Hey folks, Harry here with that snot-nosed Pom Pom slut, Courtney Pierce slid into a theater near you with her perfect perm and not quite dried nails, to see Toback's latest... BLACK AND WHITE. You might remember our little Pom Pom slut from her reviews of SCREAM 3 and BOILER ROOM, so check her out and see how reliable you think she is... she's two Miramax/Dimensions and a Sony... so she's cross-studioed! This film has had a bunch of hard times with the MPAA, but the trailer is a bit... compelling... the sight of Mike Tyson in it, just creeps me out. But... perhaps thats just me. Take a read...
BLACK AND WHITE
Directed by James Toback
Released by Palm Pictures/Sony Screen Gems
To make an insightful film about contemporary American society these days entails overstuffing it with ideas and concepts. In the past few years, we've been lucky enough as moviegoers to get both Spike Lee's Get on the Bus and Warren Beatty's Bulworth, both of which are so vibrant and alive and in the moment that it becomes hard to believe that someone would and could make a canonical film experience about the nineties of all things, much less do it twice. Well, into that canon, we can now add another: James Toback's semi-improvised look at race relations and intersection in New York, Black and White.
The film juggles its plentiful cast through several different plotlines, from the documentary filmmaker (Brooke Shields) and her gay husband (Robert Downey, Jr.), who are putting together a film on white kids who like hip-hop culture; the lives of those kids themselves (played by Elijah Wood, Gaby Hoffman, Eddie Thomas, Kim Matulova, and, in as striking a film performance as I've seen in the past few years, Bijou Phillips); the travails of rap mogul/gangsta-thug Rich Bower (played by Power, from Wu-Tang Clan); the family troubles of the New York City District Attorney (Joe Pantoliano, from The Matrix, Bound, and many other good films); and an ethical dilemma for a basketball player (Allan Houston) that becomes a moral conflagration.
That the film never loses focus on any of these plotlines is admirable, but that it manages to keep them all going until the whole thing ties together is even more so. Toback and his collaborators have such interesting ideas and opinions about the relations between black and white on so many different levels that the film never feels pedantic, just insightful. Charlie, the upper class student played by Bijou Phillips, says, in a telling moment for her character, "I'm a kid in America, I can do what I want." That statement in and of itself sounds ignorant, because not every kid in America has the money or opportunity to explore the things that her character has. But it reflects an understanding of the one of the fundamental tenets of American Living. We are still called the land of opportunity, and does any age lend itself to such freedom as adolescence? Charlie and her compatriots are modern day explorers of a sort, venturing into the world of hip-hop where their parents fear to tread.
The performances in the film range from good to excellent, with the highlights being the aforementioned Phillips (daughter of Papa John Phillips), Robert Downey Jr. (whose work as Shields' husband is a masterful turn of comic timing and vocal inflection), and, and I CANNOT believe that I am about to say this, Mike Tyson playing Mike Tyson. I am no fan of his, yet his work in this film is startling. He is funny, terrifying, and haunted, and while I still do not consider myself a fan, I cannot help but respond to the complex portrait he puts across on screen.
Power is quite interesting as Rich Bower. He is a businessman and entertainer, but also a thug. We are fortunate that this is not a drama in the vein of "I'm Bout It" or "Big Ballers - The Movie," who wear their thuggery and gangsterism as badges of honor, but rather a film that wants to explore new territory in the old archetypes. Power is low-key and assertive (balanced nicely with his compatriot Cigar, played by Raekwon), and also on a journey in his life. He takes care of his business with efficiency and force, and yet when the cards must be played, he makes an error that will eventually take him down.
As you might expect from a semi-improvised film, there are jump-cuts aplenty. But there are no obviously improvised moments. There are pauses and looks of confusion, but never because of the improvisations themselves. The stutters and stammers are the responses of the characters, and it lends an immediacy to the proceedings (much like the transcendent Susan Batson scenes in Spike Lee's Girl 6). And that is Black and White's greatest strength (of its many). It is alive, a film that pulsates with purpose and point of view.
The Snot-Nosed Pom Pom Slut Courtney Pierce doing the splits
