They say tragedies happen in threes: In March 2022, Russia invades Ukraine, Taylor Hawkins dies, and Will Smith sullies his whole career and the 94th Academy Awards with one… little… slap.

The Oscar Performance After The Oscar Performance

ill Smith maintains that he slapped Chris Rock because he was “defending his wife’s honor.” From a comedian who was not attacking her honor. Merely joking about the movie GI JANE in relation to Jada’s bald head. Oh, but Jada has alopecia, which is hair-loss, narcissistically posting on every social media platform that she is “suffering” from this “medical condition” – and it didn’t matter whether Chris knew about it or not, because she’s also been telling anyone who’ll listen “I don’t give two craps what people feel about this bald head of mine, cos guess what? I love it”… So why does this hypocrite suddenly feel entitled to pretend offense? Which her husband acted on, pretending he was standing up for one thing, while really standing up for something much darker and humiliating.

First, let’s call alopecia what it really is – baldness. 85% of men and 50% of women will experience some form of alopecia in their lives. Welcome to the world, Jada. Alopecia is not a disability, so where do you get off calling it a “medical condition”? EVERYTHING the human body experiences is a medical condition [cough—eurh, I’ve got a cold — don’t make fun of my MEDICAL CONDITION…]

FUN FACT: Chris Rock wrote and hosted a 2009 documentary called GOOD HAIR. It was about – black women’s hair!

In a world where women want to be treated as equals, it’s time bald women learn to get made fun of just like us bald guys do.
— randuthayne (YouTube)

Many clueless witnesses applauded Will for “defending his wife’s honor” – Tiffany Haddish, whose comedy I love, said, “I seen a man stand up for his wife – which we don’t see that much anymore” (no, you saw assault and battery, not self-defense); Will Smith’s son, Jaden, tweeted: “That’s How We Do It” (just what we’d expect from a woke quim-fart like Jaden); and with every interview Denzel gives about the ‘devil coming for you at your highest moment’ bullshit, he is slowly edging himself onto the wrong side of history. Because a joke doesn’t rob you of honor – unless you let it. And really – Will Smith wasn’t defending his wife’s “HONOR” (?) – he was defending his wife’s VANITY. But let’s face it, he wasn’t “defending” anything – he was coerced by Jada into acting out his ideation of maleness on the threat of Jada acting out her denial of her femaleness.

And if Gemini Man was “standing up for his wife” what would his supporters think if Chris Rock’s brother, Tony, subsequently “stood up for his brother” and smacked the shit out of Will Smith? Would they still condone violence as a solution to being mildly offended?

The Reason That Will Smith Hopes We Forget

So — here’s the real reason why Will Smith is a coiled spring and had to act out being a man:
July 2020. Jada’s Red Table Talk, where she entraps/coerces Will into believing that HER affair with her son’s friend, rapper August Alsina, was WILL’s fault…

It’s funny how Will has a problem with what comes out of Chris’s mouth, however he doesn’t have a problem with what goes into his wife’s mouth!!!
— Scott Hellman (YouTube)

But here’s the worst part of this incident: I loved Will Smith as much as you did. From his breakout role in SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION, we saw he was a craftsman and much more than just a doofus fresh prince. And all that world love… flushed down the toilet.

Tonight Chris got some fresh prints across his face, know what I’m saying.
— soulasylummeatpuppet (YouTube)

And Will DESERVES that Best Actor Oscar for his stunning portrayal of Richard Williams, the father of the greatest female duo of tennis players ever, in KING RICHARD. No one has ever doubted his talent… But upon assaulting and battering someone – he should have been arrested BEFORE he swaggered back to his seat, with that attitude of “Nailed it”! If you or I were to smack someone in public exactly like Will slapped Chris, how quickly would we be wrestled to the ground by venue security and held for the police? Yet the Academy officials and police allowed Will Smith to remain unmolested in that theatre, moving around freely to talk to other millionaires who are also protected from the lower class by the PO-lice, eventually accepting his Academy Award! This fact alone sends a horrifying message to Karens around the world that their imagined offenses are valid!

