June 20, 2005 :: Flipped and scripted

I went and saw a black indie film on Friday called "Flip the Script". I have to admit, I didn't have the highest expectations for production quality or entertainment value. My faith in black cinema has been shaken by a string of horrible movies. While I appreciate that the van Peebles family tries to write direct and produce their own work, I will never see How to Get the Man's Foot Outta Your Ass unless you tie me down, give me a No-Doz IV drip and pry my eyelids open a la The Clockwork Orange. You can have Diary of a Mad Black Woman. You can have Booty Call. Although I think it's amusing how Jamie went from Bunz to Best Actor, I'd rather see him in Collateral.

But this movie was good! I even got over the fact that I paid $20 each, plus a $9.40 "processing fee", to get tickets to a freakin' MOVIE, by reminding myself that it was for the benefit of a decently good organization which I will soon join. Even Robin Givens wasn't unwatchable in it, and when's the last time you saw her in something truly entertaining? It was laugh out loud funny at least every 5 minutes or so.

The movie did have some weak points. Teck (who apparently isn't famous enough to actually have pictures on any of the bios I found online in a casual search) is a horrible, HORRIBLE actor. The plot has some saccharine moments, and some turns and plot holes so obvious you could drive a Hummer through them. The good bits, though, were the dialogue here and there, stuff that's so genuine and natural you know it couldn't have all been written in the script. Ad-libs by talented actors are a wonderful thing.

Oh and let me add: for that $20 (plus outrageous ticket "processing fee") they gave us some "soul food" (read: dried up chicken, calcified mac & cheese, brown rice and leathery collard greens) and "open bar" (read: they had malibu, bacardi, some sort of vodka, fruit juices and Coke. That's it). But the best part? It was a "bourgie" black event where I barely recognized ANYBODY, except one cat I went to school with, and one of my young cousin's friends from Hampton who recognized me. It's difficult to break out of the small, tight-knit circles in DC and to break into new ones, but this was a new group, and I liked it.

On second thought, all you DC people who I already know, forget you read anything in this post.

Atlanta people, go see it! It's coming on June 24th.

posted by Rainmayun at 2:46 PM -