Harriet Tubman Biopic 'Harriet' (2019)

I don't do Real Housewives shit.

Why do all the Black Brits get the parts for African American biopic icons? Is it that they are stretching as actors having to hide their British accents?

Meryl Streep should have been casted as Harriet.

[quote]casted

😬

I want this to flop massively so Erivo will be taken down a few pegs.

Cecily Tyson was a great Tubman. Made for TV movie but very well done.

Don Cheadle looks very authentic in drag.

It's got all the biopic cliches... but maybe Erivo will make it work. She's coming for that EGOT.

1978: A Woman Called Moses starring Cecily Tyson.

I admire HArriet Tubman and I'm glad they're making this movie, but honestly I am so fucking sick and tired of these historical dramas about the slavers. WTF can';t we see more movies like Hidden Figures. That was more meaningful IMO.

Because if we don't keep reminding everyone about slavery, we can't keep our position as MOST OPPRESSED!

I loved Hidden Figures too. But Harriet Tubman should be way more of an American folk hero than she is. There should be as many movies about her as there are about famous white American men.

I'm surprised there wasn't a Harriet Tubman movie already. Maybe slavery has been an overused theme in film in recent years, but her story should have been the first one made.

I assume the movie went in to production to ride the wave of interest in Tubman becoming depicted on the $20 bill. I hadn't realized that it has become delayed.

I, personally, can't wait to see it!

^^^^

R11 = Republican who thinks white people are the real victims of society

At least they didn't cast Zendaya, or some shit like that

Zen days will play Sojourner Truth.

Can't wait to see this

No black folk will go this, just virtue signally white peoples.

How did you determine this ?

This seems more like a "what if" movie, like "what if Harriet Tubman looked like a movie actress and wasn't fat."

Ill see it ... looks good ..

I feel like I just saw the whole movie by watching the trailer .

Who's playing Ozzie?

[quote] been casted

There is no such word as casted.

An actor has been CAST in a movie.

Obviously

In Berkeley she will have to be billed as Harriet Tubperson.

Do we know Harriet’s pronouns?

Harriet did more than shepherd slaves to freedom. She was a spy for the union army during the civil war, and she also participated in combat missions. She was an active feminist as well. She definitely needs to get her proper recognition and respect and I am delighted this movie is coming out especially since Trump and Mnuchin decided to "delay" her face being on our money. They are rotten fuckers. Rotten through anthrough d

The trailer is cut like a traditional Hollywood bio-pic, hope the picture isn't cookie-cutter. Erivo looks the part though.

Please tell me there isn't a Oscar worthy nominated song that she will sing over the closing credits that she has added a line of lyrics to make her eligible for the award itself. It was painful enough having her sing the in memoriam song this year, I don't need her squawking through another song next year.

Harriet is tremendous and my people tell me she does great work. Shame that's she's maybe a 4 at best.

R33 Cynthia Erivo's singing is FLAWLESS.

Slavery in America was going on from 1619 to 1863, it's a major factor in American history and obviously was the basis of our civil war. Its hard to avoid the topic.

I auditioned for a small role as a mean white person. I didn't get it.

[quote]Cynthia Erivo's singing is FLAWLESS.

It sure as hell wasn't in that Jeff Bridges movie she did. I'd never heard of her until that movie and I just figured she was a former American Idol reject. Her singing was on that level.

Slavery in the United States never ended. It was only transitioned to the penal system.

R38, Exactly, she has that Idol manner about her that I find excruciating.

R39 Democrats just found a new set of slaves (Mexicans) after the Republicans freed the black ones.

R21 Agreed. Only white SJWs get off on this stuff. It's like torture porn to them, which ignites a white savior complex within them.

R29 LOL

Look up her singing on Broadway in the color purple. Amazing singer, especially live.

Please, for the love of all that is holy, won't someone please SHIT IN MY MOUTH???!!?????

Harriet Tubman is my favorite historical figure. Her life was jam packed with both harrowing and triumphant experiences, even into her old age. It was truly like something out of the Bible. It's impossible to cover it all in a two and half hour movie. So pretty much no movie will ever do her life justice. But this looks pretty good.

Can Janelle Monae get a special Oscar for best voice in a movie? Her voice is so old school Hollywood.

It's directed by Kasi Lemmons, whose "Eve's Bayou" is one of my favorite '90s movies. I'm looking forward to this one.

BTW, Aisha Hinds, currently appearing in Fox's "9-1-1," played a great Harriet Tubman in the WGN series "Underground."

