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Saturday, January 31, 2009

Fuhgeddaboudit.....


Of course I saw many a movie while on my hiatus, a lot of which I'll be talking about over the next few days. One I saw while having a bout of insomnia: "Homie Spumoni".

You're probably like "wha?". It is the story of some Black dude whose Black parents lost him as a baby while vacationing in Italy. He is found by an Italian woman whose husband can't have kids, so she keeps him. Fearing racism in town, they move to America, name him Renaldo and raise him in little Italy, all the while the Black dude thinking he's Italian, but just dark-complexioned. His Black parents find him, starting off by telling him his real name is Leroy--"hilarity" ensues.

Yes, it is just as weird and ridiculous as it sounds. I read about this film a couple years ago, and saw that Whoopie Goldberg and Paul Mooney (!) played the parents, and Tony Rock the brother, so I was pretty curious to see it. I looked for it, but never saw anything from it, so I forgot about it, till the other night.

Donald Faison plays the "homie". Can I say what is the deal with him? He was charming in "Clueless", but after that I can't really decide what to make of him. I can't tell if he might be funny, or is just goofy, or just seems like he never has any direct contact with any other Black folks, ever. What I do know, however, is that in this movie he has a very big and mutating mole above his lip--and in the film sometimes it was covered with make-up, sometimes it was sweating, and sometimes it looked like a roach was chilling under his nose. And me being me, of course I was wholly distracted by it in almost every scene.

Anyhoo, getting past the fact that it is utterly ridiculous that this guy has absolutely no clue that he might be Black, and speaks like a Paulie Walnuts from the deepest part of Brooklyn, this movie kinda made me laugh. Sometimes I have a weakness for flat-out dumb humor, explaining my love for Friday and Friday After Next (NOT to be confused with Next Friday or First Sunday). Homie Spumoni is filled with completely un-PC humor about Asians, Blacks, Italians, and Jews. It was almost like it was written in the 60's by Don Rickles...I laughed when others would probably wince, but it was 4 in the morning, maybe I was punch-drunk.

Jamie Lynn Sigler (Meadow from the Sopranos) plays Faison's newly acquired girlfriend, tho she is Jewish in this film. There is less than zero chemistry between them. He sings and dances (completely entrancing in it's awkwardness), volunteers in an animal shelter, and works in his father's deli until his parents Goldberg and Mooney show up.

I must say, I have never found Whoopie so loose and funny before. It was like she said "I know I'm in a low budget movie, so I'm gonna ack a fool", and she does. There is one flashback that she narrates that was just so silly and hilarious to me, where she explains how they lost Donald in a basket while on the river in Italy while Daddy Mooney was drinkin' wine out of a leather pouch. Too funny!

Anyway, Joey Fatone (!) plays his best friend, Tony Rock as the brother makes attempts to bring Faison to his Blackness (one way of course is to bring him to some niggaratti house party; yeah, that won't scare him away) and Faison has to figure out where his place is in the world--especially after the 2 moms have a knife fight (don't ask).

While I got a few guilty laughs out of this--trust me, this is for insomniac viewing only.


Here is scene with Faison, with an outfit that looks like a reject from Coming To America, and his supposed new dad, Paul Mooney. I have and always will love Paul and his dry, wry humor:




And speaking of Faison, he seems to have an affinity for making dumb stuff. My blogging sis Wanda (and Sergio) sent this trailer over to me, tho I had heard about it weeks ago. It is a movie called "Next Day Air" described as this:

When a misguided UPS driver inadvertently delivers a package containing concealed bricks of cocaine to the wrong address, it sets in motion a desperate search and battle for the coke between the furious dealer that sent it, the fearful intended recipients that missed it, and the conniving accidental recipients that plan to flip it. Time is running out and everyone's trying to get their hands on the package that's been sent.

From IW: Gosh, we've never seen that before, have we?

Here is the trailer. Oh yeah, by the way, Mos Def, Lauren London, Mike Epps, Wood Harris (The Wire), and Debbie Allen are in it too:

10 comments:

Sergio said...

