Word: soulfully
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Soul Food's early success bodes well for other forthcoming black-themed, black-produced, modestly budgeted films, notably Eve's Bayou (produced by actor Samuel L. Jackson and due out Oct. 24). It also sets the table for two black-produced films with blockbuster potential: Amistad (produced by Debbie Allen and directed by Steven Spielberg) and Beloved (produced by Oprah Winfrey and directed by Jonathan Demme). And finally, it's a welcome little victory for cinematic wholesomeness. "Some of the black films today are not deep," says filmmaker George Tillman Jr., 28, who wrote and directed Soul Food, basing...
Star power also helped get Soul Food into production. Kenny ("Babyface") Edmonds, one of the most powerful figures in the music industry--he has penned hits for Madonna, Toni Braxton and others--produced it with his wife Tracey. Fox 2000 head Laura Ziskin gave the project the green light just days after reading the screenplay. The film was a labor of love for Tracey Edmonds, who was pregnant throughout preproduction and gave birth to a son, Brandon, shortly before shooting began. Says she: "Kenny and I had the same vision and the same tastes. Most people expect that...
Once is a fluke, twice a hope, three times a trend. So, with the pretty box-office numbers for Soul Food following the $70 million that Waiting to Exhale earned in early '96, and with the highly touted Eve's Bayou opening in two weeks, maybe Hollywood will stop being surprised every time the black middle class goes to see itself on screen...
Quality is another, nearly irrelevant matter; no film has to be well made to be well liked. Indeed, one reason for the popularity of Soul Food is that it pushes emotional buttons with all the subtlety of a poke in the baby-back ribs. It could be a distillation of some unaired black soap opera, so predictable are the plot contrivances--adultery, pregnancy, illness, missing money--and so cartoonishly are the characters drawn. Mother Joe (Irma P. Hall) is warm, loving, doomed. One daughter, Maxine (Vivica A. Fox), is heart-smart and, since she's a mother, a font...
...warring family together. As Ahmad, Brandon Hammond is superb: his serious eyes are alert, his bearing natural. He points the film up the road it should have taken. Didn't, though. The dialogue plays like song cues without the songs, and the rest of a talented cast is wasted. Soul Food aims to be a banquet of feelings, but mostly it serves up tripe...