I know, I know, I’m a total fan girl. Thanks to Germy for sharing this.
I predict heads exploding from the usual suspects.
Consider this a pleasant afternoon open thread.
by TaMara| 47 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat
I know, I know, I’m a total fan girl. Thanks to Germy for sharing this.
I predict heads exploding from the usual suspects.
Consider this a pleasant afternoon open thread.
Comments are closed.
Lamh36
I think they purposely chose actors who didn’t look like Barack and Michelle. But who could get the mannerisms down…
rikyrah
Someone in an earlier thread commented that the trailer reminds them of the humble beginnings.
ICAM
Barack and Michelle Obama are the epitome of what we tell our kids to do.
Study hard.
Go to school.
Get an education.
Work your butt off.
And, more often than not, it will pay off with some success.
I love that Michelle was a Harvard Law School graduate – still living at home with her parents.
Barack Obama had a car – with a hole in the floor.
Barack Obama, future President, also lived above a Harold’s Chicken Shack at the time (gotta be from Chicago to get that).
I was skeptical about this movie.
Now, I’m looking forward to it.
Barack and Michelle Obama are self-made.
They are bootstrappers, and part of the reason why the GOP is off the rails, is that they could never even acknowledge this part of the Obama’s story.
” Yes, I disagree with the President on policy, but his is an Only in America Story. He is an example of the American Dream.”
That they could never acknowledge it…well……..
rikyrah
@Lamh36:
I agree, lamh.
I don’t have to ‘see’ Michelle….But, I do get the ‘sense’ of Michelle.
and, when the actor says ‘ You think I’m cute?’…I really do hear the President.
It’s hard getting a young Barack Obama.
Now, for older Barack Obama, I’m still pulling for Harry Lennix.
peach flavored shampoo
He looks to be a cross between a young Barry and young OJ SImpson. She’s a melatonin-enhanced version of Halle Berry. That’s all I got.
Woodrowfan
that was really sweet. loved it.
Miss Bianca
OMG that looks so cute!!
gogol's wife
I’m dying to see it. The actors are doing a good job. Her voice/accent sound like Michelle even though she doesn’t look like her, and his charm is very believably Barack.
Chris
@rikyrah:
I had to check to make sure it was the same actor, but oh hell yeah, I’ve thought that for a long time too. In fact, I’d be flabbergasted if he didn’t end up playing President Obama at some point in his career.
(I already thought his role in Man Of Steel as, if not the President, the senior U.S. government official in the film, was a nod in that direction, as sort of an in-universe equivalent).
Alison Rose
OMG I love this. Thanks for posting it :)
FlyingToaster
@rikyrah:
Barack Obama also lived on Winter Hill in Somerville (yes, once home to the Winter Hill Gang of Whitey Bulger & Co), and had the requisite number of parking tickets between Cambridge (Harvard Law) and Somerville.*
* When I moved out of the ‘ville after 15 years, I added up my parking tickets and it came to $1270 for Somerville and $200 for Cambridge. I think Obama had about $375, which he paid off to run for President (well, to file in Massachusetts). In Watertown, I’ve had $0, but here I have a driveway.
Germy
Saw this trailer in a theater last week while waiting for Keanu to begin. There was chattering in the audience until the trailer began, and then it got real quiet in the audience. After the trailer ended, it stayed quiet for a bit, and then the conversations resumed. Since the audience was there for Key & Peele, I think this was a positive thing. Probably would have been heckling if they’d shown it before the Michael Bay Benghazi movie…
I like the two actors. Not necessary for them to be perfect body doubles of the people they’re portraying.
speedbumped
I went to college with Parker. He’s the kind of guy who was effortlessly athletic, funny, smart, handsome, artistic (for example, plays piano by ear with no training), and above all, he was all of those things while still being immensely likable. I don’t remember him having any particular interest in acting at all while we were in school. It’s been crazy to see this unfold for him.
gogol's wife
Hear me now, thank me later: don’t read the comments on ImDb.