Just because you’re offended doesn’t mean you’re right.
— Ricky Gervais.

… and now Hollywood is keeping Will’s name OUT ITS FUCKEN MOUTH!

And the other equally horrifying message: Money Supersedes Evidence. When QuestLove won for Best Documentary just minutes after the slap – look who’s shaking Quest’s hand as if nothing happened? There is video evidence of the perp Will Smith committing assault and battery not 5 minutes ago, and here he is shaking another man’s hand, unarrested, unmolested – not even detained! A perfect example of how race has nothing to do with police brutality – it’s always been about class. The upper class and the lower class.

Did someone say class? The person who shoulda won the Oscar for most class that night was Chris Rock. Now Chris might not’ve been able to go toe-to-toe with Muhammad Ali (and let’s face it – we could see that Will pulled that punch and turned it into a slap at the last second), but we KNOW that Chris could’ve burned Will and Jada down with his rolodex of smartass comebacks in his standup arsenal. But he was classy enough to not escalate and stand down – and continue the show. The restraint and professionalism of Chris Rock NOT resorting to his standup persona, proved he was a REAL standup guy.

15 MINUTES LATER – Will Smith wins the Best Actor Oscar, and gives a tearful non-apology speech, filled with straw man deflections, hypocrisy and gaslighting.

How fitting that Will Smith won an award for the best acting in the world – while doing the best acting in the world.

END

Abbey Ho’d.

Black Wiseau.

DOLEMITE IS MY NAME is a comeback film for Eddie Murphy? That’s a well-deserved question mark! As its filmmakers whine about being snubbed at the 2020 Oscars, they neglect to mention they’ve made a formulaic film about a conman with questionable product that deserves attention only as a novelty.

As a historical figure, the flamboyant Rudy Ray Moore (played reasonably authentically by Eddie Murphy) holds resonance for the black community, as a powerful hustler that fought against intrinsic white oppression to publicize himself as an entertainer. But this film is not doing the man justice, because Eddie Murphy is going around touting it as a comedy when it is more correctly a biopic of a comedian.

That’s the failure point of this movie that is being marketed as freakin’ hilarious. It is not. It’s about a person who was regarded as hilarious by the audiences of his time.

DOLEMITE, the film made by Rudy Ray Moore with his tiger blood and pure force of will, was a blaxploitation film released in 1975. DOLEMITE IS MY NAME is not a blaxploitation film, yet I think Eddie and Co. (writers Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski, and director Craig Brewer (BLACK SNAKE MOAN, EMPIRE)) might believe that their film does fall under that genre, and thus deserves some kind of notoriety. I can’t tell. Just like we can’t tell whether Rudy is in on his own joke of making a film so bad it will be considered good by certain downtrodden demographics.

We see Rudy’s humble beginnings in comedy clubs, and how he hits on the idea to visit the ghetto with cash and hooch, paying to record all the old timers’ rhyming boasts. He refines and rehearses these bits at home, outfits himself like a pimp, and hits his local comedy clubs as a character named Dolemite: “Dolemite is my name and fuckin’ up motherfuckers is my game!” It’s a smash, as he brings a tribal approach to what was once “Buddy Hackett shit” – instead of rimshots, he cajoled the jazz backing band to accompany him with jungle rhythms, making his performances a place where black people come to dance erotically, as per WALK HARD.

When we see Rudy/Dolemite at these clubs, he’s killing.  But it’s not “funny” by today’s tastes. It’s smartly woven dialogue, ribald in content and demonic in delivery, but in no way laugh out loud. But the black folks who come to dance erotically love it.

Rudy tells his Ma he’s thinking about making a comedy album and she replies, “Is it gonna be like that cute little Bill Cosby – he so sweet!” And I guess this WAS the perception of Bill back in the day; unfortunately now his mention in movies has become ironic, and his name itself has become a verb for rape.

Rudy’s albums become underground smashes, modern rappers considering him “the Godfather of rap” due to his vocal stylings. Then he turns his sights to movies. This is where it treads across a line in the sand when it comes to quality art. Not everyone who wants to make a movie is either qualified to do so, or can make a good one.