R21 is correct, though. And he's not being snarky. "Important" black films do not do well at the box office because black audiences don't support them. For every Tyler Perry and Kevin Hart movie that's a huge success, you have films like Selma, Loving, Red Tails, Winnie Mandela, Birth of a Nation, etc. etc. (even going back to Spike Lee's Malcolm X movie) that are trumpeted as prestige black (history) themed films, and they all die at the box office because black audiences do not go see them. They don't want to see a film that's "good for them." I've always found this odd because the black community seems very rooted in talking about their history and handing it down, etc. So the bulk of the tickets ARE bought by white liberal audiences.

The closest examples of "important" black themed film successes you'll find are Black Panther, which was a superhero movie, and Ali and 42, which were both sports films. All three had a much broader appeal than just that one specific audience. Even Fences did just okay, and I would say that if not for Denzel starring in it, would have grossed about 2/3 less. Denzel is really the only movie star today who has a flawless track record. Tom Cruise is right behind him, but Tom has had some disappointing films. Everything Denzel does is a hit (with the exception of Roman J. Israel.)

I think gays are the same way, though. We don't support smaller gay themed films the way we should. And we're so bad at it that we've kept them in very small release patterns so that we actually can't support them because they aren't playing near many of us.

r47, Hidden Figures was a hit.

Gotta love the Trumpsters like r21 whining about "virtue signaling" - that's one of their talking points.

Hidden Figures was an "important" black film that did huge box office r47.

Of course an important difference being it was a happy uplifting story rather than a depressing one.

She refuses to site in the back of the bus and gets a whole movie made about her life?

Dammit - I'm like R26.....I thought this was about Harriet Nelson.....that I would go see.

[quote] Hidden Figures was an "important" black film that did huge box office [R47]. Of course an important difference being it was a happy uplifting story rather than a depressing one.

You're right and that's an interesting distinction. Most of those important pictures are not uplifting.

I thought about Hidden Figures as being an anomaly when I was writing that earlier and it slipped out of my head. I also thought about Moonlight not doing well, but I don't think of it as an "important" picture (though it was important in that it won the Oscar for Best Picture, which was pretty flabbergasting in a good way). But that film has a major caveat in that it was also gay themed, which does not attract a black audience.

Hidden Figures was a fun movie, and mostly good. It has a tinge of the white savior in it (the bit with Kevin Costner arranging it so Taraji's character can pee in the same building never happened) but overall, it does keep the focus on the black women.

Singing come on up, I got a lifeline Come on up to this train of mine Come on up, I got a lifeline Come on up to this train of mine She said her name was Harriet Tubman And she drove for the underground railroad

R12 I was a child, growing up in Central Europe behind an Iron curtain, and yet I knew of H. Tubman.

I'm tired of Brits playing Americans.

Article on the backlash.

Some assholes will complain about everything and anything.

I almost started a thread for this because I didn't think anyone made one.

The movie starts Friday. I think I might see it.

r14 delayed? It was outright blocked by the Trump admin. You think he would ever let a black woman on a piece of currency? It would replace Andrew Jackson, one of Trump favorite Presidents, or so he's been told it is by Fox news. No it will take another Democratic admin before Tubman gets her rightful place on a piece of currency.

This movie's already been done. I have no interest in seeing it. I really don't care Cynthia. She seems really full of herself. And that hotel movie with Jeff Bridges and Dakota Johnson was so boring. Pass.

I'm going to see it, though I am also tired of slavery movies. But I will see if because I spent my money on the Lincoln movie, so I can spend my money on this. Hopefully, it makes a profit so that we can tell other black American stories.

R57, I've been wondering about that ever since I first heard about the casting. Here's this great part for a Black actress portraying a great African-American heroine and they give it to a British actors, same thing they did with MLK. I mean, c'mon.

I think most people don't want to go to a movie for a lecture--and most of the slavery movies are lectures on how awful slavery was. Who wants to spend $20 and a Saturday night hearing about how bad slavery was? Hidden Figures wasn't about Blacks suffering, but doing something and having some fun doing it.

Harriet might be different since Tubman wasn't a victim, but a truly gutsy, heroic woman, but it has that whiff of earnestness that's a buzzkill for a lot of people.

There are some interesting, less depressing things in AA history that could make for some good films--Scott Joplin, Ellen Pleasant, the AA equivalents of the Catskills. Oh, and Madame CJ Walker. Some stories where people aren't some damn downtrodden.

