BLACK DYNAMITE is not as explosive as it could have been
BLACK DYNAMITE (Scott Sanders, 2008)
Opens Friday, October 16
http://www.blackdynamite.com
In the 1970s, the so-called blaxploitation genre gave rise to such films as SHAFT, SUPER FLY, ACROSS 110th STREET, CLEOPATRA JONES, BLACK CAESAR, and DOLEMITE, movies of varying degrees of quality that tackled such themes as urban drug use, prostitution, and crime, made primarily by black filmmakers with black actors and comedians and rousing soul soundtracks. In 1997, Quentin Tarantino paid homage to the genre with JACKIE BROWN, while Keenen Ivory Wayans spoofed it in 1988’s I’M GONNA GIT YOU SUCKA. Scott Sanders’s BLACK DYNAMITE, which screened at the Sundance and Tribeca Film Festivals, can’t decide whether it’s paying tribute to the genre, spoofing it, or merely remaking it, leaving it in a no-man’s land with some very funny scenes that ultimately fall flat as a whole.
Cowriter Michael Jai White stars as Black Dynamite, a mythic figure determined to clean up the ghetto. But when his brother, Jimmy (Baron Vaughn), is murdered, he sets out to find the killers and exact his punishing revenge. A kung fu master who is expert with both a .44 Magnum and a shiny set of nunchucks, BD’s search leads him to such genre-worthy characters as Osiris (Obba Babatunde), Cream Corn (Tommy Davidson), Afroditey (Dionne Gipson), Tasty Freeze (Arsenio Hall), Sweet Meat (Brian McKnight), Mahogany Black (Nicole Ari Parker), Kotex (John Salley), Mo Bitches (Miguel Nunez), Chicago Wind (Mykelti Williamson), Honey Bee (Kym Whitley), Bullhorn (cowriter Byron Minns), Back Hand Jack (Bokeem Woodbine), and Chocolate Giddy-Up (Cedric Yarbrough). As actors trip over their lines, the boom mic gets in the way, and purposefully bad edits elicit some laughs, they also become repetitive. The soundtrack features original songs that too often mimic exactly what’s going on in the plot, including “Jimmy’s Apartment,” “Man with the Heat,” “Anaconda Malt Liquor,” and “Your Kiss Sho Nuff Dynamite.” The film had us much of the way, but things really fall apart when President Nixon (James McManus) enters the fray.
Screenwriter and playwright Peter Morgan has become the go-to guy in British film for retelling fascinating fact-based stories. In the past few years he has written or cowritten THE QUEEN, THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND, THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL, and FROST/NIXON. Although he writes sharp, biting dialogue, he also makes a lot of it up to propel the narrative, creating scenes and conversations that might or might not have actually happened. After attending an advance screening of his latest film, THE DAMNED UNITED, set in the world of British football (soccer) between 1969 and 1974, we took the elevator down with an American who had lived in England at the time and was a huge sports fan. When we asked him how accurate the film seemed to him, he looked at us with a happy grin and told us, “It’s all true.”
Innovateur Spike Jonze and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman follow up the brilliant BEING JOHN MALKOVICH with this adaptation about a screenwriter (Nicolas Cage) and his twin brother (Nicolas Cage) adapting a story based on a book (THE ORCHID THIEF) created by a magazine writer from her NEW YORKER articles about a Florida botanist (Chris Cooper). You’ll never know who or what is real or made up, and that’s a big part of this movie’s charm. However, the last few moments are such a cop-out that it left us pissed off, and not in the way Jonze intended.
Fritz Lang’s staggering achievement is frightfully more relevant than ever these days, with America suffering an economic meltdown and capitalism on the run. In a brilliantly realized futuristic society, Lang pits workers against owners, man against machine, and father against son amid towering stage sets and dazzling special effects. Joh Fredersen (Alfred Abel) wants his son, Freder (Gustav Fröhlich), to follow him and run the city, but after meeting Maria (Brigitte Helm), Freder soon understands the plight of the lower classes, setting in motion a battle for control and a fight for freedom. In 1984, Giorgio Moroder famously added a modern soundtrack to a shortened version of the film; here, pianist Ben Model will play live accompaniment to the longer, restored version of METROPOLIS. If you’ve never seen this majestic work, this is a great opportunity.