Customer Reviews

Our Family Wedding

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I saw this movie recently on HBO,it could have been better, a different kind of
spicey hispanic father.Someone like Antonio Banderas who is too funny for words,and
he's fine as all hell.But all I want to know is why is there no Soundtrack for this movie.All of the music was slammin,but except for Earth,Wind and Fire I would like to know who the other artist are like the woman who was singing that great"two step" song while Regina King and Forrest Whitaker were dancing to during the wedding reception.I can't get the song or the womans voice out of my head.I found that a lot of movies that come out are so-so, but they never have a soundtrack or at least
let us know who the artists are.I tried to see who they were while watching the ending credits.But the print was so small that you could not read it.So if anyone out there or even the folks behind this film could supply us with the names of all
of the artists who participated in performing on this film I would love to hear from you as to who you are and whether we can obtain all of the songs from the movie.We should start a website for the Unsung artists that perform songs for various movies and never get any recognition or at least to promote the songs so that we may purchase them from the artist themselves.Hey VIBE magazine are you listening.I'll check back for the next 2 weeks in hopes that someone saw this entry
and may be helpful.Peace and Blessings!

OUR FAMILY WEDDING

STARRING: Forrest Whitaker, America Ferrera, Carlos Mencia, Lance Gross, Regina King, Diana-Maria Riva, Lupe Ontiveros, Anjelah N. Johnson, Charlie Murphy and Shannyn Sossamon

WRITTEN BY: Wayne Conley, Malcolm Spellman and Rick Famuyiwa

DIRECTED BY: Rick Famuyiwa

Rated: PG - 13
Genre: Comedy
Release Date: 12 March 2010
Review Date: 25 March 2010



Our Family Wedding was good, but it was barely good. As has been the case countless times in comedies and romantic comedies lately, it's the film's actors that save the film. Is it the writing or is it the directing and producing that is continuously falling short? It's often tough to say, but regardless of the condition of the screenplay, it's the producers, editors and directors who are the last ones to touch the project; I'm just saying.

Forrest Whitaker, as is probably to be expected, out-acts everyone in the film. He is just brilliant, and can steal any scene from any actor bold enough to share it with him. Here, he plays Brad, the father of Marcus (Lance Gross).

Marcus is happily engaged to Lucia (America Ferrera) and the two are madly in love. There's just one little problem; neither of them have told their parents. To make matters worse, they are both worried that the fact that
Marcus is black and Lucia is Hispanic, may play a part in causing an issue between their folks. Oh, and they are leaving the country, and have been secretly living together as well, which is a big no-no in Lucia's family.

Carlos Mencia plays Lucia's somewhat obsessive father, Miguel. If you know anything about Mencia, you will be blown away by him in this film. He really is a talented actor. However, I could not help but feel this part should have gone to George Lopez. Lopez is a master at this kind of comedy, and I felt that Mencia was being held back in the film, comedic-ally. He's got a dirty mouth, and not to type-cast him, but I'd rather see him in a film where he could use it frivolously.

There is a pretty funny scene early on in which the two dads meet each other, not knowing that their children are dating one another. Miguel owns his own towing company and Brad is a successful DJ. Living in California, the filmmakers clearly wanted them to be very good at their jobs, because they both have a ton of money, based on their extravagant homes and accessories. It's a stretch, but - okay, whatever. Miguel ends up towing Brad's nice car and the two get into a juvenile racial spat in the middle of the street.

Later that night, we meet the rest of the family and discover that Brad has a thing for younger women, as his date (Shannyn Sossamon), is about the same age as his son's fiancé. Of course everyone is already sitting at the table and has been introduced to one another, by the time the two unsuspecting fathers join them and realize their unwanted debacle. More racial tension and some pretty descent laughs ensue.

Perhaps my favorite element the film had to offer was a side relationship that brews between Brad and his longtime best friend and lawyer, Angela, played by the amazing Regina King. Regina King, is long overdue a starring role. Do you hear that Tyler Perry? Sign her up!

Marcus's mother has been out of the picture for years, and Brad and Anglea are a very flirtatious couple of friends. We know right off the bat that they are into each other and that inevitably they will end up together. What I loved, is that the film doesn't painfully drag it out through a series of mindless tid-bitts, only to have them end up together in the last five minutes, for the sole purpose of an, "ohhhhh" moment. They get intimate somewhere in the middle, and this was a nice refreshing turn. King and Whitaker's chemistry together was extraordinary.

There are several good laughs to be found in the film, but there are plenty of missed opportunities as well. The one thing I definitely would have changed was the goat showing up to ruin the ending. Well, that was okay, but did it really have to eat Brad's Viagra and dry-hump Forrest Whitaker? Where did this come from? It was funny, but belonged in a Ben Stiller movie.

I really like America Ferrera and Forest Whitaker and consider them both good actors, but I did not like this movie. It tried way too hard to be funny - and it missed the mark completely. I never laughed once during this film, and the scenes that were supposed to be "touching" were stale. I spent most of my time looking at my watch and waiting for the movie to end.

Centering around the surprise, impending marriage between a nice Hispanic girl and an African-American soon-to-be doctor, the movie tries to expose the humor between the two cultures when they attempt to become family. The result is shallow characters, predictability, and stupid situations.

