Bertha Selmon

It was the worst movie I’ve seen at a theatre. About an hour and 15 minutes into it, and about the time the vampires ( the esteemed early Country Singers, Carter Family(Mother Maybelline Carter, original singer were the vampires) made their debut, there was still no plot, so I had to do what I’ve never done before,— I walked out of the theatre, I wasn’t being spiteful or rude. It was that bad of a movie, I just couldn’t watch it anymore. There were many reasons for my disdain; but I won’t do a long review. I think the “one star” says it all,— now, I will just capture the main reason I have given it an F, and I’m only giving it one star to Michael B for brilliantly playing two characters,—Smoke and Stack. He almost had me fooled. When I finally caught on to that, I started looking for “Lightening” to show up, ie, Howling Wolf’s “Smoke Stack Lightning.” I was almost an hour into when I discovered the twin brothers Smoke and Stake were played simultaneously by the one actor, Michael B. Jordan. Also, I now live in Mississippi and was born in Sunflower County. Their script was full of fantasy,— had concepts that don’t represent the reality of life during that time period in the Mississippi Delta, especially the juke joints. From my experience, I can assert emphatically that the those juke joints were tiny, intimate and not as loud and wild and choreographed as as depicted in this movie, not like they did in Color Purple‘s remake, where they had large choruses of people doing hard synchronized dancing. The activity was more spontaneous, depending on a lot of factors. That’s fantasy as the depicted in this movie and color purple. Most of the dancing was single file or a couple. When will someone get it right. They didn’t dance like wild animals. “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing”,— especially for movie producers, directors and screen writers, You must really know about the people who you’re describing in the movie, before making a movie if them. They mentioned Sunflower County Mississippi, and Shelby and Vaiden MS; neither town is in Sunflower County. They showed race mixing Asian and white, during Jim Crow. That didn’t happen in the Mississippi Delta,— overreaching fantasy. Asian people hated black people more than whites did. To my chagrin the movie seems popular. The theater had a good crowd for a Sunday, and a few white people were there to see a Black thriller move about vampires in the Mississippi Delta in the 1940s…. That surprised me. Based on the attendance, it will probably be a moneymaking horror movie because there is obviously a market for it,—but it’s not my forte, and it also besmirched my state and the place where I was born. The Mississippi Delta, the poorest and most oppressed black people of the state. I pray they got this movie fully insured because I see trouble with some of people whom they parroted, especially the singers, that are still under copyright protection. I’m aware of it because I am knowledgeable about old music, dated back to the early 1900s. Most horror movie goers would know this. I suppose that’s what they banking: ignorance. Good luck, and I hope you make good money. Just do better next time,

What’s bad to say about such a classic? Not much. I enjoyed it, except I got lost a few times, had to ask my granddaughter for interpretations several times. She’s knowledgeable because she’s seen all of the series,— I haven’t.

I previously posted a long review. It got deleted accidentally. So I will spare the details and make this one short. It was a bad, predicable apocalypse movie. A genre that I don’t like, that’s been overdone for about 30 years or longer. Reminds me of the Color Purple movie remake — “been there, done that; don’t want to do it again”!

Maybe my heart has turned to stoned, because the people I came with enjoyed the movie and was moved to tears during several scenes. I didn’t cry. They loved it. I was not moved emotionally by nothing but Fantasia and her acting and singing. But I shed no tears. I sat there almost emotionally deft,—feeling nothing maybe a little bored. In the final analysis, with no intention to deter anyone from watching it,—for me, the movie ($143 Million dollars] was a very expensive soundtrack. Good music, but too much of it for the movie’s serious themes. As I said to someone months ago when I heard about its release, “A Color Purple” musical for big screen audiences is not doable”. I think I was right? The movie was changed so much from the original that its name should not have been the Color Purple? To explain my reasons for the unforgiving review would take too much time. So I will end it here, and let others have their say. However, I think the half empty theater and the lack of claps or emotions from the audience at the end, spoke volumes louder than my review. Better luck next time Oprah and Steven Spielberg. They earned my 3-star rating for their efforts to tell black stories accurately and other important human stories. Otherwise, I would have given it a 2-Star rating, based on my high expectations for it. The stereotypes of excess singing, dancing and booting shaking will probably draw white audiences; but it soured me on it. The music was too much,—on steroids. I also thinks the good reviews and high attendance are from mostly emotionally invested black audiences who are afraid to truthfully rate a bad black movie.

I don’t like war movies with lots of battle scenes; but, in spite of the many engaging battles scenes, I have to admit that this movie kept me engaged and entertained for 2-1/2 hours. For that I can easily give it 4 stars. Why not 5 stars? Reasons: I didn’t get what I wanted to know —how did an average child from Corsica grow up to become Emperor of France, 2) It told us nothing about the man, Napoleon. I have only read parts of his books. 3) The music score was elementary and horribly missing the mark in most scenes. 4) The movie had no purpose that I could see. The very expensive movie was an missed opportunity for the movie industry to use his early life and “the man” himself to inspire this generation to greatness; simultaneously to warn them of how to avoid their own “Waterloo”,-abusing the power of their destiny, 5) I almost walked out when the movie opened with a preparation scene for battle, with partying piano music in the background; but decided to stick around to see if it would pick up. It did. Me, being an American, not into French classical music, found that most of the music didn’t match the scene. My ear is just not trained for it to drive the scenes,—should have had more American music, so that we know what the scene is about, based on the background music. Napoleon’s film director seems uninterested in the importance of the music score to help tell the story of the historical figure,—love him or hate him? I think the movie scored in the entertainment arena, but did an injustice to the entirety of this “man of destiny”. People who know little about him, will see him as a villain only. From my readings on him,—I glean that he was very wise—well read, educated himself beyond regular education by reading and that was his power, before he got drunk with power… Otherwise, it was well worth my 45 minutes drive to see it. I live in a small town with no movie theaters.

I wrote a long review which I accidentally deleted. Won’t rewrite it. This is my short version. This is the most whitewashed version of a paramountly important story I have ever seen. The actress who played Mamie Till is Oscar-quality. The movie wasted her talent. Because of her, I’m giving it 4 stars.