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Crazy In Alabama

1999, Movie, PG-13, 111 mins

Crazy In Alabama: Review

CRAZY IN ALABAMA
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A film so spectacularly wrong-headed you just have to marvel as it equates the wacky adventures of a ditsy murderess and the civil rights struggle. Shot in the lively colors of a Frank Tashlin comedy and kicked off by a bouncy credits sequence featuring Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Were Made for Walking," the story opens in mid-'60s Alabama. Thirteen-year-old orphan Peejoe (Lucas Black) and his brother Wiley (David Speck) live on their grandma's isolated farm, serenely unaware of the world's complexity until Aunt Lucille (Melanie Griffith) blows in, seven kids in tow. She's just killed her abusive husband Chester, and wants to pursue her life-long dream of Hollywood stardom. Lucille dumps her children on mom; Lucas and Wiley move in with their uncle Dove (David Morse), the town undertaker. As Lucille whizzes cross-country, chatting all the way with Chester's head (stashed in a patent-leather hatbox), Peejoe runs afoul of bigoted Sheriff Doggett (Meatloaf Aday). A group of African-American boys stage a sit-in at the town's white-only swimming pool and one winds up dead; Doggett swears it was an accident, but Peejoe knows better. The pool incident draws national attention, civil rights activists come to town, and Peejoe learns a hard lesson about doing what's right. Lucille, Peejoe and African-Americans in the segregated South are all looking for freedom; that's the logic behind the parallel stories, and it doesn't wash — in fact, it's pretty near offensive. And Griffith, starring in husband Antonio Banderas' directing debut, doesn't help; Lucille must win over men and women alike with her vulnerability and sweetly sensual charm. The affected, simpering Griffith isn't the least bit charismatic; frankly, between the harsh hair color — jet-black is singularly unforgiving — and the pillowy, over-inflated lips, her appearance often verges on the grotesque. Which, come to think of it, could be said of the movie as well. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
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