From Not Hot to Hot

After a year of lunacy, the Scar-Jo Hotness Meter, also known as the Maxim Hot 100, has returned to normalcy.  The 2013 list was a month late April's Fool joke that attempted to pass off sock puppet Miley Cyrus as the hottest woman in the world.  That offense was so egregious, this blog did not post a Hotness Meter in 2013.  Inexplicably, Miley Cyrus is still number 25 on the 2014 Hot 100 but integrity has been restored as Scarlett Johansson has risen from number 15 to number 2.

So, with Ms. Johansson being par for the course, Candace Swanepoel is -1, Rihanna is a +10,  Beyonce is a +20,  Zoe Saldana is a +28, Paula Patton is a +47, Kerry Washington is a +64 and Gabriel Union is a +80.

As usual, Rosario Dawson and Halle Berry remain too hot for the Scar-Jo Hotness meter.

~rave!

Is this the End?

This may be the demise of the Scarjo Hotness Meter.  Not because Scarjo (the redoubtable Miss Scarlett Johansson) is not on the 2012 Maxim Hot 100 List - she is, at number 17 - it is because the list is such a joke that ranking women on the list relative to Scarjo's current position is not only ridiculous but irrelevant.

If the editors of Maxim no longer care, why should I?  Who cares that cartoon mom Lois Griffin, number 85, is a +68 on the Hotness Meter?  LOIS GRIFFIN?  I mean, Rihanna is the first black woman on the list and she is number 32 (+15).  Zoe Saldana is 45 (+28) and LaLa Anthony is 93 (+76).

Meagan Good and Gabrielle Union didn't even make the list and, as always, Halle Berry and Rosario Dawson remain TOO HOT for the Scarjo Hotness Meter.

~(no)rave!

Scarjo, redux (2010)

There may be hope for the Scarjo Hotness Meter after all. After Scarlett Johansson tumbled from 2 to 34 in last year's Maxim Hot 100 (losing considerable "hotness" by marrying Ryan Reynolds) we feared for the worse but ("hail, glory!") she has rebounded to number 14 and made the SHM respectable again.

Using the recalibrated SHM, where Scarjo is par for the course, the ubiquitous Zoe Saldana is a -11. Rihanna is a -8. Eva Mendez is a -3. Selita Ebanks is a +2.

Dania Ramirez +16
Jessica Alba +20
Gabrielle Union +43

And, for the third year in a row, Halle Berry and Rosario Dawson remain so hot they are OFF the Scarjo Hotness Meter.

~rave!

Death Becomes Them

Neil LaBute's remake of Death at a Funeral is both faithful and radically different from director Frank Oz's original. Recasting the movie with a primarily African-American actors colors everything while casting white actors in two of the showcase roles retains familiarity.

Death reunites Chris Rock with LaBute who directed him in Nurse Betty. For my money, Betty was the first movie where Rock played an actual human being instead of a caricature of one. There was real menace in Wesley, the junior hitman Rock played in Betty. And, under LaBute's direction, there is some of that in Death. But whereas Nurse Betty was a black comedy, Death is a black comedy, and a frequently hilarious one at that.

Edward (played by legendary stunt man Bob Minor) has passed and eldest son Aaron (Rock) has been given the responsibility of giving his father a proper send-off. Complications ensue when his childless wife (Regina Hall), who is ovulating, wants to engage in a quickie before the wedding. This is acerbated by constant diatribes about not having any grandchildren uttered by his grieving mother (Loretta Divine).

Making love to his wife is the last thing on Aaron's mind. Among his many responsibilities, he has to finish writing his eulogy, which he is writing against the wishes of his extended family. To add insult to injury, his famous brother (Martin Lawrence), a best-selling author everyone else wants to write the eulogy, arrives with Louis Vuitton luggage but nothing to contribute to the mounting funeral expenses.

Then there is the matter of Oscar (James Marsden) the fiancé of cousin Elaine (Zoe Saldana) who has mistakenly been given acid instead of a Valium to calm his nerves at the prospect of once again enduring the blistering disdain of Elaine's disapproving father, Duncan (Ron Glass).

Marsden (Scott Summers/Cyclops in the X-Men movies) turns in an surprisingly nuanced, touching and hilarious performance as his drug addled character blissfully destroys the decorum of Edward's funeral.

That is, the decorum that is not upended by the arrival of Frank (Peter Dinklage reprising his role from the original) and his disconcerting news for Edward's sons.

The biggest laughs in the movie come during a scene involving Tracy Morgan, Danny Glover and Columbus Short and may be the funniest scene involving the porcelain goddess since Sergeant Roger Murtaugh (Glover) discovered a bomb under his loo in Lethal Weapon 2.

~rave!

Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, Now

Our Family Wedding is the latest entry in the Guess Who's Coming to Dinner oeuvre of awkward interracial mixing and matching. The one constant of these movies is that the black person is "the catch," in many ways more attractive, gifted and talented than the object of their affection (0kay, Guess Who's Ashton Kutcher may be prettier than Zoe Saldana, but his character is also unemployed) and all could, obviously, do better. The on-going conceit is that the black half of these matches has to be this fabulous just to be palatable to the ostensibly "better" family they are marrying into. There may be a black man in the White House but it remains the same as it was in 1967; the same as it was in 2005; and the same as it will be in this post-racial society - allegedly.

