Review: "Dolemite Is My Name"

I went into “Dolemite Is My Name” without any foreknowledge; I only knew that it starred Eddie Murphy and was set in the 1970s. It was not until the film’s end credits that I learned it’s a biopic of a real person, singer/actor/comedian Rudy Ray Moore.

I’m not familiar with Moore’s 1975 film, “Dolemite,” or the ones that followed. I confess I’ve never delved deep into the Blaxploitation genre, as the ones I’ve seen are pretty silly and/or icky.

Interestingly, that’s one of the key themes of the movie: how white and black audiences value different things in their cinematic tastes. For example, nobody depicted in this movie would ever use the word “cinematic.”

There’s a terrific scene where Rudy (Murphy) and his buddies go to see “The Front Page,” a 1974 comedy starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthew as squabbling journalists. They peer around at the mostly white audience, laughing it up and enjoying the heck out of the picture, which they find completely unfunny and limp.

Where are the boobies, kung fu fighting and explosions? Rudy demands. That’s what black audiences want to see. So they set out to make their own movie for their own tribe.

It’s the best film role Eddie Murphy has had in years, playing an over-the-hill, 6th-rate comic who works in a record shop by day and does a lame emcee shtick at a local music club at night. He can’t even get the DJ (Snoop Dogg) of the little in-house radio station at the record store to play some of his old R&B 45s.

With an ample belly, thinning patch of hair that he covers with an afro wig and outlandish velour-and-polyester outfits, Murphy’s Rudy Ray Moore is a formerly cool guy grasping at the scraps of his youth. He moved to Los Angeles from his backwater home in Arkansas to make it big, and decades later he’s still small-time.

“I ain’t got nothin’ nobody wants,” he laments.

One day Rudy gets an idea to create a new act out of the boasting and jokes of the local “bums” -- using the parlance of the day – particularly their affinity for a mythological urban hero named Dolemite. His sex-and-braggadocio exploits are used as a common riff. Rudy pays them for their jokes, then assembles them to create the character of Dolemite for himself.

It’s an instant hit, and soon he’s touring the country doing the Dolemite act, cutting comedy records that inch their way up the Billboard charts, and even takes on a protégé in the form of Lady Reed (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), a plus-sized woman who’s spent her life being put down.

Remember how Rudy’s gang was mystified by the white-people comedy? That’s how I felt about the Dolemite act. There don’t appear to be any real jokes, just a series of put-downs and relating of endless sexual exploits. But audiences at black clubs eat it up.

It’s a telling dichotomy: African-Americans, after centuries of degradation, crave loud and boisterous self-affirmation; while privileged whites like me cling to humility as the lost virtue, and find such displays crass.

Despite his success, Rudy decides that to truly be a big star he needs to make a movie. He scrapes together some money and recruits his friends, adds some UCLA film students and a smattering of white actors to play the heavies, and unofficially takes over an abandoned hotel as their studio.

Of course, none of them know what the hell what they’re doing. So D’Urville Martin, an actual name actor played by Wesley Snipes, is recruited to co-star in the picture. Effete and snobby, he initially refuses until he’s offered the director’s chair -- a position he seems to hold only titularly, spending most of his days on the set drinking, having to be prodded to say “Action” or “Cut.”

The rest of the cast includes Mike Epps, Craig Robinson, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Chris Rock, Tituss Burgess, and a few other notables of black Hollywood. But the spotlight is clearly on Murphy here.

It’s an entertaining, thoroughly raunchy movie, directed by Craig Brewer from a screenplay by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. (All white guys, it should be noted.)

The movie also serves as an excellent time capsule of the cultural shift in the early- to mid-70s, a time when you could walk into a movie theater and see pornographic movies but record stores wouldn’t carry albums containing too much cursing.

“Dolemite Is My Name” is the story of a man whom popular culture had decided deserved to be a Lilliputian, but harbored gigantic ambitions that would not accept that judgment. Rudy Ray Moore willed himself into the star he felt he should be, despite not having any particular talent.

But he knew what his people wanted, and gave it to them. Whether what they wanted was worthy is above my pay grade.

Review: "Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted"

I have not been a fan of the "Madagascar" animated films, but the third one won me over. Perhaps it's a result of my becoming a parent, but I see now how the franchise's combination of kid-friendly boingy action, annoyingly catchy musical numbers and cutesy, simplistic life lessons is never dull to the kindergarten-and-down crowd.

After the packed screening I attended, literally dozens of tots were shaking their booties in the aisles as they imitated the tunes, especially a particularly egregious ditty called "Afro Circus," written and sung by Chris Rock. It consists of just those two words with a few "polka dot" throw-ins, but apparently to wee ones this is sublime comedic styling.

