Kpali: Eloquent Commentary on Millennial Angst

(By Toni Kan) - Kpali Is An Eloquent Commentary On Millennial Angst

Forget the story.

Forget the acting.

Forget the hype.

Go see Kpali the movie for the aerial shots that make Lagos look nothing like the chaotic urban conurbation we all love to hate.

Ladi Johnson and his DoP get full marks for producing a crisp, visually stunning film.

But movies are much more than cinematography and visual clarity. Movies have to be visceral and relatable and realistic in a way that approaches verisimilitude.

Kpali ticks all those boxes as a movie revolving around a 20 something year old Amaka Kalayo whose sedate London life is set on a roller coaster when her bosses inform her that she has 30 days to close a big deal or lose not just her job but her Kpali; her visa, work permit and right to live and work in the UK.

Thrust into this career maelstrom, Amaka departs for Nigeria with her oyibo male colleague in tow. They arrive Lagos and for some curious reason head together to Amaka’s family home and thus ensues the comedy of errors that is almost always at the heart of a true rom-com.

This Lagos: Carnivorous and Voracious

(By Toni Kan) - "Lagos is a beast with bared fangs and a voracious appetite for human flesh. Walk through its neighbourhoods, from the gated communities of Ikoyi and Victoria Island to Lekki and beyond, to the riotous warrens of streets and alleyways on the mainland, and you can tell that this is a carnivorous city. Life is not just brutish - it is short.
          In Lagos, one is sometimes struck by the scary fact that some crazed evil genius may have invented a million quick, sad ways for people to die: fall off a molue, fall prey to ritual killers, be pushed out of a moving danfo by one-chance robbers, fall into an open gutter in the rain, be electrocuted in your shop, be killed by your domestic staff, jump off the Third Mainland Bridge, get shot by armed robbers, get hit by a stray bullet from a policeman extorting motorists, get rammed by a vehicle that veers off the road into the pedestrian's walkway, die in a fire, get crushed in a collapsing building. You could count the ways and there would still be many others.
          Yet, like crazed moths disdaining the rage of the flame, we keep gravitating towards Lagos, compelled by some centrifugal force that defies reason and willpower. We come, take our chances, hoping that we will be luckier than the next man, willing ourselves to believe that while our fortune lies here, the myriad evils that traverse the streets of Lagos will never meet us with bared fangs.
          Abel and Santos were in Mushin when Lagos bared its fangs. There are no quiet streets in Mushin. It crackles with electric intensity and ripples with animosity. It is as if everyone, from shifty-eyed men to paranoid women, feels you are out to get them.

Lionheart: A Movie for Business and Film Schools

(By Toni Kan) - Three years after her first award winning feature film, Road to Yesterday, Nollywood screen goddess, Genevieve Nnaji has returned with her sophomore feature, Lionheart starring a slew of Nollywood greats – Pete Edochie, Onyeka Onwenu, Nkem owoh, Chika Okpala aka Zebrudaya, Kanayo O Kanayo as well as music star Phyno and award winning young actress, Jemima Osunde.

The film which was rejected by a section of film distributors in Nigeria made its worldwide debut on Netflix on Friday January 4, 2019.
My friend and brother, Wilfred Okiche has described Lionheart as “the feel good movie of the year” and he is correct but there is a lot he did not say.
            Genevieve Nnaji teaming up with Ishaya Bako (who directed Road to Yesterday) and Chinny Onwugbuenu has given us a very important movie. Lionheart, as its title suggests, is that rare and brave thing, a stereotype defying movie, a business primer and a very, very wise movie.
            Kudos must be given to the writers – Genevieve Nnaji, Chinny Onwugbuenu, CJ Obasi, Ishaya Bako and Emil Garba – for providing a unifying vision around the original idea.
            I have described Lionheart as an important movie because it speaks to the future in an eloquent voice.

Journalists and Making of Nollywood Stars

Toni Kan

(By Toni Kan) - Celebrating Nigerian Entertainment Icons: A Tribute 

“That night the King could not sleep: so he ordered the book of the chronicles, the record of his reign, to be brought in and read to him.” Esther 6: 1 (NIV)

In ancient times, before Martin Luther and Gothenburg, there existed a select group of individuals whose duties were to record, dutifully and in painstaking detail, significant events that were taking place.

Their writings were called Chronicles or Annals.

Those men were called Scribes and they were an essential part of a King’s court. In today’s world, a Scribe would approximate to a personal lawyer who would prepare a man’s last will and testament or a Confidential Secretary who is privy to all that concerns his principal.

But above all, in the more democratic times that we live in, the modern day Scribe is the journalist, the man or woman who through his writings, records (almost always in a hurry) for posterity, the doings of the people.

"When Women Gather..." - A Movie Review

(By Tony Kan) – “When Women Gather, There Is War!” – A Review of The Women 

 Every movie has an emotional core, its beating heart.

In The Women, Blessing Egbe’s latest movie which opened in cinemas yesterday, the core lies in a statement mouthed by Teni (Omoni Oboli) who tells her long-suffering husband: “Where two or three women are gathered, there is a silent war.”

Cold, hot or silent, wars lead to casualties and there are casualties aplenty in The Women.

The premise of The Women is not absolutely original and neither does it pretend to re-invent the wheel. What Blessing Egbe, who gave us Lekki Wives, has done is to present us with a story (sprinkled with her inventive touch) that is real-to-life, thought provoking and funny as hell.

Consider this killer exchange between Chubby and Omo.

Chubby: Does your husband know you are here?

Omo: No. If he finds out he will kill me

Chubby: So why are you here then? You want to die?

Jeta Amata Misses the Plot in 'Black November'

(SabiNews)--I really wanted to enjoy watching Jeta Amata’s movie Black November but like an errant step child, it kept rebuffing my love.

I had read scathing and devastating reviews from journals like the Hollywood Report, Variety, LA Weekly all of which eviscerated the movie and wanted to see it and review it, to show the world that Jeta Amata has done something worthwhile and impressive.

So, I went looking for it and found it.

Black November attempts to be many things all at once; it is both advocacy and propaganda, Nollywood and Hollywood but it fails woefully in becoming something of character and substance.

And the fault lies squarely with Mr. Amata who is a triple threat on this one; writer, producer and director. Scratch that, he is a quadruple threat actually as writer, producer and director and SONGWRITER. Yep!

This movie does not make Jeta Amata look good. This is the simple truth and a very kind way of putting it.

The movie has a fine story, one anyone familiar with the devastation and environmental degradation of the Niger Delta must be used to; a young girl, US educated thanks to a scholarship grant from an oil company returns home to a tragic incident which for want of a better word ‘radicalises’ her but her radicalisation is fraught with indecisions; she is a half-hearted revolutionary; wanting the oil company to pay yet not quite sure how to go about it.