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marcusdrobinson
Reviews
I Remember Mama (1948)
They Don't Make 'Em Like This Anymore!!!! - Pity.
Thirty years before Barbara Bel Geddes would achieve international renown for being "Miss Ellie", the dastardly J.R Ewing's mother on the queen of trashy nighttime soaps "Dallas", and nearly ten years AFTER Barbara O'Neal became a legend playing Scarlett O'Hara's mother in "Gone With The Wind", they got together and made this truly moving picture with Irene Dunne. You would think it was some little low-budget flick; it's got that feel to it. Who would've thought it cost three million dollars to make! Anyway, I'm a dude, see, and I'm not much into the melodramas and tear-jerkers though i do love old movies, but, one night when I couldn't sleep I caught this on TCM or AMC and decided to watch it. I was SURE it was going to be some boring old flick that would help me fall sleep. BOY WAS I WRONG! After 10 minutes, yo, I was hooked! (It's almost EMBARRASSING but oh, well). You find yourself loving each and every one of these characters - Mama is a priceless pearl (we need ten million like her in this day and age), the kids, Papa, the spinster aunt who gets married, the feisty older aunt who was bossy, Katryn is a doll baby who you want to just marry and take home to Mama, and as for Uncle Chris and Miss Jessie (Barbara O'Neal's character), oh, they did it for me. When Uncle Chris went...boy, it was hard to keep that facewater from flowing! That's GOT to be one of the best death scenes in movies! You felt like you were there. Check it out, this is a movie about real folks living real life without all of the sentimental garbage. You get real family emotion here! Can you dig it? Of course you can!
The Color Purple (1985)
A True Classic!
This was the first Steven Spielburg movie i truly fell in love with. Everything about it stylistically was on point. The clothes, the hair, the location, the props, the language (or lack thereof), everything lends to a true authentic picture of black life from about 1910 until the late 1930s. Whoopi did a wonderful job as "Celie", as did the young lady who played the younger version of the character (the one who took the brunt of the abuse). Glover was perfectly cast as "Mister". With one or two exceptions, Oprah hasn't been as fine of an actress since she was "Sophia" (though, when you're the richest woman in the Milky Way, who needs to be consistent?! You GO girl!) Margaret Avery was the spirit and breath of "Shug" and Tina Turner was right to turn it down; she would've been awful, I think. Rae Dawn Chong, Larry Fishburne and the rest of the lesser characters gave the movie the appropriate fullness and depth needed to truly capture the spirit of the book. My one problem? I wish they would've added the last scene of the book as the last scene of the movie! Come on, Stevie, baby! You could've given us those extra two or three minutes!