But Rudy is apparently deserving of the goal because he hits us with the platitude, “I want the WORLD to know I exist!” Well, don’t we all, Rudy? Don’t we all?

Now we are in THE ROOM territory, as this untalented filmmaker with nothing but ambition – much like Tommy Wiseau – goes about independently financing, producing, directing, starring in and marketing DOLEMITE, a movie which could arguably be held up – like Wiseau’s THE ROOM – as one of the worst movies ever made. The story of the pimp on a revenge quest against the people who wrongly-jailed him does not take itself seriously, so there’s that mitigation. But it’s still quite the piece of dogshit.

Rudy enlists writer Jerry (Keegan-Michael Key), his crew consisting of Mike Epps, Craig Robinson, Tituss Burgess, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Kodi Smit-McPhee. Wesley Snipes does a saucy turn as egotist D’Urville Martin (whose claim to fame was a small role in ROSEMARY’S BABY), tapped to direct.

Snoop Dogg is a DJ who promotes Rudy’s records; Chris Rock is a DJ who promotes Rudy’s movie.

The lovemaking scene takes us, the audience, for idiots, as it shows all Rudy’s accomplices manipulating props around the room to make the lovemaking an over-the-top energetic satire, while Martin – the director – looks on in surprise that they rigged the bedroom set in this way. Even if it was a surprise that this gag was going to be performed, he can clearly see grips on-set off-camera waiting to pull on levers! What the FUCK kind of idiots do they think we are to shoot the scene this way like it was a surprise to the director? Reminds us of the stupidity of the ROCKY IV scene in which everyone was shocked at Apollo Creed’s big production number with James Brown.

Rudy dresses like his pimp character Dolemite for meetings, canvassing indie theaters to show his film. Like Pay-To-Play, he hires one theater for $500, then advertises himself with leaflets and word-of-mouth. It packs out, piquing the attention of distributor Dimension Films (led by Bob Odenkirk). The final shot shows us Rudy at the Dimension premier, the theater so packed that another audience is left waiting outside, with Rudy entertaining them. Did this happen? Maybe. The outro titles tell us DOLEMITE was one of the biggest movies of the year…

The saddest title card is the last one: “Lovingly dedicated to Charlie Murphy 1959-2017.” Now why wasn’t Charlie, a gifted comedian himself, ever a fixture in any of Eddie’s films? Why did it take his death to become a part of an Eddie Murphy film?

DOLEMITE IS MY NAME is a mix of Mario Van Peebles’s BAADASSSSS! (we encounter all the tribulations of the independent black filmmaker), meeting James Franco’s THE DISASTER ARTIST (a good movie about the making of a bad movie). (And yes, BAADASSSSS! itself is a tribute to the making of SWEET SWEETBACK’S BAADASSSSS SONG, but that movie had a lot more blaxploitation street-cred than DOLEMITE.)

It’s not Oscar-worthy. It’s not a disaster. It’s not a comeback. It’s not a comedy. It’s a fairly average movie about a below-average entertainer. Fuckin’ up motherfuckers is not its game.

END

Everything happening with Nothing going on.

In the contrived farce THE WEEK OF, Adam Sandler is Kenny Lustig, a middle class father struggling to cope with the details and cost of hosting his daughter’s wedding, and Chris Rock is Dr. Kirby Cordice, the rich father of the groom, whose help Kenny declines. Longtime collaborators Sandler and director Robert Smigel seem like they figured out the plot on a napkin when they were hella drunk, then realized too late it wouldn’t make a good film. By then they were sober.

On the week of his daughter’s wedding, Kenny is struggling against the tide of his extended family all camping in his cramped house, other guests arriving, hotel accommodation, a venue for the wedding, an incompetent hotel manager, the cake, the food, the spiraling costs – you know, all those things that any normal person would have taken care of way before the week of. However, the level of interest that all these adversities cause in the viewer is almost nil, as we are bombarded with a smattering of half-baked characters that Kenny seems to treat as if they’re simply inconsequential denizens of a lackluster fiction, which they are.