I truly wanted this movie to be good, but the truth is I don't even think is worth paying to rent.

I recently rented this movie via Comcast's OnDemand service because the preview made the film look really funny. Unfortunately, the preview included all the "good parts." The rest of the movie appeared to be a copycat of My Big Fat Greek Wedding ("MBFGW") slanted a bit so as to include some more raunchy jokes, a sprinkling of ethnic humor, and some random "filler" scenes (such as an extended baseball game scene and a bar scene with no point). It didn't reach the humor of Wedding Crashers/American Pie "raunchy" nor did it reach the clever, ironic humor of MBFGW. Instead, it just floundered around, going nowhere.

Storyline in a sentence: Black man and hispanic woman want to marry and their family initially freaks out because of the culture clash and eventually deals with it.

The jokes were sporadic and mostly related to sexual humor and/or the culture clash. For instance, the hispanic grandmother cracks jokes in Spanish about being one Mexican short for a Mexican wedding. Likewise, Carlos Mencia jokes about black people and credit scores. At another point, a goat is brought to the wedding and it devours a bottle of Viagra and humps the black guy's dad. None of it is particularly funny.

Also, unlike MBFGW, the characters in this film are not very intriguing. Indeed, the father of the groom is a metro-sexual, ladies' man addicted to Viagra and young girls. He is shown sleeping around constantly and having issues with marriage in general. He goes nuts about Carlos Mencia touching his car the wrong way and using his personal bathroom.

For some reason, it didn't strike a chord with me because it seemed like they were trying too hard to craft this character. It just wasn't funny. Get a better plot if you're venturing into the raunchy humor. As to the racial issues, the same problem.

Overall, I'm disappointed. This is a mediocre film. I give it a "C -" because, while bland, it was not so terrible that I had to turn it off (i.e. Lower Learning; Wicker Man -- two of the worst films ever produced).

Our Family Wedding is a good, clean cut film about a culture clash between Mexican and African American families who must come together as their kids are getting married.

The film includes Carlos Mencia, America Ferrera (Ugly Betty), Forrest Whitaker, Regina King, and Lance Gross (House of Payne).

Gross and Ferrera are set to get married and haven't yet told their parents about their plans until 3 weeks before the wedding. What begins is a culture clash between the two families, with the Mexican family taking over with their classic Mexican Catholic wedding traditions.

Overall, the movie is great. It's not an instant classic like My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but it's up there. As a Hispanic myself, i couldn't help but laugh with how accurate they were with some of the traditions. The movie is a great comedy, and the reception seating parts are the best.

For a good laugh without the cussing and odd "what does this sex scene have to do with the movie", i would recommend Our Family Wedding. Good cast, good acting, and great overall movie, and Mencia is great in the movie.

EVERYTHING I EXPECTED AND MORE. VERY HILLARIOUS, FUNNY AND DOWN RIGHT EXCELLENT MOVIE, I GIVE IT A 9 RATING, GREAT MOVIE FOR YOUR COLLECTION

Witty ,funny,smart and very sexy .Just the right actor for this part. Supporting cast very good also.The groom's father one of my favorite actors ,Forest whitaker, a fellow Texan, (Longview ,Texas) was great. this is a amazon purchase .WDO

THIS WAS PACKEAGE VERY WELL AND CAME BEFORE IT WAS EVEN SUPPOSE TO BE DELIVERED, THE PRODUCT WAS A AWESOME FIND AND A GREAT MOVIE

This movie was very funny. I truly enjoyed it. The differences between the two families really made the movie enjoyable. It's a great movie to watch for laughs with the family.

The movie is touted as a comedy, but I found the serious sides more affecting, and in this way it reminded me of the great 70s films of the new American cinema like NASHVILLE. The director must have been watching some Altman films to get across the special blend of inconsequential chitchat with real heartbreak, like the scene where the two sisters are dissing their mother at the bridal shop, not realizing that she's there listening it--the camera makes a slight lateral movement, revealing the mother's stricken face as she learns what the girls really think of her (that she's a fool with an empty life) and suddenly all the sadness she's been holding back manifests itself on her face. Diana Maria Riva simply shines in this scene, and it's not the only one. It's as if the screenwriters were thinking of it as her movie.

Though the others get some good scenes too, even when the acting's not so good. Like Anjelah Johnson, who plays one of the sisters. Kept thinking, what is she getting at? through the whole picture. She is so unappealing I couldn't imagine why Lucia wanted her to be her bridesmaid. Bt that's not really fair, it's just the part that was badly written, almost as though the original script had her playing a lesbian but halfway through the producers nipped it in the bud figuring that the target audience wouldn't care for it, and just left her character high and dry without any real story.

Forest Whitaker and Carlos Mencia were OK in their parts, but really it was the actors in the background who give the movie its edge. My favorite, once-popular Shannyn Sossamon, is terrific, hilarious, playing a brief part as one of Forest whitaker's super young conquests, "Ashley." I kept wishing she'd be back in the movie, but alas, she was just there playing a glorified cameo. Here's looking at you, Shannyn Sossamon, and I hear great things about ROAD TO NOWHERE, maybe that will lead you back to being a fullfledged movie star once again,