I’m one of those women who try her best to remain female positive. I really do. I root for talented women to seek their bigger and better slices of the corporate and entertainment pie. High-fiving female successes is one of my favorite past times. Come on, now…up high, come on, don’t leave me hangin’! You know that old saying: Behind every strong and successful woman…is a long line of other women being snide and catty about her hair and shoes! Well, nah, that’s not me. So, it’s with a heavy heart that I must confess to actually cringing when I read that Mariah Carey has a new movie set to debut. Tennessee will have its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 26. Hmmm…
Tennessee, is the journey of two brothers, Ethan Peck and Adam Rothenberg, to find their estranged father after learning that one brother is diagnosed with terminal leukemia. Carey plays, Krystal, an aspiring singer who flees from her controlling and somewhat abusive husband and joins two brothers on their journey. OK, that doesn’t sound all that bad, does it? A little? Sort of? So, is Mariah using a southern accent for the role?
I dig Mariah Carey as a singer. Yes, she’s a diva, I know, but I will shout from the mountaintop my adoration of Mimi! I was so glad she was emancipated and put it down on her previous album.
The girl can sing. When she poured out “We Belong Together”, I believed her! And even back in the day when she said “I Don’t Wanna Cry,” hell I didn’t want to cry either but that was such a good break up song and her voice and lyrics made me verklempt. I’m actually looking forward to Mariah’s new album release due out in a couple of weeks and yes, that’s a blog for another day, but this acting thing? Well, I’m worried. Why? One word. Glitter.
Glitter was awful. It was so bad that I got up and left about 35 minutes in, and it was playing on the Movie Channel in my own house!
I was channel surfing one night and saw that it was coming on. Of course, I heard it was bad but I thought ‘it can’t be that bad’ but I walked out of my own living room, ya’ll! I had to sneak back up on my remote to turn it off.
Glitter, though not directly autobiographical, did closely mirror Carey’s life and her rise to fame and she was very involved with getting the movie made so I imagine that it would be tough not to take it personally when the movie was critically panned and it became obvious that no one wanted to see it. That failure played a part in Mariah having a tough couple years around the time of the movie’s premiere and the aftermath. So, based on how it all impacted her I’m hoping she has a greater success with this new film. But my problem with Glitter wasn’t just the marginal writing, stilted dialogue, bad costumes, and cliché story, the biggest problem I had was that Mariah really couldn’t act.
Of course, a lot can change in seven years including thespian skills, right? So I’m trying to remain hopeful about this acting thing. I keep reminding myself that Mariah must have felt worse about Glitter than I did so if she wants to jump back on screen then I should respect that, right? She did another movie, Wise Girls, (which I have not seen) where she played a smaller part a few years after Glitter and it impressed Tennessee producer Lee Daniels (Monster’s Ball) enough that he chose to cast her in his film.
Granted, Glitter was a wide release which of course gave a whole lot of people a whole bunch of chances to not go and see it. This new film is a small budget indie film and there was even a Page Six article last year that discussed how Mariah, a woman known for liking the finer more expensive things in life, dealt with such limited accommodations.
This movie will not be another Glitter and even I know this. Mariah will not feel the pressure to carry this film nor is there a connection between her fictional character in this film and her real life story. In all seriousness, I think it would be great to have her really triumph in this film after such an awful start to this acting business. Mariah will be singing in the film, as well, and it’s been reported that she co-wrote at least one song with Willie Nelson. The film debuts April 26 and I’ll be looking for reviews. There have been no further announced general release dates.
