By: Arc
Level: 3
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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I settled for Lana Del Rey inspired blue-jeans-white-shirt costume, I sure did not want to over dress; I wasn’t a star in the movie, there was no need to whip out a three piece…An optical illusion made me believe the premiere would start at 2pm and I arrived SPAR (Filmhouse Cinema Old GRA Port Harcourt) at 1:40 (I’m quite the early bird)…I obtained my ticket from Miss Nkoli Os’kar (the one who scripted the movie and who invited me). She made me see clearly:
Red Carpet 2pm
Premiere by 3pm
I realized I had screwed myself showing up that early, a blue-jeans-white-shirt-wearing-nobody had no business with the 2pm gig. I patiently waited by the decorated red carpet (wonder how this culture started, couldn’t be black carpet eh), my behind stayed glued to the seat as my eyes took in any and everybody—the slay queens with their clown men, the too old to be going on dates, the proper looking daters, the family people and the overtly cute Filmhouse cinema attendants.
A glance at my wrist showed me they were 30minutes behind schedule, I had still not seen Yemi Blaq (Totally adore the guy), Kalu Ikeagwu or Bimbo Akintola…I had practiced my I’m-not-star-struck poker face and couldn’t wait to use it. Several minutes went by again and frustrated I had to go make enquiries. “Red carpet starts at 3.” I was told, “Yemi, Bimbo and Kalu would attend the Lagos premiere.” But of course, what would they be doing in dead Rivers state when there is the Eko Atlantic city premiere. We were at the “village” premiere, a premiere without the stars…Trust the “village” people to do the African Time thing, an hour plus gone, no red-carpet, no promise of the movie starting…
At 3:30pm, the red carpet frenzy began, I let out air, movie should start at 4pm, I should still have time to run a few errands before the darkness comes…I was wrong again, the thoroughly overdressed ladies (even if we were in Paris, shoo) had to get enough of the paparazzi and interviews, another hour was spent as they indulged and felt famous.
Finally we fell into file as we were ushered into the screen rooms (Regulars to screen 1, VIPs to screen 2 —Segregation would never cease, surely you can guess my screen). The movie got underway and for the first 8 minutes we were treated to a poorly lit screen and could absolutely not hear a thing from the movie. We, the regular people saw this as a next-time-purchase-VIP-ticket punishment. The sound was fixed but the picture quality remained the same…
Now I get to the main business of the day, the reason I was at Filmhouse cinema on Sunday 24th September was to test run my Rotten Tomatoes ability. I have no degree in drama, scripting, production or the entire art of film making but critiquing movies does come naturally to me as I have seen a lot of top-notch-classic movies in my few years on earth and I sure know how to separate the nonsensical ones from that lot. I have also starred in dramas that should never make it to a small screen, never mind a big screen; so I have firsthand experience of the difference between play, drama, home video, film, movie, good movies, great and classic movies. I think I’m usually spot on in my assessment of a movie save of course I am biased like that time I hailed John Wick 2 (absolute garbage story and production) as my favorite movie (C’mon it would make the best video game when produced). So I wore my critique glasses and I watched the movie Fruitful with all the concentration I could manage…
The Result:
The good news or the bad news, I say we take care of the bad news first
Score: 2/10
Opinion: I Just Want To Unsee This Movie
There were a lot of things wrong with this movie, I’d outline in bullet points
- Bad picture: First thing you notice is that the picture quality requires a lot of accommodation from your eyes. It’s just not what we are used to, even home videos on African Magic EPIC have better picture quality, no one is asking for “The Great Gatsby or The Age of Adaline” picture perfection but at least give us our regular standard.
- Straight off I could see all the green horned actors and actresses, they stunk of inexperience and nailed themselves to a cross by doing too much to impress. Good directing should spot that and try to make it a little less obvious rather than slap a “This-is-my-first-time-on-screen” tag on their faces.
