EURweb |
THE ROBERTSON TREATMENT: America ’s Premiere Lifestyle Column, Volume 9, Edition 9 - Malinda Williams Keeps Things on the Straight and Narrow in “Idlewild ”
*Beginning with her early work on “The Cosby Show,” to films like “The Wood,” “Dancing in September” and “A Thin Line Between Love and Hate,” actress Malinda Williams has been one of America ’s most enduring sweetheart. Effervescent and spunky, the pint-size actress is definitely hard to resist. Best known for her starring role on the long running Showtime family drama “Soul Food,” Williams has since added entrepreneur to her resume with the introduction of her Modern Goddess clothing line. Currently a co-star of the NBC show “Windfall” and the highly anticipated film “ Idlewild” opposite Big Boi and Andre 3000, Williams recently met with the Robertson Treatment to give us insights on her upcoming projects.
Robertson Treatment: What was life like for you after Soul Food? Did you go through any soul searching moments, apprehension or anything like that?
Malinda Williams: No, I didn’t because we were shooting in Toronto and so I was really separated from my friends and family. I was excited to be coming back home. Career wise, I have worked fairly consistently, so I just thought it was a chance for me to take some time off. I have a son and he was entering the 1 st grade and so it was important for me to really be there to keep a close eye on him and stay on top of the teachers and see that the whole thing went smoothly. No, I didn’t’ have any misgivings about lea ving the show and plus I still keep in touch with all my co-stars so it’s not like I felt I was missing anyone. The only thing I did miss is seeing the crew everyday for we got to know each other pretty well. I was happy to be closing that chapter and moving onto something else .
RT: There’s a strong buzz around “Idlewild ” and just judging by the cast it sounds like there must of been some great times on set?
MW : We had Faison Love, Terence Howard, Paula Jai Parker all together on one set, which is a recipe for fun. There were lots of great people that worked on that project and the fact that it’s a period piece made things a lot more interesting. I had a lot of fun. The boys from Outkast are very interesting because you never know what it’s going to be like working with musical artists, but it was a great time. Working with them made me realized what they do on a performance level is pretty much the same as what actors do. They are stepping into a character when they step on stage and perform their songs. They were very receptive in terms of watching and listening and knowing that they were stepping into somewhat of a new arena.
RT: Would you say this movie is a somewhat black version of the film “ Chicago ”?
MW : I would say that’s somewhat accurate since Idlewild is a period piece presented as a musical. Like Chicago , our film has huge and lavish production numbers and lots of action. I feel like people have been waiting for this type of movie for a long time. Visually, it’s absolutely stunning, with a great story line and a cast full of very engaging personalities. And then you have Outkast who definitely bring a special magic to the film. I am excited for it to come out because even if I wasn’t in the film I would be fighting to see it.
RT: You have been in the industry for a very long time – at lea st 20 years – what made you get into acting in the first place?
MW : I started off modeling when I was a little girl – probably about 8 or 9 years old. My parents took me to a modeling agency and I started doing ads like Macys or Bradley’s just catalog stuff. The same agency I belonged to for modeling also did commercials and theatricals bookings and I think it was just naturally that I segued into it. One thing I have always had the ability to do is mimic. I can do voices and I’ve always had a natural curiosity about how people act and what makes them tick?
RT: How do you see yourself having evolved as an actress?
MW : I won’t necessarily separate myself the actress from myself personally. The two definitely go hand in hand. As you evolve as a woman, you naturally have to evolve as an actress because you take on your experiences you see different things and you lea rn more. So as you lea rn and grow as a person those are things that you are then able to apply to characters, because they are just characters. I’ve evolved a lot. Malinda has evolved a lot. I mean I’ve had lots of personal growth and many experiences in my life that contributed to my evolution as an actress.
RT: Let’s talk about your NBC show “Windfall” – at 31 it’s got to be great to still be able to play a 22-year old character.
MW : You know it’s funny because when people say that, that never occurs to me because I don’t think of people in terms of their age or how old they are. I mean I take it into consideration when developing the character for different traits, but I just think here is a women, a single women with a child, and then I just apply those attributes and it’s not necessarily how old she is. I mean I do look young, but it never really came into play for me exactly how old she was.
RT: So what would you do with a lottery win of that size -- $386 million?
MW : Oh my God! I would probably – I would faint! I would immediately call everybody I knew just to make sure that I am still living in reality. I would call my parents and say ‘okay, quit your jobs for you’re moving out here to California and we are going on a family vacation’, I would probably buy a home in Bermuda and a boat and fly all my family and friends out there and we would have a party.