I have heard the movie is pretty paint-by-numbers, but maybe it has been edited to tell a more compelling narrative. I do think Cynthia Erivro was not the best casting choice; I would’ve pushed for Aisha Hinds (who was great as Harriet Tubman in Underground).

As a black person, I get tired the slavery porn! But a Harriet Tubman film doesn’t have to be about this, the woman did so much and was so badass she is worthy of a (real-life) superhero movie.

I've seen the preview twice and I'm thoroughly unimpressed by the lead actress. Is she famous? Her eyes are dead. There is no inner life when she speaks.

"I think most people don't want to go to a movie for a lecture--and most of the slavery movies are lectures on how awful slavery was. Who wants to spend $20 and a Saturday night hearing about how bad slavery was? Hidden Figures wasn't about Blacks suffering, but doing something and having some fun doing it."

Well, Schindler's List wasn't exactly a fun party movie but it made money.

Schindler's List was a while ago--movies were cheaper and weren't competing with streaming services for audiences. It's also about a bunch of Jews who survived and has a bit of a wily suspense thing going on. Harriet has that kind of potential because Tubman was a survivor and a genuinely tough heroic woman, but my hunch is that the movie needs to rise above standard biopic fare and Tubman needs to have some spark to her to get a decent audience. We'll see.

I love that this movie shows Tubman as the warrior she was, not a quaint sweet lady we think she was

I saw this at TIFF and it was so disappointing. It's not terrible but it should have been a masterpiece but it's flat and the directing looks like it's from a '90s TV movie or, even worse, some of the "flashback" sequences look like the same way they shot flashbacks on Baywatch.

The movie relies heavily on the syrupy music score instead of just telling the story.

The acting is fine but this should have been better.

I think Harriet Tubman was a remarkable woman. She should be celebrated. But I'm also tired of slave movies. I was stunned when I saw Hidden Figures, the movie about the African American women who worked for NASA. I had no idea. There are a ton of stories out here like that. Up lifting stories that celebrate incredible achievements. I would like to see more of that.

The commercial for this movie is non-stop. I literally must have seen it 100x in the last week or two.

My favorite book as a child - thrilling!

What is the BBC quotient?

I've seen trailers for this before quite a few of the movies I've gone to watch at the theater over the past month. I totally support a movie about Harriet Tubman, but the problem I have with this movie just from the trailer alone is it's.... how do I say this... if a stereotypical SJW giving "fake deep" lectures to educate the ignorant were a movie, it would be Harriet (2019) -- at least the trailer. Every scene in the trailer telegraphs this overbearing message of "This is deep! Do you understand how deep this is?! When am I getting my Oscar?" There appears to be no subtlety or nuance or depth and Ms. Tubman deserves more than that.

Fantastic bio. Would be nice if the movie does her justice.

I wish this was "Tyler Perry's 'Harriet'" starring Tyler Perry as Medea as Harriet Tubman.

"You whisper like a damn bullhorn! You'll be back on the plantation before sunrise."

R74 is a Trumpster, hence the "SJW" whining

I just think making a musical out of Harriet a Tubman’s life is a bit much, I’m cringing at the Oscar best song nomination already.

Everyone knows that Harriet Tubman was a Trans Woman. And this role should be played by a Trans actress. This movie is literal Black Trans erasure!

It's not a musical

I saw the trailer and I saw Erivo in Color Purple, and it's the same performance and the same character. The word was that she is not a pleasant coworker

[quote]Meryl Streep should have been casted as Harriet.

Oh, dear.

I'm surprised that this and the Judy movie were even greenlit for theatrical release. After the bomb that was "Amelia," there was such a strong reaction from the studios about not doing any more female-driven biopics. They were deemed financially unsound and banished to cable.

Shouldn’t they have waited until Black History Month to release this?

12 Years a slave was a massive hit too. Not sure that it's true black audiences don't support black prestige films.

[quote]Harriet Tubman

Sounds like a fatty.

[quote] I just think making a musical out of Harriet a Tubman’s life is a bit much, I’m cringing at the Oscar best song nomination already.

There is an original song written for the film, but it's not a musical. The musical element comes from Harriet singing in code to the slaves which is historically accurate. Slaves routinely sang to send coded messages to one another underneath the noses of the slave owners.

