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Kenan Thompson recommended Coming to America (1988) in Movies (curated)

Coming to America (1988)

1988 | Comedy, Romance

6.6

(17 Ratings)

Movie Favorite Watch

"Coming to America. Duh. We [can] leave it at that. I’ll start with the “duh” connotation. It’s an awesome movie. I can’t exactly remember the first time I saw it. I think I was really, really young, when it came on television — I think when it came on HBO or something. I don’t know that I was old enough to see it in the theaters. I doubt it. When I did see it at home, it was when cable first came out. There was only so many movies that would get played over and over again. Thank God Coming to America was one of them. I can quote it from the beginning to the end to this day. It was Eddie Murphy in his prime. Arsenio at his most confident. It was just an awesome concept. Super duper rich African dudes coming to Queens, trying to live regular. While you got Mr. McDowell thinking that he’s the king of the hill and stuff like that. It was a really funny movie. So much character work. I really appreciated those dudes –especially in the end credits, seeing how many characters they really played. I already kinda knew. But it was an awesome surprise to find out that Eddie was the little old man in the barbershop and stuff like that."

Source

Kudos

Jacqueline Stewart recommended Lime Kiln Club Field Day (1913) in Movies (curated)

Lime Kiln Club Field Day (1913)

1913 |

(0 Ratings)

Movie Favorite

"The title is like an artificial title, but it’s Bert Williams, Lime Kiln Club Field Day. It’s actually a film that was never completed. MoMA found it in its vault in reels of production from 1913 featuring Bert Williams, who was the most important entertainer of his era. He’s the first crossover African-American star. He was a recording artist, Vaudeville performer, and he made a number of films with the Biograph company. Some shorter ones survived, but this was a longer production. Fortunately, MoMA discovered his material. They actually put together a cut of it, so that we get a sense of the story. Bert Williams plays this kind of town comic idea, down on his luck a lot of the time, and he and two other guys who are much more sophisticated are competing for the top affection of the local beauty. It’s a lot of comic sequences where they’re trying to take each other out of the running. The film features all of the most important black theatrical performers of the day. It’s just been a revelation to see this, because now we get to see the performance styles of these figures that up ’til now, we’ve only had still images of them and, maybe in some cases, some of the scenarios that they performed in. It’s incredible."

Source

Kudos

Awix (3310 KP) rated Sakho & Mangane in TV

Feb 17, 2021

Sakho & Mangane

2019 | Crime, Fantasy, Horror, Thriller

7.0

(1 Ratings)

TV Show Rating

Completely bonkers Senegalese cop show. Stern, serious veteran Sakho is forced to team up with young Mangane, who is a bit of a rogue. 'I work alone!' they cry in outraged unison: but the captain decrees otherwise. So for a few episodes they tackle cases in traditional police-procedural style, albeit with an African twist (sample dialogue: 'must have been a ritual killing, his balls have been cut off').

Then, halfway through the season and with virtually no warning, a villain with magic powers turns up, one of the characters likewise reveals he has occult abilities, and from this point on the show is stuffed with demons, zombies, evil magicians, strange cults, and so on: the police captain is told that rather than an elite crime task force, she's now running a secret paranormal investigation squad (not that she bothers to tell anyone on the team).

To say it's wrong-footing is a serious understatement, and I would love to know what was going on behind the scenes on this show (it's like Starsky and Hutch turns into The X Files mid-run), but it's colourful and pacy with interesting characters (I particularly enjoyed the perpetually-wasted police pathologist). The quality control, script-wise, is a bit iffy in places, but it obviously scores very highly on the 'what the hell am I watching...?' front.

Kudos

Jordan Binkerd (567 KP) rated The Scorpion King (2002) in Movies

Aug 24, 2019

The Scorpion King (2002)

2002 | Action, Horror, Sci-Fi

6.2

(19 Ratings)

Movie Rating

The Rock (2 more)

Kelly Hu

Michael Clarke Duncan

Lots of white guys for Africa (1 more)

Not a single female who is not stuck in a bikini of some sort (Not that I'm complaining, but....)

Good sword and sorcery fun

Spinning out of The Mummy Returns, The Scorpion King is a decent sword-and-sorcery epic in the vein of Conan the Barbarian that would work better on its own than it does connected to the Mummy franchise. It's not that it's bad, but we know how things end up in The Mummy Returns, and that undercuts some of the characterization in this film. The performances are good to great across the board, though there's a lot of white guys given the African setting. I realize that it's the cradle of civilization, but still. Then there's the trope of all the women wearing bikinis, which doesn't play as well in this day and age as it did in the pulp era....I mean, it has the desired effect, don't get me wrong, but I think we've moved on. The action is excellent, the graphics hold up even seventeen years later (which is more than can be said for the character's introduction in TMR), and on the whole, I enjoyed the film. After watching the special features, though, I think they should have kept the prophecy element in the film. Just my opinion.