- The bar scene where Lauretta and Tumini exchanged words totally sucked…Eye ball torture, excruciating…
- Lines were repeated way too often e.g. “It is you again, what brings you here again.” Again coming again doesn’t help again
Pastor telling Kate “Yes you can” at least five times straight
Boss telling Tumini “You’re kidding me, you’re kidding me”
This all makes the movie sound like a Play
- The crew was entirely focused on solely pushing the story, selling their Supernatural Childbirth logic, Promises book and Pastressing that they totally forgot about paying attention to the movie and actually directing/producing it. Missing out on the doctor explaining the risks to the client before his signing a consent form is the sort of thing a cynic like me would notice.
Directing and creativity were totally absent in the talk show scene, I get it is an educational piece but I felt it could be worked better and ummm EVIL SPIRITS associated with Traditional birth attendants; let’s leave science as science and bible logic as bible logic…I would only say God is the ultimate scientist.
- Unnecessary scenes: Top of the list showing a 3 minute flashback of Kayode leaving the house for his trip to South Africa (In heaven’s name what did this scene accomplish, answer— absolutely nothing, a total waste of running time)
A University babe trying to seduce Kayode, this had absolutely nothing to do with the movie. Say he actually did make out with her then proceed to neglect his mother-in-law’s emergency call cos he was engrossed in the little one then it’s relevant. My guess is the Pastressing team decided to put a touch of sexual tension (Total crap)
- I would end the bad news section with this—They gave Fake-Ass –Chimamanda (Tumini) and her cohorts way too much time to destroy our eye balls with great acting…
However on seeing the end credits, I completely forgave all I have come to hate about this movie…Shot in Port Harcourt (Can any good thing come out of Rivers State?). In summary “A low budget Port Harcourt shot church film banking on Yemi’s face as publicity (He was way too far off main character for the position his face took up on the movie poster).” They can be excused…
The Good News:
- Perfect Theme and Story: The plot of the movie should be rated say an 8/10. Grave injustice was done to it. Working class ladies’ struggle with pregnancy; a very sensitive issue that should be talked about. This highlights the problem with Nollywood at the moment; we have escaped a dark phase of making purposeless movies but now make purposeful movies that suck. We see a good story and dive in, totally forget about ART and PERFECTION that should be employed in expressing it E.g. Omoni’s My Wife and I which turned out to be an eye sore really.
- Madam Final’s performance was CLASSIC (Excellent by Anita Ogan) what a way to expose the “Upside-down womb” legend. I enjoyed every second of watching her.
- Pregnant Lauretta nagging her driver was the greatest comic relief I’ve witnessed from a movie in the month of September (Boy, did we need the relief)
- Dave not taking chances with his suspicion that Kate poisoned his food is the sort of “keeping-it-real” that makes your blood warm.
- The soundtrack of the movie is another plus…Great job
After the movie, I dashed out of the theatre, I was late for my errand and I was sorta embarrassed cos I did get a dash of ketch up (or whatever is in the damn sharwarma) on my white shirt. I had ticked attending a movie premiere off my bucket list. It was an EXPERIENCE.
To My Dear Friend Nko…li
Great writing, epic-soul-food-complex lines about Supernatural childbirth. I am extremely proud of you and indeed everyone associated with you should be too. It is no easy feat to draft up a script and then getting it to the big screen, so not to be sniffed at. We all look forward to better work from you and pray that non-Boleri or an upgraded Boleri would produce the next one…
END NOTE: MY JOB IS SOLELY TO TAUNT YOU INTO BECOMING THE BEST YOU CAN BE. SOMEONE AT SOME POINT TOLD WHITNEY HOUSTON TO WORK ON HER VOICE. EVERYONE HAS A BEGINNING, WE LEARN AND LEARN AND LEARN…I SAY WELL DONE TO THE ENTIRE CAST AND CREW, TOTAL DEDICATION TO TELLING THIS AWESOME STORY…THE MOVIE FRUITFUL HAS A MESSAGE AND EVERYONE SHOULD SEE THIS…
“When creating art, never downgrade your work to meet or relate to a larger simple audience, you do your best and stay satisfied with one true lover of art appreciating your work.” – Osho
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)Loading...
