Hey folks, Harry here... Ok... If you don't understand why UNDERCOVER BROTHER rules planet Earth from up on high, then I just plain don't understand you. Here's a movie that is just breathlessly hilarious I talked with him and asked what Quint thought of the deleted scene featuring Jim "DRAGON" Kelly? Quint blinked exactly 17 times before going, "What deleted scene?" When Quint finally pulled it up - he started spasming like Forrest Gump when Jenny touched him. Made exactly those noises... I'm not kidding... And WHY THE HELL NOT??? Jim Kelly is only a GOD of epic geek levels. Growing up on films like BLACK BELT JONES and ENTER THE DRAGON... well it just made Kelly the man. I mean - I believed without a doubt that he was the baddest muther with a dick around! I then sent Quint to get the whole story on why Jim Kelly wasn't the star of UNDERCOVER BROTHER... Here's what he found out...
Ahoy, squirts! Everybody's favorite funky ol' seaman, Quint, here getting my groove on with Mr. Malcolm D. Lee, director of the he-larious flick, UNDERCOVER BROTHER. Mr. Lee gave me some time to promote the DVD, which comes out next Tuesday. I was sent an advance copy of the DVD to prepare for the interview and brother! I found something in the deleted scenes section that was so amazingly cool that it leaked outta my crusty TV and filled this Honkey McCracker seaman to the brim with soul. What could possibly have that effect on me? None other than a cameo by the coolest of the cool, one of the overlooked superstars of Blaxploitation, Mr. Jim Kelly of ENTER THE DRAGON and BLACK BELT JONES fame.
Then it hit me... I was watching a DELETED scene. DELETED!!! How the hell could a brotha have had Jim "Dragon" Kelly in his movie, then cut him out? I was going to have some words with Malcolm Lee. No pussyfootin' around. That sunuva bastard threw panties in my face, figuratively speaking of course. My salty cookie was going to verbally kill him if he didn't have a good excuse. He was going to answer for cutting Jim Kelly out of his movie, if this young white geek fanboy had anything to say about it!
QUINT: First thing's first. How the hell could you cut out Jim Fucking Kelly from you movie?
MALCOLM D. LEE: (pause) It was a very hard decision. Very hard. But you know who the first person was who said it should go? Actually, there were a lot of people who said it should go, but I didn't listen for a long time, but (screenwriter) John Ridley said, "I love it. It's nostalgic. You gotta cut it." The only reason we did it was because people did not... There weren't enough people like you in the audience that would have appreciated it. Half the kids who saw the movie didn't know who the hell he was.
QUINT: But still! It's BLACK BELT JONES!
MALCOLM D. LEE: I know! I know! And he looks great! No, it was really tough. I was glad he was able to come and do a cameo, but, as with any scene, you gotta go in late and come out early. It's one of the bad things about comedy. The nostalgia doesn't always live up. I made my argument, but I was shot down.
QUINT: I guess I can accept that...
(EDITOR'S NOTE: Harry here-- I Can't!!! He Should've Been The Damn Star!!!)
QUINT:At least we have the DVD.
MALCOLM D. LEE: Uh-huh, exactly. That's what DVDs are made for now!
QUINT: Something that struck me when I first saw the film when it was released was that it didn't come off as a spoof of Blaxploitation flicks, but more of a loving homage to those films. I think that's why I was so taken with it, as I'm a huge fan of those movies. I take it you're a fan of the Jim Brown, Pam Grier, Isaac Hayes kinda flicks as well?
MALCOLM D. LEE: It's funny that you say that. I'm not... I didn't really grow up watching those movies per se. I mean, I may have watched them here and there and heard them being talked of, but I think for me it was more a love of the attitude of the '70s, the whole vibe. Black people were just, in a sense, taking it to the man, meaning they were not going to be confined by societal constraints. They were gonna wear their hair long. They were gonna wear crazy clothes. The Motown sound was done, it was all about The Funk. You know, Black Power. That's what I kind of attached myself to.
