Black and White (1999)

Pretty Good

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Fantastic!

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

This movie is a sketch on a napkin, a Kodak photograph of a counter- culture going mainstream, going pop culture. In spite of all the loose ends and the technical laziness, i thought the movie had some good elements, like the cast or the improvisation. But the main value of the movie is the report that Toback makes about what was happening, and how this phenomenon came to exist, through a vast range of characters. From the DA psycho son that don't understand what is it all about, to the childish film maker and his homosexual boyfriend, not forgetting the bitch anthropologist and the rich bower character with his crew of pirate street kids.There are a couple of scenes that reflect America in someway, how business and violence are so intertwined and also the misconception that if you have the money you can be anything you want (studio scene). Rich Bower and his close friend Cigar Eco's on what America was built on, grabbing the opportunity by any means necessary, and transcend the conditions where you came from. Specially Rich, he is the "noddles" character (Once Upon A Time in America) in a different time from a different culture, but the same guy.It's all about getting up, don't be afraid.

So, in an alternate universe, where all white men are gay, weak and flimsy, we have "black and white". And this title is descriptive of its portrayals.Total extremist garbage that manages to be racist on multiple levels, depicting white males as weak, sniveling sycophants and black men as powerful, desirable specimens that all white women want to do the deed with because their white husbands are just nowhere near as amazing as the black men. Premeditated filth intended to soothe racial relations but managing to twist them out of proportion. Of note is the fact that the only 'manl'y white guys depicted here are the ones who try to "act black". Incredibly ridiculous and not worth your time.

I am not sure what this movie was trying to portray, whether it was white kids wanting to act black, or life stories of black hip hop artists/basketball players living in new york. If it was trying to display both it made a total mess of it.No story in the film was shown in depth, out of the all star cast only Brooke shields, Robert Downey Jr and Mike Tyson shone. Nice to see Claudia Schieffer on screen, she can act but her part in this film is awful. I became bored from listening to one constant hip hop song after another as well as the black rapper actors speaking in an unintelligible language which made the film even more confusing then it was before. The only highlights of the film for me was Robert Downey Jr confessing to his wife he is gay at the end, and Mike Tyson giving advice to a young rapper (he doesn't just box!) Anyways in my opinion, terrible, but if you got time to waste then perhaps watch it.

A group of white kids become the focus of a pair of documentary film makers looking at the phenomenon of the `wigger' - white kids adopting the mannerisms and culture of the black, hip-hop community. Meanwhile gangsters-come-rappers Rich Bower and Cigar have to face up to the opening of a white club in their neighbourhood. Also college basketball player Dean is set up for throwing a game and forced to provide evidence to the cops on Bower.If my plot summary sounds like it's confused or unclear, there's a good reason for that; it's because the film itself is very much spinning all over the place with a whole lot of strands. It is apparent that the film is trying to make a bigger point about culture, identity and race relations in the US but the frustrating thing is that it just doesn't manage to do it. It has plenty of interest moments and plenty of interesting characters that say a lot, but it never manages to come together in anything that is either thought provoking or satisfying.I had hoped that the film would pull all it's threads together to deliver a point but it didn't. The stories themselves are quite interesting on the whole, but it is evident that this is not what the film was after. Hence we don't get a conclusion, we get an unclear `6 months later' finale that even just plays over the end credits - that's how little the stories actually meant. OK, so that leaves us with the commentary concept of this film - that it's not just about the actions, it's about the wider issues. If that is the case, the film still flounders a bit because it was not clear to me what point it was trying to make beyond the `white kids like black culture', `black people don't like white people stealing their culture' etc etc stuff that shouldn't have taken 100 minutes to make!Despite these comments, I did enjoy watching the film. The semi-improvised nature of the film makes for an enjoyable experience and for scenes with flowing, quite natural dialogue. The downside of that is that many of the cast mistake mumbling in ebonics for interesting dialogue. The cast is still impressive despite the fact that many of them have nothing really to do. The main players don't impress that much - Downey and Shields are pretty poor, mainly because their characters are pointless. The various white kids just slum it in wigger roles that would be funny if they weren't so accurate. The cameos and roles for rappers are actually quite good - but most of them are just playing the gangster roles that they play everyday in their music. Raekwon and Power from Wu Tang were both pretty good but he film benefits mostly from the sheer number of faces rather than the quality. Houston, Tyson, Pantoliano, Stiller, Method Man, Ratner and various other rappers all add interest.Overall this film is entertaining in it's freewheeling manner but it is hard to ignore the fact that it doesn't achieve anything. The stories don't really go anywhere and the points about race and cultural identity get muddled and lost in the mix. It has potential and it is definitely interesting, but it is badly flawed.