Tyler Perry's Mea Culpa, an Erotic Masterpiece - Bababo Ikuemonisan

Mea Culpa is Tyler Perry's latest tantalizing cinematic masterpiece. The film in just a few days of its release on Netflix has garnered a lot of applause, and again, apparently solidifies Tyler Perry's place as a grandmaster of the Film and Creative Art/Enterprise. Notwithstanding, a few people seem not to really like Mea Culpa. They considered it either too predictable or just not the kind of film that should be identified with the admirable Tyler Perry. Some even consider Mea Culpa a sort of sexmaking material. You wonder if people in this category read the synopsis or had followed production and post-production news about the film. Make unnah dey try read I beg. Well, I have rarely seen negative reviews of Mea Culpa. I even thought there was none until I came across that of the almighty CinemaPointer, a Nigerian film review website. As usual, when Cinemapointer doesn't like your film, you would read their dislike for it right on their review. It usually manifests through the use of heavy grammar. In the case of Tyler Perry's Mea Culpa, Cinemapointer describes the film as; "annoyingly unrealistic, wantonly ridiculous, patronizingly lazy and surreptitiously predictable"... that you can't help but wonder if there is nothing worthy of proper review in the film. With a glance at any of cinemapointer's negative review, you are forced to ask if the people behind it are actually doing film review or just hating on people's genuine efforts. Like, you can't wake up one day, go to the cinema and after watching a film, you call it; "rubbish, not worthy of spending a kobo on. In fact, it has no business going to the cinema!". Haba! Be calming down. That was how some of you half baked film reviewers called Femi Adebayo's Jagun Jagun unrealistic, and added that it didn't represent the Yoruba culture well. Instead, it introduced lies, too much of lies about the Old Oyo Empire. Eyin scholars of History and Film critics. Make unnah dey calm down understand a story, the time setting, psychological background and thematic preoccupations before unnah dey write.

That's how some of you didn't actually see anything good in the beautifully made "Ijakumo: The Born Again Stripper" by Toyin Abraham. Some of you wake up one day to eventually watch Funke Akindele's A Tribe Called Judah, a masterpiece in its own right, only for you to say, it's promoting violence and criminality. Who promotes criminality better, if not your Nigerian politicians? These folks steal from the collective patrimony with merciless impunity yet, you watch helplessly and still tolerate these criminals raping you and masturbating on your collective sensibility, yet come to unleash terror on innocent creative entrepreneurs. Haba!  

As a filmmaker, don't take reviews personal. Focus on the imperatives. Push your brand farther with publicity. While you get a lot of positives, ignore the one or two negatives. Should you pay attention to them, you are likely giving them better visibility. When two or more reviews say your work is "predictable, unrealistic and lazy" like Cinemapointer audaciously says, it's not all terrible a review if you had already embarked on high scale marketing that now puts it on the faces of everybody in the world. Trust me, such reviews would make a lot of people anxious to see it, including those who naturally don't like your work. You are likely to eventually get more reviews and better ratings and before you know it, it's a box office success. Funke Akindele's A Tribe Called Judah as a typical example.

NB: Cinemapointer is doing a great job. Those guys are pushing the arts too. You can't ignore them outright. They don't even have to like your work. But I hope that they begin to do a holistic review, not grammatical jargon. Every film has its own message, audience and sentiment. The whole world can't outrightly like a film. All films wouldn't utilize the same techniques to tell the story and you have to love a film enough, completely enraptured therein to deeply unmask the themes. If you tried and can't, assert it. However, don't fail to tell us about the other elements of the film that makes it unique. I mean, the cinematography, the acting, the plot, the lighting, the score etc. Interestingly, you can't see all these and not vividly understand the themes. Moreover, every piece of art is subjective. Although, not less objective. Hence, it's both subjective and objective as much as possible. But will you look close enough to unravel the beauty hidden under it?

Tyler Perry's Mea Culpa is a manipulation, seduction and murder film. It explores the life of a defense lawyer, who finds her Client irresistibly enchanting and thereof, unlocking a dangerous cycle. It stars Kelly Rowland, Trevante Rhodes, among others. Mea Culpa is directed by Tyler Perry himself. 

The cinematography is beautiful, the film parades great performance from its stellar cast and has a lot of amazing moments. I mean, erotic hacking!

Watch Mea Culpa on Netflix today, and when you can, also see All The Queen's Men by Tyler Perry.

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