By all rights we should judge our entertainment by a higher standard than just keeping our offspring distracted for an hour and a half. But that's the yardstick by which "Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted" operates, and judged in those terms it's slickly effective.

As the story opens, the gang from the zoo finds themselves stuck in Africa, wanting to get back to their home in New York City. Their friends the penguins, who talk like spies out of the "Mad Men" era, have ditched them to play high rollers at the casinos in Monte Carlo, so that's where they follow.

The group dynamic remains virtually unchanged since the birth of the franchise. Alex the lion (Ben Stiller) is the ostensible leader, who puts on a brave face but has a neurotic craving for attention. His best bud Marty the zebra (Rock) is the goofy sidekick who sometimes yearns to be leader of the pack. Hypochondriac giraffe Melman (David Schwimmer) and groovy hippo Gloria (Jada Pinkett Smith) have hooked up into an interspecies couple, the sheer mechanics of which beggars the imagination.

While in Monte Carlo they run afoul of Captain Chantel DuBois, head of the animal control unit. Voiced by Frances McDormand, DuBois makes for a dastardly Ahab-like villain who chases the gang all over the globe, jurisdiction be danged. With her hook-sharp nose, roomy hips and squared shoulders, DuBois is a formidable enemy.

Alex and the gang end up hiding out with the Circus Zaragoza, a motley collection of animals whose act has grown stale. Passing themselves off as fellow circus critters, the four friends resolve to add some Cirque du Soleil extravagance into the drab proceedings.

The new partners include Stefano, an exuberantly Italian sea lion (Martin Short) who dreams of being considered of average intelligence; Gia (Jessica Chastain), a feline trapeze artist who rests her hopes -- and affections -- on Alex; and Vitaly (an excellent Bryan Cranston), a Russian daredevil tiger and one-time star of the show, who got burned performing his signature act.

I should also mention Julien, the lemur king voiced by Sacha Baron Cohen, who's back to sing his "move it, move it" song again and supply some mildly suggestive humor. The computer-generated animation is a smash, particularly a couple of the big circus show numbers, which grow pleasantly psychedelic for awhile.

Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath, who co-directed the first two movies, are joined by Conrad Vernon for a threesome that knows this material and its limitations, and focuses on what it can do best. Darnell also handles the screenplay, joined by indie filmmaker Noah Baumbach, best known for eclectic fare like "The Squid and the Whale" and "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou." (Someone need a paycheck?)

I'm not sure if I'd call "Madagascar 3" good bad movie-making, or bad good. Either way, I grudgingly admire the way it expertly achieves its own low expectations. This positive review is not so much a recommendation as a surrender.

3 stars out of four

Review: "What to Expect When You're Expecting"

Unless you're pretty slow on the uptake, you already know that "What to Expect When You're Expecting" bears little relation to the self-help book aimed at educating pregnant women about the little darlings growing in their bellies.

In fact, it's such a deliberate departure, one wonders why the producers insisted on keeping the title, other than nefarious purposes to lure in millions of moms and mama wannabes, who don't really require much luring for bubbly romantic comedies. Of course, this is the same industry that is also this week releasing a movie based on a board game about sinking military naval vessels, so starting off assuming the worst is probably going to work out pretty well.

There is no advice to be contained in the movie version of "WTEWYE," which is what I will call it henceforth, since I don't feel like typing it all, plus it seems like that would come out "wha-TOO-wee," which is good aural representation of how I felt about it.

Directed by Kirk Jones from a script by Shauna Cross and Heather Hache, "WTEWYE" feels like it was cooked up in a Hollywood laboratory ruled by poll-testing tubes and focus group beakers. Despite this, there actually are a few moments that shine.

The story takes a disparate group of five women, loosely interconnected and located mostly in Atlanta, who learn they're to become mothers right around the same time. There are also their male counterparts, plus friends, relatives, various hangers-on and a walk-on by some unrelated fathers known simply as The Dudes Group (more on them in a bit).

Now, that is a whole heapin' lot of characters to keep straight, let alone make them believable and identifiable. The result is that one couple's story works so well that I was annoyed whenever the movie focuses elsewhere, two other orbits of pregnancy feel forced and faked, another is really just a secondary story to the first one, and the last one has no purpose for even existing.

A quick run-down:

 Jules (Cameron Diaz) is a celebrity fitness trainer who just won a "Dancing with the Stars"-type reality show and fell in love with her gorgeous dancer to boot. They're rich, famous and busy, and find there's not much they truly agree upon.

