Millenium Lady

Millenium Lady

Originally uploaded by NollywoodForever

Millenium Lady – 2009
Story – Gabriel Moses
Screenplay – Gabriel Moses
Director – Ugezu J Ugezu

Starring:
Patience Ozokwor – Madam Gold
Fabian Adibe – Anene
Charles Awurum – Chidi
Tonto Dikeh – Sandra
Mike Ezuruonye – Smart
Camilla Mberekpe – Mama Eko
Uche Odoputa – Benson
Browny Igboegwu – Hyacinth
Ifeanyi Azodo – Peter
McSmith Ochendo – Titus
Jude Oteka – Zaki
Chigozie Okolie – Detective
Chioma Iwueze – Mama C
Ugo Uwagbama – Police Officer

Themes Explored:
Greed
Materialism
Gender Roles
Family Pressure

My Rating 83%

Patience plays Madam Gold, also known around town as the MILLENIUM LADY. She is a married woman with 2 sons and a daughter who likes the finer things in life. She belittles her husband because he is not wealthy, despite the fact that he is the one that bought her the restaurant that she runs. Her goal in life appears to be to attain riches through her daughter Sandra. She does this by accepting money and gifts from Sandra’s prospective suitors knowing full well that she has no intention of marrying her to them. It is only when she messes about with the wrong man that she is forced into cleaning up her greedy act.

*************SPOILERS************

Marriage is used as a bargaining tool
Benson comes to Madam Gold and expresses his desire to marry her daughter. As he is a business man and not working for an oil company (the kind of guy Madam Gold sees as perfect for Sandra) she knows that she will not approve of him marrying Sandra, but enjoys the gifts he brings nonetheless. She enjoys a new huge flat screen TV and satellite dish for the restaurant, a Sky dish, jewellery and money.

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Materialism
When Patience introduces Sandra to Benson his sole focus in trying to woo her is to boast about how much money and assets he has. He seems oblivious to the fact that this braggado is not impressing Sandra.Sandra’s mother sees her as an investment and tells her,

“God I thank you for giving me this fine girl… My investment.”

Uche Odoputa as Benson has some lame come on lines for the lovely Sandra. On one occasion when they are being introduced he tells her,

“Honestly the way you are looking now – You are looking like egg yolk.”

Wow… and he said it like it was supposed to be a compliment. Can you imagine? From this lame introduction Benson takes it upon himself to woo Sandra through bragging and boasting about his money and assets. They are clearly on different wavelengths with regards to what makes a good husband. Sandra cares about morality, interests, kindness, and in the meantime he is flashing the cash thinking that it it is turning her on, but on the contrary it is a real turn off for her.

Millenium lady on the other hand is wholly excited by the money and even tells Benson,

“My daughter will scatter your brain with hot romance.”

This gives the idea that a woman is good for sex and a man is good for money and when the two come together they can be exchanged.

 Then after Benson Sandra meets Smart and expresses concern with his line of business her mother is not worried in the slightest and tells her,

 

“Drug Money plus oil money, isn’t that the more reason you should marry him fast?”  

Millenium Lady is not concerned with how he came about the money, only the fact that he has it.

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Family Pressure
Sandra’s brother Titus is just like his mother, and so begins the pressure to get Sandra to marry for the highest bidder rather than for love. He tells her,

“On this your shoulders lies the burdens of this family.”

In the end Sandra falls victim to the pressures of both her mother and brother over the wise words of her father and so in the end her mother and brothewr are the cause of her downfall and she learns that Smart is a criminal that has made his money illegally and so even though innocent, she is implicated by default in hsi wrongdoings.

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I would definitely recommend this movie… I look forward to seeing more from Ugezu J Ugezu. There were good lessons to be learnt as well as many many laughs. We learn that all that glitters is not gold. Sandra may have found percieved short term happiness in the joys of Smart’s illegal money, but in the long term all it would bring is pain and suffering.

