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Posts Tagged ‘Lee Daniels’

Lee Daniels’ The Butler

Tuesday, January 21st, 2014

tn_thebutler“I always loved servin’.”

LEE DANIELS’ THE BUTLER by Lee Daniels is the new one from crazy fuckin Lee Daniels, and I know what you’re thinking: thank God a Warner Brothers claim with the MPAA forced them to include “LEE DANIELS'” in the title at 75% the size of THE BUTLER, because otherwise I would’ve assumed that this modern movie with Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey on the cover is the lost silent short from 1916 THE BUTLER. I mean, who wouldn’t? It would be an easy mistake to make.

Also I know what Lee Daniels is thinking: that’s pretty cool that some crazy corporate bullshit that makes no sense caused me to get my name in the title like WES CRAVEN’S NEW NIGHTMARE or JOHN CARPENTER’S VAMPIRES.
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The Paperboy

Tuesday, December 4th, 2012

“If anyone’s gonna pee on him, it’s gonna be me!”

THE PAPERBOY is the new one from Academy Award nominee for Best Director Lee Daniels. That’s the guy that did PRECIOUS, BASED ON THE NOVEL PUSH BY SAPPHIRE as well as SHADOWBOXER, BASED ON THE IDEA THAT HELEN MIRREN AND CUBA GOODING JR. ARE ASSASSINS AND SHE RAISED HIM BUT ALSO THEY’RE FUCKING AND SHE HAS CANCER. I feel like the critical community embraced PRECIOUS without really picking up on how nutty it was, or doing a background check on Mr. Daniels’s previous work. So they did cartoony “wh-wh-whUHHH?” double-takes when THE PAPERBOY played at Cannes and had a part where Nicole Kidman territorially pisses on Zac Efron from HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL. Because it’s a Lee Daniels movie.
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Shadowboxer

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

tn_shadowboxerI never heard of Lee Daniels before he got a best director nomination for PRECIOUS, BASED ON etc. Turns out PRECIOUS… is his third movie as a director, SHADOWBOXER is his first, and Kent M. Beeson insisted in the comments that I had to see it.

I’ve seen a few interviews and things with Daniels, and he seems like a nice, normal guy. Based on these movies alone, though, you’d have to assume the motherfucker is nuts.

SHADOWBOXER is a very serious crime drama. It has some colorful characters and intense violence, but it’s not an action movie at all. It’s focused on the characters, and with its lush colors, weakness for soft lighting and classical music it’s a similar style to PRECIOUS. It’s the story of a male-female team of assassins who, when hired to take out a crime boss’s pregnant wife (Vanessa Ferlito from DEATH PROOF) decide instead to deliver the baby and take mother and child into hiding.

The two killers have a strong attachment, they take care of each other, and they are lovers. And, uh, they’re played by Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Helen Mirren. Hahem. (read the rest of this shit…)