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So... Is The Problem Nursing Homes? Or Andrew Cuomo? (Or Both, And Then Some?)

Like many, I knew it wouldn't last.

When the pandemic broke wide a year ago (I know, what is time, at this point), for New Yorkers events moved at a bewildering pace. And in the midst of madness, it was  both surprising and relieving to discover that Andrew Cuomo was able to step forward, lay out clear information on where things stood, explain what state government was doing in response, and generally try to provide a sense of calm optimism that we could get through for as long as it took. It was a great show (heck it won an Emmy.)

It was also never going to last.

Cuomo's skillset is especially strong on crisis management, he's the ultimate in "I gotta guy" politics, hates unnecessary red tape, and is especially ruthless in getting his way. All very helpful when things are bad. When they're not, people tend to notice things like cronyism, excessive ruthlessness and... hey, what's that red tape hiding in that box over there? And that, as much as anything, goes a long way to explaining why what looked so bright and shiny six months ago, is looking damaged and on life support now.

At first blush, it seemed, and still seems to some that the big scandal is "nursing homes." It's clear that, from the beginning of the pandemic, New York tried hard to minimize the count of deaths in long term care facilities, apparently by (somewhat reasonably) suggesting that dying in a hospital is not dying in a nursing home. While there have been suggestions of "massive undercounting," the overall death toll in New York is quite accurate. It's just that nursing home patients who were taken to hospitals and died there, were not counted, at all, as nursing home resident deaths. Other states (mostly) did. Hence a somewhat large discrepancy.

Moreover, there has been considerable debate that a decision, early on, to release nursing home residents back to nursing homes after they recovered from life threatening conditions that sent them to hospitals, coupled with a policy of not sending residents to hospitals unless they needed life saving care, may have exposed more residents to Covid and contributed to additional deaths.  That part of the story - heavily flogged by Fox and other Murdoch owned outlets - is driven in significant part by Janice Dean, Fox's chief meteorologist, whose in laws died in a nursing home in New York state, Dean though is not necessarily keen on making an especially fact based case (and Cuomo, for his part, is all too happy to attack Dean rather than mount a factual defense). And indeed, while several investigations are ongoing, the overall nursing home story is much more complicated. But... let's get back to Cuomo for a moment.

As I said, Cuomo has several problems, and the nursing home zealots have been flummoxed by additional scandals which have overtaken any nursing home issues and become the real driver of Cuomo's problems; namely, allegations from a number of women of predatory behavior and larger concerns about an especially toxic office environment in the state's executive branch. What began, seemingly, as a bit of a publicity stunt by Lindsay Boylan, running for Manhattan Borough President, offering up some vague allegations has morphed into a serious, damaging look at longstanding problems with Cuomo's management style.

Whether Cuomo can survive any or all of this is mostly unclear at this point - Cuomo's style has been to double down in the face of adversity and he's done that on all fronts... but with New York's leading democrats almost entirely aligned in calling for his resignation, investigations aplenty and an impeachment process starting in the Assembly... it's hard to see how this doesn't end, and soon. Cuomo has resorted mostly to hiding, or pandering to popular sentiments, but it's not clear he can smooth talk or smooth pander his way out of this. Given the moribund state of Republican party politics in the state, Democrats can hold onto power easily and put Cuomo behind them... but let this fester, and all bets are off.

Which leaves one to wonder how much of this current outrage is just Cuomo, and how much is other issues, whether state governance (losing Cuomo is just step 1 in cleaning up Albany's sleazy rep) or... well, that whole nursing home story. Because, to get back to that large messy issue - there's a much longer, much harder conversation to be had, should we get serious about it.

Because the fact is that a disease which was especially deadly for older folks was tailor made to rip through long term care facilities. Lest we forget, the first Covid mass death event was a Washington state nursing home.And that story was repeated, literally countless times, in every state in the country. To get a real sense of the horrific nature of this, loop in prisons -- the other "congregant care" facilities most states operate - and you have the epicenters of death across this pandemic. Should one want to raise this topic. Which, not surprisingly, almost no one does.

We could, in fact, go back and point out that "nursing homes" are in fact, a questionable approach to care to begin with. It's demonstrably clear that warehousing the elderly isn't a good solution for the elderly, or their families, or for the costs associated with care. It's also clear that, in scandal after scandal, states have failed to regulate, protect, or assure proper care in those settings. Oregon, in fact, this week reported that the state has failed, in the year of Covid to even try to address the obvious failures identified in the pandemic. And they are clearly not alone.

