SonofBaldwin

That's actually not bad for a rated R film.

Control.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-for-colored-girls-20101105,0,258800.story Earthy tones, warm until they go into Jackson's world where her Jo, a rich magazine editor, is all fire and ice in red and white.

Fuck. Now they are really coming for Janet: http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/movies/colored_girls_blind_to_subtlety_VT4aDZX9c2zLg7d8WQH5sI A scenery-chewing Whoopi Goldberg goes way over the top as the sisters' religious fanatic mother. Even worse is the campy Janet Jackson as Crystal's boss, an icy magazine editor whose hunky hubby (Omari Hardwick) is sleeping with men on the down low -- because, it's implied, she's so emasculating. http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/reviews/2010-11-05-Forcoloredgirls05_ST_N.htm And speaking of distractions, Janet Jackson, in a leaden performance, sounds and looks eerily like her late brother, Michael. Her overly made-up appearance might as well be a Devil Wears Prada mannequin. http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/movies/20101105__For_Colored_Girls___Story_of_women_recovering_from_abuse.html About the Kabuki theatrics of Janet Jackson and the actorly histrionics of Whoopi Goldberg and Macy Gray, the less said the better. http://www.washingtonpost.com/gog/movies/for-colored-girls,1159977/critic-review.html The film is not, however, without its bright spots. Given the at-times-ridiculous poetry the cast must utter - "My love is too Saturday night to have thrown back on my face" - the actresses all acquit themselves well enough. That includes Jackson, whose surgically enhanced face, though largely frozen, suits her imperious character. Ugh. I hate that even when they're paying her a compliment, a diss is not far behind.

That's what I'm talking about. It's like the critic thought Janet did a good job, but had to, somehow, qualify the compliment by insulting her.

This is a kind of back-handed compliment from the New York Times: http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/11/05/movies/05for.html?ref=movies&pagewanted=2 That might sound unbearable, but done right it’s thrilling — specific in its pain, universal in its reach — and Mr. Perry works very hard and gets it mostly right. He succeeds even when art seems to have taken a back seat to commercial choices, as in the casting of Janet Jackson, who plays Jo, a magazine editor cut along the same cool lines of Meryl Streep in “The Devil Wears Prada.” Ms. Jackson is, to put it gently, an actress of limited expression. But her quiet presence has force, partly because of her eerie resemblance to her brother Michael, though also because her character’s brittle hauteur, self-involved privilege and artificiality has — like the martyrs in ermine played by the likes of Lana Turner — its own weird truth. Ms. Jackson’s marquee value, like that of Thandie Newton and Whoopi Goldberg, who play a warring mother and daughter, is doubtless its own justification. But the real draws in this version of “For Colored Girls” are the less familiar names, like Kimberly Elise, who plays Crystal, Jo’s beleaguered assistant.

So far, Kimberly Elise is getting the most praise, but it was nice to see Janet get some shine because some of the other reviewers are saying that Janet (and Whoopi) are the weakest links.

Listen to the theme song. At the end, the singer says: "My naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame is PEACHES!"

http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2010/11/04/defense_of_tyler_perry/index.html Consider Jackson, who made no particular impression as the title character in her debut film "Poetic Justice," but has been knocking performances out of the park for Perry. She outdoes herself here -- especially in the scene where she confronts her husband over his secret life, and Perry stays on her in a tight close-up while she describes exactly how he's broken her heart. It's not just Jackson's short haircut and traumatized eyes that might remind viewers of Jane Wyman or Joan Crawford; Perry gets at the mix of masculine hyper-competitiveness and feminine vulnerability that has always defined Jackson, and links it to the wily, lonely coldness often captured in Wyman and Crawford performances, a directorial gambit of tremendous perceptiveness.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/08780de7bf/for-stuffed-colored-girls

Saturday, 10:50 a.m.

Happy belated birthday, HOTBOY!