To toss this out as theatre would be the same as offering up Big Macs as haute cuisine.
A successful Atlanta lawyer (Steve Harris) has been carrying on a longtime affair and chooses his 18th wedding anniversary to kick wife Helen (Kimberly Elise) out of their mansion (he generously rents a truck so that she can move her clothes). With nowhere else to turn, she goes to the home of aunt and family matriarch, Madea (Perry), a ghetto fabulous embarrassment that seems drawn from some Klan recruitment tract. While living with Madea, Helen tries to get her life back on track while reconnecting with her extended family, an obvious collection of urban life stereotypes. The rest of the plot spins out in predictable fashion all leading to the reform, revenge, and regeneration themes all designed to play to the back rows of even the dimmest audiences.
Most of the humor ranges from a bad UPN sitcom (pardon the redundancy) to that of some refugee from the chitlin circuit. If a white person had written this tripe, it would be loudly and righteously denounced as racist doggerel. Whether Perry simply has contempt for his audience’s intelligence or he just wanted to be a playwright in the worst say and succeeded is immaterial.
The biggest problem is that Perry is such a laughably ludicrous figure of a woman and that his overacting would be seen as excessive even in a drag show (he makes John Cleese playing Margaret Thatcher look like Liz Hurley by comparison). The movie is essentially a melodrama with Madea along for comic relief (though your greatest relief will occur when the projector shuts off). The trouble is that Perry in drag is so grotesque that the movie thuds to a halt with her every appearance. The least believable part of the movie is nothing with Madea though; we see Steve Harris lose a court case. After watching Mr. Harris pull not guilties out of thin air for eight years on The Practice, Tyler Perry is hardly capable of hanging an L on Mr. Harris completely fictional perfect record in court.
So, to audiences that might be conned into thinking that they might get some passable entertainment out of Diary of a Mad Black Woman, you have been warned. A desire for inclusiveness should not come at the price of your brains and dignity.
And finally to Tyler Perry, throw off the chains of presumed societal condemnation and put on some silky ladies’ undies (if you do not have them on already). Your plays are a cry for help, but you can drop the masquerade. Show the world what a strong black woman you can be by donning the dress you so obviously desire. You need not bother with this writing sham. Demand the world respect and accept you as the girl you are. And I am not just saying this so that you will stop inflicting your talents on innocent movie audiences… well, maybe just a bit.
–Bill Henry

Constantine
Directed by Francis Lawrence
Unleashing the demons of hell nationwide beginning 2/18/2005
2 *
Possibly there is a built-in audience for an adaptation of the Hellblazer graphic novels, but it is difficult to see in the new movie Constantine what there was for anyone to get excited over. The prospect of eternal screen life for its central anti-hero would seem to be even less promising than that of Elektra or The Punisher. On the other hand, there is always the fact that this movie stars Keanu Reeves… and his fans are legion.
Transmogrified from Liverpudlian lowlife to SoCal cool dude, John Constantine (the title was changed so as not to confuse with the Hellraiser film series—on the plus side, this movie is nowhere near as bad as that dreck) acts as a free-lance exorcist combating various damned forces on the road to perdition. Turns out he has always been able to see the evil spirits among us which led to a life of turmoil and a suicide attempt which resulted in a temporary trip to hell. Now he operates a Shadow-like organization of maladjusted types on the hunt for evildoers. Shortly after receiving a lung cancer death sentence, JC (get it, ha ha) is sought out by a cop (Rachel Weisz) whose twin sister has committed suicide (this allows for the tease of showing femme star Weisz take a faux first reel powder). All of this seems connected to some satanic conspiracy which has Constantine wondering what is up with the increased devilish activity.
Never having been a fan of the “let-us-all-pile-on-Keanu-because-he-is-not-exactly-Olivier” school of film criticism, it should be noted that his trademark stoicism (or if you prefer his inability to translate internal emotion to external significance) does not help a movie where the only thing that is not static is the visual effects. Worse, the literally comic book theology in Constantine is just as much of a mess as the rest of the movie. Events spin out with little rhyme and less reason.
It is not that Constantine lacks great visual bits or an intriguing look; it is just that you have to ask what all this is in service to. And besides once you have seen a face melt away, how many times do you need to see it again? Been there, done that, got a Raiders of the Lost Ark T-shirt.
The people behind Constantine including music video director Francis Lawrence and screenwriters who used to work for Steven Seagal and Hulk Hogan do not possess the storytelling skills that one finds in even an average Law & Order episode. Rather than keeping the audience on the edge of their seats as each new plot point unwinds, the actors follow the script like they are making a cake, methodically mouthing the dialogue moving along the line of discovery with little more seeming detective work than reading the next page in the script.