Of course, the conversation that results from looking into this is horrendous. And for any number of reasons - not least of which the fact that he served as Trump's main pandemic response foil - making Cuomo the sole issue in this story serves a lot of needs. It will be much harder to face up to, never mind actually deal with, even thinking about revamping the nursing home based approach to elder care. The same, only more so, for a better more humane approach to prisons. Why even start to look when... hey? did another woman just say Cuomo touched her?

And yes, Cuomo honestly makes all too easy - at best, he's been the placeholder for a better leader in New York state for nearly 12 years, and it's no wonder people are tired of putting up with so much bad for the occasional good. Sure, we've got a great safety net, great civil rights protections, gay marriage, and more coming down the pike. But nearly every New Yorker knows we could have all that, and better, without him. More to the point, though, the conversations we need to face - about how to deal with the next pandemic, starting a hard conversation about elder care, really drilling down on the prison problem... all of these will be harder to paper over if Cuomo is gone. So sure... he's gotta go. But be careful what you wish for... because the hard part is what comes after he's gone.

Justice League, The Zack Snyder Cut: And I Think It's Gonna Be A Long Long Time...

Personally, I don't have quite the problems others may have with the messy, somewhat convoluted unfolding of the DC Universe on film; we can't all be Marvel, and I wasn't really raised on Marvel to start. DC, for me anyway, was always about incredible, marquee level heroes whose stories were always in some sort of odd flux. You can't really mess up the conceptual purity of Superman, or Batman, or Wonder Woman... but my goodness, how DC can make a mess of which version and back story applies to which version that may be in a comic book, or on TV or on film. Any company that can simultaneously push "Titans" and "Teen Titans GO!" while seemingly oblivious to the inconsistencies, is happily, endlessly, slightly psychotic. 

Ultimately, a true DC fan knows if whatever you're watching or reading is working for you... you just say "let's just go with that version and see where it winds up. How about that? Later, you can explain to me all about how Earth 7 is totally different from Earth 2."

So, sure, I can accept that the TV series Flash is a charming upbeat adventure, while the new movie Flash is possibly on the spectrum and kind of all over the place. Or let's just go with the Gal Gadot Wonder Woman because, well, she's just awesome. I miss Steve Trevor... but sure, whatever.

And so it came to pass that just when DC seemed to have all its ducks in a row: a grand plan to harmonize Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman and launch a full Universe of films and sequels... Zack Snyder (and his wife Deborah, who serves as producer) suddenly faced a tremendous personal loss, three quarters or so into finishing Justice League. Faced with mounting costs, and a film seemingly headed off the rails, DC rushed in Joss Whedon, who rewrote and recut the film, leading to the all right, but not necessarily great version that stumbled through theaters and set back DC's grand plans somewhat.

Meanwhile, a tantalizing online discussion emerged that "The Snyder Cut" - a mythical, magical version of the same film - would have been the show stopper that was promised, if only Zack had been allowed to finish it. Geeked out fans being what they are, and comic book intensity being all the rage these days... it's not exactly surprising that DC, Warner Brothers and HBO decided that, well, what the hell, it couldn't get worse, so why not go ahead and give the fans what they said they wanted.

So here we are... and here I am, four long hours later, still the DC fanboy of my childhood, making the best of yet more messy DC shenanigans. Is The Snyder Cut good? That may be the wrong question. Is it necessary? Kind of, yes. Is it a massive, bloated mess of a film that probably needed some judicious pruning? Well, definitely on that one, yes.

While the new Justice League does make clear that the Whedon version made a hash of a more coherent tale, at just over 4 hours, to say the Snyder Cut could benefit from a bit of a trim is kind of an understatement. An expansive opportunity for extended storytelling, this new Justice League offers a solid two part comic book of a grand adventure, yet still struggles to land solid emotional resonance and a sense of urgency.

As before, we start on parallel tracks: the mysterious emergence of alien forces searching for hidden devices on Earth, guarded by Amazons and soldiers of Atlantis... while Batman struggles to assemble DC's biggest names into some sort of League... a League of... Justice? Gradually, it becomes clear that the assembled group is meant to fight the arrival of Darkseid (which I always pronounced "Darkseed" as a kid, but is "Dark-side"), a massive evil bent on world destruction. Because of course he is.

