Our Family Wedding
The weeks leading up to a young couple's wedding is comic and stressful, especially as their respective fathers try to lay to rest their feud.
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- Cast:
- Forest Whitaker , America Ferrera , Carlos Mencia , Regina King , Lance Gross , Diana Maria Riva , Lupe Ontiveros
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Reviews
A Masterpiece!
There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.
A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.
This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.
Our Family Wedding is a race based culture clash comedy that starts out rather awkwardly.Lucia Ramirez (America Ferrera) and Marcus Boys (Lance Gross) have been going out together for some time but have never told their parents about each other.She is Hispanic, he is black. As the film starts there is an altercation when a black radio host (Forest Whitaker) as his car towed away by Carlos (Miguel Ramirez) leading to some racial slurs. You guessed it they are the dads and sparks fly when they later meet each other again.You know where this film is going, it is a little like Meet the Parents but not as amusing. Once the ethnic differences are blown over, the film settles down as both parties understand each other but it should had been a lot funnier.
I rented this movie from the Local Video Store and watched it with little or now expectation of any kind. To my surprise, I felt very pleased with this production that touched the base of cross-cultural barriers that we now so often experience in our Society. After all, America is a melting pot of Cultures and of different Ethnic groups of parents who'd migrated to this land of opportunity to better their families's lives. Problems arise when young ones fall in love with each other from different Cultures, and than they have to bring their desire to marry each other to their families who each want to follow their own Cultural Path's to marry the young couple. Here it is what lies at the heart of this story, which is about understanding, cooperating, respecting, and working together with each other's families while joining the young couple in their sanctity of holy matrimony, or simply put, getting hitched. This movie had brought me a lot of laughter and serious issues to think about in terms of Race Relations and Tolarence for each other's Cultures! I think it is a must see! Steve Horvath, Chicago, IL
Much like those fun little videos you made back in high school, you aren't going to get it unless you where there. This movie defiantly has a lot of clichés, but that is kinda the point. For anyone who has had a marriage, or dating relationship, is cultural clashes this is a movie you can relate to. Unfortunately if you are white and have a white relationship this film will have very little connection to you. I am black and my fiancée is Mexican, so this movie had A LOT of connection with me. I could relate to 95% of this movie, therefore giving me a biased advantage. Although the audience reach of this movie isn't very big, nor is it a blockbuster by any standards, is it a FUN little film and shouldn't be looked over if you are in a relationship where each others families have culture clashing.
Like a terrible version of "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner" blended with "The In-Laws," "Father of the Bride," "Grand Canyon" and "My Big, Fat Greek Wedding," this newest effort by director Rick Famuyiwa (who has helmed such masterpieces as "Brown Sugar," "The Wood" and "Blacktop Lingo," among others), is one of the worst films of the year - so far.It also does for goats what "The Love Guru" did for elephants - burns a vision of those beasts in one's retinas that can never, ever be erased.Instead of blacks and whites coming together after fighting each other throughout the movie (and then reconciling in the end), we get blacks and Hispanics going at each others throats for almost 100 minutes with no relief or comedic situations to speak of, and certainly no satisfying resolution, one way or another.Plot has ultra-wealthy Marcus (Lance Gross, part of the Tyler Perry's "House of Payne" clan), son of Brad Boyd (Forrest Whittaker, Oscar-winner for "Last King Of Scotland"), who falls in love with Lucia Ramirez (America Ferrera, "Ugly Betty"), the salt-of-the-earth daughter of a tow-truck driver, Miguel (stand-up comedian Carlos Mencia, of Comedy Central fame).One day, Miguel has to haul away Boyd's Rolls-Royce which is parked illegally or something like that. Of course, the two begin to argue and also to throw around the first in a series of stereotypical black and Hispanic insults. Get used to this, folks.Like every other film (and television sit-com) of this ilk, the befuddled young couple is excited to spring the big news, but something always spoils it. Here, the setting is a fancy restaurant where Boyd and Ramirez fire more racial insults at one another and forbid the marriage.Rest of film consists of young couple trying to mend fences while various oft-used situations take place (elderly Latina grandmother falls over when she sees Marcus is black, sensible mothers try to reign in husbands' bigotry and stupidity, extended families meet to discuss wildly divergent wedding preparations, sappy talk between father and daughter, a wedding cake fight and some kind of sports or civic event - here it's an amazingly unfunny softball contest in which the two dads, of course, face off against one another).Do the nuptials take place? Do the fathers-in-law come to some kind of agreement? Will Marcus and Lucia stay together forever? Will there be a whole slew of black-Hispanic "comedies" made after this? Was I a complete moron for watching this drivel? Well, I can answer "yes" to the last two questions, at least.Mencias should go back to his stand-up routine while Whittaker needs to give his Oscar to the man who SHOULD have won it - Peter O'Toole (for "Venus"). After "Vantage Point," "Street Kings" and now this turkey, the Academy Award gods have had enough. Ask Cuba Gooding, Jr. Gross and Ferrera are typical young leads, boring and insignificant, while only Marcus' mom, Regina King ("Ray") comes anywhere near a halfway decent effort.So, if one likes watching people of different races and ethnicities screaming at one another, another movie in which men are made out to be total idiots, bigoted and racist material being bandied about (imagine if one of the leads was a WHITE person) and a goat with an erection (don't ask), then by all means, shell out 10 bucks to see this movie, you won't be sorry at all.