Ophelia (Cicely Tyson) runs the comb through Annalise’s hair (Viola Davis)

How to Get Away With Murder
ABC 9/8 CST ~ “Mama Here Now”

It was a most intimate moment on primetime television last Thursday night: daughter-between-momma’s-legs getting her hair parted, her scalp scratched, and her hair combed. Annalise Keating, Esq. (Viola Davis), the fierce instructor of criminal law, dresses to the nines and leads a cadre of bright students who sit at her feet in Shonda Rhimes’s drama How to Get Away With Murder. Then, there is Anna Mae, the abused child who never received an acknowledgement from her momma that something went wrong that night when the uncle came to stay. So Anna Mae grows up and transforms herself into Annalise, and hides under a wig the hair that the uncle touched when something went wrong that night. Momma Ophelia (Cicely Tyson) knows the truth; so, Anna Mae can come out now, and let her hair be.

Momma Ophelia went for Anna Mae’s natural as she observed (and I paraphrase), “come here let me get at your hair; your kitchen is tight.” That gesture accompanied by a gentle command was all too familiar (as well as the ‘kitchen’ code) because it reminded me of my mother’s call for me to sit in the chair to let her “run the comb” through my hair when I came home for a visit. Not one thing was wrong with my hair, but I intuited as I answered her call that mom wished to keep going the ritual of dressing the hair of her eldest daughter as she had done for her three girls from the time we came out of her womb.

Yes, it was a ritual. Every night, mother sat on her bed and called us one-by-one to sit between her legs on the floor. There, she would part our hair, apply Ultra Sheen or Royal Crown to the scalp, brush and comb our tresses, patiently plait our hair, and wrap up her handi-work to make sure each plait stayed in place. In the morning, she untied our wrap, brushed our edges, accentuated the plaits with barrettes or ribbons, and prepared us for school or church. When we grew into teenagers, the time came for us to wear our hair down and in curls. In other words, we were ready for the press and curl. My sisters and I would wash our hair on Friday night, plait it up, and then loosen the tresses early Saturday morning for them to air dry as we did our chores. That’s right: no hair dryer nor blow dryer. Then, Saturday night, mom parted our hair into sections. As she gently glided the hot comb through our hair, she told stories of something or someone or other, and we would nod, or laugh, or attend with “really?” “you’ve got that right”, and so on and so forth. The result? A fresh press we would roll up with pink Goody sponge rollers. It never was a painful process as most women with these memories often posit; momma had a gentle hand, and this home salon ritual made possible a kind of bonding between my mother and her daughters.

“Don’t ya’ll know a VIP when you see one?” Momma Ophelia

My heart saddens–almost breaks–as I imagine what mother must have felt when we, in our young adult years with a little money in our pockets from our first jobs, released her hands from our hair in favor of a hair salon and a beautician–a stranger–who applied the Revlon mild perm to our scalp, shampooed then wet set our tresses, and put us under the dryer for the heat to make our curls. I guess that is why I obliged her every command to let her “run the comb through it” on my treks home when I began to let my hair grow into its natural state.

The sound of Momma Ophelia’s comb through her daughter’s hair sent me. It did, just as hearing the sound of the comb made from wood Sethe (Oprah Winfrey) pulled through Denver’s (Kimberley Elise) hair in front of a cackling fire in the movie Beloved moved me; or, the memory of the scene in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God when Teacake scratches the dandruff from the scalp of Janie’s head made my heart sing. It wasn’t just the combing of Anna Mae’s hair. No. The storytelling Momma Ophelia brought along with it added depth and substance to the Annalise’s onscreen presence. Even more significant, her revelation released her daughter from the night terrors brought on by an abusive relative her little girl experienced that only a “long match and a very flammable hooch” could handle. That Annalise, a grown and well-accomplished woman, allowed her mother to be momma initiated the process for Anna Mae’s healing, as only a momma’s validation of her little girl’s pain could do–all of this the night she dropped down in between her momma’s legs on the floor in her house.

