Our Family Wedding (2010)

3/5

Our Family Wedding is a thoroughly unsurprising romantic comedy about an interracial couple and dysfunctional family dynamics. It is predictable from beginning to end, but that never stopped it from being funny and tender. In fact, I actually laughed a lot more than I thought I would. And I was surprised to find that I liked Forest Whitaker a lot more than I thought I would. The plot follows the young couple Lucia (Ferrera) and Marcus (Gross) as they announce to their families that they will be getting married in two weeks before going to Laos for volunteer work. Both fathers (Whitaker, Mencia) are appalled and disgusted by the other family, but they decide to put up with each other and help plan the wedding for the sake of their kids.

The technical aspects of the film are nothing to write home about. They varied between acceptable and subpar most of the time. The written characters were archetypes instead of individuals, but the acting made them stand out and round out. The story copied a lot of elements from Guess Who (and had the expected sight gags and cheap jokes that audiences have come to expect in movies where "traditional" parents find out their children are in "nontraditional" interracial relationships), but it also brought some new points of view to the table. All in all, the movie is about what you'd expect given the trailer. So if you're looking for that kind of movie, I'm sure you'll get what you were looking for.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1305583/

Rent (2005)

4/5

For those who don't know, Rent is about a group of friends in their late 20's as they fall in and out of love over the course of a year while dealing with a multitude of life's problems, including evictions, suicides, and AIDS. For those who haven't seen the play, watching the movie first isn't the way you should be introduced to this wonderful musical, despite what certain people may say. The director made a number of relatively minor changes that add up to a surprisingly different experience. To keep the runtime manageable, they cut out some really cool songs. They merged events, changed scenes, and took a lot of the realism and uniqueness out of the original theatrical production. After each song, there was an awkward, lingering pause, as if nobody knew what to do next. Rosario Dawson's singing sounded flat and dull, a striking contrast to the richness of the other actors' voices. And the final shot still makes me gag (at least they have the alternate ending as a special feature on the DVD).

Perhaps the reason I dislike the small, minor changes the director made so much is because I feel so connected to the play. I didn't like it at first, but I started to love it the more I thought about it. And what made it so endearing to me were all the little things. At the same time, there were a number of changes in the movie that I really did like (Maureen's performance, for example, completely changed my view of her character). The dream sequence in Tango Maureen brought back some of the creativity in the stage version (although I do wish they didn't reveal who Maureen was that early in the play). The story is fantastic. Give it a chance. By watching the play. And if you can't afford seeing the musical on stage as much as you want to, then watch this movie.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0294870/