Word: whoopi
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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That mouth, impish or hellacious, is where Whoopi Goldberg goes one up on the world. Twist it, she's a funny little troll. Smile like the Queen of Sheba, she is the Queen of Sheba, a knee-weakening beauty (don't doubt it; like Meryl Streep, who's also less than a stunner, Whoopi can play beauty). Shove out her jaw, she's a bad-mouth male junkie -- yeah, name's Fontaine, attitude's his game, what's your problem? Flash that 82-toothed thousand- watter, time to watch your wallet. Smile shyly, she's a little kid, you want...
What is needed here is a mouth alert -- THIS IS NOT A TEST, YOU ARE IN REAL DANGER, LOCAL AUTHORITIES ARE HIDING IN THE CELLAR WITH A JUG -- because Whoopi, dreadlocks, attitude and all, is branching out. Quick, what does the worldy night and twice on Saturday. The negatives, as they say in politics, are encouraging: no monologue, no band to tootle when inspiration flags, no giggling studio audience to which the camera can pan, and no Dan Quayle jokes unless Quayle himself makes them...
...early guests. So are Bo Jackson, the retired two-sport flash, white supremacist Thomas Metzger, and the usual show-biz suspects, including Liz Taylor, Elton John and Tim Robbins. Violinist Itzhak Perlman is $ scheduled, and California senate candidate Dianne Feinstein is already taped. Whoopi wants to reason together with Pat Buchanan, who hopes to wall off the Mexican border, and with Pat Robertson, who believes that feminism leads to witchcraft. (Is Robertson right? Or does sanctimoniousness lead to prattle? Tune in and find...
Anyway, it stinks of calculation. The film -- about a Reno singer (Whoopi Goldberg) finding refuge from her gangster lover (Harvey Keitel) in a dilapidated convent run by staid Maggie Smith -- allows no room for irony, vagrant inspiration or air. There's something piquant about the look of Whoopi in a wimple, but the star must soar or sink with the vehicle, and this one is a bathysphere. Despite a nice turn by Kathy Najimy as a criminally chirpy nun and some inventive charts by ace arranger Marc Shaiman, Sister Act has corporate fingerprints smudging its smiling face...
...here comes Disney with Encino Man (May 22), in which MTV Valley Dude Pauly Shore digs up a frozen caveman, and Sister Act (May 29), with Whoopi Goldberg taking refuge from the mob in Maggie Smith's convent. Encino Man is already touted as "the Wayne's World of summer," and that's fine with Katzenberg, who describes his mostly low-budget summer slate as "the anti- 800-lb.-gorilla school of film-making." Disney's only expensive movie is, of course, a sequel: Honey, I Blew...