There’s a young lady in THE WEEK OF that shines brighter than any other actor. Somewhere in the whirlwind of guest arrivals, one of the daughter’s friends is played by Langan Kingsley. Looking like a young Elizabeth Berkeley, except truly beautiful, Langan is the type of classy, funny, quirky woman that anyone might fall in love with… Okay, that *I* might fall in love with…

Rachel Dratch is Kenny’s wife, Steve Buscemi plays a weird friend (again), relative newcomers Allison Strong and Roland Buck III are the bride and groom. Nasser Faris is an old Indian hotelier, who is portrayed as dumb as any giggling Indian can possibly be portrayed in white Westernized society. Jim Barone is Seymour, an old legless war veteran for gross-out humor, involved in the dumbest-staged gag in the movie where Chris Rock feels up Seymour’s leg stumps, dreaming they are breasts. Rock should know better. For comedy’s sake. For his career’s sake. For our sakes.

Sandler’s real-life wife Jackie plays a relative, and his real-life son Jared (looking like a young Jake Gyllenhaal) plays another relative, but I don’t really care who by this stage.

The glorious Langan Kingsley.
I found the Good amongst the Bad.

And there’s radiant Langan Kingsley, in real life, a standup improv comedian, progressive political satirist and breezy journeywoman… I think I’m falling in love with her. There’s just something about her that incites a fervor in me to write poetry and declare my devotion in a rainstorm…

Y’know, I give Sandler a lot of rope; I’ve stood up for him in many movies that have been panned – JUST GO WITH IT, THE COBBLER, THE RIDICULOUS 6 – but this movie is a retrograde step back to the days when he would splash any old crap on film and expect audiences to pay for it, let alone laugh at it. Chris Rock’s character is eternally bemused and taken aback at the cheapness of Sandler’s Kenny, and how everything seems to be going wrong with the wedding arrangements – and it seems like Rock isn’t even acting.

Still… I always look for that one moment of heart in every Sandler movie, because there always seems to be one (maybe that’s why I’m still affording him all that rope): By wedding’s end – after innumerable mishaps that we’ve seen in every wedding farce since Noah married Naamah – Kenny realizes it’s not about him, and he tells his daughter so. He confesses why he insisted on paying for the wedding even though Kirby kept offering to bail him out financially: “This is the last thing I’ll ever get to do for you.” Tears.

So I found the heart. But DAMN if it didn’t take swimming through a whole lotta sewage to get to it!

I also identified the one good running gag: Kenny continually mistaking two passing random black guys as family of the groom.

And yep, I’m sure of it now. I AM in love with Langan Kingsley.

END

Chris Rock – or Styx?

Bang the Tamborine Slowly…

Chris Rock is back! In TAMBORINE, Rock’s 6^th standup Special, his pace is a little less panther, his delivery a little less clipped, his demeanor a little less arrogant. The interim since his last Special (KILL THE MESSENGER, 2008) has robbed him of some electric youth and vitality, not least through the hard life lessons learned in a divorce, and becoming a better man for it. But was it good for his comedy? Uh…

This Netflix Special, which includes a large segment of Rock discussing his divorce, ironically premieres on Valentine’s Day. Directed by standup prodigy Bo Burnham and filmed at Brooklyn’s Academy of Music, TAMBORINE is reportedly part of a two-fer, reminding us of Dave Chappelle’s triumphant return in the same Netflixian manner.

A rock god lightshow heralds Rock’s entrance, and he immediately slaps us upside de head: “You would think a cop would occasionally shoot a white kid just to make it look good.” The panther may have calmed, but the controversy engine is spouting razor blades. His first “nigger” is two minutes in. With that cheeky smile that, funnily enough, looks like Henry Cavill’s CGI-painted philtrum.

Topics include: the police, religion, gun control (funny how those topics are evergreen; watching anyone in America commenting from years ago, you truly don’t realize which school shooting they are referring to!); the American justice system, school bullies (and how we NEED bullies to prepare us for the assholes of the world, “Pressure makes diamonds”). He includes a callback from his 2004 Special, NEVER SCARED, that he “kept his daughter off the pole” (i.e. been a good father), adding that counselors should stop telling American kids they can “be anything they wanna be.” How about “You can be anything you’re good at, as long as they’re hiring.”

