Entertainment

Movie Reviews: ‘Winter’s Tale’ & ‘About Last Night’

Published

11 years ago

February 14, 2014

“Winter’s Tale” warms the heart, love burns

Akiva Goldsman is no stranger to the movie industry. His successful collaboration with Will Smith has spawned a number of box office hits, among them: I, ROBOT, I AM LEGEND, and HANCOCK. He too has enjoyed great success with Russell Crowe in A BEAUTIFUL MIND; with Brad Pitt in MR. & MRS. SMITH and; the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY sequels.

This time around, Goldsman steps out in a new capacity in his directorial debut of WINTER’S TALE, a Sci-Fi romance starring Colin Farrell, Jessica Brown Findlay, Oscar winners Jennifer Connelly, Crowe, William Hurt and Eva Marie Saint plus Will Smith in a most surprising role.

Let’s be clear, there is nothing realistic about this tale however, if you are willing to go along for the ride, Smith’s role more than compensates the mysterious suspense.

Based on the novel from Mark Helprin, Peter Leakes (Farrell) is an orphan whose memory has been shunted. For most of his formative years, he’s made a living as a thief. Struggling to make new choices, he strikes out on his own but not before one last heist that leads him into the arms of Beverly (Findlay), an unsuspecting young woman destined to an early grave—she is dying from consumption, an out-of-control fever that runs such a high temperature, she welcomes the cold brutal winter.

They are smitten nearly at first glance although Peter is being hunted vehemently by his former boss, Pearly Soames (Crowe), a heartless demon with a proclivity for torture.

Peter and Beverly have nothing to lose, only love to gain. The lengths they go through to turn precious last days together into an eternity is the stuff fantasies are wrought from—complete abandonment of reality—great fodder for the holiday.

Goldsman drew upon his enduring friendship with Smith to attach him to the project in a role that is 360 degrees from the legacy he has relied upon over the years. Since I won’t give the spoiler away, leave it to say that Smith takes the risk that Peter and Beverly are willing to go for love.

Love’s Laughter this Valentine’s Day, “About Last Night”

Funny all night long!

Kevin Hart goes full throttle, again! I can’t remember when I last laughed so loud and so often while watching a movie. ABOUT LAST NIGHT made me holler, many times.

If you’re wondering why it’s because of the subject matter—real relationship challenges– and the way handled by four magnetic actors whose dual arcs of comedy and drama run concurrently to hoist the story, the language, the look, and the timing all in terrific tempo.

Starring Kevin Hart (THINK LIKE A MAN, GRUDGE MATCH), Regina Hall (BEST MAN, BEST MAN HOLIDAY), Joy Bryant (BOBBY) and THINK LIKE A MAN’s Michael Ealy, ABOUT LAST NIGHT is a Screen Gems release produced by Will Packer (THE GOSPEL, OBSESSED, TAKERS), directed by Steve Pink (GROSSE POINTE BLANK, KNIGHT AND DAY), opening Valentine’s Day.

This updated version of the Demi Moore and Rob Lowe 80s chick flick is a welcome addition to the desired adult dramatic comedy genre.

Hart as Bernie, an out-for-sex-only kind of guy, meets his equal in Joan (Hall) who can write a book about the ways to emotion-free relationships or so she thinks.

Theirs’ is an electric, part eccentric, part eclectic, kinetic dalliance that extends well beyond the wham bam, thank you m’aam night club variety. They actually like each other but the road to commitment is littered with pretense and premonition. Both think they know the end of the story before it actually happens. Love is sometimes funny that way and these two bring the laughter in such fashion you can’t get enough of their scenes, always wanting more.

Where Hart is concerned, less maybe more for the five-foot superstar whose costarring role in RIDE ALONG drove three weeks in the top slot, earning over $100 million since opening– his allure is so appealing, his wit so appropriate and his presence so affecting– one realizes we haven’t seen this type of stand-up-comedian-turned-actor success since Eddie Murphy burst onto the scene over twenty years ago.

Read the interviews at www.Talk2SV.com.

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The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of May 7 – 13, 2025

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Arts and Culture

BOOK REVIEW: Love, Rita: An American Story of Sisterhood, Joy, Loss, and Legacy

When Bridgett M. Davis was in college, her sister Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

Published

2 weeks ago

April 28, 2025

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Love Rita Book Cover. Courtesy of Harper.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Author: Bridgett M. Davis, c.2025, Harper, $29.99, 367 Pages

Take care.

Do it because you want to stay well, upright, and away from illness. Eat right, swallow your vitamins and hydrate, keep good habits and hygiene, and cross your fingers. Take care as much as you can because, as in the new book, “Love, Rita” by Bridgett M. Davis, your well-being is sometimes out of your hands.

It was a family story told often: when Davis was born, her sister, Rita, then four years old, stormed up to her crying newborn sibling and said, ‘Shut your … mouth!’

Rita, says Davis, didn’t want a little sister then. She already had two big sisters and a neighbor who was somewhat of a “sister,” and this baby was an irritation. As Davis grew, the feeling was mutual, although she always knew that Rita loved her.

Over the years, the sisters tried many times not to fight — on their own and at the urging of their mother — and though division was ever present, it eased when Rita went to college. Davis was still in high school then, and she admired her big sister.

She eagerly devoured frequent letters sent to her in the mail, signed, “Love, Rita.”

When Davis was in college herself, Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

First, they lost their father. Drugs then invaded the family and addiction stole two siblings. A sister and a young nephew were murdered in a domestic violence incident. Their mother was devastated; Rita’s lupus was an “added weight of her sorrow.”

After their mother died of colon cancer, Rita’s lupus took a turn for the worse.

“Did she even stand a chance?” Davis wrote in her journal.

“It just didn’t seem possible that she, someone so full of life, could die.”

Let’s start here: once you get past the prologue in “Love, Rita,” you may lose interest. Maybe.

Most of the stories that author Bridgett M. Davis shares are mildly interesting, nothing rare, mostly commonplace tales of growing up in the 1960s and ’70s with a sibling. There are a lot of these kinds of stories, and they tend to generally melt together. After about fifty pages of them, you might start to think about putting the book aside.

But don’t. Not quite yet.

In between those everyday tales, Davis occasionally writes about being an ailing Black woman in America, the incorrect assumptions made by doctors, the history of medical treatment for Black people (women in particular), attitudes, and mythologies. Those passages are now and then, interspersed, but worth scanning for.

This book is perhaps best for anyone with the patience for a slow-paced memoir, or anyone who loves a Black woman who’s ill or might be ill someday. If that’s you and you can read between the lines, then “Love, Rita” is a book to take in carefully.