Last Thursday night brought that intimate moment and, in that moment, I missed my momma calling for me to run the comb and her hands through my hair.

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Peter Devereaux, The November Man (Pierce Brosnan)

In the spirited vernacular on the street, “alright now Pierce Brosnan! Go’on with yo’ bad self! You wear it well–age ‘n all!” Brosnan ably carries the cinematic load (yes, load) as Peter Devereaux, a retired CIA agent, in Roger Donaldson’s espionage thriller The November Man. Devereaux is pulled out of retirement by a “friend” Hanley (Bill Smitrovich) who makes known to Devereaux that his former lover, Natalia (Mediha Musliovic), is in trouble and asks for him to come to Belgrade and help her out.

Set in Russia and Romania, the movie is a rough and tumble spy-thriller in a creaky used European vehicle full of spies, car chases, shoot-outs, a neo-cold war, murder, rape, and brutal assassins. Luke Bracey plays Mason, Devereaux’s protégé, and his performance barely moves beyond surfer-dude-on-vacation–he is out of his league! It is as if he signed on for a game of paint-ball on a putt-putt golf course. Ridiculous, yes? His motivation to ‘turn’ on his mentor is so weak that it goes to the ‘what for?’ or the ‘really?’

Natalia (Mediha Musliovic)

The script written by Michael Finch and Karl Gajdusek, certainly needed a second glance from an editor. Of course, Hollywood just had to go for the May-December pairing of Devereaux with Alice (Olga Kurylenko), the girl–oh, excuse me, the young woman who has the information that could get her killed. Tch. So unnecessary, especially since he and Natalia were a perfect fit! While I’m at it, what took so long to relay to the audience why Devereaux is called the ‘November Man’?

While I’m still at it, see the visual on the right with Mason crashing through the door? Sexy, huh? He’s there to save Devereaux’s daughter, Lucy (Tara Jevrosimovic). Well, remember John Shaft’s (Richard Roundtree) crash through the window to save Bumpy Johnson’s daughter? Same action only Shaft did it better–way better! Yes, I’m talking about Shaft! (I could not help myself!)

If you can wait for The November Man to come out on DVD or is available for streaming. If you are a Pierce Brosnan fan, go to the theater. He’s worth the time and the money.

That’s the Skinny!

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Muriel, the Bad Witch after Gretel’s pure heart (Famke Janssen)

There is only one word for Hansel & Gretel: Witches! They are fierce! They are fearless! They ride the cadillac of brooms and are masters of hand-to-hand combat. They are as beautiful as they are ugly, but each witch is a force to be reckoned with! The fight scenes between them and the Hunters alone are worth a run to theater.

Tommy Wirkola directs a pretty good fantasy as he imagines a back story on the classic fairy tale. In addition to his exploration of the socio-cultural dynamic of the rumor mill once it is unleashed within a small town, Wirkola, too, imagines why mom (Kathrin Kuhnel)  & pop (Thomas Scharff) decided to take their children to the forest and what became of Hansel (Jeremy Renner) and Gretel (Gemma Aterton) after they save themselves and burn the witch (Monique Ganderton) in her own oven in the gingerbread/candy house. All grown up now, H&G have mined a celebrated reputation as witch hunters. Wirkola might have worked in a collage of flashbacks to give some idea as to how they made it from 10 or 12 year-old children to very skillful adult hunters.

Quite revealing, however, is that the witch hunt is the hunt for mature and/or single powerful women who have magic; they live by themselves on the outskirts of town deep deep into the verdant forest apparently minding their own business! What makes them prey is their magic (if not, H&G’s revenge for their childhood trauma), and, even more dangerous, they appear human but will turn into something-or-other and hiss and grunt at you.  When the evil Muriel kidnaps children, every witch is in danger–you will pinpoint the historical tie-ins.

See the movie and enjoy. There’s even an adorable Troll named Edward (Derek Mears) lumbering about the forest.

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“I insist,” says the witch!