It might help Snyder's case if mild variations of this plot hadn't been both the provenance of Endgame and The Chronicles of Riddick (no, really, go look). You can argue that some of this is archetypal - the hero's journey, and all - but much of what's here feels painfully regurgitated, both too much and not enough all at once. Moreover, more than Whedon's "smash and grab" version, Snyder's bloat robs the film of urgency and surprise: every development is so telegraphed or familiar, there's just no commensurate feeling of achievement. This much of a slog should at least feel like we got somewhere.

Snyder's long been a dialogue minimalist (which is good, because too much talk leads to Cameron like pedantry), and it's remarkable a film this terse runs quite this long; the third or fourth set of moody staring to dark rock tracks was pretty much enough, but the film soldiers on, relentlessly. A parade of "Isn't that...?" cameos also gets pretty tiring, since the ancillary characters mostly have little to do (except possibly to set up the exhausting set of sequels we may never see). Visually, the film holds together better under a consistent Snyder vision than in a Whedon/Snyder hybrid; Snyder really does have an eye, and even if I don't love it, his attention to visual detail is impressive. 

As for the lead performances, it's fair to say Affleck shines best in this version, the blank slate nature of his acting gives Snyder the room needed to tell the story his way, with Batman more as observer than narrator. Ray Fisher's Cyborg benefits from an expanded presence and more coherency in his narrative.  Gal Gadot has a sureness as Wonder Woman that overcomes the thinness of her role. Ezra Miller's jittery Flash, on the other hand, benefitted from smoothing out in Whedon's cut; here the intensity overwhelms. Henry Cavill's Superman languishes on the sidelines too long; his calm presence centers the final act and should have been there sooner. As for Jason Momoa... I get the whole flavor of the moment feeling... but Whedon had a better sense of how to make him feel more essential to the proceedings.

Ultimately, the Snyder Cut isn't a disaster. It's just a little long, a bit much, more hype and a bit less actual sizzle than was advertised. In its best moments - where dizzying heroics, dazzling visuals and minimal talk work together seamlessly - you can see the vision it takes to pull storytelling off on this scale. What wears the viewer down is all the rest: the needless discursions, striking levels of humorlessness, and the saggy feeling that little here feels new or fresh. (One interesting point: Whedon apparently lifted Snyder's Batman/Aquaman intro completely intact; and that sequence weighs down both films.)

So, now that we know what "The Snyder Cut" promised... where does DC go from here? Does the DCU honor the promise of Snyder's original?  Or is it just a fever dream of possibilities that we'll always wonder about? Like many DC messes, the answer is probably "let's leave this here while we lurch off in an altogether new direction." Welcome newcomers! This is the life of DC fandom! You're welcome.

You Can't Do That!

Like many a Gen Xer, let me just say up front: I'm quite relieved they didn't have Twitter in my youth, because... well, God knows what I'd have to be apologizing for now. As it is, I know all too well that hiding in this blog alone are words and pieces I'm not necessarily sure I want repeated or blown out of context.

Still, that said... I'm comfortable with saying generally, nothing I've written went there without a lot of thought beforehand.

But let's back out to 30,000 feet for a moment: In a rather odd week, I've been fascinated with the confluence of a small string of events - the dreadful murder spree in Georgia resulting in the deaths of multiple workers and clients in massage parlors, the discussion it has engendered about attacks on Asians in America, Fox News struggling to not cover this, and the fall of Alexi McCammond.

Bear with me... because I think this all has a central point.

First of all, Fox: it's remarkable, really, how the entire network has been fully flummoxed by the unfolding story in Georgia. It was clearly one thing that, early on, the combination of a young white male shooter and the fact that he killed mostly Asian women working in the massage parlors wasn't, let's say, a good look for them. But a dramatic set of murders, gun play and Southern law enforcement really couldn't somehow get reworked to their purposes? Since January - if not earlier - Fox has been falling quietly apart: a massive reworking on the dayside schedule has resulted in largely sagging ratings, lack of Trump has robbed them of their centrality to each days's new drama, and what's been left in his wake  (yes, we all know about the Dr. Seuss thing), well, just isn't much to build an hour broadcast around. And 5 more minutes of Candace Owen trashing WAP? That just sells Cardi B's next single.

It's one thing for Fox to try and flog its own right wing version of a "main story"; it's another problem entirely when the thing leading every other news broadcast on cable or network - or anywhere really - for more than 36 hours is seemingly invisible to Fox. The murders were graphic and public and provided such a high body count in such a short period of time that the story was simply unavoidable. Add in the clearly troubled young man with the guns and his, by his own admission, complex notions of sexuality and deviance... and it's no surprise how this captured the zeitgeist. And when Fox, or any news claiming network really, refuses to acknowledge the zeitgeist happening right in front of them (and what is Fox, but The Voice of What Happened in The South)... well, that's just a failure.

