October
3
Oprah Boosts Spike Lee, Secret Life of Bees
While Oprah may not be willing to promote Barack Obama on her show these days, she doesn't hesitate to use her considerable clout with women to sell movies she believes in. She delivered for helmer Spike Lee, exhorting her millions of viewers to see his revisionist World War II epic The Miracle at St. Anna, for which he was duly grateful. The movie needs her help; it scored a miserable 29 % on Rotten Tomatoes.
And Oprah came through for Gina Prince-Blythewood's faithful, effective, and (given the presidential election) resonant adaptation of Sue Monk Kidd's 2002 bestseller The Secret Life of Bees. O Magazine also visited the set during filming.
Oprah gushed over Queen Latifah, who's warmly charismatic as the mom-figure bee-keeper in the 1964-set southern drama about a young teen runaway (Dakota Fanning) who seeks refuge with a cultured family of African-American women; Alicia Keys, who admitted to tapping into her own personality as a tough but lovelorn musician; Sophie Okonedo, who doesn't overplay an over-emotional woman who never recovered from losing her twin sister; Jennifer Hudson, who stays real as the young girl's nanny; and Fanning, in some ways more experienced than some of her co-stars, who carries the movie on her narrow 14-year-old shoulders.
Fanning told our first Sneak Previews class this week that while she reads and researches and prepares for any character she plays, this one came naturally, partly because she's from the South. Something happens the minute a director calls action, she says. She just becomes the character. While a group of reps and her mother read all her scripts, Fanning makes the final decision on what to make, based on what she responds to emotionally. While she enjoyed finally kissing a boy (The Wire's Tristan Wilds) in this coming-of-age story, Fanning only wants to do age-appropriate roles; she's in no rush to grow up.
Prince-Blythewood admitted that having been adopted played a part in her strong response to this story about a girl who thinks she accidentally killed her mother. Prince-Blythewood chased the project (produced by Lauren Shuler Donner, Will Smith and Joe Pichirallo) after it fell apart at Focus Features, and brought more Civil Rights consciousness to her adaptation for Fox Searchlight. Being a screenwriter, said the UCLA film school grad, has made all the difference in being able to direct movies like Love and Basketball (a fave of mine) and Bees. Despite the eclectic casting, from Brits Okonedo and Paul Bettany to untrained actor-singers Keys and Hudson, the ensemble hangs together. Even though the director wound up casting some mighty crooners in the film, Prince-Blythewood kept the singing to a minimum. "I was afraid it would pull the audience out of the movie," she said.
The Secret Life of Bees opens October 17.
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Oprah's touch is usually Midas like, but virtually no one went to see Spike Lee's latest despite her sales pitch.
Posted by: Christian Toto | October 03, 2008 at 06:36 PM
Oprah lost her creditability by pretending to be The Women's Rights Advocate and she endorsed Barack Obama, instead of first Presidential women candidate . Now she is endorsing Spike Lee's movie because of he is a black.
Perhaps, it is time to stop playing cheap race card and make indeed the true masterpiece movies like Clint Eastwood does, the colleague of your! Instead of always blaming someone for your fails, perhaps,it is time to look at the mirror and ask yourself a big question: "What is the definition of creating true Art for the people?".
Lola
Posted by: Lola | October 04, 2008 at 08:53 AM
It just annoys me to no end every time I read some white person getting upset about black people supporting Obama simply because he's black. (Which Lola you'll be surprised is not the only reason) Black voters have been voting for white candidates for every political office since it legal for us to vote and nobody had a problem. Now here comes the first real viable black candidate for president and now there's a problem. What's up with that? And how come I haven't read Lola mention about the people who WON'T vote for Obama because he's black?
And besides there have been other other black candidates such as Michael Steele or Lynn Swann who have run for a major political office such as governor and have lost becuase they failed to get the black vote. And if Condi Rice had been McCain's running mate, it wouldn't be likely she would be getting any black votes either.
As for Hillary Clinton, for the last 20 years this country has had a Bush or a Clinton in the White House. In a country of over 300 million people, the only peoeple qualified to run this country has been someone from one of either two screwed up, dysfunctional families. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! NO more Bushes or Clintons!
Posted by: Sergio | October 04, 2008 at 09:30 PM