BlackBuster Movie: Why Do Fools Fall in Love?

How do I know "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" is a Blackbuster?  I actually watched it when it was featured as BET's Blackbuster movie for the night.

Even if I didn't, two things would have tipped me off: the only white guy with a semi-significant part turns out to be evil and Vivica A. Fox has a major role.

Unfortunately,  Fox is not only an indication of a Blackbuster, but also the sign of a bad one.  Aaron McGruder knows what he's talking about in his "Boondocks" comic strip when he blames her for the low quality of movies.

This is possibly the worst movie I have ever seen.  It gets nothing right as a weak narrative and poor editing and cinematography are only a few of the many things wrong with the film.  There are movies made by high school students better than "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?"

The film's title takes it's name from the 1956 hit song by Frankie Lymon and Teenagers as it revolves around Lyman and the three women he married during his life.  They include his first wife Elizabeth Waters (Vivica A. Fox),  singer Lola Taylor (Halle Berry), and third wife Emira Eagle.

Instead of focusing on the more interesting story of Lymon being one of the earliest  child stars that struggled because his voice changed at 15,  it centers on a 1986 court case years after his death where his three wives dispute who should collect Lymon's royalties from his song "Why Do Fools Fall in Love."

It's about as interesting as it sounds and the method of employing flashbacks to Lyman's life via the wives testimony makes the structure convoluted as well as backwards.

Especially when the movie uses a weird flashback with voiceovers within the flashbacks to quickly glance over Lyman's abusive childhood.

Too bad they couldn't flashback to a better movie.  Judging by the performance scenes, they must have been choreographed by Milli Vanilli because there's a ton of lip synching.  I don't think it would have been that hard to find a black guy that could actually sing.

The crapfest only gets worse as the director seems to forget he isn't making a soft core porn as there's excessive sex scenes and believes odd camera angles and shaking the camera produce drama.  Wait that sounds a lot like porn, maybe the director really did think it was one.

Honestly, Halle Berry is the only redeeming aspect of "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?," but I'm sure she cringes every time someone remembers that she was in it.  She'll probably throw you off her property for even mentioned it.

There was one great fact thing about my viewing experience though.  It was the BET commercials.  Now if you've ever watched BET, you know that they have "special" commercials for their audience.  This one in particular was great:



I thought the insurance I already had was fine, but now I realize that I need to step up and get grown man insurance.  Especially if Dennis Haysbert tells me to.

Why didn't anybody tell me about this sooner?  Does this mean I've covered for anything that may happen at a grown and sexy party? I'm not really sure if white people are allowed to get this insurance which seems kind of unfair.  At least I'm eligible for it though, so that makes me feel better.

So to wrap up, "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?" is a Blackbuster not worth seeing and you need to get yourself some grown-man insurance.

The Last Dragon

As I said before, not all Blackbusters are bad. Some of them are awesome such as the 80s classic "The Last Dragon." I've probably seen this movie way too many times to count, and it's still entertaining every time. For several reasons "The Last Dragon" is an obvious Blackbuster:

1. It was produced by Motown's Berry Gordy and any produced by him is a Blackbuster.

2. Anytime I've mentioned this movie to any of my non black friends they have no clue what I'm talking about.

It features actor Taimak as main character Leroy and actress Vanity, Prince's protege, as music video host Laura Charles, Leroy's love interest. Also, there are some surprisingly notable actors in smaller roles like Keisha Knight Pulliam (Rudy from the Cosby Show), Chazz Palminteri, and William H. Macy.

In the movie, Leroy, a black teenage martial arts student living in New York City, desires to be like his idol Bruce Lee and sets out to reach the highest level of martial arts accomplishment known as "The Last Dragon." When one reaches this level, he then possess a mystical energy called "the glow." While on the way to achieving this goal, he encounters a crooked arcade mogul (evil white guy) who kidnaps his girlfriend, and must battle an evil martial arts master named Sho'nuff, the Shogun of Harlem.

But words alone can not do this justice so check out the trailer posted above. It has several attributes that make it a great movie including: black people doing martial arts, one of the best character names ever "Sho'nuff" (origin of my name), cheesy 80s special effects of glowing and an epic last fight scene (skip ahead to the 4:35 mark) with an extremely catchy song also called "The Last Dragon." Not to mention it makes you yell "who's da mastah?" after viewing it.

Recently, Columbia Pictures has decided to produce a remake of the movie with Wu Tang's RZA as a producer and Samuel L. Jackson as Sho'nuff. Rhianna has also been mentioned for the role of Laura Charles. All this might make Taimak (the star of the original "The Last Dragon") happy because he has apparently written a script for a sequel that he's still trying to get made.

Do yourself a favor and see the original film first.

Blackbuster Movies

(Picture from BET website)

That's not a typo; I really did mean Blackbuster instead of blockbuster. The cable network BET often uses it to describe the movies it shows on certain nights. But the real question is, what exactly defines a movie as a Blackbuster?  Like any movie, they can be really good or really bad. Here are a few general guidelines you can use to determine if a movie is one:

1. Generally a movie embraced by the black community that white people don't understand, get or have even heard of. It's like white people's love of the film Caddyshack.  There aren't any minorities besides maybe Tiger Woods who can figure out why it's suppose to be so hilarious and great.  White people golf everyday; that's not funny, it's a fact.  Did you think the Blackbuster "Who's Your Caddy" looked or sounded funny. That's what "Caddyshack" is to minorities. Although to be fair, I don't think anybody could really enjoy "Who's Your Caddy."

2. Unlike most movies, the ratio of black actors to white ones is much higher. At the very least it's two to one in favor of black people, probably higher.   In this world it turns out that more than one black person exists in New York City.  Contrary to what the TV show "Friends" thought, you probably can't go eight years in New York without seeing a black person.  Instead of the random black friend that shows up, it's the random white friend.  Although there can be exceptions to this rule, such as when it's fewer black characters trying to make it in a white man's world or take down a bunch of evil or unjust white characters.

3. Any movie with Bill Bellemy, Vivca A. Fox, Nia Long, Martin Lawrence, or Mike Epps is probably a Blackbuster.  Other common indicators are the appearance of Morris Chestnut and Taye Diggs.  These people are in the Blackbuster hall of fame because it's hard to find many made without them. Now for some of these actors like Chestnut and Diggs, it's not entirely their fault because Hollywood likes reusing the same six actors for every black role, but others like Bellemy, Fox, Lawrence (exception Bad Boy movies), and Epps are responsible for movies that may have set back the black community several years. Of course some Spike Lee films, like Crooklyn or any Tyler Perry film can be considered blackbusters.  Actually, I think Perry movies might be the best equivalent to white people's fascination with "Caddyshack."   Don't even ask me why they're suppose to be so good because I don't get the big deal about his films either.

4. Any movie starring a rapper. Apparently it's a natural progression from rapping to acting except it turns out expanding one's grasp of the English language beyond adding the n word to every sentence can be more difficult than originally thought.  Clearly, we are still waiting for Ja Rule and DMX to win the Oscars they so sorely deserve.

There you have it. If you encounter one or more of these things, you may indeed be watching a Blackbuster.  So the next time you're watching "Big Mamma's House" or "I Got the Hook Up," you can proudly tell your friends why it's a Blackbuster movie.