July 19, 2017 The Skanner Page 7
Arts & Entertainment
FILM REVIEW: ‘Girls Trip’
BFFs Party in New Orleans in Raunchy Reunion Romp
By Kam Williams
Special to The Skanner
R
yan (Regina Hall),
Sasha (Queen Lati-
fah), Dina (Tiffany
Haddish) and Lisa
(Jada Pinkett Smith) have
been friends since their
college days in the 1990s.
Back then, the tight-knit
Flossy Posse partied
as hard as they hit the
books. After graduating,
they curtailed the ca-
rousing considerably for
the sake of their profes-
sional careers.
Today, journalism ma-
jor Sasha’s still strug-
gling to pay the bills as
a gossip columnist. Di-
vorced Lisa’s exhausted
between her demanding
nursing job and having
to raise a couple of kids
alone. And short-fused
Dina just got fired for as-
saulting a colleague.
By contrast, self-help
guru Ryan seems to be
on top of the world. Not
only is her new book,
“You Can Have It All,” on
the best seller list, but
she’s happily-married to
Stewart (Mike Colter), a
handsome and charm-
ing, former football
star. Plus, the successful
couple is on the verge of
landing their own, na-
tionally-syndicated TV
talk show.
At the point of depar-
ture, Ryan is set to de-
liver the keynote speech
at the Essence Festival,
an annual celebration of
African American mu-
sic and culture. She can
think of no better occa-
sion to reunite the Flossy
Posse for the first time in
years, so she invites her
BFFs to join her for an
all-expenses paid trip to
New Orleans.
The girlfriends jump at
the opportunity to share
a wild weekend of de-
bauchery all around the
Big Easy. What ensues is
Read It Before You See It
'Girls Trip'
jaw-dropping: there’s ex-
plicit sex chat, male fron-
tal nudity, hallucinating
from substance abuse --
even urinating on revel-
“
Girls Trip is a relentless-
ly-raunchy romp which
starts out as a shock comedy
before turning into a mes-
sage movie
ers from a zip line strung
above Basin Street.
Directed by Malcolm
Lee (“The Best Man
franchise”), Girls Trip
is a relentlessly-raun-
chy romp which starts
out as a shock comedy
before turning into a
'Queen Sugar'
By Kirby McCurtis
Special to The Skanner
S
ome of the
best TV se-
ries
and
movies are
based on books.
And while you
may not always
agree with the
director or pro-
Kirby McCurtis,
ducer’s
inter-
Administrator, North
pretation of the
Portland Library
author’s writing,
it’s always an adventure to read and
then watch. Here is a list of books
that will make sure you are ready for
the summer hits everyone is already
talking about:
• Everything, Everything, by Nico-
la Yoon, is the story of a teenage
girl, Maddy, who’s literally aller-
gic to the outside world. When a
new family moves in, she begins a
complicated romance with the boy
next door that challenges every-
thing she’s ever known. Maddy is
played by the amazing Amandla
Stenberg, and there is still time to
catch it in theaters.
• Queen Sugar is a beautiful explora-
tion of family ties, and how time,
trauma and disconnect can tear
at those seams. Charly Bordelon’s
late father has just left her 8,800
sprawling acres of sugarcane land
in rural Louisiana, and she decides
to leave Los Angeles to start fresh.
Author Natalie Baszile writes a
book so vivid in its portrayal of
setting and place, and creator Ava
DuVernay’s beautifully trans-
forms this sense of place for the
small screen for Oprah’s channel
(OWN). Season two is on air now.
• The Dark Tower series, from Ste-
phen King, is a suspenseful, eight-
book series set in a futuristic,
Wild West type of world. Across
the desert, the gunslinger, Roland
Deschain, pursues the Man in
Black in an epic battle of good vs.
evil for the fate of the universe.
The film is based on the seventh
book, The Dark Tower. Idris Elba
plays the gunslinger and Matthew
McConaughey plays the Man in
Black. While the movie is based on
book seven, read the whole series
before Aug. 4 to get a true under-
standing of this world.
• For a heavier story based on true
events, read The Algiers Motel Inci-
dent by John Hersey. The book tells
about the deaths of three black
men and the brutal beatings of
nine other people at a Detroit hotel
on July 25, 1967, during the racially
charged 12th Street Riot. The mov-
ie “Detroit,” based on the incident,
hits theatres on August 4. With
a cast that includes John Boyega,
Anthony Mackie and Chris Chalk,
I predict an Oscar buzz, so read the
facts before seeing the film.
• Get a jump start on reading The
Mountain Between Us, before the
movie adaptation, starring Id-
ris Elba and Kate Winslet, hits
theatres on October 6. The nov-
el by Charles Martin, is about a
surgeon and a magazine writer
who become stranded in a frigid
mountain wilderness after a plane
crash.
For more new titles, including
DVDs and streaming movies, check
out the Multnomah County Library
website at www.multcolib.biblio-
commons.com/explore/recent_ar-
rivals.
message movie towards
the end. The adventure
unfolds like an African
American
variation
of “Rough Night” and
“Bridesmaids,” at least
until Ryan’s marriage is
exposed as a charade. At
that juncture, it morphs
into a morality play rem-
iniscent of a Tyler Perry
production.
Since I saw the film in a
theater full of sisters, it’s
easy for me to report that
this female empower-
ment flick will certainly
resonate with its target
audience. In fact, they
laughed so loudly that
I must have missed half
the picture’s punchlines.
And what better stamp of
approval could you ask
for than a standing ova-
tion as the curtain comes
down?
Excellent HHHH
Rated R for profanity,
crude humor, sexual
dialogue, drug use and
brief frontal nudity
Running time: 122 min.
View a trailer
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