Category: Leslie Uggams

DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE

By Marc S. Sanders

Hollywood back stories have created a quandary for the studios’ celebrated film franchises, especially the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Disney has purchased the properties and copyrights belonging to 20th Century Fox and now, at last the X-Men can properly meet Captain America and the Hulk and Spider-Man…well only if Sony will let the wall crawler come out and play.  So, how should all these guys meet one another, especially now that some of these actors who play these superheroes have received their AARP cards?  Furthermore, some of these characters are dead…at least for now.  Marvel producer Kevin Feige has the answer.  Only Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds), the Merc With The Mouth who breaks the fourth wall at any given moment, can bring this all together.

Deadpool & Wolverine is the best of the smart aleck hero’s three movies.  Yet, it’s more of just a gimmicky flick than anything else.  This proudly excessive two-hour tentpole picture operates like a solid collection of Saturday Night Live skits, with buckets of blood to splatter instead of The Three Stooges’ cream pies.

Allow me to break down this very thin storyline.  Matthew MacFadyen is Mr. Paradox in a three-piece suit.  He informs Mr. Deadpool that his timeline is about to fizzle out of existence.  Somehow, our hero has to locate help from a Wolverine variant of another universe (Hugh Jackman, of course) to make things right again.  

There’s your open door into the silliness that normally comes with Deadpool.  Our title characters are tossed into a Mad Max kind of wasteland called the Void and an abundance of cameos commence from here on out.  The suprise appearances are a lot of fun and I dare not spoil a single one of them.  The rest of the internet did that the night before the film actually opened. I shan’t lend to that egregious violation. (I’m looking at you Variety, Yahoo and Entertainment Weekly. Was it truly necessary to go in that direction?)

I could never relate to the other Deadpool movies.  Sure, they had some hilarious wink and nod gags, at the expense of Reynolds’ career experiences with past superhero franchises.  Yet, those other films were also trying to work too hard with storylines weaved in as well.  They became tiresome and Ryan Reynolds is not the Bill Murray of yesteryear or even Robert Downey Jr. His schtick in this element was overdone.

With this third installment, the approach works with an Airplane! or Naked Gun finish.  That being said, it takes a lot of knowledge from prior Marvel films within the 20th Century Fox warehouse to get every gag.  It helps to know what other super hero movies missed out on getting green lit, which ones tanked at the box office and who are some of these very obscure characters that were churned out of the meat grinder.  If you know these guys, then you’ll applaud the purpose they serve to of any jokes or story references that allow this new picture to operate.

I found it fun.  I think most lovers of Marvel movies will too.  Yet would someone like my sixteen-year-old daughter catch every reference or cameo that walks into frame? Some characters have not appeared on screen in over twenty years.  Reynolds and company also toss out one-liners that reference dated Hollywood gossip.  There was a lot of explanation that I had to fill in for my wife on the drive home.

Beyond all this, Deadpool and Wolverine, played by Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, work really well together like a good buddy cop picture.  Get these guys back together again in a Lethal Weapon or 48 Hrs kind of movie and I’m there.  Honda might not be too fond of these guys, but their pairing is an overdue welcome to the big screen.  Why Honda? See the movie and you’ll know what I mean, but I am eternally grateful for the automaker’s contribution to this picture.

As expected, the violence is excessive.  I think I’ve had my fill of knives and claws being thrust into men’s crotches.  Seems to happen literally every five minutes.  Beheadings abound too.  Slow mo flips and bullets and bullet casings flying and dropping out of guns is never enough for these filmmakers either.  

Some will try to convince me of how tender hearted the picture is too.  Bah!!!! I know what you’re talking about, but go watch Terms Of Endearment or even Avengers: Endgame to get your tear ducts exercising.  The Hallmark moments here never carried much weight for me.

Deadpool & Wolverine is a grand time at the movies, worth seeing with an enthusiastic crowd over settling for a lonely night at home with Disney Plus.  The movie is a little too long, though.  None of the material belongs on the cutting room floor, but a good chunk of it could have been preserved for the next Deadpool blood spattered, slapsticky flick. I just didn’t need to consume all of the eggs in the basket.

My Personal Edit for the MCU: While I toss out my bravo on Marvel’s willingness for self-depreciation on a celebrity roast level with Reynolds and Jackman at the helm, it’s time to get serious again.  

Please get off this multi verse kick.  Director James Mangold (Logan, …Dial Of Destiny, 3:10 To Yuma) said it best that multi verse approaches produce lazy writing.  There’s no stakes anymore.  Hard to believe a character is dead when we watch him/her/they die.  They’ll just come back in the multi verse!!! Enough already.  

Bring back the villains who work based on sound logic like Thanos, Eric Killmonger and Obadiah Stane.  When these guys commit their worst misdeeds, know they did it for a greater purpose than just a mustache twirl and an evil laugh.  I could get behind their arguments.

