While some people watch movies and quietly root for the villain (no lie, I thought Bane in The Dark Knight Rises was bad a**!), many of us do the complete opposite–we watch these cocky, disrespectful, distasteful and often violent characters with disgust. Some are so good at being bad that we equate the actors with these characters for a long time, and some are eerily effective, to the point that you watch the character, act like you know them, and scoff at the fact that you dislike them so much. If you ever say, “UGH!” when you watch these movies, or shake your head at these characters a few times, then you’ll probably agree that they were villains you loved to hate.

Sanaa Lathan in The Family That Preys

If you watched just 30 minutes of The Family That Preys and viewed Lathan as Andrea, you were probably just as sick of her as we were. She was a conniving cheater, dogging out her hard-working and fine man (Rockmond Dunbar) for the town’s stuck-up socialite and trust-fund baby. And in the end, she revealed that *SPOILER* the son her husband thought was his blood was a product of her affair. She didn’t even look remorseful at all! Who else wanted to reach through the screen and shake her real good???

From time to time, even a sophisticated lady such as myself likes to step out for more than drinks and small talk. Sometimes I like to go to lounges, or non-ratchet nightclubs to get my two-step on and maybe even drop what my mother gave me a long time ago. Yes, I’m the person in the spot who you can hear screaming Oooooooooooooo! over “P.Y.T.” when it drops. And while I have had a blast dancing with my girlfriends and a boyfriend, or the occasional fella from time to time, I’ve noticed more and more these days that there’s consistently a darkness hovering over me on the dance floor. It drips of sweat, smells of alcohol and brings an unnecessary amount of body heat onto my back. Oh yeah, it’s the modern-day dude who wants to grind on my a**. So we meet again…

And of course, this same dude will expect me to do AAAAAALL the work while he leans back, trying to pull my backside closer and closer to his junk. And if that’s not bad enough, he’ll hold onto me for more than the allotted dancing time (uh, one song limit,son) as I look in sorrow at my friends having a ball in front of me, like a kid being dragged away from a playground. Because of such non-enjoyable experiences (after college, this type of dancing becomes irksome), I’ve opted out of grinding, booty dancing, juking, or whatever you’d like to call it, with anyone who’s not my mate. You’ll get the, “Thanks, but I’m just gonna dance with my friends.”

It might just be me, but as someone who grew up watching Kid & Play dance for their lives in House Party and Wesley Snipes and Allen Payne bust a move in New Jack City, or hell, just lived through the ’90s, where everybody from Public Announcement to Usher, Ginuwine and the likes were breaking it down on the dance floor, it just disappoints me that these days, the most you can get from a guy is a harsh pelvic thrust *shudders at the thought* I mean damn, even R. Kelly stepped in the name of love from time to time. Try to dance with a guy face-to-face and he’ll be off you midway into the song (probably because he doesn’t know what to do with his feet), tell him no thanks when he asks to dance with his penis and not via verbal communication, and he scoffs at you like you told him you were a lesbian. Hey, sometimes I want to dance, but I’d prefer to keep my a** to myself thank you very much. And can we talk about the people who can’t even find a two-step for a song, but would rather grind to a track that’s highly inappropriate for such movement? Like dropping it like it’s hot to “Power” by Kanye West, or 2Pac’s “I Ain’t Mad at Cha”? Uncouth much?

I think the whole thought about the lack of rhythm men have, or rather, care to share with most women, came back into my mind from a hilarious video I saw on the website, Dormtainment.com. I don’t know if you guys have watched their videos, but they are E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G. I often watch them wishing that I went to school with such creative gentlemen, but instead, my male classmates were all trying to be party promoters and the like. Well, anywho, they posted a video a few Sundays back entitled, “Invisible Dancing Girl.” In it, they show you how odd it looks for men to dance when there’s no girl around, and of course, the dancing consists now of just a few pelvic jerk motions at different height levels and levels of comfort. While I laughed, or better yet, howled, at the hilarity of it all, I couldn’t help but realize that this is the the only form of dancing men do nowadays, and we’ve accepted it as the norm. That’s why, without a woman to dance with in the video, the brothas only knew how to shake their hips as if there was a booty in front of them.

And I think I really realized how bad things were getting when I went to my niece’s Sweet 16 birthday party a year ago, walked into the room thinking I was going to catch a scene out of “Family Matters” (you know, “Everyboooooody, do the Urkel dance!”) and found the room with the lights dim. These teenagers were popping on one another like they were in a Luke video, and anytime somebody would cut the lights on, they would scatter away from each others laps like roaches. What made it worse was that my brother and sister-in-law were in the room, and were allowing the jukefest to happen. Really? It wasn’t until another mother who came to help chaperone put folks in check that people stopped all the jubilating gyrating. But when you took that away from them, they all stood around looking at their phones or talking. If they weren’t grinding on one another, aka, dry-humping, they weren’t trying to bust a move.