Which isn't to say this is a story where news organizations are particularly distinguishing themselves; from over emphasizing the violence to trying to explore the stories of the victims to getting a bit lost in a tangle of sex work, misogyny and yes, anti-Asian bigotry... this story is a mess and few reporters or news organizations seem to be getting the story right or well. We barely know who the victims are. We certainly don't know much about the shooter's choices or even if he knew any of them. And from his stated reasoning about sexual activity to killing women to the specific choice of establishments with Asian workers... there's a lot to unpack, and mostly, Americans have spent not just years, but generations, trying to avoid just about every aspect this story raises. 

Whatever one thinks about just how these events particularly illuminate, or even intersect with a larger conversation about a rise in anti-Asian bigotry arising out of shallow thinking around the pandemic... myself, I'd say there are no accidents. We are here because we were bound to get here, one day, in one way or another. Objectification and sexualization of Asian women, indeed all women of color, is just one piece of the large conversation around race America desperately needs to unpack, examine, and thrash out. It's not an easy or simple discussion. And while it may not be central to the "Kung Flu" type insults of the pandemic... this is where the point is not some round of picking or choosing which insult is worst. Whatever this sad, murderous kid thought, whatever the world taught him to think about others not like him... it's long past time to have a reckoning about yet another way in which our culture fails a minority group and we all need to do more and better to fix it.

So... here's the thing about Alexi McCammond. McCammond's hiring as Editor in Chief at Teen Vogue, announced weeks ago, got hung up on a revived conversation about a group of tweets she'd written in college, mostly using "Asian" in some derogatory way (but others, as well, that casually engage in hawking "gay" or "homo" as pejoratives). Since college, McCammond has worked her way through journalism and publishing, widely respected, and quite successful. When the issue of the tweets came up in 2019, she apologized at length. Yet and still, staffers at Teen Vogue asked why it was still considered ok or appropriate for McCammond to assume the top spot. In the wake of this week's events - and I'd argue, obviously influenced by the developments - Conde Nast gave up and McCammond withdrew her name.

And who pounced on McCammond's unhiring as their latest example of their mythical "Cancel Culture" morality play? Why, Fox, of course.

To her credit, McCammond, at least, isn't playing along; she's offered no hysterical "cancel culture" defense, and while other journalists are at least lightly bemoaning the state of affairs, the "Cancel Culture" narrative remains largely its own peculiar Fox invention. As it should; as I started, I don't doubt McCammond's sincerity and let those of us whose youth is not widely available online show a bit of pause - there but for Twitter in high school go many of us. But the questions raised do linger - is a 27 year old apologizing away her words at 19 really the point? When did you realize that "gay" and "Asian" and "homo" and who knows what all probably shouldn't be used that way? Who needed to tell you? And why, really, did you need to be told?

And therein lies the thread that I gently pick up and use to tie things together: maybe, in a week of extreme anti-Asian violence and bigotry, we can see why Alexi McCamond was wrong for Teen Vogue in a way that (still) flummoxes Fox. We shouldn't have to say "don't kill Asian women working in massage parlors as some sick response to your sexual issues" just as we shouldn't have to say "don't say that" when using racial and homophobic slurs in casual speech. Just as we shouldn't have to explain to Fox why you can't cherry pick the news when it goes against your narrative. You can't do that. Maybe, in some past time, as a culture we let this stuff slide. And yes, that's on us, and that reckoning was, and is, somewhat overdue. But still.  When Teen Vogue takes on a tough piece about Asian women, sex work, and the myth of the "Exotic Oriental" - one that Fox will probably say is inappropriate for its audience of teen girl readers - this will all make sense. Doesn't it?

 

The Mauritanian: Knowing May Not Be Enough

Is it enough that The Mauritanian provides one of those all too rare (these days) moments when Jodie Foster reminds us she can carry a picture? It ought to be, really; Foster is that rarest of Hollywood stars, the one who can remind us, in moments, how we've missed her intelligence and that calm knowing presence behind her eyes. If she picked it, well, you know there must be something to it.

And yes, there's a lot here, in The Mauritanian, the first film to tackle the stories out of Guantanamo Bay and the prisoners held there. Unfortunately, most of what's there is largely sketched at, suggested and implied. Well designed, and ably directed by Kevin Macdonald to provide just the right amount of fresh outrage, The Mauritanian, for all of Foster's best efforts, is just not quite big enough, or surprising enough, for the searing indictment it seems to hope to be.