He uses bullies to lead seamlessly into the now-perfunctory Trump jokes. “Because you got rid of all the bullies, when a real bully came along, nobody knew how to handle him!” Like Dave, Rock intimates that “Trump might work out,” but unlike Dave, it’s not because he wishes the white supremacist the best and wants to give him a chance; Rock is commenting on the arc of history: “Bush was so bad that people said, ‘Hey, maybe this black guy has the answers’” (adding that people overlook George Bush’s contribution to black history), and that Trump’s incendiary failure might spawn the advent of Jesus himself…

Eddie taught us about divorce and “Half!” Chris didn’t listen.

These days, Rock’s “Whitey rage” reads a little inauthentic, simply because – as he reminds us – he’s rich. And he’s been reminding us he’s rich for a loooong time (at least as far back as BIGGER AND BLACKER: “There ain’t a white man in this room that would change places wid me – and I’m rich!) He tells us how he’s been prepping his kids since birth for dealing with the white man – but his kids were born to a rich man, not a black man… Yes, the black man’s experience is a singular stain on Western society that cannot be authoritatively critiqued by anyone not experiencing the same bigotry, so I am blowing smoke as a green cucumber in minimizing Rock’s experience; nonetheless, he doesn’t look like he really and truly means it these days when he’s cussing out Whitey. Don’t take my word for it; compare the two eras. It’s night and day. Or… ahem… black and white.

It’s not “compelling” viewing. If you were to catch a snippet of any routine from any of Rock’s previous Specials, you would take a seat and ride that bucking bronco to its conclusion, they are that riveting. TAMBORINE seems like you could walk past a TV showing it, and it would look like just another standup routine by just another comic, so you would keep walking. It’s good when you listen, but there’s nothing to hook you if you’re passing through.

The obvious feature of the show is Rock’s divorce. After 16 years of marriage. It’s a sad segment of the show, and also, a cathartic one for Chris. We feel he wants to talk about this, so we listen. Like every comedian, he self-therapies on stage; he confesses, he takes blame, he derides his weaknesses, he self-flagellates, and finally, utters wisdom learned during the demeaning process: “Love hard – or get the fuck out.” He compares being married to being in a band: even if you’re the tambourine player, you play the fuck out of it. He even sneaks in a callback to his “big piece o’ chicken” (from BIGGER AND BLACKER). Ultimately, we feel that he cleanses himself to move forward, as the Prince song Tamborine funks the credits.

Maybe the panther will be back – but in the next Special…

END

Kevin James takes a photo of Salma Hayek’s ass, the only ass onscreen worth taking a photo of.

Would you like a little movie to go with your pee jokes?

Rob Schneider isn’t here. Nonetheless, GROWN UPS 2 is still worse than its predecessor. It starts with a pee joke, then a tit joke, then a shit joke, then another pee joke, then a combination burp-sneeze-fart trifecta douchefecta. You couldn’t make a movie this bad if you were trying to make a movie this bad. So we congratulate long-time Adam Sandler director Dennis Dugan for achieving the impossible.

The four friends from the last movie (played by Sandler, Chris Rock, Kevin James and David Spade) have inexplicably decided to all reside in the same small town they grew up in, after having left it to pursue their careers. In the last movie, they all rendezvoused here to pay homage to their dead high school coach; now, there’s zero reason why they are living here pursuing lives as layabouts and wieners, as they meander through a script (by Fred Wolf, Sandler and Tim Herlihy) as unrealistic as it is unfunny. About one hour into GROWN UPS 2, we give up all hope this dog-queef of a movie will come anywhere near a story, and go do something more productive, like rubbing the lotion on its skin or it gets the hose again.