It's a decent film. Not great. I certainly didn't know much of anything about Harriet Tubman. Had no idea she was married to a free man. At least it's not the typical slave story always shown about the unrelenting degradation of the slaves. It was great seeing a film depicting an uprising.

This looks like something directed more toward middle school children during Black History Month than adults.

It's getting horrible user reviews on IMDB.

Cicley Tyson was brilliant in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.

[quote]Catherine Clinton, author of the 2004 biography Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom, tells the New York Times she has even encountered people “who were not sure if [Tubman] was even a real person, or if she was a figure from folklore, like Johnny Appleseed.”

This is a sad indictment. The movie is supposed to be relatively accurate. I wonder how many people will believe it's purely fictional.

Why hire Ervio, a notoriously bad actress, if this isn’t a musical?

R91, you're the only one who thinks she's a bad actress

R92 No, he's not.

A big reason many black people don’t see slave films is because they’re almost always produced and directed and written etc. by white men. I’ve heard it many times, and almost always by older Black people. They hate how white men keep making money off of their history and pain.

R93, most people think she's a good actress. But this is the Datalounge, where Meryl Streep is a hack but Keanu Reeves is an acting genius

It also had that queen from Hamilton.

Harriet was only 5 ft tall.

Do a movie about Madam C.J. Walker . Now THAT woman had a helluva story !

[quote]Harriet was only 5 ft tall.

Why didn't they cast Tom Cruise?

No one really likes Cynthia Erivo which I think will impact her chances of an Oscar nomination this year.

Exactly, r98: it would be nice to see a film about a black person in America's past who triumphed in spite the wider culture's prejudice.

Another one I'd like to see is the story of Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, the father of novelist Alexandre Dumas (The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo), who rose from slavery in Saint-Domingue to become a general in the armies of the French Revolution and Napoleon; I'm currently reading Tom Reiss' biography of Dumas, The Black Count, and it's an absolutely fascinating story.

R100, no one knows who she is, so how can you say no one likes her?

It is, for some inexplicable reason, overperforming at the box office. It's slated to take in $12m on only 2000 screens.

[quote]The Black Count, and it's an absolutely fascinating story.

Did you say the Black Cunt? I could play that without breaking a sweat.

12 Years a Slave was successful, but not a "massive hit". But I don't think anyone planned for it to be. It was a prestige flick, not a tentpole movie.

It's reportedly going to make $10 million this weekend and has received an A+ score from Cinemascore. It could be like Bohemian Rhapsody where the reviews were meh but audiences loved it.

R78, I can hear Alice Ghostley singing "Tubman, Tubman..."

So, good marketing campaign--the people who like it are the people who went to see it. Now the question is if the film will have legs. It does have the advantage of a dynamic main character whose name is well-known, but whose story hasn't been dramatized all that often.

I prefer Octavia Spencer’s Harriet Tubman on “Drunk History.”

Most of the movies listed above were not meant to be hits.

No one is expecting a movie about slaves to make hundreds of millions.

Moonlight was an indie flick that did decent.

R100 - What proof that "nobody likes her"? Kind of a broad statement, are you in the know?

Cynthia erivo has disparaged African Americans on Twitter which is one of the main reasons black people in America do not like her. She's also not a descendant of American slaves and she's playing a very iconic African American historical figure, which she has zero connection to.

Di your research on cynthia, she's definitely problematic. The same with David O. What's with all of these Brits playing African American historical figures? Black Americans hold our heros dear to our hearts. One thing we don't like is interlopers.

And that's exactly what they are, both offence but it's very true. But cynthia definitely said some fowl shit on twitter.

Did they give Harriet 21st century feminist ideals and attitudes?

R133 Does she have a cell phone?

So, Harriet dropped to 8th place second weekend and has pulled a bit under $24 million total. So, I'm thinking minor disappointment for the second weekend, but not terrible for this kind of film. I

Okay , I saw this and it seemed very Hollywood. Everyone was beautiful and had perfect teeth and hair and it just didn’t read as 1850’s.

Also unless I am mistaken there’s a black GAY couple who no one bats an eye at who she helps escape. The whole story of her owner I believe is also completely made up.

The whole movie seemed old fashioned and rang false.

R101, that's an awesome idea! I had no idea Dumas was black until relatively recently.

R116 That's what happens when white film makers get there hands on black films. Eventhough, a black man was the director I believe. You just know because its Hollywood, whitey put his touch on it some kind of way too.

r118, the director of Harriet is a black woman.

R118, hacks come in all colors and sexes. Don't fool yourself.