Musical Mondays Week 66 The Fighting Temptations

[Cameron H. 23786]

By divine right, we watched:

[Cam Bert 8145]

Maybe I missed this but does Cuba not realize that Beyonce and her son are in the exact same position that he and his mom were? I was expecting him to finally open up to Beyonce and explain this or for that to come back in some big way but from what I recall he never mentions it. In fact he's such a liar I'm not even sure if his mom is really dead or not.

[grudlian. 4725]

48 minutes ago, Cam Bert said:

Maybe I missed this but does Cuba not realize that Beyonce and her son are in the exact same position that he and his mom were? I was expecting him to finally open up to Beyonce and explain this or for that to come back in some big way but from what I recall he never mentions it. In fact he's such a liar I'm not even sure if his mom is really dead or not.

Yeah. Were we supposed to find Cuba likeable? At first, I thought he was supposed to be a savvy businessman who just needed the right opportunity but he is kind of dumb and a jerk.

Also, are Beyonce and Cuba supposed to be the same age? Because lol definitely not. 

[Cameron H. 23786]

29 minutes ago, grudlian. said:

Also, are Beyonce and Cuba supposed to be the same age? Because lol definitely not. 

I haven’t finished watching yet (sorry), but when the two kids are on the steps of the church at the beginning, and Lil Cuba asks her to marry him (or whatever) I was still like, “That little boy is far too old for that little girl.” It’s cute if they’re both 3. It’s weird when the boy is seven and the girl is still a toddler.

[tomspanks 9039]

Btw, happy birthday @Cameron H.!

[tomspanks 9039]

1 hour ago, grudlian. said:

Also, are Beyonce and Cuba supposed to be the same age? Because lol definitely not. 

Beyonce was 4 when Cuba left town.  I think Cuba was supposed to be a bit older - maybe 10?

[Cameron H. 23786]

10 minutes ago, tomspanks said:

Btw, happy birthday @Cameron H.!

Thank You!

[grudlian. 4725]

6 minutes ago, tomspanks said:

Beyonce was 4 when Cuba left town.  I think Cuba was supposed to be a bit older - maybe 10?

That makes more sense. I watched this over two days and couldn't remember how young they were supposed to be. Cuba is still at least a decade older than Beyonce but it's better than I thought.

[grudlian. 4725]

Also, happy birthday, Cameron H.

[Cameron H. 23786]

6 minutes ago, grudlian. said:

Also, happy birthday, Cameron H.

[Quasar Sniffer 4174]

2 hours ago, Cam Bert said:

Maybe I missed this but does Cuba not realize that Beyonce and her son are in the exact same position that he and his mom were? I was expecting him to finally open up to Beyonce and explain this or for that to come back in some big way but from what I recall he never mentions it. In fact he's such a liar I'm not even sure if his mom is really dead or not.

Yeah, I feel like this should have been with central thematic base for the whole film, but it's hardly ever brought up, if at all. This damn thing was over two hours long, but something that could have provided some actual emotional resonance was totally excised, or never even addressed.

And the whole monologue that Cuba give about malt liquor in the board meeting has been a criticism of that industry for decades, and is a valid one, but seems really out of place in the middle of this one. This should have been its own the movie, not shoe-horned into a musical about small town church choirs.

[grudlian. 4725]

55 minutes ago, Quasar Sniffer said:

Yeah, I feel like this should have been with central thematic base for the whole film, but it's hardly ever brought up, if at all. This damn thing was over two hours long, but something that could have provided some actual emotional resonance was totally excised, or never even addressed.

And the whole monologue that Cuba give about malt liquor in the board meeting has been a criticism of that industry for decades, and is a valid one, but seems really out of place in the middle of this one. This should have been its own the movie, not shoe-horned into a musical about small town church choirs.

This movie felt like a first draft. They had all the right ideas for a generic saved by the church movie but they just ran with their placeholder ideas.

His big idea was try to market malt liquor to a new clientele? Wow. What a novel idea. I get that creating a fictional business plan is difficult to sound feasible in a movie but jeez this is low level.

[tomspanks 9039]

What does the title mean?  I thought maybe the family's last name was going to be Temptation.

ETA: I know the choir name, but WHY

[grudlian. 4725]

In my 15 years as a theater manager when I could have gotten my dad into ANY movie for free, my dad came to see two movies. Passion Of The Christ and this. He paid to see Fighting Temptations instead of using my discount.