Disjointed scenes of family life, social life, the kids of the principals interacting, Salma Hayek’s tits, rolling David Spade down the road in a tractor tire (yeah, that’s a bit), Colin Quinn simulating taking an ice cream shit, Taylor Lautner as an ambiguously-homo fraternity jock, Salma Hayek’s tits, Alexander Ludwig as Spade’s punk kid, Maya Rudolph playing Rock’s ugly wife again (no wait! People tell me she’s “beautiful.” If you say so), college chicks in bikinis, Salma Hayek’s tits, Shaq as a dopey cop, Nick Swardson ably filling Schneider’s shoes as resident douchebag, and Sandler hiring every single person he knows on the planet for an amateurish cameo.

There is a scene of unbelievable ignorance, which sums up how this movie reached its audience: Maria Bello and Kevin James show their small son math flashcards, like 8+6, to which the son answers “38” or some such idiocy. They PRAISE him. On it goes with the flashcards, every answer wrong from this idiot child, yet receiving PRAISE not correction, because they “don’t want to destroy his confidence.” Audience, you do realize that kid is YOU? Never learning the difference between quality and stupidity, the stage set to grow up an Adam Sandler fan; a Venn diagram overlapping Republicans as far away from facts as possible.

Sandler himself plays a normal guy, and I am thankful for this small mercy, as I quite like his Everyman demeanor, but Kevin James quickly cancels that out with his fat-based tryhard pratfalls.

As with the last movie, there is ONE SINGLE MOMENT that achieves any kind of empathy or resonance with normal human beings. Sandler reaches a last straw seeing his son bullied, so in order to show him that a bully needs to be stood up to, he takes on his own bully from ages past – Steve Austin. As they face off, Austin, who “has a son in Afghanistan” realizes “we’d do anything for our sons,” and whispers to Sandler that he would take a dive. It is so touching, I swear I almost cried.

Then Kevin James does something fucking stupid.

END

The Shotgun Monologues.

Chris Rock taught me what “tossing the salad” meant.

Admit it: you too. During his HBO comedy standup special BRING THE PAIN, Rock recounts a prisoner’s graphic advice on what you need to do to get along in jail.

And a superstar is born…

“We don’t need prayer in schools –
we need the tossed salad man in schools!”

By 1996, Chris Rock had grown into a formidable comedian in the United States, with a burgeoning standup career, a couple of choice movie roles and smattering of smaller ones; he was an SNL alumnus, a screenwriter, and already had a 1994 HBO special (BIG ASS JOKES). BRING THE PAIN would put him over the top. It’s that defining moment in an artist’s career where they tip the scales into world renown; now everyone on Earth is destined to know their name. Like Jackson’s Thriller, like Python’s LIFE OF BRIAN, like Spielberg’s JURASSIC PARK. So though it was technically his second standup outing, for many fans, BRING THE PAIN would be his “first” harbinger of hilarity.

It was untethered, unchained, unholy. Shrewd, cutting and insightful, it took no prisoners and brooked no rejoinders; the type of truthful, harrowing street comedy that breaks barriers and makes superstars.

“That shit wasn’t about race – that shit was about fame, cos if OJ wasn’t famous, he’d be in jail right now!”

Years later, Rock would tell James Lipton on INSIDE THE ACTORS STUDIO that he was feeling stagnant at the time and wanted to hone his craft, so put everything aside to focus on standup. Two years on the road, culminating with this show, filmed at the Takoma Theater in Washington, D.C. For what he thought was just another hardworking comedy product, Rock would win two 1997 Emmys: “Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Special,” and “Outstanding Writing for a Variety or Music Program.”

What we notice first is the pacing, like a panther ready to pounce; garbed in black and leather jacket, syllables cutting like knives, an anger, an inspiration, a blood feud with the white man, a sociological hammer against stupidity. The delivery is like being slapped in the face. But it’s not just the delivery – it’s the guts. He takes risks.

“I’m not sayin’ he shoulda killed her… but I understand.”

Besides the easy jabs (O.J., Marion Barry, marriage), Rock tackles nuanced social issues, all whilst swearing, chastising, castigating humanity for its foibles: the avoidance of pork as a religious issue, Colin Powell running for president, domestic violence, the Friend Zone, divorce inequalities between men and women, the War On Drugs… “is just to get more motherfuckers in jail, cos drug dealers don’t really sell drugs. Drugs sell themselves!”