 

Patience and Fabian have an excellent rapport on screen and I love the banter between them. Fabian Adibe has been typecast as the downtrodden man who gets abused by his wife, but it is a role that suits him well, so if it ain’t broke, why fix it?  Tonto and Mike had good chemistry and played their roles well. I have loved Camilla Mberekpe since I saw her in TEA OR COFFEE, and trust me she did not dissapppoint in playing the conniving Madam Gold.

 

Special shout out to the guy that played Titus, I don’t know his name but the scene where him and Millenium Lady are mean mugging, dancing around the new car and spraying money is hilarious.

Forget Me Not

Forget Me Not

Originally uploaded by NollywoodForever

Forget Me Not (2008)
Story/ Screenplay – Chisom Juliet Okereke
Director – Ikechukwu Onyeka

Starring:
Desmond Elliot – Kelvin
Muna Obiekwe – Nelson
Ini Edo – Chioma
Kofi Adjorlolo – Chief Jombo
Tonto Dikeh – Olivia
Cassandra Odita – Ngozi
Esther More – Dora
Nosa Obaseki – Uche
Ifunaya Onunwa – Benita
Uche Odoputa – Alex
Chukwudi Nwafor – Jonah
Esther Aikpokpoje – Olivia’s Mother
Jim Lawson – Chief Mbah

Themes
Marriage Of Convenience
Friendship
Love

My Rating: 65%

Two couples find themselves in relationships of circumstance and convenience rather than love.

Kelvin ends up marrying his wife Dora after she tells him that she is pregnant after casually sleeping together a few times. He does not love her but wants to face up to his responsibilities as a man and make an “honest woman” of her. His best friend Nelson knows that he is pining for his one true love that he has recently split up with and advises him against the marriage seeing it as a recipe for disaster.

Kelvin does not heed Nelson’s advice and quickly marries Dora in a registry office ceremony. The bride’s father is not even present. It is not long into the marriage that his forever alcohol guzzling wife informs him that she is not pregnant and was never pregnant for him. It was simply a story that she concocted to trap him into marriage.

Chioma on the other has is in a relationship with a very nice, caring and supportive man that dotes on her and her fiver year old child from a previous relationship. He has proposed to her many times and she finally accept after he pleads with her to give him the commitment he deserves. She cares about him, but she is not in love with him. She tells her friend Olivia,

“He is nice… I think I like… love him.”

Can either couple remain in their relationships and sustain happy and fulfilled lives?

*************SPOILERS*************

The question has to be asked what exactly is love? Does it have to be that heart racing, giddy love that you find in the romance novels to work?

Can Kelvin’s marriage work? When he married his wife, he went into it thinking that love would grow as he believed she had the qualities needed for that, namely she could give him children, provide support and a good home.

Can love grow from the love that someone else has for you? As in the case with Chioma. She stayed with her boyfriend because of the love he showed for her and her child and that was enough for her.

Does there need to be a romantic type of love for a successful marriage to occur?

WHY’s?

1) What was up with Tonto Dikeh’s pregnancy bulge? Or should I say BOX, because that’s exactly what it looked like… a gatdam box! Totally unrealistic. A pregnancy bulge should be curvy like a woman, not angular like a telephone box.

2) Why were Ini and Tonto so matchy matchy? I though it was too much. The whole styling was too much. It looked a little or should I say a LOT fashion victimy. Don’t get me wrong, there were some nice outfits but a bit too many matching bag, shoe, top and jewellery scenarios. I noticed in some scenes they had Ini and Tonto actually matching EACH OTHER. Now that is not a good look unless you are twins in kindergarten. At one point hey had them both in these below the boobie vest top jobs and Ini’s had both straps falling off. Her top underneath the vest thingy was too tight so it was rolling up exposing her back flesh and her underwear… A little sloppy. What suits one does not necessarily suit another.

Overall the film was easy to watch and enjoyable. All of the cast did a nice job, except for the lady playing Dora (that was a little messy), and the little girl playing Benita (she was WOODEN.) There were a few nice twists, although on the whole it was predictable. A little more work was needed on Kelvin’s character development. On minute he was coming across sincere like he loves Chioma and the next like and arrogant asshole that didn’t care.