Eddie Murphy is back, and back up to speed, in âComing 2 Americaâ
By Ty Burr Globe Staff,Updated March 4, 2021, 3:00 p.m.
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Released in 1988, âComing to Americaâ is probably the most congenial comedy in Eddie Murphyâs
filmography. The story of a royal prince from the fictional African country of Zamunda who looks for a queen in â where else? â Queens, N.Y., the movie is as broad as a barn and twice as sweet-natured. Youâd have every expectation that a sequel arriving 33 years late to the party would be a bust.
Itâs a pleasure to report, then, that âComing 2 Americaâ lands on Amazon Prime largely in possession of the first filmâs better qualities. Itâs silly of mind and open of heart, full of visual and sonic eye candy while telling a predictable story with pleasurable generosity. The laughs are pitched right over the plate with the skill and enjoyment of a team of vaudeville pros. As reunions go, it
“Coming 2 America,” arriving on our shores Mar. 5, promises the return of fan favorite Saul, the Jewish barber shop patron (played by Eddie Murphy), who has evidently led a biblically long life.
The writers on the original film, David Sheffield and Barry W. Blaustein, are also returning. But it remains to be seen if their script will include a knowing nod to the iconic 1988 comedy’s other Jewish legacy: a lawsuit that pit humorist Art Buchwald against Paramount.
The story goes something like this: In 1982, Buchwald, a longtime columnist for the Washington Post, pitched Jeffrey Katzenberg a treatment that sounds awfully familiar if markedly more problematic coming from a white writer.
Good morning, it’s Tuesday, March 2, 2021. Today is the 117
th birthday of Dr. Seuss, real name Theodor Geisel, who made a career out of making children laugh and adults think. And sometimes the other way around.
He certainly got political satirist Art Buchwald chuckling, and thinking, in 1974 as the Watergate scandal consumed Washington. Ted Geisel sent the liberal columnist a Dr. Seuss book he’d written two years earlier titled “Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now!”
In the copy the author sent to Buchwald, he exchanged Marvin Mooney’s name for Richard Nixon’s (which is how some people read it in 1972). Buchwald, naturally, turned it into a column. Although Geisel was a loyal Democrat, today I suspect he’d send the book to Liz Cheney or Adam Kinzinger. Certainly, to Mitt Romney; perhaps even to Mitch McConnell.
HALL Itâs funny, I was not a movie star, I was a stand-up comic â
MURPHY Oh, no, no â he also did an episode of [the revived] âLove, American Style.â Heâs with a âSoul Trainâ dancer named Damita Jo Freeman and they play a couple. Iâve looked all over. I looked on YouTube, but I canât find it. [The segment can be found here.] We were friends, and I always like to be with some other comedian, to make it as funny as it can be. Thereâs me and Richard [Pryor in âHarlem Nightsâ], thereâs me and Arsenio, me and Martin [Lawrence in âLifeâ]. Iâm not going to be shouldering this [expletive] by myself.