[WatchOutForSnakes 807]

25 minutes ago, tomspanks said:

What does the title mean?  I thought maybe the family's last name was going to be Temptation.

ETA: I know the choir name, but WHY

I was wondering this same thing. I was kind of in and out during my watch, but when Cuba said the name of the choir was inspired by Beyonce? Huh?

And my random, unformed thoughts (to go along with the movie's theme)

- I also thought they were going to play more on the whole jazz vs choir, and the parallel with Beyonce.

- Why advertising? Aside from it being a major movie trope profession, why not make him an actual music producer, maybe a failed one. And the choir, and Beyonce are his ticket back?

- Was Cuba pretending to be a bad dancer? On stage at the competition he seemed to be doing such terrible moving about, but in the end credits scene he does some breakdancing, and gives some hint that he's actually a good dancer. But if I never see him dancing like he danced on that stage again, it will be too soon. 

- 40 minutes is too long to wait for Beyonce's introduction. 

 

[EvRobert 1684]

I know I picked this movie because when it came out I remember it being sort of an outlier in film. It's an MTV production (and Beyonce's third film--her second with MTV), features Cuba who was still kind of riding on the coattails of his Oscar win, Mike Epps and Steve Harvey were name actors, and yet with some exceptions falls into the Christian church movie field (basically anything to do with Mike Epps and Steve Harvey). If it didn't have those 4 names, this would have probably been put out by PureFlix (and believe me, I almost picked Sunday School Musical :D ). 

RE: young Cuba and young Beyonce...yeah that was very creepy. It would have made much more sense if she was asking him to be her boyfriend and not the other way around.

RE: Why isn't the story acknowledged that Beyonce and her son share the same story as Cuba and his mom, because it makes more sense for the audience to put this together ("ohh look it's the same"). I actually kind of appreciated that they didn't point it out, because it probably would have been way too heavy handed. Should something have been mentioned? For sure, but the fact that they had the restraint not to, didn't bother me. 

RE: The Fighting Temptations name, I think it's a duel thing. There are several bible verse about resisting temptation or "fighting temptation". so the choir is named "the Fighting Temptations" as an homage to that, but the whole movie is sort of about fighting the temptation and Cuba's nature to lie, and the temptation to hate or fight back, etc. That's just a guess though

[tomspanks 9039]

2 hours ago, WatchOutForSnakes said:

- Why advertising? Aside from it being a major movie trope profession, why not make him an actual music producer, maybe a failed one. And the choir, and Beyonce are his ticket back?

Maybe because he had a history of faking his qualifications, so they made him scam his way into the choir too?  And Beyonce said  his incompetence at being choir director was obvious, but I thought it would be a bigger confrontation.  

[AlmostAGhost 2718]

I assume dancing costume gifs are appropriate for Cameron's birthday? If so happy birthday!

 

Also I'm not done with the film yet but I'm kind of digging it. But I'll always wonder, how did 'you must win a contest to inherit my money' become a trope?

[Cam Bert 8145]

 

[grudlian. 4725]

4 hours ago, AlmostAGhost said:

Also I'm not done with the film yet but I'm kind of digging it. But I'll always wonder, how did 'you must win a contest to inherit my money' become a trope?

I'm definitely including this condition in my will. Is it not standard?

[Cam Bert 8145]

Also maybe I missed this. Who is Rosa and why is she helping him? 

[tomspanks 9039]

37 minutes ago, Cam Bert said:

Also maybe I missed this. Who is Rosa and why is she helping him? 

I think she was his assistant at the firm.  It didn't make sense why she continued to help him after he was fired.

[Cam Bert 8145]

1 hour ago, tomspanks said:

I think she was his assistant at the firm.  It didn't make sense why she continued to help him after he was fired.

Who seemed to know about his credit card fraud and all that but helped anyway. Maybe they were an item. 

[tomspanks 9039]

4 hours ago, grudlian. said:

I'm definitely including this condition in my will. Is it not standard?

There’s also the spend-a-night-in-the-haunted-house clause, no?

[Quasar Sniffer 4174]

Before I say anything else, let me just take this opportunity that I hope Cameron H. had a wonderful birthday. You are adorable!