"The Best Man "is my first buppie (i.e. Black Urban Professionals) movie.
Taye Diggs alone is worth the price of admission -- he is charismatic and captures the screen -- and unlike the choices Sidney Poitier and Denzel Washington either had to make or chose to make he is definitely sexy; this is almost a Chick Flick but it's actually about four guys.
The movie was written and directed by a cousin of Spike Lee, who produced it, and oy did it need editing and trimming. Every scene in what is in effect a black, younger "Big Chill" dragged on too long and was mostly too straight-forwardly directed. There is a writing talent in there that needs help in a collaborative art form to be shown to best effect.
The flashbacks didn't make musical sense (except one excellent use of a Stevie Wonder song) or hair style changes so I found it unspecific about time period or college we were flashing back to.
The black audience laughed along with the male/female portrayals so I guess they weren't annoyed by the trash-talking guy who automatically called his bro's "n----r" or the acceptance of double-standards such that strong black professional women with active sex lives are sentenced to be old maids while only submissive or otherwise un-together black women are worth marrying.
The cinematography was rich, particularly lingering on beautiful, chocolate-colored skin.
It felt like a first movie the way first novels do -- but that was part of the theme as it's about a first-time novelist writing a roman a clef. But all the cast and the writer are clearly up and coming talents.
(originally written 11/14/1999)
Taye Diggs alone is worth the price of admission -- he is charismatic and captures the screen -- and unlike the choices Sidney Poitier and Denzel Washington either had to make or chose to make he is definitely sexy; this is almost a Chick Flick but it's actually about four guys.
The movie was written and directed by a cousin of Spike Lee, who produced it, and oy did it need editing and trimming. Every scene in what is in effect a black, younger "Big Chill" dragged on too long and was mostly too straight-forwardly directed. There is a writing talent in there that needs help in a collaborative art form to be shown to best effect.
The flashbacks didn't make musical sense (except one excellent use of a Stevie Wonder song) or hair style changes so I found it unspecific about time period or college we were flashing back to.
The black audience laughed along with the male/female portrayals so I guess they weren't annoyed by the trash-talking guy who automatically called his bro's "n----r" or the acceptance of double-standards such that strong black professional women with active sex lives are sentenced to be old maids while only submissive or otherwise un-together black women are worth marrying.
The cinematography was rich, particularly lingering on beautiful, chocolate-colored skin.
It felt like a first movie the way first novels do -- but that was part of the theme as it's about a first-time novelist writing a roman a clef. But all the cast and the writer are clearly up and coming talents.
(originally written 11/14/1999)