Over the years I'd seen Blaxploitation films and I knew what they were about, but I don't think I studied them like... It's funny, I hear people talk about Blaxploitation films and how they love them and stuff and they weren't great movies, but I love the whole vibe.
QUINT: Well, the attitude is what made those movies.
MALCOLM D. LEE: Exactly. And they always had funky music. No matter how bad the movies were, the music was always tight. I reviewed a bunch and I wish I had reviewed a couple more, just looking back... You always play Monday Morning Quarterback when you look at your movies and say, "I shoulda done this, I shoulda done that."
I didn't want it to be spoofy. I knew it was going to be silly, but I didn't want it to be over the top goofy... stupid funny. You know what I mean?
QUINT: Most definitely... I mean, you made Doogie Howser (Neil Patrick Harris) a hero, so you did something right!
MALCOLM D. LEE: Man! Let me tell you... Neil Patrick Harris is hilarious. I mean, great he was Doogie Howser and everybody knows him for that and you can have that one joke throughout the whole movie... You know, the guy is also very talented in terms of what he can do when he first comes onscreen. He knows exactly what he has to do or at least he wants to come off real well and he works at it really hard, thinks about what he does, every move that he makes. And some of the adlibs he added were just... Priceless.
QUINT: You got a lot of hilarious actors in you film. I'm a huge fan of Dave Chappelle's work.
MALCOLM D. LEE: I tell ya'... I was not a fan of his movies. I had seen his standup and I think his standup is... I don't think he's been given the right role to showcase his talent before Conspiracy Brother. They got him doing a whole lotta stuff where he ends up doing a whole lotta big expressions and stuff... He does a few things like that in UNDERCOVER BROTHER, but he's so smart and I've never seen his wit come off onscreen like it does in this movie. He was the perfect choice for Conspiracy Brother.
QUINT: Most definitely. He seems like this big bundle of energy. Was hard focusing that energy into a performance?
MALCOLM D. LEE: Here's the thing about Dave. You can try. Like, I tried at the beginning to, like, "Dude! Do what's on the page, here! This is funny, it's gonna work." And he might do it... He'll do it, but then you gotta give him a take that he can do what he wants with and that's usually 10 times better than what was on the page. What was on the page was funny and he did it funny, but he will come up with stuff... he's always thinking about how to make something funnier. The whole thing about the derivation of the word "Good"... that was all him. The GOOD WILL HUNTING thing, that's completely him. He came up with it and I was just like... You know, that joke was just OK, but he made it that much more funny.
Eddie (Griffin) surprised me also. I've seen him in movies where he's just kinda played himself onscreen. He's played the Eddie Griffin character. I think in UNDERCOVER BROTHER he really did some different things, meaning that he played a character. He embodied Undercover Brother. He had a real appreciation for Jim Kelly and Blaxploitation films and funk music and George Clinton, so it was all in him inherently, so when it came to the role he was a natural for it.
QUINT: How many times did Billy Dee Williams crack up when Chris Kattan is doing his little dance number?
MALCOLM D. LEE: Never. Never.
QUINT: Never? You're telling me he was able to keep that stone face throughout that whole sequence?
MALCOLM D. LEE: Yep. He didn't even laugh afterwards. I don't know what he was doing, but he kept it together.
QUINT: But he's, like, an easygoing guy, right?
MALCOLM D. LEE: He is an easygoing guy.
QUINT: So, he was just able to perform some badass actor's trick to not laugh.
MALCOLM D. LEE: I guess. I mean, Chris is hysterical in that scene. That was part of a reshoot and I talk about that on the Director's Commentary. For the longest time we had him just saying things, you know, making urban slang colloquialisms come out of his mouth, then correct himself. It's OK at first, but you can't keep that going, so we had to give him a physical activity. Chris loves to be physical and he loves to dance. He picked out that Mary J. Blige song and we just went with it and he just tore it up.
