Word: mama
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Arrested for the murder of an unfaithful lover, flapper Roxie Hart (Christine Kienzle) is tossed into a women's prison run by the lusty lesbian, Mama Morton (Lenore Jones). If she can just convince her dim-witted husband Amos (Tym Tombar) to raise the five-thousand dollars necessary to hire slick lawyer Billy Flynn (Todd Forman), Roxie may escape with her life. But she's got competition for newspaper headlines and public sympathy from equally celebrated murderess Velma Kelly (Vonnie Roemer). Which one will get the not-guilty verdict first...
...unfortunately, both Amos and Mama are given degrading roles for Black actors to play. Mama is sick and lecherous, and while Jones does her best with an insulting part, the scenes in which she rubs her crotch and shakes her chest furiously in front of the audience are embarassing to watch. The role of Amos, though not written for a Black in the original production, becomes particularly offensive when presented as a minority character: Tombar is simple, subservient, and constantly humiliated by his white, adulterous wife...
...serves up surprisingly deadpan humor that doubles as comic relief in the movie's otherwise heavy atmosphere. Discounting as evidence a facetious admittal of the crime--Sabich's "Yeah, you're right"--Lyttle says, "If Mr. Sabich had come from my part of town, he'd have said, 'Yo mama.'" The wit, which is omnipresent with constant references to Della Guardia as "Mr. Dee Lay Guardia," add complexity to his character of an otherwise tough-nosed "Judge Motherfucker," as one ex-con who previously bribed him describes...
...April 1968, on the eve of Father's birthday, I arrived as usual to spend the weekend at the dacha. Father wasn't inside. Mama said that he had gone to the edge of the forest...
...went down the path. Father was sitting on the bench, watching the sun go down. His dog Arbat was lying beside him. Father looked tired, his face seemed grayer and older. He asked, "Do you know already? Did Mama tell you?" I nodded. "Scoundrels! I told them what I think of them. Perhaps I went too far, but it serves them right. They thought I would crawl on my belly in front of them...