“White House Down”- Great Action Film, but Why Won’t Jamie Foxx
Stop Smoking…?
Jamie Foxx, as president, was a questionable choice and his
performance is fairly wooden and non-threatening and I can almost forgive the
racial stereotypes (i.e. Foxx running through the White House in Air Jordans
instead of black leather oxfords.)
But what is it going to take for young black actors to grow
up? Jamie showed moxy by wearing the Trayvon Martin tshirt to the BET awards. He
appeared introspective after Harry Belafonte’s invigorating manifesto at the
NAACP awards. Is it all an act?
Foxx is an uber-talented actor, singer, dancer, comedian,
performer. There is one ironic line in “White House Down” where Foxx quips,
“I don’t smoke” after opening a drawer filled with Nicorette gum. I didn’t
laugh because it appears that is all he is doing.
Some may say I am expecting too much. I don’t think we can
expect enough of anyone who plays the President of this nation.
TRAILER REVIEW 2013
Leo DiCaprio Roles
Becoming Repetitive, Prepare for Titanic:Part 3
So I saw the trailer for “Wolf of Wall Street”
starring Leo DiCaprio as a young rich spoiled self-centered arrogant young rich
white spoiled self-centered, arrogant…I almost thought I was watching the trailer
for “Great Gatsby, Part Two”. Lately Leo seems to be stuck on playing brooding,
pseudo-psychotic, rich maniacs. Didn’t he get the memo? Playing rich white boys
is out of style and worse, BORING. We were already saturated with the
uninspired movie “The Social Experiment” (no one will ever think Mark Zuckerman
is brilliant, just greedy). By the way film producers, Michael Douglas’ epic
reprisal as Gordon Gecko in Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps is
still very fresh in our minds and is not likely to be replaced by any actor,
anytime soon. So this “new” Leo film already feels like a bad move.
Leo is a young man still getting stuck in old man roles. He
did try a little comedy in the satire, but I think we all just want Leo to play Jack
Dawson again. If you’re going to typecast yourself, it might as well be in a
character that we all cried for when he died. People don’t like when nice guys
(Leo) play bad guys (Gatsby, Wolf). Leo, give us what we want, Titanic Part 2 and
leave the unhinged, unpleasant arrogant characters to…someone else. Where’s
Kate Winslet to give her old buddy some advice? Here’s some advice from Wall
Street, Leo: Diversify.
New Jodie Foster film booed “Elysi-What?”
“Elysium” was hissed at as the trailer played. It looks like “Oblivion”,
right? Hollywood filmmakers are apparently stuck on their own treadmill of
delivering “deep” nihilistic type films (e.g. “After Earth”). Earth to
Hollywood: we are all still suffering from the recession and are not in the mood
to pay money for depressing, meaningless films where the characters have white
hair. We can accept Jodie as a single mom in peril and that is all. End
Transmission.
“Lone Ranger”
Why is Depp’s face painted like a member of Kiss? Nuff said. Ps. Please stop allowing Depp to star in
remakes of beloved classics (i.e. Willie Wonka).
The Last Word
Why no wedding films this summer?
