Our Family Wedding (March 2010)

[becs]

[Buscemi]

Looks like Something New, but a lot worse.

I don't know who to feel sorry for more, Forest Whitaker, America Ferrera, Regina King (she voices Huey and Riley on The Boondocks) or the goat.

[becs]

Looks like Something New, but a lot worse.

I don't know who to feel sorry for more, Forest Whitaker, America Ferrera, Regina King (she voices Huey and Riley on The Boondocks) or the goat.

See, I'm confused because I feel this is much the same as Death at a Funeral (in that they both heavily employ low brow "ethnic" humor), which if i recall you were looking forward to..

[Buscemi]

Death At A Funeral is the remake to a good movie with some good leads (Chris Rock, Tracy Morgan, Danny Glover, Peter Dinklage, James Marsden, etc.). Though it will probably disappoint, Neil LaBute usually seems to do well in his directorial efforts (with the exception of The Wicker Man, which I believe was more of the producers' fault than the director's since most people who read LaBute's script liked it).

Meanwhile, this film uses the outdated "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?" concept in which someone of one race falls in love with someone of another race. Back in the 1960's, a concept like that could work since interracial romance was still taboo and mostly unknown. Now with interracial romance commonly accepted, reusing the concept is just flat out offensive and narrow-minded.

Example:
Guess Who? = an African-American father freaks out over his daughter falling in love with a white man. Funny? No Insulting? Yes.
Something New = an African-American woman falls in love with a white man despite the racial objections of her friends. Funny? No. Offensive? Yes.
Our Family Wedding = an African-American father and a Hispanic father freak out over their children falling in love. Funny? No. Insulting and offensive? Definitely.

The only director who can make this concept work nowadays is Spike Lee and that's because he chose to go into a dramatic route (that film was Jungle Fever, in which an African-American man has an affair with a white woman, and it totally works).

[becs]

What about Death's jokes about their father being with someone white as more shocking than his being with a midget (or gay in the first place)? Same deal IMO. Both use drastic racial stereotyping, unfortunately for Our family wedding it's taking advantage of both black and latino.

[Buscemi]

I did not notice that. It seemed to get glossed over in favor of how they redid the original movie's humor.

[BanksIsDaFuture]

Death At A Funeral and Our Family Wedding both use low brow humor and racial stereotypes to get cheap laughs.

The only difference is Death At A Funeral actually looks like it has at least a chance to be funny, while Our Family Wedding does not.