Of course, this change in the dancing habits of people isn’t a serious issue whatsoever, but it’s something I’ve found to be irritating. You’re being used for your hind parts in the club whether you know it or not, like cats wrap themselves around scratching posts for relief. And while it’s all fun and games for a song or two, is that all men and women can do in the club? It’s annoying when that’s the only type of way men expect you to move and groove to a jam (I’m saying, sometimes they don’t even know what you LOOK like at all, they’re just going to town on your butt), and that’s kind of sad. Well, I guess I’ll just have to settle for my old school House Party VHS tapes and dance with Kid in my mind…for now…

More on Madame Noire!

• Did You Know They Dated!? 11 Celebrity Couples You Might Have Forgotten About
• What Makes Me A Hoe? And Other Questions About How Women Are Unfairly Labelled
• Is It Time To Call Tyrone? 14 Ways To Know Whether Your Relationship Is Worth Fixing Or Nixing
• Loose Lipped Lovers: 10 Celeb Men Who Kiss & Tell
• We Love You Essence, But We’re Going To Need You To Get Some New Cover Subjects
• There’s Just Something About R. Kelly: Can We Hate The Sin, And Not The Sinner?
• Caught Up In College: A Cuffing Season Tale

Source: gbreezysdirectorcut.blogspot.com

“Sit yo five dollar azz down before I make change.”  There’s no way we can talk about this movie without that line coming up. Mario Van Peebles, in his directorial debut, struck gold. New Jack City was a cult and commercial classic, becoming the highest grossing independent feature of 1991. You know the story, you quote the lines but we bet you didn’t these behind the scenes secrets about the film. Check them out.

images2.fanpop.com

Subsequent to the release of the box office hit Think Like A Man that came out last month, we decided to go down memory lane and reminisce about some of the best black films of the ’90s. Last time we gave you few movies that we loved in part one and noticed many of you were quite anxious for part two, and even had films that you wanted to recommend. Well, here it is: Part 2, and you will not be disappointed. And if you are…*Kanye shrug* We tried…

moviegoods.com

Love Jones (1997)

Many people seem to love Love Jones. Why? Because most would agree that unlike most romantic films, it’s one of those movies that just keeps it real about the struggle in searching for love. It’s a black urban romantic comedy set in Chicago, involving a a male poet named Darius (Larenz Tate), who persistently pursues a female photographer, the lovely Nina. But feelings are soon assessed by her after a series of romantic obstacles are set in motion that force her to try and find out if her old beau is the real deal or if she needs to be with Darius. The movie includes a great soundtrack and several scenes intertwined with soulful jazz music and spoken word.

How many times have you watched a movie or TV show, or listened to a throwback album and said to yourself or someone else, “I wonder where ___ is…” We’ve done enough of those type of lists with no answer to the question that we think it’s time to find out. And not just find out what certain individuals who we used to jam to and dress like are doing, but what they’re looking like. We get it, people change over time, with some aging better than others. But man, some of these people have gone through a Transformers-esque change over the years. Time to play catch up in gallery form…

Lark Voorhies

As Lisa Turtle on Saved By the Bell, Lark Voorhies had us wanting to dress like her in her fly pastels and always on-point accessories. Although she was one of the only black faces on that show, she definitely stood out for more than her color. After that show ended, you could check Lark making guest appearances on other big television shows like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Martin and on the soap The Bold and the Beautiful. But as of recently, her roles have dried up. But a few photos surfaced in 2010 of the actress looking paler than usual. Blame it on a horrible foundation choice, or something a lot worse that I won’t say, but Voorhies looks a lot older (and drier) than her 37 years. What’s that about?

Photo from 2010

Were you a Christopher Williams fan back in the day? Will you be checking for his new album?

“Don’t wake me, I’m dreamiiiiiiin!” If you have not screamed that line in a car at the top of your lungs with your girls, you have not lived. Christopher Williams smashed onto the scene in the early ’90s with his pretty boy steez and sultry vocals with the hit “Dreamin.”  Then he got in your head even more when he took the suited and booted role Kareem in “New Jack City.” As of late he’s been on the road performing in plays and yes, working on new music.

Madame Noire got to chop it up with the actor/singer in New Orleans recently and he had some interesting things to say about his new album, what he thinks about today’s singers and a very ummm, devoted fan.

Check it out!

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