Speaking of Whoopi Goldberg I've never gotten her either. And people don't realize is that at one time, back during the early 90's, she was literraly the highest paid actress in Hollywood getting $10-12 million a picture. Though those days a LONG GONE (too many lousy movies making no money at the box office will anybody's movie career come to a crashing end - just ask Nicole Kidman) Goldberg still works A LOT. I looked at imdb.com and she has over 100 movie and TV credits since the early 80's. But I've always felt that she's still popular because always she's willing to ook like a hot ass mess and not be a threat to white women. I've never seen a female celebriity in my life who's so willing to look as unfeminine and as bad as she does. I think she's got some real self-image issues. Why you think she's on The View? That 102 year old, dried up mummy Barbara Walters had to search far and wide to find a black woman who looks worse than her (and that other black chick on the show is as dumb as a box of rocks so she's no threat either)

As the big surprise for me in that Next Day Air trailer is Debbie Allen. What the hell is she doing in the film? Has it come down to this? What happened to her and her career? Remember back she had A Different World (still one of the best sit-coms ever) and was always directing episodes of for other TV shows. She has the hottest TV director and producer in town. Then suddenly she went cold as the North Pole and can't get her phone calls returned. When something like that happnens usually it means that you got a lot of people pissed off or did something so awful that made you persona non grata. I mean even Mickey Rourke was still getting work even when he was screwing up, so what did Allen do?

dubbleu said...

Thanks for the love IW!!

Sergio-
You are hilarious. For a long time I would look at Whoopi and think, something is wrong here, but I can't figure out what it is. I swear it was years before I realized she didnt have any eyebrows! It's hard to express with no eyebrows (or eyebrow movement a la Nicole Kidman).

I agree with Barbara Walters because her old azz needs to sit down somewhere. Always on the show being pretentious and thinking she knows everything. Whoopi looks like she wants to slap the hell out of her 70% of the damn time.

Very funny bit about Barbara Walters and Oprah, by the fantastic Paul Mooney:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b80Ic2MWRrQ

blaqbird said...

wow...i'd never heard of that movie, but maybe i'll give it try...only cuz Paul Mooney is in it. I like Donald Faison, but I also wonder if he interacts w/black folk. He was on Conan O'Brien a few weeks ago and he was talking about his love for Neil Diamond...wha? Okay I can't judge cuz I do enjoy all types of music, but Neil Diamond? Fa real? *sigh* To each his own I guess...

Sergio said...

OOPS! Sorry for all those typos, (misspelled and missing words) in my previous post. I'm getting way too careless

achoiceofweapons said...

This is a movie where the actors get enough money and screen time to qualify for health and union benefits. Nothing More. Something to put on the resume and get a lil screen time. No name actors B list and C list that may be good but don't have the juice to get in an A list or High B need these and live by them. Of course it sux's for us.
Stop by my blog
Jaycee

Karen said...

Donald Faison was good in Clueless, Scrubs and Something New but I can't get with those two trailers shown. They look way too silly for me.

clnmike said...

I am actually curious to see Next Day Air.

macon d said...

Thanks, this does look worth a look, in a sort of icky way. Interesting cast!

Anonymous said...

"Next Day Air" looks like a rental to me....on second thought, no, it does not.

Invisible Woman said...

@sergio: i don't know what happened to debbie--every time i came across her, she always seemed nice, genuine, and down to earth. it might be age, tho--after a woman starts looking her age her choices get extremely limited for the most part :-(

@wanda: thanks for that, me love him!

@bluebird: i heartily agree, i'm all for people doing their thing but for chrissakes, neil freaking diamond? you could of at least said the carpenters!

@mista jaycee: love your blog! you are very talented :-)

@solshine: he was in something new? girl, i don't even remember that--i guess he made quite an impression, haha!

@clnmike: i am too mildly, but not enough to pay to see it

@macon d: you got it, exactly!

@v-knowledge:catch it on cable dude.