More importantly, when the job is done, let it stay done.  Treat the audience fairly.  

As Annie Wilkes passionately declared: “Are you blind? They just cheated us.  HE DIDN’T GET OUT OF THE COCKADOODIE CAR!!!!”  I know exactly what you’re talking about Annie. Where’s that sledgehammer?

AMERICAN FICTION

By Marc S. Sanders

Cord Jefferson directs his first film and it’s a winning combination of Tootsie with the prose of Alexander Payne.  

American Fiction follows author/literature professor Thelonius Ellison, otherwise known as Monk (Jeffrey Wright).  He’s encouraged by his university to take some time off as his patience with the mindset of students and colleagues has reached its tipping point.  Upon his return to visit his mother (Leslie Uggams) and sister Lisa (Tracee Ellis Ross), he realizes that mother is beginning to suffer from Alzheimer’s disease.  An unexpected tragedy also strikes, and now Monk has to figure a way to afford round the clock care for mother.

A side story also gnaws at Monk. His literary agent, Arthur (a hilarious John Ortiz) encourages him to write a book about “black life,” much like the current bestselling novelist Sintara Golden (Issa Rae).  Her book is celebrated, particularly by the middle/upper class white demographic, for its “authenticity” in urban black dialect and situations.  Monk is disgusted by this kind of reception.  He may be black, but he’s simply a novelist. Best to take his hard cover novels out of the African Studies section at the bookstore.

After a drunken binge of adopting Sintara’s approach, Monk writes a book, under a gang like pseudonym, as simply a gag to demonstrate how foolish consumers and the top publishers can truly be.  Arthur submits the manuscript to potential publishers and immediately fortune finds him.  A publisher is so moved by the book’s plight, she wants to gear it as a summertime bestseller and Hollywood wants to adapt the story.  It’s also a serious contender for a literary award, of which Monk is on the judging panel.  To Monk’s reluctance, he must don a persona of a fugitive criminal author, unwilling to disclose his identity or location.  White consumerism eats all of this up.  At best, all of this hoopla is covering the cost of his mother’s care. Otherwise, he despises being a part of this charade in front of his new girlfriend, Coraline (Erica Alexander) and his family which also includes his gay, undependable brother, Cliff (Sterling K Brown, another winning actor in this outstanding cast). 

American Fiction works on several levels, but the balance is between satire and relatable drama.  There’s a past that defines Monk’s character.  It defines what irritates him as a black man who is encouraged to digress from the sophisticated intelligence and formal education he possesses.  No one encourages him to live up to his disposition as simply a good writer.  Because he’s black, he can only be regarded as a black writer.   

Jeffrey Wright breaks free of his well-known character actor performances (James Bond films for example) to lead this stellar script adapted from a novel called Erasure by Percival Everett.  He wears multiple hats in this film, which include tender moments shared with Erica Alexander and Leslie Uggams, as well as more challenging debates with the sibling characters while addressing a common family problem of dealing with an elderly parent’s care.  His siblings sardonically address him as “Detective Dictionary” when engaged in a debate. As well, Wright’s comedy works as he’s the irascible author who is flabbergasted at how seriously his little prank takes him so far.  It disgusts him that this novel, this deliberate smack in the face to what readers embrace as black literature, generates a sensation. The further it’s regarded in hype, the deeper Monk has to hide as that urban gangster fugitive.

Thelonius “Monk” Ellison is one of the best characters to come out of 2023.  Ironically, the first film I saw this year was a dreadful comedy called You People with Eddie Murphy and Jonah Hill.  That film attempted to poke fun at what presumed were the stereotypes of blacks and Jews when in fact it had no discernible concept.  American Fiction explores how black life and culture is perceived by a white populace only to genuinely demonstrate an unfair delusion, and it works perfectly.  It’s a very smart script with intelligent and likable characters, and the dialogue is never pandering but absolutely forthright.  

American Fiction pokes fun at perceptions.  How Hollywood addresses black history and culture and a sad truth of what garners attention for fiction with black characters and storylines.  For black actors and authors, like any of their industry peers regardless of race/demographic, there’s more than just stories focusing on life in the ghetto or on a southern plantation.

Cord Jefferson’s screenplay reveals a midlife crisis for Monk that allows a provocation to consider what is genuine in black and white people.  At the same time, while Monk only wants to reveal a false delusion, he also has to live up to unwanted responsibilities as a son, a brother and a boyfriend.  Jeffrey Wright is worthy of an Oscar nomination for his role.  

Nearly every scene in Jefferson’s film can prompt you to hit pause and think about what was just said or demonstrated.  This movie is also very, very funny in its honest truth of what consumers absorb.  Yes! I do believe Hollywood would likely make a revenge slasher horror picture on a Louisiana cotton plantation, complete with Ryan Reynolds as a slave owner getting beheaded by an Afro blade.  

American Fiction is one of the ten best films of 2023.