Foster plays Nancy Hollander, a prominent human rights attorney based in New Mexico who was asked to look into the case of a Mauritanian man being held by the American government at the request of his mother, via officials of the Mauritanian government. Mohamadou Slahi had been picked up for some suspicious phone activity in the aftermath of 9/11 and, as it turned out, had been transferred to Guatanamo Bay shortly after the base had been converted to receive the various Muslim prisoners held in the Middle East and elsewhere.

One doesn't have to be very well informed to know where the film is headed, but Slahi's case turns out to be a good Example A of how broken and perverted the search for justice has been and will be at Gitmo. Hollander's methodical approach to compiling a record of Slahi's confinement, combined with Slahi's own intelligence, positive attitude and storytelling, makes for a compelling narrative of a heavy handed process that quickly lost its way. Gradually, as the layers peel away, it becomes clear that whatever tangential case federal authorities might have put together on Slahi, or anyone else, has been lost in the ugly morass of "extreme measures" - or more accurately, torture - used on him.

And here's where the film, well intentioned as it is, runs into a bit of a snag: depicting torture is hard, especially in a way that both dramatizes the brutality without, well, reveling in it. For better and worse, The Mauritanian sketches at the worst of Slahi's treatment, and while it's intense and uncomfortable, it's also a bit third hand and cautious. Slahi's story, while deeply compelling, and clearly drawn around his inner strengths, is at heart an intimate look at the difficult journey of one man. For what it is, the film tells that small story well. In terms of being a full-on, wholesale indictment of the whole ugly ball of wax that GItmo was and is... there's just not quite enough here to make that larger argument.

In some ways, this is a talky two hander between Foster's Hollander and Slahi, and she is well matched by Tahar Rahim, probably most familiar to American audiences from A Prophet on Netflix. Rahim does terrific work finding and holding onto Slahi's humanity through what was clearly a nightmarish, horrific series of events. And, as I said, Foster is such a welcome presence onscreen that she makes her tough, no nonsense work here look easy, and necessary. Benedict Cumberbatch and Shailene Woodley also provide fine performances as the marine lawyer and Hollander's second chair, respectively, both gradually radicalized by the injustices they are forced to confront.

Will an audience be similarly radicalized? I'm not sure The Mauritanian, for all it's strengths, winds up telling most people something they didn't already know. Nor does it really address or resolve the questions that linger - knowing what we do know, what do we do now? What do we do with the prisoners who remain? Can anything, really, make an entirely messed up moment right again? At best, the film gives us one man's poignant journey. What it can't fix - or really even comprehend - is how so many did so many bad things trying to... well, whatever it was, we lost sight of it, long ago. No one, really, should have been treated like The Mauritanian. Being forced, via The Mauritanian to confront those events, unfortunately, doesn't necessarily tell us what to do with what we now know.

Coming 2 America: Give The People What They Want

The thing about Eddie Murphy is that the bar he set really was of his own making. You kinda had to be there, but as a culture we went from zero to Eddie so quickly it almost seems like a quaint fairy tale now. Saturday Night Live to 48 HRS to Beverly Hills Cop with what, an HBO special in there for good measure? The man really was comedy gold. And all by just being, well, Eddie.

Movie stardom is its own specialized, particular thing. It's acting, sure, but it's also being, that instant quality you have in front of the camera where the audience expects you and you just deliver you... as a young moviegoer I didn't entirely understand watching the process as it was happening to newcomers I liked. I get it now. I can see the way that stardom arrives, how it happens... how it's really not new or different, it's just the right person in the right place, at a certain time. And Eddie, well... that happened.

But the bar is high and Eddie, while there have been brilliant hits, there's been plenty of misses, and a lot of... well, just okays. It's easy to blame "expectations" and that bar... but I think it's probably that usual thing about writing and directing. Get great writing in front of Eddie, get him a great director... and he shines. I mean, really shines. Dreamgirls. His last appearance on SNL. Good Eddie is fine. Great Eddie is... well, kids, you kind of had to be there for those opening weeks of Beverly Hills Cop.

Of all his initial stardom projects - before the first trough of 91-96 - Coming to America always seemed like a promise not quite fulfilled. For all that it was - a big budget, pretty much all African American driven project that succeeded tremendously - it also was a bit hit or miss. What works (seriously, go back, it's a satisfying watch, in spite of itself) really works, what doesn't... well, they can't all be Beverly Hills Cop.

