TarajiP.Henson Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The latest movie from writer-director Tyler Perry, I Can Do Bad All By Myself, may strike you as being another comedy featuring Perry's big bad old lady Madea. However, Madea has only a small role as comic relief in this melodrama/morality play. The credits tell us that the movie is based on Perry's 2000 play of the same name, but after reading summaries of the play, the two seem to have little in common apart from the title and a moral awakening on the part of the lead characters.

April (Taraji P. Henson) is a mess -- a nightclub singer who rarely sees the light of day, an alcoholic, a woman heavily involved with a married man (Brian White) who pays all her bills. Suddenly, she has three children foisted upon her -- caught trying to break into Madea's house, they confess that the grandmother who has been raising them has gone missing. Madea sends them to Aunt April, who is unwilling to take them but can't find another option. In the meantime, the local church sends April a handyman to help fix her crumbling old house in return for room and board, the optimistic and caring Sandino (Adam Rodriguez). How will April deal with these disruptive people in her life?

Yeah, Mark Wahlberg has come a long way since his Marky Mark days. In fact, if there is anyone that the young and cherubic pop icons should try to emulate, it's him. Wrenching your way out of your niche is one thing. Moving from a good, vibrating, spunky underwear model to notable big-screen name -- that takes talent. But these days, that's talent has been squeezed into the serious with no room left for laughs.

Until now. Five years after his Huckabees angst, The Hollywood Reporter posts that Wahlberg is signing on to 20th Century Fox's upcoming comedy, Date Night. In fact, this will be his first all-out mainstream comedy, setting aside existential detectives and Middle-East action laughs. Date Night follows a couple who go out for dinner and a movie, and then get mistaken as other people -- that leads to, one would assume, comic moments.

As Eric pointed out when the news first hit last year that Steve Carell and Tina Fey joined the project -- it's getting directed by Cheaper by the Dozen helmer Shawn Levy, which doesn't bode well. But the cast certainly does. Fey and Carell are the couple, while Wahlberg will play a black ops man in private security who offers to help them. But there's more. James Franco somehow found time in his schedule to sign on and play a "dim con man," the Oscar-nominated Taraji P. Henson will play a cop who doesn't take things at face value, Common and Jimmi Simpson will play detectives on the take, Leighton Meester will play the couple's babysitter, and Kristen Wiig will play Fey's best friend.

Could all of these names have signed on if this was going to be like other Levy features? Maybe he's ready to surprise us.

I saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button weeks ago, and yet every time I tried to think about it -- whether it was to contemplate a decision in David Fincher's direction, a deviation from F. Scott Fitzgerald's story, a moment in Eric Roth's script or a note in the performances of Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett -- I would soon find myself, invariably, distracted from the large-scale visions and moments of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and instead contemplating the smaller-scale moments of my own life. This was at best annoying; what did it say about the film that I couldn't hold it in my attention? What did it say about my attention that I couldn't even focus it on a film? But Zen gives us the parable of the master who points to the moon, and the student who looks at the master's finger. Fincher, Roth, Pitt and Blanchett have all, in their way, made a film of true sincerity and (ironically enough in light of its technical achievements) real simplicity; resting your gaze on the film, without directing it onto the things it encourages you to look at, seems like staring at the pointing finger.

Fitzgerald's tale is a brief fantasia, the story of Benjamin Button, a man who, born old, ages backward; at the same time, the slenderest books often become the best films, the lush drapery of moviemaking lending their slight grace weight, the stark simplicity of the plot a place for a director's vision to find purchase and grow. Within moments -- as an old woman lies dying in a modern New Orleans hospital, slate-gray rain battering the windows, her daughter (Julia Ormond) paging through her diaries and scrapbooks as the old woman fades in and out of consciousness, flickering between past memory and present reality -- we know we're not in the world established in Fitzgerald's 1922 short story. The woman's diaries are not just hers, and as the daughter reads, we learn about the birth and exile of Benjamin Button, born old in New Orleans in 1918 just after the Great War. ...

Spider-Man 3
The many flaws of Spider-Man 3 have been well-documented: The elevated cheese factor, the overabundance of baddies, that absurd 10-minute stretch of song, dance and unsightliness where it suddenly feels like we're watching some strange mash-up of Willard vs. The Mask... But it's not like this is a bad movie. Underwhelming compared to its pair of astonishing predecessors? Sure, but still entertaining enough for a Sunday afternoon slouchfest. Yes, a movie that costs $250 million (or more?) should make our eyes pop and our remaining senses tingle (and possibly even leave us a craving a cigarette and a shower afterward), and Spidey 3 has moments of such bliss. Its single biggest flaw is that when it needs to get really dark, it gets really hokey -- perhaps catering to a younger audience, but losing a whole lot of credibility in the process.

Talk to Me
About a month back we ran a feature speculating (guestimating, too) over early Oscar contenders, and a few of our readers astutely inquired, "Where the f*** is Don Cheadle?" Our bad. Cheadle does indeed deserve to be part of the discussion in the Best Actor race, as crowded a field as it looks this year. Shoot, even Cate Blanchett wants in. Cheadle begins chewing the scenery faster than you can say Chiwetel Ejiofor as Civil Rights-era radio talk show host Ralph "Petey" Greene in this honest and engaging portrayal. Also thoroughly impressive -- and who I wish would also get mentioned in awards chatter -- is Taraji P. Henson. The Hustle & Flow breakout has a vibrancy about her to match Cheadle at every turn, AND she's got a killer Afro to boot. Though unexpectedly conventional at times, the film is a rare treat for folks who appreciate thoughtful yet feel-good, socially relevant entertainment.