Prince Akeem has a problem. When he becomes King of Zamunda, he’s troubled by the centuries-old tradition of his kingdom which dictates that only a male heir can inherit the throne. Akeem has three daughters and no sons. Luckily for Akeem (and the movie), it is revealed that he does in fact have a male heir, albeit an illegitimate one, living in America. Unfortunately for us, Coming 2 America leans on an outmoded story of Akeem being desperate to cement his legacy through his son, only to make an enlightened realization, in the movie’s final minutes, about his daughters. (This barely counts as a spoiler, since it’s painfully obvious what’s coming within the first fifteen minutes of the movie.) It’s a story that might have felt progressive had it been made in 1988, the same year this sequel’s original installment was released.
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The uninspired comedy Buffaloed takes a handful of gags and uses them over and over again to fill its feature length. The way the locals of Buffalo, NY speak is one of those gags. They way they look is another. And that’s really about it. The classic film Fargo also pokes fun at the way its characters speak. But there’s so much more under the surface of that film. Buffaloed is a one-note comedy that ends up feeling disposable.
Set in Buffalo, NY, the debt-collection capital of the world, Peggy Dahl is determined to be successful and break out of the chain of poverty in which she was raised. Her father died when she was very young, and her mother pays the bills (just barely) by running an unlicensed beauty salon out of her house. (Ten cent wing night at the local bar – this is Buffalo, remember – helped keep Peg and her brother fed on their mother’s tight budget when they were growing up.)
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Hip-hop artist, music producer, teacher, and political activist and agitator Boots Riley has new talents to add to his resume: screenwriter and director. His electric film debut, Sorry to Bother You, announces a fresh and singular new voice in American cinema. The movie uses biting, politically charged satire to comment on a myriad of social justice concerns. Riley skewers issues like race, class, labor rights, toxic capitalism, and selling out with an outlandish and exhilarating premise that gets stranger with every passing minute. I can sum the movie up with one word: bonkers. The last time I used that word to describe a film I wrote about was over three years ago. The inventive science fiction (for lack of a better term) feel and unique sense of humor Riley employs in Sorry to Bother You makes it the first bonkers movie event since Mad Max: Fury Road.
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