He explains why we “ain’t NEVER gonna see a black vice president – not while there’s a white president.” Because, he says, some black guy will just kill the president, offering to do it himself, pointing out: “What’re they gonna do? Put me in jail with a bunch of black guys who treat me like a hero for the rest of my life?” When we think the bit’s over, it astonishingly continues: “Even if I get the death penalty, what’s gonna happen? Pardoned by the black president!!”

“Girl, I will shake this weave outcha hair!
Shut the fuck up!”

His observations on domestic violence are shattering; he says things that every man wants to say, but is too fearful of the fem-leaning laws to do so. His takes on O.J. and the Friend Zone – two topics done to death by lesser comedians – are refreshingly honest and against the grain. He opines that to turn kids off jail, we don’t need prayer in schools – just the salad tossing guy to explain his stuff! “If I had to choose between the Electric Chair and the tossed salad man I’d be going, ‘Where do you plug this thing in? Shouldn’t I be wet?'” And his now infamous Black People vs. Niggers thesis…

These are complicated comedy stylings from a hip new juggernaut. Listening to Rock’s renegade sociological gunmetal, it’s a wonder that one of Rock’s own heroes – Eddie Murphy – ever got as far as he did as a standup comedian with the straightforward fluff he purveyed. Not saying Murphy’s two major offerings, DELIRIOUS and RAW, were not excellent for their day, but they pale next to Rock’s obliterating dialogues. Yes, I’m blaspheming that Chris Rock is better than Eddie Murphy.

Murphy had “salad-eating bitches.” And Rock has “tossing the salad.” Case closed. What exactly is tossing the salad anyway? …You’ll have to watch BRING THE PAIN to find out.

Or go to jail.

END

Celebrating 40 Years of Stunning Mediocrity.

The American comedy institution SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE continues its tradition of not being funny, by throwing a 40th Anniversary Special and not being funny.

SNL 40 is not only Not Funny, it’s embarrassing, pathetic and painful. Why do these people put themselves through this? Why do they put US through this? Why do audiences keep watching? Excepting a few quality seasons during its formative years, and a handful of good gags and entertaining personalities through its history, SNL has never been a prime cut; longevity seems to be counting more towards SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE’s comedy legacy than actual quality.

SNL 40, broadcast by NBC on Sunday February 15, 2015, touted as “Comedy’s Biggest Stars Come Home,” boasts a studio audience that consists of everybody who is anybody (from Spielberg down), brings together past alumni, past hosts, shows montages of classic sketches and bits, only has time for a few musical numbers, showcases veteran cast re-doing classic bits, and retains an overall sense of undeserved mutual cock-stroking.

I’m not going to outline a laundry list of bits; in this overlong show, the bits themselves are irrelevant. It’s the overarching impact of this drudgerous wankfest; the cognitive dissonance of continually hearing how “good” it is and yet witnessing exactly the opposite. Bits which are poorly written and badly rehearsed, amateur timing from supposed professionals, forced laughter, titters where there should be guffaws, and sometimes, those uncomfortable silences into which your career spirals never to be resurrected again… We view this whole shenanigan with hands over our faces, peeking through the gaps in our fingers.

It reminds me of the recent Monty Python reunion shows at the O2 arena (Jun 2014: Monty Python Live (Almost)); though that tour was a nostalgic success, even an artistic and commercial success, it was a complete failure in its attempt to recapture the timing and verve and urgency of youth. Which is what reunion shows like that – and this SNL one – are all about. Recapturing our youth. (And of course, selling advertising and merch to us in the process.) To the young or uninitiated, these shows will be a success or failure purely depending on NOW. To we who lived our youth through those original times, these shows succeed or fail on how well they recapture it. And let’s face it, they can’t recapture it. They will always only remain “failed attempts.” But it’s not just that metaphysical youth aspect – it’s the fact that when an old person tries to do something they did when they were young, it just doesn’t look right or read as well as it did when in their prime. It’s a terrible, sad fact of life.