Possibly this will work for those simply happy to see Constantine move from page to screen, but as for the rest, at least it was better than Elektra.
–Bill Henry

Because of Winn-Dixie
Directed by Wayne Wang
Getting up with fleas nationwide beginning 2/18/2005
2 *
Wayne Wang once took an acclaimed book with an episodic structure and produced The Good Luck Club. Now Mr. Wang has taken a simple story about a girl and her mutt and produced Because of Winn-Dixie. And while The Joy Luck Club entertained audiences, increased the exposure and popularity of Amy Tan’s book, and gave substantial and overdue exposure to an ensemble of terrific Asian actresses, Because of Winn-Dixie is unlikely to elicit anything other than a few yawns. And although he tarts up the Kate DiCamillo’s simple story of a dog as the catalyst to turning a town’s loners into a family of friends, what no one is able to do is give much reason for caring about anything in the movie. (more…)

Inside Deep Throat
Directed by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato
Ironically enough, not opening wide, but selectively beginning 2/11/2005
3 *
With people so interested in such things (and despite my complete disinterest), I have dedicated lectures/discussion groups to the question of motion picture grosses (the totally meaningless numbers breathlessly reported by entertainment reporters too ignorant to know how meaningless and pointless these numbers are). Unfortunately the numbers have become part of the movie hype machine and end up driving a substantial part of planet Hollywood.
During these discussions I will often ask people, what is the highest grossing movie they have yet to see? I have a close friend who has never seen Titanic or The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (I guess is he is waiting to see if these ever catch fire with the public). As for me, I usually throw out titles such as This is Cinerama (a promotional film for the ultra wide-screen exhibition format which was one of the major releases of the 1950s—it actually made more money than any film released in Cinerama and is rarely revived because there are no theatres to properly show it) or Superstar (the Molly Shannon-starring Saturday Night Live spin-off—missed more by luck than design).
It turns out I was lying because as a new documentary reminds us, that while produced for only $25,000 Deep Throat is estimated to have grossed over $600 million in illicit box office. Though the numbers seem a lot to swallow, the movie Inside Deep Throat details the story behind this seminal porn film (just a few more, the third grader in me needs to get this out of my system). The filmmaking team of Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato (best known for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Party Monster, and a number of salacious works for Home Box Office which co-produced this movie with Imagine Films’ Brian Grazer) looks at how the movie came about while not shying a away from a number of sideshows and related controversies. The film is narrated by Dennis Hopper, himself no stranger to producing short-lived cinema revolutions with low-budget movies that become box office bonanzas.
Before America’s porn production capital moved to the San Fernando Valley (and before the VCR made porno “movies” as dead as repertory theatres), the capital of pornography was Times Square and the movie that changed porno from 8mm film loops of various sex acts to features with pretensions beyond the porn ghetto was Deep Throat. In many ways, it was an actual feature film and represented a half-step forward from the “educational” films which attempted to stay under the radar of the vice squad by superficially pretending to be marital aids. The film starred Linda Lovelace (born Linda Boreman) whose pimp/husband who had exhibited Linda’s abilities at fellatio giving DT director Gerard Damiano the idea to go to Florida and shoot a feature-length movie about a young woman who could only achieve orgasm through oral sex.
From what moments of the movie are shown here (including a bit of Miss Lovelace’s sword-swallowing abilities), the movie looks like the usual, limp tedium that would become the porn standard. But as the makers of Inside Deep Throat seem to believe, what was on screen was nowhere near as interesting as what was happening off-screen. Deep Throat became acceptable mainstream entertainment with couples and the NYC intelligentsia (who would normally never entertain such fare) going down to Times Square. The movie spread nationwide and ran in many cities for most of the ‘70s. Meanwhile, the anti-porn crusaders geared up for various criminal prosecutions. Richard Nixon’s Department of Justice takes the lead for awhile, but soon will have bigger fish to fry. Left unmentioned in the movie is the coincidence of the New York City opening of Deep Throat and the break-in at Watergate by members of Richard Nixon’s Lonely Tapes Club Band. A footnote to the Watergate affair is that the movie was mainstream enough that the anonymous background source who gave a substantial amount of damaging information regarding the Nixon White House to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward was nicknamed “Deep Throat.”
Surprisingly, the movie notes, is that the usual blue-haired Miss Grundys (led by future felon Charles Keating—it turns out it is acceptable to screw your shareholders, but not girls) are joined by the feminists of Women Against Pornography. And although she at first groups the marching WAPs as girls who just are not pretty enough to get a man, Linda Lovelace later joins their number claiming in two books, Ordeal and Out of Bondage (Linda Lovelace and Sean Connery have the same titles for their autobiographies) that she was forced to participate in Deep Throat and that the movie is nothing more than a recording of her being raped.