Special thanks to Samantha Ofole for conducting the interview for this article.
BEST BETS – TELEVISION
When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts
Rating: 4 out of 4 stars
requiem (noun):
1. a mass for a dead person; als a musical setting for this
2. a musical service or hymn in honor of the dead
*Spike Lee is a filmmaker renowned for being forthright. With every film he lays his views on politics and race bare. If there’s a point to be made, Lee will make it even if that means sacrificing character, story and structure to do it. It’s a trait that has become more pronounced over the years and has made for an unsatisfying and unfocused ending of Bamboozled and She Hates Me a cinematic quagmire. Even at their most disjointed, Lee’s films have expanded the discussion of race and have challenged the United States to look inward.
While Lee’s uneasy combination of nuanced storytelling and blunt agenda can make for puissant yet uneven films, it’s this same approach that infuses Lee’s documentaries with a ferocity and undeniable truth that Michael Moore can only dream of.
In his new documentary When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts Lee effortlessly recounts the story of Hurricane Katrina, capturing the confusion, anger, despair, grief and even the dark humor that has injected this catastrophe with an emotional resonance that will be felt by the city of New Orleans for decades.
Lee opens Levees with images of a pre and post Katrina New Orleans backed by a melancholy jazz score. Faces of smiling black children are juxtaposed against the gutted remains of flooded homes. A vibrant, culturally alive New Orleans is contrasted with a dormant New Orleans that lies open like an infected wound. It’s a tribute that makes Lee’s use of “requiem” in the title a literal manifestation. Yet, it’s also a celebration of New Orleans cultural heritage and the resilience of its citizens.
From there the documentary traces a mostly chronological path from the days just before Katrina made landfall and to the rebuilding effort afterwards.
This isn’t an easy film to watch. While displaying reverence and empathy, Lee doesn’t restrain himself as he pulls back the covers and shows you all the ugliness that was Hurricane Katrina.
There’s the political finger pointing by New Orleans mayor Nagin, Louisiana Governor Blanco and other politicos. There’s the footage and audio of experts foreshadowing the devastation. There are the families who recount stories of how they learned which family members lived and which died. And there’s the footage of those who can no longer contain their emotions and who openly vent a host of emotions before the camera.
At one point Levees follows the mother of frequent Lee collaborator Terrence Blanchard. Returning to her house for the first time in months, she breaks down as she walks among the wreckage. Her son tries to reassure her that it’s only things she lost and that she still has her life. She admonishes him because her home was her life. It’s filled with memories physical and literal. Simplistic platitudes, be they from her son or as demonstrated by Vic e President Cheney and President Bush, aren’t an adequate response.
Levees even does what our PR minded government and timid media is afraid to do and shows the bodies of dead New Orleans rotting in the streets. The entire disaster was and is an ugly scar on America ’s soul and no amount of PR spin or media savvy is going to make the devastation or its decade’s long impact go away.
Some will be surprised that there’s quite a bit of humor in Levees . And after reliving the most destructive event in American history since the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, it’s a much welcomed cathartic release.
The true power of Lee’s documentary will be not in its immediate impact—which is sure to be seismic once the politicians see how they fare—but in what it portends for the future of New Orleans . Encapsulating the raw emotion and the disaster’s complex timeline had to be a Herculean task, but by doing so, Lee has created a cinematic yardstick by which the rebuilding effort can be measured.
Years from now, there will be no hiding behind a veil of we didn’t know and we don’t remember. Nor will the people of New Orleans , especially the poor and the Black, have to fight to keep what happened alive in America ’s memory, because Lee has remembered for them all.
The first two acts of the WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE: A REQUIEM IN FOUR ACTS air 9 PM Monday, August 21 on HBO. The second two acts air 9 PM Tuesday, August 22.
All four acts will air 8 PM August 29, the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
Special to the Robertson Treatment from Charles Judson
BEST BETS – FILMS
Idlewild: A Wild Trip that Never Idles
Rating: 3.5 out of 4 stars
An anachronistic exercise in visual kinetics director Bryan Barber’s Idlewild is a cinematic mash up of classic Hollywood, 30’s Harlem, prohibition era cool and 21 st century hip hop—try saying that three times fast.
