1) This will be a holiday classic in my home for the rest of my life. A Black cast in fantastic costumes with fantastic hair inventing things and reveling in the joy of Christmas? A holiday classic!!
2) Buddy looks like ET and Wall-E had a baby.
3) We have to talk about the hair. For me, Black Panther is the gold standard for Black hairstyles in a movie. So much care and research went into presenting a wide range of natural styles for our textures. Jingle Jangle tackles it in a Victorianesque setting, where all of the actors are wearing their natural textures, but creatively styled into updos that would fit into the time period and it is stunning. Not a pressing comb in sight! We have no choice but to stan.
4) Ricky Martin’s character is fun. And wholly unnecessary. But fun.
5) Forrest Whitaker cannot sing. There was no need to cast Forrest Whitaker. I understand wanting to throw some high profile names into a movie, especially when it’s a Black movie with a large budget, but nobody who tunes into Jingle Jangle said “let me see this Christmas movie because Forrest Whitaker is in it.” I literally turned it on because it was a Black Christmas movie, period.
6) Lisa Davina Phillip who plays Ms. Johnston is hilarious and I fully understand why she was cast even though they had her lip sync to another singing voice. I don’t understand why they didn’t have Forrest lip sync as well.
7) Anika Noni Rose CAN sing and to put one of the preeminent actress/singers in the business in a musical and give her ONE big song that partly duets with Forrest Whitaker? Electric Chair! Forrest can hold a tune, and his lack of ability can be ignored when he’s singing alone, but they put him in a duet with Anika Noni Rose! Whose idea was that?!
8) The opening number is very The Greatest Showman in the best way. I’m bout to learn every word.
9) Holiday feelings aside, I also have to give some props to the plot for highlighting girls in STEM. Black girls in STEM. Let’s get more movies with little Black girls excelling in math and engineering. You love to see it!
10) I can’t think of a movie with a thinner plot than this one that I still enjoyed. You could’ve told this movie in about 7 minutes. But the music is delightful and the choreography was so much fun (y’all, they had a lil white girl hittin that gwara gwara and I was laid OUT!).
Score: 7/10
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