JamalSpunky
Well-Known Member
So a couple of weeks back, during its first week of release, I saw "Marshall". My concerns going in were justified in that I was worried that Reginald Hudlin was rusty and way beyond his prime. Even when Hudlin was younger and on the rise his direction skills were solid at best. In "Marshall" he directed scenes with all the inventiveness of the camera work seen in 1980s and 1990s court room TV shows like "Matlock" and 'In the Heat of the Night". The script was slightly above average so it wasn't as if Hudlin was working with truly great material. But a much better director could have elevated scenes, gotten rid of unnecessary stuff and added layers of his own. Hudlin isn't that level of a director and thus only a couple of times in the film did the movie break free from its mundane structure. If a great director had been making the film with this cast and this story, the movie could have been a legitimate contender for awards season. Instead I'll give it about a 6 out of 10.
With that said, the IR was on point. The plot centers around Thurgood Marshall and a Jewish lawyer defending a black chauffeur (Sterling Brown) accused of raping a white woman that he works for (Kate Hudson). This was a real life case and I'm not spoiling anything I hope by revealing that what went down between them wasn't actually a crime. In flashbacks they showed what happened the fateful night and that meant we got not one but TWO love scenes between Brown and Hudson. To sound like a broken record it is not the type of intimacy that we often see between a black man and a white woman in a mainstream Hollywood film. It was kinda hot but I learned from an interview with Sterling that some stuff was left on the cutting room floor. Sterling said that initially he was seen naked (possibly Hudson too) but that in the actual release they had cut it and toned it down.
But wait, there's more. There is a point in the film that Marshall is at a low point in the case and is sitting in a bar. The scene itself stretches on for minutes as the film cuts back and forth between Marshall and the Jewish lawyer. To be honest most of that scene is ridiculous and the ending of it is especially unrealistic. But anyway in the middle a very beautiful woman approaches Marshall and hits on him while asking for a drink. They start to chat. Later after a confrontation breaks out between Marshall and some white men, the woman apologizes for what occurred and says something about how men are men and women are women no matter their differences. Marshall hears this and the light bulb goes off in his head about what must have actually gone down between Brown and Hudson's characters. But being a dunce or perhaps just being bored in what I was seeing, I had assumed that the woman who approached Marshall was one of those typical redbone/bi-racial women Hollywood hires who are gorgeous and can look almost white in certain lighting. Imagine my surprise when I got home, checked out some red carpet stories about the Marshall premiere and saw pics of Sophia Bush with captions about how she was at the premiere of her new film. Her new film? Of the handful of white ladies in the movie I didn't recall her. So I did some investigating and it turns out she played the woman in the bar who approached Marshall and flirted with him. It suddenly made more sense that her final words to Marshall would unlock the key in his mind that allowed him to crack open the case. There was such dark and soft lighting in the bar that I assumed it was a lightskinned black female whose color had been drained because of how the scene was lit. Turns out it was a white actress, Sophia, all along. As sad as this may be, in 2017 a beautiful white woman in a mainstream film approaching a handsome black man in a bar because she is attracted him is almost revolutionary. And that it happened in a movie about a legendary black man that would draw an above average percentage of black moviegoers is particularly ballsy. I was expecting IR between Brown and Hudson. But I wasn't expecting the Chadwick Boseman scene with Sophia Bush even if it was harmless and led to nothing sexual between them.
I suppose since no one has talked about the details of this movie that would mean no one here has seen it. If so I have to ask why do folks on this site go about talking up "Detroit" or "Marshall" or "Mountains Between Us" and about how important it is for such movies to do well only to not go out and see any of those films?
With that said, the IR was on point. The plot centers around Thurgood Marshall and a Jewish lawyer defending a black chauffeur (Sterling Brown) accused of raping a white woman that he works for (Kate Hudson). This was a real life case and I'm not spoiling anything I hope by revealing that what went down between them wasn't actually a crime. In flashbacks they showed what happened the fateful night and that meant we got not one but TWO love scenes between Brown and Hudson. To sound like a broken record it is not the type of intimacy that we often see between a black man and a white woman in a mainstream Hollywood film. It was kinda hot but I learned from an interview with Sterling that some stuff was left on the cutting room floor. Sterling said that initially he was seen naked (possibly Hudson too) but that in the actual release they had cut it and toned it down.
But wait, there's more. There is a point in the film that Marshall is at a low point in the case and is sitting in a bar. The scene itself stretches on for minutes as the film cuts back and forth between Marshall and the Jewish lawyer. To be honest most of that scene is ridiculous and the ending of it is especially unrealistic. But anyway in the middle a very beautiful woman approaches Marshall and hits on him while asking for a drink. They start to chat. Later after a confrontation breaks out between Marshall and some white men, the woman apologizes for what occurred and says something about how men are men and women are women no matter their differences. Marshall hears this and the light bulb goes off in his head about what must have actually gone down between Brown and Hudson's characters. But being a dunce or perhaps just being bored in what I was seeing, I had assumed that the woman who approached Marshall was one of those typical redbone/bi-racial women Hollywood hires who are gorgeous and can look almost white in certain lighting. Imagine my surprise when I got home, checked out some red carpet stories about the Marshall premiere and saw pics of Sophia Bush with captions about how she was at the premiere of her new film. Her new film? Of the handful of white ladies in the movie I didn't recall her. So I did some investigating and it turns out she played the woman in the bar who approached Marshall and flirted with him. It suddenly made more sense that her final words to Marshall would unlock the key in his mind that allowed him to crack open the case. There was such dark and soft lighting in the bar that I assumed it was a lightskinned black female whose color had been drained because of how the scene was lit. Turns out it was a white actress, Sophia, all along. As sad as this may be, in 2017 a beautiful white woman in a mainstream film approaching a handsome black man in a bar because she is attracted him is almost revolutionary. And that it happened in a movie about a legendary black man that would draw an above average percentage of black moviegoers is particularly ballsy. I was expecting IR between Brown and Hudson. But I wasn't expecting the Chadwick Boseman scene with Sophia Bush even if it was harmless and led to nothing sexual between them.
I suppose since no one has talked about the details of this movie that would mean no one here has seen it. If so I have to ask why do folks on this site go about talking up "Detroit" or "Marshall" or "Mountains Between Us" and about how important it is for such movies to do well only to not go out and see any of those films?