Chris
@gogol’s wife:
That’s been true since forever.
My old account somehow got canceled towards the end of last year. I’d like to get in touch with them and see about reactivating it somehow, but haven’t gotten around to it partially because I don’t miss it all that much. Anything remotely political or controversial turns instantly into a cesspool nowadays.
Germy
@gogol’s wife: My blood pressure thanks you.
maryQ
Speaking of movies.
The other night I watched Deep Impact. I hate disaster movies, but I really like this one back in the late 90’s when I first saw it. But upon re-watching, I noticed a huge liberty that it took with reality. Ok, ok, I know. Most disaster movies rely on some rather creative interpretations of facts, and this one is no different. But here, I was really struck by this totally unbelievable thing: A civilization-destroying asteroid is heading straight for the earth, and not one single person blamed the black President.
Schlemazel Khan
First I have heard of this movie! Had you told me it was being made I would have screamed in agony assuming the usual hatchet job. But by the end my cynical heart had melted and I had honest to pasta tears in my eyes. I WANT TO SEE THIS MOVIE NOW!
Germy
@Schlemazel Khan: Produced by John Legend.
Gravenstone
@peach flavored shampoo: Melanin. Melatonin is a sleep aid.
Mike J
@Gravenstone: Halle Berry just doesn’t get enough sleep.
oldster
Yeah, they got the important resemblances.
This guy is more conventionally handsome than BHO. And his voice does not have the same deep resonance. (Her voice is much more spot-on).
But when he says with exasperation, “who doesn’t like *pie*?”, it sounds exactly like something my man would say.
Schlemazel Khan
@Germy:
Well that also surprises me. It certainly would have changed my attitude if I knew nothing else about the picture.
@Mike J: This is why BJ needs a like button! :)
Germy
@Schlemazel Khan: I liked seeing the trailer on a big theater screen. It makes you feel like you’re really in that time and place.
The trailer put me in a good mood after watching 1/2 hour of car and cosmetic commercials… in a movie theater! But it fixed me right up, and I enjoyed Keanu.
Diana
I admit this is the website to promote this.
On the other hand, the trailer was a snooze, and the movie promises to be a snooze also……
martian
Oh, man. I thought this was going to be too cheeseball, basic cable looking to bother with. That trailer is adorable! Such a nice feel for the city, too.
I can’t believe I actually want to see this now. That Barack was always a natural campaigner, wasn’t he? I have always appreciated that he partnered himself to a woman who seems in every way his equal.
Matt McIrvin
@Lamh36: The guy has Barack’s chin, though the resemblance stops there.
schrodinger's cat
Real Barack is handsomer than the actor Barack.
Germy
@martian: Little details make the film:
The father’s reaction: “Barack O’What??”
Or the way Barack glances back at his reflection in the car mirror before they meet.
gogol's wife
@Germy:
Yes, it looks as if it’s well directed. I never heard of the director.
martian
@Germy: Yeah, that was funny. Pretty much one of Michelle’s first reactions, too, by her account. I’d really love to know how accurate that scene with Michelle’s parents was. It was sweet and very natural, her mother’s gentle clucking over her high achieving daughter’s date/not a date. But it was a date. C’mon, Michelle, you already liked him or you’re not getting in the car that didn’t come to your house because the new summer associate is taking you exactly no place!
starscream
I think we all seriously underestimate Obama’s place in human history. A century ago he would’ve only been allowed in his current house as a servant. It is so much bigger than the economic recovery or killing bin Laden or whatever.
stinger
Watching this movie over and over may be the next best thing I’ll find to Eight More Years.
Dee Loralei
I’ve already talked to some of my Obama 12 buddies, we are going opening night!
KS in MA
@oldster: Or Cleek!
Princess
I’m there.
martian
@starscream:
To serve Woodrow Wilson, Democrat, major leader of the progressive movement, and a thoroughgoing, paternalistic variety of racist. Sobering thought.
different-church-lady
So, how did it turn out for those two?
