Girl Week 2018: A Quick and Dirty Finale

This is it! We've made it to Day 7 of Girl Week. I still have a handful of movies to talk about. And I've even got one more from super reader Joel. Let's get it.

Whitney

(2018)

As the title might suggest, this is a documentary about the life and times of legendary pop diva Whitney Houston. Lots of friends and relatives share anecdotes about the singer along with lots of never-before-seen behind the scenes footage. The strength of the it is that most of the people interviewed are pretty open about the good and bad things about Whitney. There's really no shying away from it, and most didn't try. This is commendable since the singer's family authorized this undertaking. Strangely, the one person who did go into protection mode was former husband Bobby Brown. I say strangely because most productions that have had his name attached and portrayed their relationship in any way has painted her in a negative light. Here, he flat out refuses to acknowledge the role of drugs in her death. It's an odd moment. The one big miss is one I can't really fault the filmmakers for. We don't hear from Whitney's long-time companion and alleged lover Robyn Crawford. She's often the topic of conversation, but doesn't appear in her own defense. However, Robyn isn't talking to anyone publicly, so that's to be expected. Regardless, this is still a very well done and pretty even-handed documentary about the superstar. - Dell

The Darkest Minds

(2018)

At some point in the near future, children start developing some "disease" which either kills them or gives them special powers. Before too long, all the remaining kids are herded into camps where they are studied, and separated by powers which are color-coded. For instance, telekinetics are blues, those with elevated intelligence are green, and so on. The ones deemed most dangerous, reds and oranges, are terminated. We meet Katniss Tris Laura Ruby (Amandla Stenberg),  an tribute divergent mutant orange. She finds herself in a camp, gets help to escape by some shady types who say they have good intentions, escapes from them, falls in with some other kids on the run, and voila, everyone is after them. In general, a copy isn't as sharp as the original. This film is so derivative, it's like a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy...of a copy. It tries to inject some (easy) social commentary, but says nothing. It settles for bittersweet love story, but doesn't do anything new there, either, so we don't get nearly as worked up as the film wants us to. This movie feels like what you would get if you mixed The Hunger Games, Divergent, X-Men, and Logan in a pot then ran it through a strainer to remove the good parts. - Dell

The Girl from Rio

aka Rio 70

(1969)

VERY 60’s spy adventure wherein Shirley Eaton (Bond girl extraordinaire who ended up covered in gold paint in Goldfinger) as Sumuru the leader of an all-female army of the city of Femina, in an amazing collection of faux superhero outfits (when they are wearing any clothes at all!), open mesh dresses sans undergarments and other outré 60’s high fashions. Their mission? To enslave all men and take over the world of course! Where to start? Why not Rio for reasons never explained. Somehow they roped in George Sanders as the lead mobster villain. This is trash (so bad that leading lady Shirley called it a career after it was made and promptly retired!) but it could be a passable entertainment for a rainy day for fans of bad cinema. - Joel

Nobody's Fool

(2018)

Danica (Tika Sumpter) is fast-rising advertising exec in the midst of a wonderful relationship with the man of her dreams. Her world gets turned upside down when her sister Tanya (Tiffany Haddish) is released from prison and comes to live with her. The biggest item on the menu is the fact that Danica's relationship is with a man she's never met in person. Tanya jumps into action to discover if her sister is getting catfished. Since genre rules dictate there must be another man to make it a triangle, local coffee shop owner Frank (Omari Hardwick) has the hots for Danica, but doesn't tick all the boxes on her soul mate checklist. Writer and director, but thankfully not appearing in drag (or at all), Tyler Perry took advantage of having Haddish in the cast and let her cut loose on numerous occasions, but concurrently wasted her by giving her character no actual plotline. How funny she is depends on how you feel about Haddish as a comedian since she merely flies off into her own shtick when given the opportunity. The overarching plot is run-of-the-mill rom-com stuff. No real surprises, there. There are two problems with that, aside from its utter predictability. First, the story is told with so much filler that this movie could probably have been 30 minutes shorter. Many of Haddish's (likely) impromptu routines fall into this category. On top of that, the entire first act is a set-up for a cameo I won't spoil, but that ultimately proves to be pointless. The bigger problem is that the story shouldn't have been told from Danica's perspective, at all. Haddish's Tanya has lots of potential for a great story, but the film chooses to examine exactly nothing about the transition of a woman from prison back into society even though it shines a spotlight on that very thing every time she opens her mouth. Telling the story from Frank's point of view could even be better than Tanya's, and would still follow the rom-com template. He's much more intriguing than Danica, but stuck in his role as the guy who likes her. In case you got lost in all that, this isn't a terrible movie. Haddish and Hardwick give it the old college try. Whoopi Goldberg is the best thing about this movie, but gets too little screen time. The film also moves quickly. All of this makes it quite watchable, if not necessarily good. - Dell

Nappily Ever After

(2018)

Violet (Sanaa Lathan) is fast-rising advertising exec in the midst of a wonderful relationship with the man of her dreams. Hmmm, where have I heard that before? Her world gets turned upside down when said dream guy doesn't propose to her and makes it clear he can't really see himself settling down with her because she's always so busy trying toe perfect that he feel he really knows her even after two years of dating. Thing is, her mother groomed her to be that way. And it all starts with her hair. The two of them go to ridiculous lengths to make it exactly right each and every day. Well, first a hair salon accident causes some problems, then Violet breaks up with her man. Life goes on...sorta. The film tells the typical rom-com story, but it does something interesting. It really digs into this woman's relationship with her hair. For African-American women, at least in my up-close observation this is one of the most time consuming, financially draining, and emotionally taxing parts of life. This movie does a great job depicting this. Sanaa Lathan is excellent in the lead, as is Lynn Whitfield as her mom. The rom-com stuff is meh, but how she deals with her hair gives the movie a fascinating and fresh feel. - Dell

Come back tomorrow for a complete wrap-up of all the Girl Week posts!