Steel Mag-NO-lias

I'm no dissenter!
I WANTED the Lifetime remake of Steel Magnolias to be GRRRRRREAT!
I mean look at this promo pic!

But as my sister stated, I should have known it was going to be poorly cast because Lifetime has Lindsay Blohan playing Lizzie T!

I love Queen Latifah, she's m'girl.... but she was no M'Lynn. And what episode of In Living Color did they drag her husband out of the background of??? Seriously, who WAS that dude? He was on my nerves! Like he got acting lessons from JJ Evans or something.

You know who would've made a GREAT M'Lynn? Phylicia Ayers Allen Rashad! But noooooo, she was cast as Clairee & barely there like I needed her to be. I mean she's Claire huxtable for goodness sake! She is THE ULTIMATE BLACK MOMMA! (sorry Flawduh Evans.)

I was OK with Truvy & Shelby & Anelle (was she SUPPOSED to be from New Yawk in this adaptation?). And goodness knows Alfre Woodard was just as Ouiser as Ouiser could get! But that Jackson? No indeed. I believed him more as a gangster on Sons of Anarchy (oh yes, I am all about the SAMCRO!) than he was a doting husband-to-be. I mean DUDE, where's your 'stache??? Seriously, that nude upper lip made me uneasy and queasy... canttrussit!

But I tell you what though... Lance Gross & that fine as wine Dr. Jay made that graveside scene worth watching two times, two tiiiiimes! Why didn't lance have a bigger role and that full facial hair the whole movie? And why wasn't Dr. Jay in every scene? He didn't have to speak, he could just be there in the background looking all Dr. Jay-ey. It certainly would have made the movie MUCH more pleasant to view!

I had a watch party with the girls for THIS!?!? We could've been watching Snapped & talking about boys & periods! or watching the original & not feeling all mehhhh. Like I said before, I don't automatically poo-poo a "Black movie" like some folks do & write it off immediately as foolishness or whatever other negative attributes people attach to them immediately. There are great black actors & films starring Black people(NOT ALEX CROSS!) but this was not one of them- no matter how badly I wanted it to be.

They should've renamed it Steel Buttercups, because it definitely built me up just to let me doooooown.

Now Usually I Don't DO This... Think Like A Man

I didn't read the book. I don't watch Oprah. I don't listen to the Steve Harvey Morning Show. I find Terrence J BEYOND corny. And I have NEVER rooted for Gabrielle Union. Get allllllll that in ya spirit.... I'll give you a few seconds....

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NOW, with all that said. I liked Think Like a Man! Pick ya jaws up! I was pretty sure that all the punchlines had been ruined by the commercials, but it hadn't. I was afraid that the characters in the movie were going to be stereotypical like Pyler Terry, but they weren't. I was fairly certain I was going to roll my eyes & suck my teeth & sigh loudly, and I DID, but it wasn't for very long. It kept my attention, it got me a lil emotionally invested & MOST of it was familiar (not the same as predictable).

I don't want to go into detail or spoil anything, but let me make some points.

Shutter Island/ Shudder Island

I saw Shutter Island yesterday with some of my girls from grad school. And let me first say, it was NOT what I thought it would be. And I mean that in a bad AND good way.

Let's start with the bad first... I was looking for a psychological thriller with scares & chills & things that go bump in the night. So when there was more talk than real spooky, scary, gory action, I had to adjust my mindset a little & get into it in a new way.

The GOOD part... I was REALLY surprised by the turn of events. And the ending left me wanting to go back and read the book! The ending also made us feel like our MA's in Forensic Psychology did NOTHING to prepare us for what we had just experienced. We sat in silence for a few moments at the end of the film just trying to wrap our minds around it. It went THAT deep for us.

I don't want to give away TOO much. But i want you all to know that the end of the movie made me shudder. I could not imagine being in that scenario or anything close to it. It was fascinating to me... so much so that I have the book on hold at Borders & I am going to pick it up this evening. I have to be able to go back through and fully comprehend what it is I saw!

I encourage anyone that likes psychological movies to go check this out. It will not be what you expect. My girl had to read the plot synopsis during the movie to be able to get in the right place for it, mentally. HILARIOUSNESS!
 The official Paramount Synopsis:
Synopsis: From Oscar®-winning director Martin Scorsese, "Shutter Island" is the story of two U.S. marshals, Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), who are summoned to a remote and barren island off the coast of Massachusetts to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a murderess from the island’s fortress-like hospital for the criminally insane. --© Paramount

And it's a SWINDLE because the movie is SO much more than that!