Tuesday, January 21, 2025

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Trailer: ‘Just Wright’ Is A Tyler Perry Wannabe

Last weekend the seemingly unstoppable Tyler Perry scored yet another box office win with “Why Did I Get Married Too?”

The modestly budgeted 20 million dollar picture raked in a whopping 29 million Easter weekend coming in second place despite being critically detested. The prolific, fat-suit prone Perry has proven to be a huge cash cow for distributer Lionsgate, occasionally churning out multiple films a year with starless, African-American casts, shot on the cheap. Naturally other studios are now throwing their hats in the ring by making more films aimed at the “urban market”. This weekend, once promising filmmaker Neil Labute’s urban remake of the 2007 British comedy “Death at a Funeral” will undoubtedly score at the box office. Hollywood Elsewhere’s Jeffrey Wells reports that the film was tracking almost neck and neck with the hugely hyped comic book adaptation “Kick-Ass.” Due to the success of films aimed at black audiences, Fox Searchlight is getting in on the action by putting out “Just Wright,” starring rappers-turned-actors Queen Latifah and Common.

The trailer does the audience the favor of unraveling the entire plot so that they can choose to avoid sitting through the pandering, cliche riddled rom-com. Like Perry’s films, “Wright” seems to have the same mixture of relationship melodrama and bland humor but is luckily fat-suit free. Latifah, a romantically troubled tom-boy somehow lands Common, a rich and handsome basketball player by the film’s end (the trailer leaves no doubt of this) proving to be the ultimate fantasy this side of “Twilight.” Latifah’s tame, Will Smith-esque crossover appeal has allowed her to ride these roles to decent box office success, and we’re sure that will be the case this time around. The trailer also features Ke$ha’s “Blah Blah Blah,” which just so happens to be one of the most vile songs ever recorded.

“Just Wright” was written by Michael Elliot and directed by Sanna Hamri. It co-stars Paula Patton and Pam Grier and opens May 14th. — Robert Barnett

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4 COMMENTS

  1. Gotta love those trailers that save you money! Would like to make the point that all black life, I mean African-American (sorry I grew up black) is not bereft of love and therefore so unlivable that the only solution is to fall in love with a professional athlete.

  2. Hey, um, you guys are usually insightful and intelligent, but for whatever reason you skipped all that in this post. First, "black" and "urban" should not be interchangeable when describing a film. The Chris Rock flick isn't exactly "Belly." Second, black romantic comedies should not be automatically disparaged as "Tyler Perry wannabe's" just because they happen to feature blacks. Are we not allowed more than one type of formulaic, easygoing love story? I can't stand Perry, but that don't look like a Perry flick. Predictable, maybe even banal, but not a Perry flick. They are stylistically incongruent, and if you gave it a real look, you'd notice that. Don't let the race of the characters cloud your reporting skills, homie.

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