normal35762 Member since Oct 20th 2004 13246 posts
Sat Apr-04-15 11:27 PM
2. "Hahaha. I was finna be like I ain't never seen it but then..." In response to Reply # 0
I remembered and looked it up to see who was in it. I saw the beginning of it back in the days. It was an unclear bootleg I think so I didn't see the whole thing. Saw the tail end of it hmmm....maybe 6 months to a year ago.
4. "Well, I see where Lee Daniels learned his gratuitous use of traumatic ch..." In response to Reply # 0
flashbacks from...
Unless what is clearly set up to be happening in that first flashback is revealed to be a twist of some sort, it's not needed thrice within a twenty minute stretch.
15. "Bokeem is at a 12 where everyone else is on no more than 9." In response to Reply # 14
He ain't awful, at all, but he could have perhaps been adjusted down just a smidge so that the tone of his scenes doesn't so sharply contrast the rest of the film (the scenes are already going to contrast by the sheer nature of their content and intent; no need for them to appear to have been culled from two separate movies mashed together).
This is nitpicking, though. This isn't early Tyler Perry levels of atonality.
16. "Oh, those accents are more than iffy. They're fringing horrible. " In response to Reply # 6
Payne's bothers me the most, b/c literally no one from the 5th ward would talk like that. It was caricature of a southern accent that it took me all the way out of the movie.
11. "So, I just went traipsing over the Internet *heavy spoilers abound*" In response to Reply # 0 Sun Apr-05-15 01:49 AM by b.Touch
First of all, whoever wrote the nYT review for this picture has not a hopeful bone in his body, questioning the idea that a girl like Lyric could exist outside of a film. Lyric is the proverbial diamond in the rough: she's the one who's destined to make it out...
...yeah, until she doesn't.
So, there's a thread a good strong six pages deep on the IMDb page for this film arguing over whether Lyric lives at the end of the film. I thought it was clear as shit that she was shot dead, that Jason carried her dead body downstairs slowly in true tragidrama style (instead of administering CPR to the clearly-not-breathing woman if he thought she was alive)...
...and remember what the very first word in this film is: "Ghosts". Seen as Jason is sitting on that bus out of town, alone. Lyric's on the bus with him at the end in his mind, as he's looking out the window watching his father, his brother, and a younger version of himself in the field with the irrigation plane overhead.
Should Doug McHenry have shot the scene in double-exposure so people would get it?
Addendum: This is West Side Story/Romeo and Juliet with no singing. Or tights.
> >Addendum: This is West Side Story/Romeo and Juliet with no >singing. Or tights.
~~~~ When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries. ~~~~ You cannot hate people for their own good.
I thought the opening sequence was just tight on him, so you wouldn't know the end. And at the end, he is leaving with her and she has a bandage on her arm...where she was shot. If she was dead, wouldn't she still be the way he always saw her, no bandage? who images their love with flaws?
19. "RE: See now..." In response to Reply # 18 Sun Apr-05-15 06:17 PM by b.Touch
>I thought the opening sequence was just tight on him, so you >wouldn't know the end. And at the end, he is leaving with her >and she has a bandage on her arm...where she was shot. If she >was dead, wouldn't she still be the way he always saw her, no >bandage? who images their love with flaws?
It's not that tight (I was watching in HD. "Jason's Lyric" was very very likely shot open-matte, but a widescreen copy of an open-matte film still gives a little extra sliver of left and right to the frame.
I say all that to say, the other chair is clearly empty at the beginning of the film.
Some people imagine their love with flaws, if they learn to accept those flaws. Moreover, she was shot point-blank in the chest (through the right lung and likely hitting major veins as well), not the arm - that's where the bandage on the not-really-there Lyric is.
Add to that all the thematic symbolism in having Lyric die - the Romeo & Juliet connection (well, West Side Story at least ,because Jason lives), how Joshua shoots Lyric accidentally, just like how Jason shot Maddog accidentally. As I understand it, the shooting script is quite explicit in that Lyric is shot dead.
29. "huge huge side note that simply broke my heart " In response to Reply # 0
the love scene with Jada is a body double.. I was so geeked to have seen her titties and later found out it wasn't her... I was even more hurt to rewatch after finding out and seeing that it clearly wasn't her...
Lisa Nicole Carson was helpful in healing those wounds.
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