And here's where looking at Coming 2 America is frustrating: on the one hand, the bar is maybe too high, on the other, it has been more than 30 years, and you think we might have learned, well, something. But what we have, well, is kind of what we get when you get good, but not great, Eddie. Coming 2 America, while funny in starts and fits, never quite gels into the kind of "second swing at what still feels really promising and just out of reach" that the first film has long represented. While his core audience will get a lot of what feels familiar... what's missing is the kind of sharp attack and insightful power of Eddie's best work.

Like it's predecessor, Coming 2 America leaps over Paramount's mountain to return us to that magical, fictional nation of Zamunda (and the movie more or less fails to land the obvious joke about Wakanda being nearby) where Eddie's Prince Akeem is moments away from becoming King. Without a male heir, the country's future seems vulnerable... until we discover (conveniently) that Akeem may have, well, also fathered a child while he was in America with another woman - and here, in one of the film's brightest moves, it inserts Leslie Jones not just into the sequel, but also the original film. In short order Akeem and Semmi (a somewhat wan reprise from Arsenio) wing their way back to Queens, pick up the son and his Moms and head back to Wakanda... I mean, Zamunda, to ...

Well, to be honest, nothing makes a lot of sense once Lavelle (the son, ably played by Jermaine Fowler) comes on the scene, and the film meanders between a young man's quest to become prince, some tepid family drama, and Eddie learning to be the Lion King or the Black Panther... or something. Fundamentally, the problem is that much of this isn't nearly as funny as it wants to be, and the familiar dilemma of many an Eddie film - all the dick jokes and gross outs - is as present as ever. Is clever too much to hope for? I don't see why - and I mean that literally: this thing has a dream, cross generational cast of African American talent, almost all of it semi-wasted.

Because part of what's always separated Coming to America - and, indeed, Coming 2 America makes even more explicit - is how it put black America in a film in front of white America.  Eddie's movie stardom has always been about confronting our racial divide in ways that shake white cultural complacency, and celebrating African American heritage. The original film made a point of telling a story aimed at black America to show white America would watch... and they did. Coming 2 America just doubles down on that promise. The thing is, that promise should feel more, well, promising... shouldn't it?

More pointedly, the film literally dances uneasily around what was, in the original film, already a dubious stew of racial, ethnic, cultural and wildly sexist tropes. Yes, women fare better here, but barely. Partly that's because of Jones, who's apparently incapable of phoning it in, as well as the serene presence of Shari Headley, reprising her role as Queen Lisa, and reminding us that Hollywood can let women age gracefully.  But lots of sexist nonsense abounds. I don't even know where to begin with the dicey aspects of what passes for "African" here. At best, the film skates by what's obviously problematic with a nervous laugh and a "well, we are a comedy" ... but there's a field day to be had unpacking it all.

The film quickly and neatly wraps everything up, largely by importing what seems like the tone and approach of another film all together... and even that's fine, if a bit Tyler Perry, by which I mean a lot of feel good moments black people like and a hearty dose of sentimentality. For what it is, Coming 2 America wraps things up as well as can be expected. It's fair, though, to ask why no one tried to do more.

Director Craig Brewer did Dolemite with Eddie (after helping produce and direct Empire, and writing Hustle and Flow), but I'd call this more akin to his directing the remake of Footloose - he's capable and he gets the sensibility of the source material... but he's not exactly visionary (and he's no John Landis, for better and worse). As for the script, it definitely feels assembled by the committee credited with writing it: no real point of view, full of pedestrian dialogue and a bit of a mess. What's best, I suspect, is the music - how can you miss with cameos from Gladys Knight and En Vogue and Salt and Pepa? - and some pretty tasty (Ruth Carter of course) costumes (including Eddie's, natch). Which isn't everything... but like much of this project, hints at what could have been, well, great, rather than just okay.

The younger cast are lovely but colorless, including Fowler. But who knows what could have been, with a better, smarter script and more of a point of view? Coming 2 America isn't Bad Eddie - not Norbit bad, or Pluto Nash bad - it's just that "somewhere in the middle" Eddie which reminds you (still) that he can open a picture, but feels a little disappointing. Like I said... that bar is high for a reason, and that reason isn't entirely fair. The trouble is, really, that we all know that Eddie is entirely capable of "fuck that bar." And that's the Coming 2 America I was hoping to see. It's in there, somewhere, still fighting with a crowd pleaser to get the fuck out.