As soon as I get home from Toronto I am going to begin updating my Oscar predictions because it’s been too long since I revisited them and after everything I’ve seen I have a much clearer picture of the early race than I did before. However, one film that’s slowly creeping into the conversation is an unexpected one, Tyler Perry’s For Colored Girls.
The film originally carried the full name of Ntozake Shange’s award-winning 1975 play, of which it is based, “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf”. However, along with an updated release date to November 5, the film lost 75% of its title and gained a bit of Oscar buzz. The buzz comes as the result of the release date shift only considering it was originally slotted for a January 2011 release. If you ask me this isn’t enough considering we’re talking about a Tyler Perry movie and his history has involved a critical blackout on all of his films, which is the reason I have never seen a single one. Is it possible he’s bucked his personal norm and created something Lionsgate won’t be afraid to screen for critics? Certainly, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
As for the film itself, it stars Janet Jackson, Thandie Newton, Whoopi Goldberg, Kerry Washington, Macy Gray, Kimberly Elise and Phylicia Rashad and consists of a series of poems performed through a cast of nameless women, known only by a color. It deals with such subjects as love, abandonment, rape, and abortion. It later morphed into an Emmy Award-nominated television special and is still being performed around the world.
I have added eight character posters to the gallery right here and the trailer can be seen directly below. As always, I haven’t watched it, so tell me what you think. Do you see Oscar potential or are we dealing with just another Perry film? Of course, I don’t even know what “just another Perry film” is having never seen one, so I rely on your opinions to fill me in.