Set in the eponymous Idlewild, the film follows the dual stories of Rooster and Percival. Rooster, played by Antwan Patton (Big Boi), is the boisterous, womanizing star performer of Church, Idlewild’s hottest night spot and the local speakeasy. André Benjamin (Andre 3000) plays Percival, the shy son of a mortician who moonlights as Church’s piano player. Although they couldn’t be any more different, Rooster and Percival have been friends since they were kids.
One night at Church upsets the status quo when singer Angel Davenport, Paula Patton in a breakout performance, enters Percival’s life, and Trumpy, Oscar nominee Terrence Howard, enters Rooster’s. Soon Percival is dreaming of leaving Idlewild to seriously pursue a musical career and Rooster is trying to decide if being a big shot in a small southern town is worth sacrificing both his life and his family.
Referencing everything and everyone from Cab Calloway’s hip style to the Nicholas Brothers acrobatic dancing to Josephine Baker’s extravagant musical numbers, Barber’s debut feature is overflowing with references and nods to the 1930s. And thanks to Hinton Battle’s choreography, Shawn Barton’s costuming and Charles Breen’s production design, Barber pulls it off handedly.
Shot on a $15 million budget, Idlewild is an ambitious film that puts every dollar on the screen. There are singing cuckoo clocks, lavish dresses that seem tailored made for Patton’s sensuously lithe frame, a talking rooster flask, musical notes that comically come to life and energetic dance sequences that put most modern music videos to shame.
This is Outkast we’re talking about, so there are a few moments that will have some folks temporarily scratching their heads. But anybody expecting another sub-standard Donald Goines blaxplotation rip-off featuring sub-par acting and badly lit sets obviously has never listened to an Outkast album or watched an Outkast video. Always going for broke, Outkast never does anything in halves and Idlewild is no different.
Bryan Barber and Outkast have created an instant cult classic; a hip hop fairytale for the grown and sexy.
Special to the Robertson Treatment from Charles Judson
Best Bets – Film – bonus review
No Limit: A Search For The American Dream On The Poker Tournament Trail ( Camden Pictures)
No Limit puts a human face on the highly competitive world of tournament poker. Chronicling the 8-month journey of its producer Susan Genard and her business partner Tim Rhys, who along with their son set out to raise money for their production company via winnings from high-stakes poker tournaments. The film takes an unflinching, no-holds barred and sometimes comical look at their journey as they take on there alternative pursuit of the American Dream . This hyper-unconventional family is put to the test as one disappointment after another arises. To quote Larry Flynt (who is interviewed in the film), “the game of poker is no cake walk.” A fact this film clearly demonstrates as it takes audiences into the smoky back rooms where some of the most vibrant, intelligent and animated personalities in the world of poker are revealed. S tereotypes are shattered and replaced by life size portraits of some of the most well–known poker players in the world who are brilliantly woven into this documentary. Interview highlights include poker legends like: Amir Vahedi, Annie Duke, Barry Greenstein, Bobby Baldwin, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, Chris Moneymaker, Clonie Gowen, Daniel Negreanu, David "Devilfish" Ulliott, David Sklansky, Doyle Brunson, Howard Lederer, James McManus, Jennifer Harman, Kathy Liebert, Kenna James, Larry Flynt, Layne Flack, Linda Johnson, Lou Krieger, Mark Seif, Max Stern, Men “the Master” Nguyen, and Miami John Cernuto who all share their experiences and philosophies of a game that’s come to define their lives. .
However, the real added bonus of this film is Susan’s Grand Canyon size heart and equally massive streak of determination. Someone once said, ‘scared money doesn’t make money,’ and Susan is fearless. “We hope people will be inspired to be bold and take calculated risks to achieve their dreams--to understand that they probably have less to lose than they think and more to gain than they can imagine. Achieving your dreams - or just taking the steps towards achieving your dreams - can be very freeing,” she says.
This documentary is a complete slice of poker heaven. Not being a player or even a fan of poker, I really didn’t know what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised. By the end of the movie, I was ready to throw my hat into the poker ring and win my millions.
Produced by Susan Genard and co-directed by Tim Rhys with Brian O’Hare, No Limit: A Search For The American Dream On The Poker Tournament Trail will be available in mid-September. For more information and updates, please visit www.nolimitmovie.com The film is presented by PartyPoker.net.
Special to the Robertson Treatment, by Tosha Y. Thomas
Coming next in the Robertson Treatment is an interview with Tia Mowry star of the new CW show “The Game”.
Visit: www.Robertsontreatment.com
Email: syndicatedcolumn@robertsontreatment.com
Copyright 2006, Robertson Treatment
