I'm currently a film student and I peeped this film to see what others were doing. Here is the thought process that went through my mind: "here's a LOW budget film that I can peep on showtime on-demand, great, now I can see what others are doing" So I hit play and checked it out. My only words are..."seriously? Are you kidding me?"
The opening scene shows an older woman preparing a meal while filling out invitations to the "family reunion." She's singing while bopping around the kitchen. The shadows are horrendous! Look it's not hard. This is basic camera 101. I have an undergrad in film before I went down the road of graduate film work. This is NOT rocket science. Take 2 minutes and figure it out. Ever hear of fill light? Check out a book.
The titles being displayed during this sequence looks like they spent maybe 30 seconds on them. I see this all the time on student and amateur films. They spend hundreds of dollars, possibly even thousands of dollars then give the flick 2 dollar credits. Do you care so much about your film that you want to rush the titles? Take the time to give your movie the titles it deserves and some Apple, junior basic wedding self generated titles is a cop out. And that's a shame.
Okay okay...so it sounds like I'm jealous cause these guys have air time and I've yet to achieve it. Sure, sounds like it. But lets talk story and comedy. This is a comedy. In the post-credit opening scene, we find our lead sitting at his desk. With an itchy nose, he scratches it. But that's not enough, he starts to pick...and picking only leads to digging and now we are faced with a sequence that's a few minutes long of some dude digging for gold in his nose. Finallly he "scratches the itch" and retrieves the cause of the itch. A neon green booger at the end of his finger. (which disgustingly enough does not look like makeup but an actual snot remnant.) Wanting to get rid of it and hearing his boss coming down the hall he tries to hide it but is caught mid stream and is forced to shake the bosses hand with snot on his finger tip. It lands in his bosses hand and without noticing he scratches his nose he plants snot on the tip of his nose. This sequence is NOT even remotely funny nor is it even entertaining.
Before you jump to conclusions...I love Adam Sandler movies, my favorite flick are South Park and Airplane...D**k and fart jokes are common and if done well can be GREAT! So gross out humor is capable, don't give me snot, it's not funny especially as long as it lasts in the film.
Alright plot point asides, we need to talk stereotypes. The description of the plot according to On Demand is that a "young black male takes his white girlfriend to his family reunion and faces comical consequences." In the process of telling this story we face MANY stereotypes of African Americans. An uncle who drinks too much from a can in a paper bag. A cousin who smokes blunts. Granny is a drunk. The DJ smokes pot. The break dancing, the bumping the grinding the white chick who's in love with African American guys.
At the tail end of the flick we get the "Animal House Where-Are-They-Now" text. Some of it MIGHT make you chuckle, but not really.
I won't spoil the ending but I will talk about the credit sequence which is just horrible. After the final line of main movie is spoken we go into the obligatory gag reel. Here's the thing. It's cute and some of them are funny. But shave some frames off of them. There is a double series of takes that include a scene where they are trying to drop a ring in a certain spot. Okay, guess what? Although these are a part of film-making they are the FURTHEST thing from a gag real. IT'S NOT FUNNY! and do I NEED to see what seems like 10 minutes of ring dropping? Tighten it up! It's not funny and it slows it down.
While we are watching this gag reel (which is displayed in PIP squares) one would think that titles would be rolling in the empty space. Guess what? They're not. So we go though this LONG "gag" reel and THEN we have to sit through the end titles! This movie is only 87 minutes long and it was clearly obvious that they were fishing to have a "feature length" film. Content, NOT time length.
End of story...you have to wonder a few things. Who greenlit this? Who Paid for it? How did it get made? Who read the script and thought "I HAVE to do this"? How did they get this distributed and how did they get this on cable? What experience do these guys have? Why did the filmmakers choose to use aliases instead of their real names in the credits? The person that greenlit this flick...did they read the script? (I'd like to ask if there was even a script, but the gag reel having "actors" forget their lines in the gag reel alluded to the fact that there might have been writing on this one) (SIDENOTE: That kinda makes it even worse)
End of story is this: Look I understand, as a filmmaker myself, that stuff happens. There are stories that justify mistakes, and I would love to talk to anyone associated with the project to "fill me in" on what happened. And maybe help make sure the next one doesn't make the same mistakes. Either or, I can't recommend this film and hope that I save someone the time.
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