At first blush, Wedding is more faithful to Dinner than the clunky Guess Who remake starring Kutcher and Bernie Mac. Marcus Boyd, the too-good-to-be-true doctor played by Lance Gross (Tyler Perry's House of Pain), is a direct descendant of Sidney Poitier's Dr. John Wade Prentice. Dr. Boyd is not only handsome and intelligent, he is also kind, well bred and selfless. It is his decision to join Doctors Without Borders in Thailand that precipitates the ensuing complications and shenanigans.

Top lined by Forest Whittaker and comedian Carlos Mencia, Wedding is better balanced than both its predecessors. Mencia's years as a stand-up comedian allows him to employ a nervy confidence that enables him to more than hold his own with Academy Award winner Whittaker. By the same token, Whittaker's lazy-eyed homeliness brings a bashed gravitas to his portrayal of suave late night radio host Brad Boyd - you can see the pride and hurt of his 49 years as a black man on his face. Boyd is a bon vivant who appreciates both fine art and fine wine while Mencia, the owner of a detail and body shop, is an exacting craftsman who is lovingly restoring a classic car to give his daughter as a gift when she graduates from law school.

Wedding is surprisingly balanced in other ways, too. We get to see Marcus' interact with his father, an unrepentant ladies' man, his outspoken uncle (Charlie Murphy) and his preppy, milquetoast cousin (an uncredited cameo by Taye Diggs) while his intended, Lucia Ramirez' (Ugly Betty's America Ferrera) interacts with her unfulfilled mother (Diana-Maria Riva), her tomboy sister (Anjelah Johnson) and her outspoken grandmother (Real Woman Has Curves' Lupe Ontiveros). Lastly, we are allowed to see the playful "bromance" between Whittaker and his best friend (Southland's Regina King) while it evolves into something more as they take the lead in planning Marcus and Lucia's last minute wedding.

There are herks and jerks to Wedding, unfunny wild goat and Viagra jokes to mention a few, but, on the whole, this is a more than moderately pleasing enterprise ending, as it does, in a fond melding of electric slide and mariachi band as the Boyd and Ramirez families decide to keep the best of both their worlds with neither having to give up their cherished cultural identities.

~rave!

A Different Kind of Blue

James Cameron has achieved a remarkable daily double. He
has spent years and boat loads of money, putting his career and
his studio at irrational risk and, once again, as improbably as he
did in 1997 with Titantic, he has snatched overarching success
from the jaws of unenviable defeat. Perhaps this is just something
he has to do every ten, twelve years or so (he was less successful
with 1989’s The Abyss). In any case, rarely have I had a more
satisfying movie theater experience than I had watching Avatar.

I have a Holy Trinity of movies: Pulp Fiction, The Matrix and The
Terminator (of these Pulp Fiction is the “holiest of the holies”). I
love these movies because as I was watching them I not only felt
as if I was plugged directly into the world portrayed up on the
screen, I felt as if I had just experienced a paradigm shift (“Was
it good for you?”).

Avatar in 3D is an awesome achievement. Many have tried to
deliver the ultimate 3-D experience and many have failed miser-
ably. Cameron has not only succeeded, he has excelled, creating
a full, real world with remarkable depth of field. Cameron uses
3-D as just another color on his filmmaking palette and does not
employ it as just another cheap trick. The 3-D objects and effects
are often as surprising as they are seamlessly integrated into the
intricately woven fabric of his story.

The story itself is familiar and universal. So many elements seen
here have been seen before and have become cultural touchstones.
If you have seen Star Wars, Aliens, Dune, any of the Terminator
movies, or read or seen any of the dragon rider books or movies,
you are prepared to be immersed in Avatar’s world. Much is
taken from Cameron’s own lexicon. There is Sigourney Weaver
essaying a Ripley-like scientist, Giovanni Ribisi in the Paul
Reiser corporate weasel role and Michelle Rodriguez in the
tough-talking female soldier role (Aliens). And there is the
strong woman of purpose (a different kind of blue Zoe Saldana)
who must give a weak man (Sam Worthington) the strength to
do what needs to be done.

There are many grace notes in Avatar. The braids that snake
down the backs of the indigenous Na'vi people are organic USB
cables and the way Cameron’s characters “jack” into their cog-
nitive world is lovely. The notion of the natives bonding with the
extraordinary flora and fauna of this alien world is at once illus-
trative, exhilarating and, often, thrilling.

Cameron has gathered an eclectic and racially diverse cast.
Worthington is Australian and Saldana, Laz Alonso, CCH
Pounder and Wes Studi can be glimpsed under their blue patina.
In addition, Stephen Lang (as Colonel Miles Quaritch) delivers
such a muscular performance, as the pragmatically evil face of
American Imperialism, you may wonder where he has been all
your life.

Avatar is powerful, moving, didactic and thought-provoking.
All in all, a singular achievement.

~rave!