Monday, May 01, 2006

Black folks tell Akeelah and the Bee to 'Stick It'

I saw a movie this weekend. A good movie, one that made me laugh, cry and just feel good all over. It starred a young black girl in the inner city who was an honor student and aimed to be a spelling bee champ. There were no pimps, ho's, gangs, crackbabies and all that other stuff that seems to pervade in black films. Nope. This was a breakthrough because the movie didn't put black people in a bad light. So I am happy to say that I saw 'Akeelah and the Bee' this past weekend. Too bad I was the only one who did.

Akeelah and the Bee made a lousy $6 million at the box office its first weekend while silly movies such as 'R/V' and 'Stick It' made way more money. I haven't seen the other two movies so I can't say whether they were good or horrible, but sheesh! How often is it that a positive black flick is in the theaters? Never! And then folks want to complain that all our movies portray us in a negative light. That happens because whenever a positive film is shown, nobody goes to see it.

I thought 'Akeelah and the Bee' was a wonderful movie. I'm an Angela Basset fanatic and it was good to see her reunited with Laurence Fishburne again. I shuddered in my seat a couple of scenes because I feared he'd have a flashback to his Ike Turner days and slap her.

Oh well. The movie didn't do well opening weekend and you know what that means. It disappears. Maybe folks will at least catch it on DVD.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This really pisses me off. Why can't we support a feel-good movie about us? It's a deep-seated self-hate issue. I swear it is.

Strength/Courage/Wisdom said...

Preach, Juicy. Preach!