That’s What She Said

This past weekend, I made the mistake of dragging my fiance to go see Obsessed , the new movie starring Ali Larter and Beyonce Knowles. From the commercials it looked like a remake of the 1987 thriller Fatal Attraction with Michael Douglas and Glenn Close. Those of us who have seen Fatal Attraction find it hard to forget it: Michael Douglas, a married man with a young daughter, has an affair with Glenn Close. After sex on the kitchen sink, Close turns crazy, starts stalking Douglas, and boils bunnies.

 
“I won’t be ignored.”

Seeing as how I enjoyed Fatal Attraction (because, let’s face it, sometimes crazy chicks make for good cinema) I thought I might like Obsessed as well.

I was very wrong.

Beyonce is an incredibly talented singer and dancer. Her vocal range and stamina are very impressive and she has had some very well deserved success in the music industry.  She is also extremely beautiful and makes a great model. However, I think she needs to understand that not everyone can be the triple threat of singer-model-actor because not everyone is talented in every area.

Yeah, I said it. Go call your mom and cry about it.

I still remember the first time I ever saw Beyonce attempt to act. It was 2001 and MTV decided to update the opera Carmen for television in a way that they thought the youth might understand and released Carmen: A Hip Hopera . It’s a cool idea and not unlike the 1996 Baz Luhrmann version of Romeo and Juliet . However, MTV made the mistake of casting Beyonce Knowles, then of Destiny’s Child fame, in the lead role. Beyonce’s acting was so bad that I couldn’t stand to watch the whole thing in one sitting. I ended up catching snippets of it here and there due to channel surfing but ultimately, each viewing of film portions resulted in me realizing that I would rather repeatedly poke myself in the eyes.

Since then, she’s done a string of movies and all the ones I’ve seen have contained awful acting performances. The main ones that I have yet to see are Dreamgirls and Cadillac Records but from what I’ve heard, the other actors pretty much carried her.

All the way to the Oscars.

Wanting to expand your skills is commendable. However, I’d recommend some acting classes to Beyonce and even then, there are some people who just can’t act. There’s only so much that classes can teach you and some people just don’t have that it factor that makes you believe that an actor has really taken on the role of a character. Then, when one uses their famous name to get into a movie, the audience is left listening to lines delivered in a flat, boring, and unbelievable way while wondering if it’s worth it to cry to customer service to get their money back.

“I didn’t know she’d be so bad! I DIDN’T KNOW!”

What the film studio should have done was replaced Beyonce with, well, anyone with a vague acting talent because if it weren’t for her, the movie would have been alright. I’m pretty sure that one of the Kardashian sisters would’ve been better. The male lead, Idris Elba , was pretty good and Ali Larter made a fantastic crazy lady. Her penchant for married men and tendancy not to take no for an answer aside, she’s still smoking hot. Wouldn’t most guys say that’s worth getting roofied over?

Get out of my dreams and into my car.

Beyonce has come out and said that she is very interested in starring in a Wonder Woman movie because she believes that America is ready for a black Wonder Woman. She said, “A black Wonder Woman would be a powerful thing. It’s time for that, right?” Frankly, I don’t care what race they decide to make Wonder Woman in a future movie. I’m not opposed to a black Wonder Woman but I am opposed to Beyonce in that role. There are plenty of very talented black actresses who would do a wonderful (couldn’t resist, sorry!) job but unfortunately, Beyonce is not one of them.

Delusional

I really don’t think it’s a racial thing so much as a talent thing. Fan boys everywhere would freak the hell out if a Wonder Woman movie was terrible due to bad casting. She seems like a very lovely person but in a professional sense, Beyonce just needs to stick to singing, dancing, and modeling; acting does not need to be in her repetoire. Not that it was ever there to begin with.

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