#BigMomma'sHouse

[adamwatchesmovies]

Big Mommas Like Father Like Son (2011)

Did I really see Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son twice in one month? What kind of monster have I become? This is one bad movie, but as far as an installment of the cross-dressing comedy trilogy, it might be the best of the bunch by being so undeniably atrocious. It’s ridiculous, contrived, poorly written, not particularly funny, and frequently puzzling. At least it’s never boring.

FBI agent Malcolm Turner (Martin Lawrence) and his son Trent (Brandon T. Jackson) witness a murder at the hands of Russian mobster Chirkoff (Tony Curran). While they look for a flash drive that contains evidence to put him away, they are forced to go undercover as women at the Georgia Girls School for the Arts.

It's almost admirable the way this movie has to be seen to be believed. It’s like an essay on a historical figure done without any research and written on the morning it was due. Not only is the paper oriented in landscape instead of portrait, but the copy is centered, the font is 16 points in size and there’s a large photo taken straight from Wikipedia at the top. It’s almost better than something that tries and fails.

The biggest disappointment with Big Mommas House 2 was that with our protagonist married and happily anticipating a kid (the pregnancy isn't mentioned but I could've sworn that was a thing...) there weren’t as many cross-dressing shenanigans. Here, we get ALL OF THEM. It’s a double bill of men dressed as women. You get Big Momma being hit on by an extremely clingy horny guy while Trent as Charmaine constantly slips and yells “Damn!” at the hot co-eds at this... high school? College? It's unclear. On the one hand, they have dorms and nude models in art class. On the other, Trent is clearly described as underage (Despite the actor playing him being 26 at the time) and they offer beginner’s driving lessons. This film is already starting to fall apart and we haven’t even started examining it!

Like Father, Like Son is utter desperation. it's padded out with several musical numbers that come out of nowhere. I’m not talking about brief numbers either. We hear close to the entirety of Ke$ha’s Tick Tock, complete with impromptu choreographed dancing from the students. The plot with the Russian Mob? an afterthought. It’s simply an excuse for our two heroes to go undercover. Some plot points in that story never even get resolved. The supposed leak in the FBI for example. We never find out what that mole was. Did director John Whiteshell think we wouldn't pay attention? I’ve scrutinized this film to infinity; no detail has escaped me.

I don’t think anyone sitting down with this film expected it to be good (and if you did, I hope some day they manage to surgically remove that pick-ax from your skull). Nonetheless, it takes a lot of bravery to suck this much, and in public. I laughed frequently at Big Mommas House 3. Never in the way that it was intended for me to laugh, but I couldn’t help it. You can’t make a travesty like Big Mommas Like Father, Like Son on purpose, and that makes it fascinating. (Extended Version on DVD, June 3, 2016)

#BigMommasLikeFatherLikeSon #BigMomma'sHouse #movies #films #movieReviews #FilmReviews #JohnWhitesell #MatthewFogel #DonRhymer #MartinLawrence #BrandonT.Jackson #JessicaLucas #2011movies #2011films

[mvgenvideos]

New #MusicVideo for #Mankind - #BigMomma'sHouse : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BaGCDGfXhY

[adamwatchesmovies]

Big Momma’s House (2000)

Of course Big Momma’s House was going to suck. How could it not? Martin Lawrence playing an FBI agent going undercover as a fat black woman? This film's $170 million worth of ticket sales is frightening enough to make you saw open your skull and eat your own brains with a spoon. The question is: how bad is it really, and what, if anything, is good about it?

Criminal Lester Vesco (Terrence Howard) has escaped from prison. The FBI suspects he is attempting to track down Sherry (Nia Long), his ex-girlfriend and mother to his son. Initially agents Malcolm Turner (Martin Lawrence) and John Maxwell (Paul Giamatti) are just surveiling Sherry’s grandmother’s house, but when “Big Momma” (Ella Mitchell) suddenly leaves, Malcolm dons an elaborate disguise to gain the woman’s trust.

This is a one-joke comedy. Martin Lawrence is a man dressed as a woman. These kinds of pictures (which surprisingly often feature Black actors) follow a predictable pattern and almost always serve up the same platter of jokes. You could practically make a game out of it. In fact, my friends and I did. Put the following into a Bingo card generator:

Awkward Boner

Unconvincing Drag

All Caps Red Title

Clingy Horny Guy

Unexpected man magnet

Moments of false sentimentality to distract from the deception

“That’s a woman?!”

Easily avoidable misunderstanding

Bad dick joke

“A woman can’t do that!”

Bad communication skills

Two people being confused for one another

Unconvincing romance

Deception forgiven in the following scene

Awkward stalling

Unprofessional professionals

Cue ironic music

“Normal” but stupid female

“Can you help me with this outfit?”