Inside Deep Throat is to be congratulated for not shying away from this particular point. For if Ms. Lovelace (later Mrs. Marchiano) is to be believed (and the story she recounts in the books makes a compelling case), then it is difficult to see the movie as the good, clean fun and precursor of greater societal openness on sex that experts such as Camille Paglia, Helen Gurley Brown, and Hugh Hefner would have us believe. The movie shows enough of Lovelace’s publicity promoting the movie (and enough of the movie to show her a far too limited actress to pull it off) to make you wonder how much of her later denial is regret rather than fear. However, there is no denying that her then-husband Chuck Traynor is more procurer than spouse. He would later perform the same services for porn queen Marilyn Chambers and would begin his own term performing “Deep Throat” on Lucifer three months to the day after Ms. Lovelace would die from injuries sustained in a car crash. Something the movie reveals that I had not known is that in her declining (as opposed to reclining) years, Ms. Lovelace had returned to working with dirty magazines—possibly some AARP equivalent of porn.
It is hard to pick a favorite moment from a movie filled with so many, but among the nominees are: Some cracker moralist complains to Deep Throat actor (although technically you would have to say that what people do in porno movies is not really acting) Harry Reems on a talk show that [Reems] speaks as if the Bill of Rights was meant for him; the Memphis federal prosecutor Larry Parrish laments that now because of the war on terror, the Justice Department is unable to zealously prosecute pornography, Deep Throat director Damiano complaining that nowadays porn videos are just a series of sex scenes without any of the story and character that his had (this actually had the audience that I saw this with pause for a moment and then explode in derisive laughter).
But the winner has to be when Hugh Hefner (an interviewed expert, but here in archival footage) is seen debating with Against Our Will author and feminist anti-porn crusader Susan Brownmiller. At one point Hef (that is what all of us in the know guys call him) is rudely interrupted by Ms. Brownmiller and her companion who corrects his word choice. Despite the fact that Mr. Hefner is neither talking to or about Ms. Brownmiller she shrilly demands that he adhere to her word choice and with fascist zeal she refuses to allow him to go on until he bows his neck to her rhetorical sword.
But here is where the humor kicks in. Rather than leveling a verbal broadside at Ms. Brownmiller and her fellow feminazi brownshirt and declaring that she had no right to tell him how to express himself (freedom of self-expression being a right Mr. Hefner would gladly cede to her and one might say that along with the naked girl pictures is a principal that Mr. Hefner has dedicated his life to), Hugh Hefner is too much of a gentleman (insert knowing laughter here) to deliver a verbal return volley to a lady in public—even one who is wallowing in such sanctimonious rudeness.
The movie also shows scenes from the famed 1979 Women Against Pornography March on Times Square. I have a little more personal knowledge of that event because I covered it for my college paper. I went fully convinced of the moral rightness and in full sympathy for the assembled WAPpers. But as speaker after speaker escalated the hysterical shrillness as porn was blamed for everything from domestic violence to female genital mutilation. And although almost everyone was careful to say that they did not believe in censorship, they seemed just as quick to assert that education was not fast enough and steered listeners to a position where censorship was the only solution. By the end of the day WAP had convinced me that pornography was bad and that their numbers were replete with dangerous lunatics who represented a real threat to civil liberties.
We now live in a world where pornography is readily available, rarely consumed in public, and is used with little concern for running afoul of the legal authorities. With no pretensions towards either art or education, the porn world seems less exploitative of the women who are featured in it—many of whom are now profit participants. Tourists visiting the post-Giuliani family friendly Times Square are more likely to have their pockets picked by a familiar brand name while the most profitable screwing is done by corporate America. Such moral crusaders as Richard Nixon and Charles Keating have revealed that their moral stances were hardly as concrete as they claimed. Nowadays, pornography seems most exploitative of the poor idiots that buy it as well as buy into it.
Deep Throat’s greatest sin seems to be that everyone seems to think it is something special rather than just first.
But I am hardly an authority. I mostly find “adult films” titillating (I swear, last one) for a few minutes and then boring and uninvolving. There is an old joke about porno movies that I never really got. It goes, why do women watch porno movies to the end? They want to see the part where they get married. The part it took me a second to appreciate was a reflexive question of who does not watch a movie to the end? Porn’s target audience is probably supposed to be less concerned with overall cinematic quality. If I want uninspired storytelling and tedious, repetitive filmmaking, I already have the regular studio releases.
–Bill Henry