Wendy (Elizabeth Banks) runs a store called The Breast Choice devoted to everything about having a baby, but she and her hubby Gary (Ben Falcone) have had trouble conceiving on their own.

Gary's dad Ramsey (Dennis Quaid), a retired race car driver, knocks up his second wife with twins. She's younger than Gary, a plastic-y Barbie type who makes pregnancy look like a breeze.

Holly (Jennifer Lopez) and Alex (Rodrigo Santoro) can't get pregnant, so they look to adopt a baby from Ethiopia. Alex is getting cold feet, which gives Holly the jitters.

The last couple is Rosie (Anna Kendrick) and Marco (Chace Crawford), early-20s owners of competing food trucks and recovering from a high-school split. They get back together for a one-nighter, she gets knocked up, and then they have a lot of Very Important discussions to share.

I genuinely enjoyed the Wendy/Gary storyline, with Banks getting some of the best lines and scenes as a woman who's spent her adult life pushing the motherhood-is-magic theme, only to find it's more about cankles and hemorrhoids. "I didn't get 'The Glow,' I just got bacne."

The one with the young kids is given the shortest shrift, which is OK since it feels like it was only included to rope in a certain demographic.

The Dudes, a club for dads to hang out with their kids, are also worth a laugh or two, with their mantra of total acceptance of each other's substandard parenting. But their sequences bring the movie to a dead stop.

I wasn't expecting much from "WTEWYE," but audiences certainly deserved more than this.
1.5 stars out of four

Review: "Grown Ups"

"Grown Ups," the new Adam Sandler comedy, is about what you'd expect. A quintet of childhood buds reunite 30 years later to recapture a bit of their glory days, in between hassling with their wives and kids and razzing each other mercilessly.

There's potty humor, there's sexual put-downs galore, there's inappropriate ogling of each other's daughters and/or wives. The humor is crude and broad, the hearty laughs few and far between.

In other words, it's another thingamajig stamped out by the Sandler assembly line.

You'll note I call it an Adam Sandler movie, despite the presence of co-stars Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade and Rob Schneider -- all "Saturday Night Live" alums like Sandler, except James, who had his own lowbrow TV show. Sandler wrote the screenplay (with Fred Wolf) and brought along his pet director, Dennis Dugan.

It's not very funny, but as the mob tough in "The Untouchables" said about their illicit booze, it's not supposed to be good, it's supposed to be bought. Sandler has a built-in audience that will show up for anything he does. Occasionally, something decent ("50 First Dates") slips past the machine.

Sandler plays Lenny, the leader of the 1978 summer basketball champs who've gone their separate ways. When their old coach dies, it brings them back for his funeral and a weekend at the old lake house.

Lenny's a Hollywood super-agent, married to Roxanne (Salma Hayek Pinault), a famous fashion designer. Their two sons are borderline brats addicted to their Playstation and ordering the nanny around.

The rest of the crew: Eric (James) is the funny fat guy, married and with a couple of kids of his own. Rock plays Kurt, a house-husband who receives a daily tag-team henpecking from his wife (Maya Rudolph) and her mother. Marcus (Spade) is the boozy swingin' single dude. And Rob (Schneider) has gotten all New Age-y and uptight.

They're stale, unimaginative parts, but let's face it: Spade, Schneider and Rock's film careers have gone ice cold lately. It's almost sad how they always run home for supporting roles in Sandler's lame flicks.

(If that's not bad enough, fellow SNLers Colin Quinn and Tim Meadow are trotted out for walk-ons in the obligatory rematch of the big game. Meadows' part is so small, I actually felt sorry for him.)

I found a handful of chuckles here and there. I liked Maya Rudolph, very pregnant, doing a little booty-and-belly dance and chanting, "Baby got front!" And there's some doofy slapstick scattered about.

But mostly the jokes are one-note, or quickly grow tiresome with repetition. Some examples:

Rob's wife (Joyce Van Patten) is much older than him, and their constant sexual fervor for each other grosses out the rest of the gang. It's funny because she's old!

Eric tries to water ski, but the boat can't budge his heft. It's funny because he's fat!

Rob's giving his (old!) wife a heated-rock massage, and burns his hands on one that stayed in the steamer too long. Then he drops it on her back and she screams. It's funny because it's hot!

Eric's improbably gorgeous wife (Maria Bello, slumming) still breast-feeds their son, even though he's four years old. It's funny because it's boobies!

I could go on, but let's save each other the trouble. We both know "Growns Ups" is the very definition of a critic-proof movie. But I'll bet the $9 you're thinking about plunking down for this moronic flick that there's something better playing at the cinema.