QUINT: Any Lando jokes onset or did you have none of that?
MALCOLM D. LEE: Uh... Not from me. Chris made a couple, but he's said before he doesn't like those Lando jokes. But Billy Dee was huge before EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.
QUINT: Yeah, I collect one-sheets (movie posters) and I have a few posters of his earlier stuff, like BLAST.
MALCOLM D. LEE: Yeah, BLAST. Yeah, he was in LADY SINGS THE BLUES, MAHOGANY... He was a heartthrob way back in the day. It was great to be able to cast him, someone who is still very well respected and well known.
QUINT: Right and because he has that respect and class when you see him whore out Fried Chicken. I know I was laughing my ass off when I saw that. I mean "Nappy meals?" Jesus, dude!
MALCOLM D. LEE: Uh-huh. Indeed. There was some fear from the studio executives and (producer Brian) Grazer and a couple of other people who just went, "Uh... I don't know. Can we do that?" I'm like, "Look. The Blaxploitation genre grew out of racism. If we're going to go there, we have to go there full steam ahead. Full throttle."
QUINT: Have you seen a movie called DARKTOWN STRUTTERS?
MALCOLM D. LEE: No.
QUINT: It's a very obscure Blaxploitation flick about a group of Black female bikers going after this evil Colonel Sanders look-a-like who runs a chain of take out joints aimed at the black community who is using it as a front while cloning the Black leaders of the time as a way to control the black community.
MALCOLM D. LEE: Oh, really? That's hysterical.
QUINT: Since you had some obscure references like "My cookie would kill you" in the film, I thought perhaps you had seen it and some of the jokes in there were a nod to the film.
MALCOLM D. LEE: It was actually Michael McCullers (screenwriter) that came up with the fried chicken angle. I don't know. I know he's a fan of Blaxploitation films, but I think we were just going for the biggest stereotype we could that wouldn't be too ridiculous. We weren't going to have any Sambos running around out there, although we did toy with the idea of making part of the "Nappy Meal" a little toy lawn jockey and have the general dress up as a lawn jockey! (laughs) But we just couldn't fit it anywhere.
QUINT: What are you working on now?
MALCOLM D. LEE: I'm actually juggling a coupla projects. One is a romantic comedy called FEAST AND FAMINE. Then there's a black male stripper drama comedy called BUCK WILD. There's also a movie called THE RUCKER that has to do with street basketball. One of those will be lensed in '03, but I don't know which one it'll be yet, though.
QUINT: What's your favorite dirty joke?
MALCOLM D. LEE: When I was younger I used to tell what were considered dirty jokes back in the day. There's this one joke called "Dynamo." It's about this magic penis. A husband couldn't get it up with his wife. He couldn't satisfy her, so he brought home Dynamo, which is this jumping penis. He'd just say, "Dynamo! Pussy!" and Dynamo would go after the wife. It was just banging her all the time.
The key was Dynamo would not respond to stops. You had to have it do something else, like "Dynamo! Hit the floor!" or whatever. So, when the wife got tired of it, she said, "Dynamo! Stop!" and it kept going. So, she has to get out the house. She puts on her clothes, walks bow-legged down the street, gets on the bus and the bus driver's like, "What is that?" She said, "It's Dynamo." He said, "Dynamo, my ass!" That was an old joke when I was, like, 7. It's funny that I even remember it.
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That was a fun one, wasn't it, squirts? Now for something serious... If anybody out there knows how to get in touch with Jim Kelly's agent, manager, brother, neighbor, mechanic or Jim himself, please drop me an email ( at aicnquint@yahoo.com). I think it'd be a killer interview and I know the Alamo Drafthouse would love to talk to him about showing some of his films.
That's it from me. I think it's time I push off. I got some goodies comin' up in the near future, squirts. 'Til that day, this is Quint bidding you all a fond farewell and adieu.
-Quint
