Top Five Movies of Nia Long

I?m not sure if anyone reading this listens to Never Not Funny, but I highly recommend it. If you do, you will soon find out that host Jimmy Pardo loves him some ?General Hospital.? You might also find out that he loved ?MacGruber? and having recently watched it, I can whole-heartedly agree that it is very, very funny. So, because I like his podcast and because I like one movie he liked (out of many he talked about, most of which are cartoons), I think I should give soap operas another chance.

I mention this because at the top of Nia Long?s IMDB page, one of her projects she is most ?known for? is ?Guiding Light.? I?ve never watched it, though I know it used to come on CBS back in the day. I know this because it ticked me off to no end that around 11 am, when I played hooky from school and vegetated in front of the TV, all the game shows ended and the soap operas began. I could never jump into any of them. Trust me, I tried, because being at home banned from video games with only the TV left to entertain me, I often thought going to school would be better than watching soaps. (My parents didn?t like cable either.)

But, there must be something in them right? People watch them. They have great stars like Nia, Julianne Moore (?As the World Turns?), Demi Moore (?General Hospital?) and Meg Ryan (also AtWT). It must be something more than just passing an afternoon right? I just can?t talk myself into that though. So instead of trying a soap for the first time, I?ll just revisit the roles of Nia and use my couple of hours for movies instead of soaps.

5. The Best Man

Because ?The Best Man Holiday? just came out and I?ve heard good things, I really want to check out the original. Plus, the director, Malcolm D. Lee, directed one of the all-time underrated movie comedies, ?Undercover Brother? which still makes me laugh. Eddie Griffin is the lead, but the supporting cast that includes Dave Chappelle, Chi McBride and Neil Patrick Harris also add a lot of funny.

4. Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy

This one makes the list because of its setting (West Hollywood) and its cast. Not only does it have Nia, it also stars the lovely Mary McCormack. On the guys side, it has Timothy Olyphant (?Justified?), Zach Braff (?Scrubs?) and Dean Cain, who recently did a great turn as the foil to James Van Der Beek in ?Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23.?

3. Boiler Room

Besides Nia, this is a testosterone-loaded movie, most of it coming from Vin Diesel and Ben Affleck. Though there are other guys, none of them are superheroes or super sci-fi folks.

2. Baadasssss!

I loved this movie. It?s a fantastic look at the blaxploitation film ?Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song,? which was directed by Melvin Van Peebles, the father of ?Baadasssss!? director Mario. I need to see it again.

1. Boyz n the Hood

Speaking of seeing again, this is a movie that I saw at least twice in the theater. I still remember how much I loved Ice Cube in his role. The whole cast is fantastic and I know that if I want to be transported back to L.A. in the late 80s, early 90s, this movie would be the one to do it best.

Agree? Disagree? Which movies would make your Nia Long top five?