Last Thursday, love was in the air for Valentine's Day. I guess our wonderful host, Wanderer at Wandering Through the Shelves hasn't gotten it out of her system. This week's topic for Thursday Movie Picks is "Starring Real Life Couples." That's not a problem. However, it is Black History Month, and if I'm going to keep talking about love, I'm going to talk about Black love.
Jungle Fever
(1991)
Starring Ruby Dee & Ossie Davis
This Spike Lee joint is known for its depiction of an interracial relationship at a time when such a thing was still a hotly debated topic. In some circles they still are, but with one in just about every TV show, movie, and commercial, it's just not that big a deal these days. The other main storyline of the film deals with the main character's drug addicted brother, played with a fresh-off-the-pipe verisimilitude by Samuel L. Jackson. Other than getting high, he's most adept at conning his mother out of a few dollars at a time to keep his habit going. Mom is played by Ruby Dee. Dad is played by her real life husband, Ossie Davis. The iconic couple married in 1948 and remained together until Davis's death in 2005.
Ali
(2001)
Starring Will Smith & Jada Pinkett-Smith
Upon it's release, Michael Mann's biopic about boxing legend Muhammad Ali was polarizing, and suffered at the box-office as a result. Time has proven kind to the movie as the general consensus of it has been on an upswing. One thing about it that was almost always universally liked was the performance of Will Smith in the lead role. One of his co-stars was his real life, then of four years, Jada Pinkett-Smith. In the film, she plays Ali's first wife and star-crossed lover, Sonji Roi. The two provide some of the movie's best scenes, outside the ring, of course.
Brown Sugar
(2002)
Starring Boris Kodjoe & Nicole Ari Parker
I promise they are both in that pic. Anyhoo, this is a rom-com about a hip-hop magazine editor and a record lable A&R, neither of which are played by the couple in question. They actually play the people standing in the way of the main couple's happily ever after by each dating one of them. It's a fun, underrated movie. As for Kodjoe and Parker, they met and fell in love a couple years prior to this movie's release on the set of Showtime's Soul Food TV series. They married in 2005, are still together, and if I'm being honest, make one of the prettiest couples walking the face of planet Earth. |
| What Mrs. Dell & I see when we look in a mirror (even if no one else does). |
I've only seen bits of Brown Sugar but not enough to form an opinion on it. The rest I have seen as Jungle Fever is a great pick because of Ossie and Ruby. Ali is a film I'm going to be revisiting in the coming weeks as I'm kind of doing a mini-marathon of films by Michael Mann in anticipation for his Auteurs piece coming in the fall.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to your Auteurs piece on Mann. He is sooooo good.
DeleteStan & Ollie's the best movie I ever saw
ReplyDelete💛💜❤️💙
Forever loving your themes within the theme, Dell. I need to see Ali - I've always been a big Will Smith fan but that one slipped under my radar.
ReplyDeleteHope you get to see it soon. I'd love the perspective of fresh eyes to it.
DeleteI've always meant to watch Jungle Fever and haven't gotten the chance. The only one I've seen of your pick is Brown Sugar and I don't remember a lot about it. I've seen parts of Ali....I should probably watch that one too.
ReplyDeleteThose photos of Ruby and Ossie are too cute for words.
I hope you get to see Jungle Fever, soon. And Ali.
DeleteThose are great pics, ain't they?
I've seen bits and pieces of both Ali and Jungle Fever but need to sit down and give both a proper watch. Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis are so great together and separately. Did I mention a couple of weeks ago that both have roles in No Way Out?
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen Brown Sugar and didn't realize those two were married.
This turned out to be a more crowded theme than I suspected to the point where I had to do a theme within the theme, Shakespeare comedies, to slim my choices.
The Boys from Syracuse (1940)-In the town of Ephesus in ancient Asia Minor two boys from Syracuse, Anthipholus (Allan Jones) and his servant Dromio (Joe Penner), search for their long-lost twins who, for reason of plot confusion, are also named Anthipholus and Dromio. Problems arise when the wife of the Ephesians, Adriana (Irene Hervey) and her servant Luce (Martha Raye), mistake the two strangers for their husbands. Complications and comedy ensue. Loosely based on Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors. Leads Jones and Hervey were married for over 20 years, their son vocalist Jack Jones is most well-known for singing the theme for The Love Boat.
The Taming of the Shrew (1967)-Wealthy Padua merchant, Baptista (Michael Hordern), has two daughters-the fiery Katherina called Kate (Elizabeth Taylor) and younger sister Bianca (Natasha Pyne). Bianca loves Lucentio (Michael York), and wants to marry but can’t until the thorny Kate does which she shows no inclination to do. On the scene comes the raucous and magnetic Petruchio (Richard Burton) who sees Kate as a challenge and when her father forces them to marry the real combat begins. The infamously battling Burtons are perfectly cast as the warring lead couple.
Much Ado About Nothing (1993)-After a successful campaign against his rebellious brother, Don John (Keanu Reeves), Don Pedro (Denzel Washington) visits the governor of Messina. With him are Benedick (Kenneth Branagh) and Claudio (Robert Sean Leonard). While there, Claudio falls for the governor's daughter, Hero (Kate Beckinsale), while Benedick engages in a war of words with Beatrice (Emma Thompson), the governor's niece. While Don Pedro tries to trick Benedick and Beatrice into falling in love, Don John tries to tear Claudio and Hero apart. Aside from married (at the time) couple Branagh & Thompson and the aforementioned stars the cast also includes Michael Keaton, Imelda Staunton and Emma’s mother Phyllida Law.
The Taming of the Shrew (1929)-Same basic story as the Liz & Dick version above but with substantial cuts (and additional dialogue by Sam Taylor-???? WHY) served as a wrong-headed early sound vehicle for two of the biggest stars of the silent era, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks Sr. who had notoriously left they spouses to marry each other (but whose own marriage was foundering by this point) in an echoing of the whole Brad Pitt Angelina Jolie episode of later years. Static and dated with both stars nearing the ends of their careers (Mary made 3 more films, Doug 4 before retirement) Pickford considered it one of her worst performances (she’s right) but Fairbanks, full of brio is suited to Petruchio and emerges okay. Still you’re missing nothing if you give it the skip.
Good theme within the theme from you, as well. Unfortunately, I haven't seen any of your picks. I did see bits of the '93 Much Ado About Nothing.
DeleteI haven't seen any of these (I've been meaning to watch Ali for quite some time though) but I love your theme within theme.
ReplyDeleteAli is a really solid picture. Hope you get to see it, soon.
DeleteUghhh...I haven't seen any of these but I love and greatly respect Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee for their fight against injustice, equal rights and their "leftist" leanings. I love the comment "Get a Room" since Smith seems to have his hand wander a bit down. I may very well give Ali a try although i am not one for boxing films and was never a fan of Ali because of his arrogance.
ReplyDeleteInteresting you should say that about Ali. This movie definitely peels back the layers of that onion. Hope you give it a shot.
DeleteGreat theme within a theme as always. My first thought was Eyes Wide Shut.
ReplyDeleteThat came to my mind, as well.
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