DOLEMITE IS MY NAME

Eddie Murphy     Kodi Smit-McPhee    Wesley Snipes    Keegan-Michael Key

De’vine Joy Randolph     Chris Rock     Craig Robinson     Snoop Dogg     Mike Epps

     Here’s a way for black people to get into their groove and for those of us unfamiliar with Rudy Ray Moore (aka “Dolemite”), the “Godfather of Rap”, to jive a little with him and his cohorts when he is just getting started in show business in the 1970’s.  In the beginning of this story, he’s trying to make it as a comedian in L.A. when he has an inkling that there are black audiences who are not being served in the entertainment industry.  He finds in his stand-up routines that black people can appreciate a certain kind of humor, so he cagily puts out three bawdy records that sell well—much to others’ surprise, and even to his own.  

     It turns out that what was regarded by most of America at that time as profane—even porn--black people found in it a particular kind of humor (as in “Yo daddy’s a freak, and yo mama’s a whore”—the beginnings of the rap genre).  This encourages Rudy—who has stellar aspirations to add singing, acting, and film producing to his resume.  He is determined to satisfy the appetites of his people without regard to conventions (primarily white people’s), running up against not only white “shirts”, but (middle/upper class?) blacks in the arts and in production, who have been going in the direction of “refinement” as they envision it.  Rudy crashes right through all of that, while bringing many of those people on board with him.

     Rudy Ray Moore (expertly rendered by Murphy) is a fascinating individual with the unusual ability to sell his visions (and he is a master salesman) to producers who will back him so that he can give full vent to his creativity, first and foremost in comedy with music (what would eventually become rap), but as well in business (managing to get funding, construct a studio, act in and produce a movie).  How Rudy got started in show business is remarkable.  After serving in the Armed Forces, he was working in a record store, trying to get the DJ (Snoop Dogg) to play some of the records he’d made, which were based on a homeless man’s lewd limericks.

     We get to go along with Rudy on a major part of the making of his first movie, Dolemite, its significance being that it’s the first of what came to be known as Blaxploitation films. The filming of it has hilarious scenes where ineptness is clearly visible, but in Rudy’s hands becomes a delightful farce, helped along by Wesley Snipes (stunning!) as director D’Urville, Keegan-Michael Key (socompetent) as writer, Kodi Smit-McPhee (respectful, how-old-is-he? cinematographer), and Lady Reed (Randolph), Rudy’s creation of a saucy character from a self-deprecating, disillusioned woman. 

     Rudy is a complicated character in whom people have little faith; but in actually possessing talents in salesmanship, sensibility about black folk, and astute judge of character, he was able to pull it off, not only by proving his worth to the powers that be, but also recognizing traits in others that could be encouraged and brought out to serve his purposes.  A prime example is Lady Reed (Randolph) whom he decides after talking to her in a bar that she could be a funny sidekick in his comedy routine.  Writer Jerry Jones (Key) helps in coaching Rudy in script writing.  Rudy plucks his reluctant, snobbish director D’Urville Martin (hilariously played by Snipes) out of a strip club.  He accepts a new graduate (Smit-McPhee) from film school to be his cinematographer.  His old friends Ben Taylor (Robinson), Jimmy Lynch (Epps), and Daddy Fatts (Rock) are his reliable stand-bys.  

     In Dolemite is My Name, Eddie Murphy and Director Craig Brewer revive this character with apparently similar sensibilities about the world today as Rudy had about his people at the time.  It may seem a bit slow to viewers in the beginning, but that is partly because it takes a while to get oriented in another world—at least for many of us.  This was certainly true for me, as I had not seen previews and knew nothing about Rudy Ray Moore.  But after a time it became fascinating and truly funny.  

An entertaining account of the beginnings of rap popularized by a remarkable figure in showbiz.

Grade:  A-                                             By Donna R. Copeland

THE LAST BLACK MAN IN SAN FRANCISCO

Jimmie Fails     Jonathan Majors     Tichina Arnold     Rob Morgan

Danny Glover     Jamal Trulove     Mike Epps     Finn Witrock

     You will be surprised when you go see this film; it is oozing with creativity from start to finish.  It felt to me like I was captured by a painting set to music, luckily for me, there is someone close by who tells me a story about it.  

     Opening scenes give full vent to the music by Emile Mosseri (modern brass sounds at first, then Greek and operatic choruses and popular tunes later) and cinematography by Adam Newport (stunning portraits of 19^thcentury houses with the sea as a backdrop, and later with close-ups of expressive faces and other captivating scenes).  Two young men wait for a bus that may not arrive while they listen skeptically to a street preacher.  The script blithely trips along as it wends its way along the streets of San Francisco, occasionally with tinges of nostalgia, but mostly with the bustling of teeming humanity and sometimes jeering clutches of black men jiving with each other under a shade tree.  

     The two men waiting for the bus, Jimmie and Mont, play the two leads in the film, expertly rendered by Jimmie Fails and Jonathan Majors.  They make cynical, half funny observations of what is going on around them, with most of their focus being on a particular house that Jimmie says was built by his grandfather.  He and his parents lived there, but had to leave abruptly and the family split up, with Jimmie being sent to a home.  Mont draws scenes and people around him continuously with the intention of writing a play.  Jimmie maintains a sense of ownership toward the house, even taking it upon himself to do minor handyman jobs and making plans for the garden—to the dismay of the white woman living there.  

     Until one day, it becomes obvious that the house is empty.  Jimmie sees this as a dream come true, and he and Mont settle into it on the assumption that it will be their home.  As the story proceeds, it becomes imminently clear that Jimmie is a dreamer and that the house carries such a weight of symbolic meaning for him, that he will pursue it regardless of anything else.  This seems to be the crux of the film: Dreams that, as impossible as they may appear, can sustain a person—and someone close to him—through all kinds of obstacles.  As viewers, we latch on as well, and become comfortable in the house.

     The metaphor of a dream extends to the images of waiting on a bus that may or may not come.  Does one continue to wait patiently, or take it upon oneself to skateboard to the destination? Either way, the dream may still live on.

     Along with its many qualities, The Last Black Man in San Francisco goes against stereotype by depicting two black men who are gentle in spirit and in deed.  No matter what is going on in the film, when they are in a scene, it is peaceful and relaxed.  Well, except for times of extreme frustration, when feelings may be vented violently, but on a skateboard.  The connection between the men continues as a puzzle—it’s unclear exactly the nature of their relationship—which is another aspect that keeps us engaged, to the film’s credit in its expertise of intrigue and ambiguity.

     How much do I love this film?  I think you can guess that I am entirely smitten with its broad expanse of artistic representation of the human condition and our urban environment, its visual and auditory pleasures, its commentary about dreams, and a unique view of homelessness that is unmatched.

Very likely to be my best film of the year for its sheer creativity mixed with realism.

Grade:  A                                                By Donna R. Copeland