“Damn Girl!”

Incredibly conspicuous drag

“Let me go get her” 

Lightning-quick change

Suddenly getting in touch with your inner woman

No homo

Female empowerment(TM)

Boob malfunction

Wig Malfunction

Slipping out of your fake voice

Sudden unexplainable knowledge about women

"The reveal"

Unbelievably phoney name

Purse snatching

Suspicious neighbor

Awkward trying on of clothes

Disguised as a family member

Animal-related awkwardness

Tampons

Men are gross

Bad makeup job

Just because I’m a girl, doesn’t mean I can’t _____

“Let’s get it on” music

Reveal by a side character

Must dodge undressing

Freudian slip

Bad liar

Bad boyfriend

“You’re my new best friend”

Don’t you wish more men _______?

Date with the cross-dresser

"The ridiculous lie comes up in real life"

Dancing

“I know your secret”

The secret isn’t cross-dressing

Armed with these custom Bingo cards, you can make Big Momma's House far more entertaining than it would be otherwise. Chances are good you'll encounter these tropes at some point, but who will complete their line first?

There are great pictures in which someone is caught following through with a ridiculous lie or everyone is oblivious to an unconvincing disguise. It's when your film is composed entirely of these that you’re in trouble.

Even if you’re incredibly forgiving, Big Momma's House still isn’t good. I know it’s a comedy, but why did they have to include a bathroom getting stunk up by an old woman, and why did we need to include the contrived love plot? If my new best friend turned out to be Nia Long in disguise and she asked me out I’d be thrilled. Her reacting this way to Martin Lawrence? Even if her son likes him it's unbelievable. You could have easily omitted this thread from the film and just focussed on making the audience laugh.

Normally I’d give a comedy with as few laughs as Big Momma’s House a worse score than a 1/5, but I found a way to have fun with it. There's isn't anyone in the world who will see the poster/DVD cover for this film and feel like they were duped once it's over. (On DVD, March 4, 2016)

#BigMomma'sHouse #movies #films #MovieReviews #FilmReviews #RajaGosnell #DarrylQuarles #MartinLawrence #NiaLong #PaulGiamatti #TerrenceHoward #2000 movies #2000films #cross-dressing

[adamwatchesmovies]

Big Momma's House 2 (2006)

Sometimes, you hear a movie title and you think it's a joke. I’m not talking about Snakes on a Plane or anything along those lines. I mean something like Big Momma’s House 2. I don’t even know why they made a Big Momma’s House 1!

Now married to Sherry (Nia Long), FBI agent Malcolm Turner (Martin Lawrence) has taken a desk job but misses the excitement of the field. When the FBI discovers a computer worm that will allow anyone into the government’s databases, Malcolm dons his “Big Momma” costume once again, becoming a nanny for Tom Fuller (Mark Moses), the man developing this threat to national security.

Big Momma’s House 2 would be much better if it were a lot worse. I’m saying this movie is good. It isn’t. It’s predictable, full of mindless developments, characters act as logically as a 3-sided square, the comedy is juvenile and obvious. It being a sequel does allow it to avoid some of the worst pratfalls these cross-dressing comedies tend to offer, however. You won't get a scene in which Malcolm has to switch back-and-forth between outfits so he can do a job interview and a date at the same time. There’s no scene in which an attractive woman snuggles up to him and asks Big Momma what it is that’s poking her. They already did those jokes in the first movie. All that was left for this follow-up were the rejected jokes, which makes it unfunny AND bland.

I’ll give the film this much credit. It’s consistent with the first. Once again, the plot is set in the world of comedy idiots. Children jump off of high structures face-first into the ground with no ill effects. Mothers create cartoonish graphs that force their children to be occupied 24/7. FBI agents get so frazzled by dogs they forget to do their jobs. Family men with children forget how to do the laundry, cook, or relate to human beings. Dumb girlfriends turn out to be dumb wives with no memories of how they met their husbands - meaning Nia Long has the unfortunate task of asking her husband if the enormous underwear she’s found under their bed belongs to a woman he’s having an affair with. Of course, he was dropped onto his head daily until he was 12, so he can’t just explain things to her and the contrived comedy continues.

Compare this film to one that’s obvious garbage, like say… White Chicks and it still comes up short. BMH2 is like Big Momma in a bathing suit. You don’t want to see it, hear about it, or even acknowledge that it exists, but it does. Don’t see this movie. (Full-screen version on DVD, April 29, 2016)

#BigMomma'sHouse2 #BigMomma'sHouse #movies #films #MovieReviews #FilmReviews #JohnWhitesell #DonRhymer #MartinLawrence #NiaLong #EmilyProcter #ZacharyLevi #2006movies #2006films #comedies #cross-dressing