New Releases: Nacho Libre, SoulMate
Written by Kam Williams   
Friday, October 27, 2006

Nacho Libre

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Poor (0 stars)

Rated PG for adult themes, graphic, cartoonish violence, gruesome images, crude humor and off-color dialogue.

In English and Spanish sans subtitles.

“Nacho Libre” is an easy-to-digest, easier-to-forget adventure featuring the irrepressible Jack Black as an obnoxious friar frustrated by desires that have him questioning his religious calling. By day, he is Padre Ignacio, a dedicated servant of God who toils away as the cook at a Mexican monastery that caters to orphans.

But by night, because the Catholic Church frowns on fighting, he secretly dons a mask, cape and “stretchy pants” to morph into his alter ego, a professional wrestler known only as Nacho Libre. Ignacio’s other interest is Sister Encarnacion (Ana de la Reguera), an angel of mercy newly assigned to the orphanage. This infatuation has the priest pining away for the pretty young nun’s affections and questioning the wisdom of his vow of celibacy.

Relentlessly irreverent, unrepentantly mean-spirited, and wantonly crude, excuse me for failing to find any of the humor in this sadistic flick funny.

The skits amount to little more than placing Black in front of the camera and having him improvise with a series of cheap props. 

What is most remarkable about this morally bankrupt movie is its obvious impropriety of a priest constantly soliciting a nun for sex. 


SoulMate

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Excellent (4 stars)

Unrated.

Black women are five times as likely to never marry as white women. Seventy percent of new AIDS cases in this country are among African-American women and the disease is the leading killer of black women between the ages of 25 and 34.

Over 40 percent of black women have never been married, and the more money they make, the less likely they are to tie the knot or procreate.

All of the above might lead one to wonder how sisters are coping in the face of such insurmountable odds. Revealing answers have arrived in “SoulMate,” a moving documentary in which some very intelligent, educated, attractive, successful and spiritual black women open up to share their heartfelt feelings about their predicament.

Directed by veteran TV producer Andrea Wiley (“The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”), the picture features testimonials from subjects so appealing it is hard to believe it when they speak of their loneliness and how badly they’d like to share their abundance with a brother ready to settle down and start a family. But whether a businesswoman, a model, a doctor, a company president, a shrink, a sales exec, a minister or an actress, they all recite a similar refrain, namely, that they have long since made peace with the distinct possibility of growing old alone.

Why is marriage so elusive for accomplished black women, the most unpartnered segment of the U.S. population? The participants cite the skyrocketing black male incarceration rate and brothers dating women of other colors all as contributing factors.

Another points to the fact that even Oprah Winfrey and Condoleezza Rice are still single as proof of how serious a situation we’re dealing with.

“SoulMate” offers a fascinating, frank and ultimately optimistic exploration of a woefully underaddressed issue.

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