Well, not "Jonah Hex." Yech. But something.

1.5 stars out of four

Video review: "Good Hair"

Chris Rock got the idea for "Good Hair" when his young daughter came up to him one day and asked, "Daddy, why don't I have good hair?"

That simple question led to this documentary about black women's relationship to their hair that is heartbreaking and illuminating, and often raucously funny.

Rock roams into Harlem hairdresser shops, an Atlanta stylist convention, factories filled with vats of chemical relaxers, and even remote Indian temples to answer his daughter's question.

What he discovers is a multiple-billion-dollar industry built around the idea of convincing African-Americans their hair needs to be tortured and teased in order to look "natural."

Some of the funniest scenes are in Rock's interviews with beautiful black celebrities like Nia Long, Eve and Raven-Symoné, who talk frankly about the expensive weaves they braid into their own coiffures.

Rock travels to India, visiting back-alley sweatshops where human hair is processed in a primitive fashion to be shipped to Beverly Hills boutiques. He even observes the religious practice of tonsure, the wellspring of this river of hair.

But the movie's real heart lies in Rock's revealing chats with everyday folks in barber shops, in scenes that are both funny and confessional.

Other than a copy of the theatrical trailer, DVD extras are limited to a single item. But it's a doozy: A feature-length commentary track with Rock and producer Nelson George.

The commentary is nearly as much fun as the movie itself, and also offers a few special insights. For example, Rock met one of the film's principal subjects, a hair product magnate, while attending a fundraiser for Barack Obama at Oprah's house.

I also liked their running commentary about their trip to India, including a surprising find by Rock in the local airport, and George's decision to throw away his luggage upon returning home.

The lack of other features is grating, though. What's especially odd is that during their commentary, Rock and George repeatedly refer to things that will be in the DVD extras.

I kept hunting through the disc's menus to find these phantom extras.

Movie: 3.5 stars
Extras: 2.5 stars

Review: "Good Hair"

"Good Hair" is a funny and breezy movie with a deep undertow.

Host Chris Rock examines black women's obsession with hair, which has become a multi-billion-dollar industry. He interviews a lot of famous African-American actresses who admit they use expensive weaves, and even follows this river of hair back to its wellspring in India.

The surface of the documentary, directed by Jeff Stilson and co-written by him, Rock and a few others, is all fun 'n' games. Rock interviews famous people about their hair, from actress Nia Long to the Rev. Al Sharpton, but he also goes into numerous salons in black neighborhoods to talk to everyday women who are putting painful, dangerous chemicals into their hair to straighten it, or shelling out $1,000 (and up) for weaves of other people's hair.

Things really get rolling when Rock then goes into some barbershops to talk to black men about the love triangle between them, their romantic partners and their ladies' hair.

The mens' sheepish, embarrassed looks soon give way to same really hilarious commentary, which basically boils down to "keep your hands off the hair."

But as fun as these scenes are, Rock deftly probes into the underbelly of an industry that's siphoning off a king's ransom from black communities, and putting it mostly into the hands of corporations controlled by whites and Asians.

For a brief time in the 1970s, natural kinky black hair was worn with pride. But African-American women (some men, too) were sold an image that straight, flowing hair -- basically, white hair -- was what they needed to look good, and to get ahead in society.

"The lighter, the brighter, the better," Long says.

One of the most heart-breaking scenes in the movie comes when Rock is interviewing a group of girls about to graduate from high school. They're young, gifted and black, and the potential practically glows off them. Then the girls with straightened hair one by one tell their Afroed friend that if they were interviewing her for a job, they wouldn't hire her because of her nappy head.

Weaves are the newest thing to push the limits, both stylistically and financially. Long cascades of real human hair are braided into a woman's existing hair -- sometimes even glued in. The effect is pretty convincing, but as TV actress Raven-Symoné demonstrates when she pulls on either end of her flowing locks, not quite foolproof.

The film goes into investigative mode when Rock travels to India to find out where all this hair is coming from. It turns out that much of it comes from a religious ceremony called tonsure, in which most Indian women have their heads shaved at least a couple of times during their lives.

We get see the dingy shops where the hair is cleaned, processed and delivered to upscale Beverly Hills boutiques, where it's woven onto the heads of the rich and famous.

Rock got the idea for the movie when one of his two little girls came up to him and asked, "Daddy, why don't I have good hair?"

That's the sort of question that could provoke a loving father to travel the globe in search of a sufficient answer. Lucky for us Chris Rock did, and why "Good Hair" is so good, and shows us how meaningful something as seemingly trivial as hair can be.

3.5 stars