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
The GOP hates all bootstrappers. It’s a huge part of the reason they hated Bill And Hillary Clinton so much.
The fact that the Obamas, collectively, put the lie to everything Republicans are trying to claim about minorities, and do it just by living their own lives the way they want to without caring what (white) Republicans think, drives Republicans CRAZY.
Shakti
@rikyrah:
I think a lot of pundits seriously underestimate the affection many people have for Barack and Michelle, both as individuals and as a couple. More than once my mother has said, “I’m going to miss him.”
The question is: Does this translate to people turning out for the Democratic nominee? (I’m assuming it’s going to be Hillary).
Chris
@Mnemosyne:
I think it’s also the fact that they impersonate everything they claim to wish minorities were like. “Oh, if only you stopped lazying around on welfare and joining gangs and shooting people and having extramarital sex that results in single parent households, if only you just studied hard and worked hard and valued good strong [heterosexual] families instead!” The Obamas are a perfect picture of everything they say they want all black people to be like. And they’re Democrats.
different-church-lady
@Chris:
Point of order: they do not want to say they want black people to be like this — they want to claim, in perpetuity, that black people are incapable of being like this.
Msb
I really want to see this. I must admit that one of the things that sealed the deal for me in ’08 was seeing the respect, as well as the love, in Obama’s eyes when he looked at his wife. Men who think women are people are aces with me.
shomi
6.4 on IMDB. Considering wingers must be trying to downvote it to a 1 like crazy that’s not too bad.
amygdala
I saw the movie last week at my local film festival. There was a Q&A with Richard Tanne, the director (and screenwriter) afterward. This was his first film.
It’s a small film, ~80 minutes and starts with Michelle, living with her parents, getting ready for her “not date” with Barack. Tika Sumpter bears a passing resemblance physically, but really nailed Michelle’s manner of speaking. Similarly, Parker Sawyers sounded like Barack somewhat more than he looked like him. But there were shots throughout the film of each of them where you’d do a bit of a double-take for a brief moment.
Tanne said that he got the idea for the film in watching how POTUS and FLOTUS look at each other, which got some “awwwwsss” from the audience. Barack was portrayed as quite persistent in the film, which one audience member objected to pretty strenuously. I think he thought he was forcing himself on her, but that seemed to be an outlier opinion.
There’s a sequence where they go to a movie, Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing. The clip shown in the movie is when the cops have Raheem in a chokehold, killing him. It was sadly prescient, given recent events.
John Legend is one of the producers. I don’t know how much he had to do with choosing the songs in the movie, but anyone who likes like 80s popular music will probably enjoy that element of it. Another wonderful aspect of the film was how it highlighted the paintings of AA artist Ernie Barnes.
It’s not a great film, but certainly an enjoyable one. The best parts to me were the performances, Barnes’ art, and the music.
ET
I saw the Obama Couch Commander video. Haha. That Boehner is in it is too funny. The whole birth certificate thing was a hoot.
Sasha
Apparently, the Obamas are “excited” and “a little baffled” that this movie exists.
Chris
@different-church-lady:
I think for a big chunk of them, it’s slightly more complicated. They’re prejudiced against black people and not about to change that, but they’ve talked themselves into believing that their prejudices are only cultural and not racial (“it’s software not hardware” to quote a pompous gasbag at PJMedia whose metaphor stuck with me as a shorthand for that worldview). It’s how they reassure themselves that they’re not racist: they totally would be okay with black people if only black people would clean up their act, which of course they won’t, because liberals keep them dependent and on welfare “on the plantation” and they themselves would rather blame whitey than take responsibility for their own lives.
Cue “bright, clean, and articulate” Obama and his family, who have have their shit together in exactly the way that Republicans claim that black people should. Since these Republicans still don’t like them, they can’t admit that Obama and his family are in fact that way – that would mean admitting that their dislike of black people has nothing to do with culture after all. Hence the increasingly unhinged attempts to portray him and his family as street thugs.