Dan Aykroyd cannot possibly recapture the original “flavor” of his Bass-O-Matic sketch from the 70s. But he tries valiantly. And fails. In one of SNL 40’s first sketches, Aykroyd appears with that cheese-eating grin. He looks old. Really old. And fat. Camera pulls back and we see he is holding up a dead fish, a bass…

Silence.

Not even crickets. It’s just an old fat guy holding a fish. Now one would think that after all the lengths they’ve just gone to, of bashing us with the message that SNL is some kind of mythical laugh factory, that seeing the opening to the “classic” Bass-O-Matic sketch would elicit a cheer of recognition from the audience.

Silence. Because the studio audience (not the old stars, but the civilians) are too young to recognize this 35-year-old sketch! It was never one of the best sketches, but at least the performance in its heyday had a young, vital guy delivering his lines fitfully in a Pythonesque lightning strike. Now it’s just an old fat guy holding a fish. (At least with the 2014 Python shows, when Cleese came on with his dead parrot, stating, “I would like to register a complaint!” the audience’s rousing roar of recognition drowned out the pathos. Here, it was just pathos. This was devil’s territory from the get-go.) There was no way Aykroyd could attain the verve and urgency and timing of his youth. His speech was too slow for comfort, he missed putting one of the fish into the blender, he turned on the blender and it froze… His fake smile went on for miles, but the flop sweat on his soul was glistening hot…

You ask, “Why don’t they just pack it up?” Because this is what they do! What else CAN they do? This is how they made their bones. But recapturing the magic is definitely out of the question after a certain time…

Chris Rock gives a prolonged tribute to Eddie Murphy, who has gone the way of the dodo. The last quality thing he did was …um… uh… Then Eddie himself steps out to raucous applause and proceeds to do two minutes of SNL tradition (i.e. see paragraph 1).

The opening dance number with the somehow-talented Jimmy Fallon and ever-talented Justin Timberlake is spiffy. No complaints there; it retains that just-above-mediocre level that SNL sometimes attains on its absolute best nights.

Then the monologue with old hand Steve Martin (long since Not Funny himself, but somehow squeezing some last driplets of humor from his dead soul). During the monologue, Martin is beset on all sides by superstars who want to host, including Tom Hanks, Alec Baldwin, Chris Rock, Peyton Manning, Billy Crystal, Paul McCartney and Paul Simon… and then producer Lorne Michaels makes one of his many missteps, in his quest to attract a younger, more current audience (it’s a well-known fact that Michaels has final say on all decisions, good and bad, and all the artists cringe and bow to his every whim, as per WAYNE’S WORLD): Into this lion’s den of icons, Lorne decides to trot out… Miley Cyrus. Wait– Miley Cyrus?! Yes, that class-less hooker whore cunt Miley Cyrus shares the stage with the above legends who have done something useful with their lives. (No, tell us what you really think of Miley Cyrus, Poffy?) God knows how long she had to burnish Lorne’s perineum with that ball-licking trollop tongue to score this spot over other performers closer to the human race.

McCartney tanked. Introduced by Gollum– I mean, Keith Richards, the Beatle’s minstrel, the songster, the legend – bombed horribly. In the first seconds of Maybe I’m Amazed we could hear his voice is non-existent. And it went downhill. Now I’ve even closed the gaps in my fingers. I don’t want to watch. I don’t want to hear, I don’t want to live. At the time of writing, you cannot even find this performance on YouTube – you have to go deep into the TV station’s archives to find it – which means everyone involved (from management to McCartney himself) unanimously agree that it was so bad, it needed the hiring of pro hackers to restrict this video from being posted on YouTube at all costs. They will fail, of course, because YouTube is a behemoth that will eat all of us alive and screaming in the end.

People clapped. You have to clap, right? But now you’re not clapping because you were blown away by the performance or inspired or even mildly impressed (unlike that artistic inspirational perfection of George Harrison and Paul Simon doing Here Comes The Sun and Homeward Bound on SNL in 1976); you’re clapping in pity, that a 75 year old man can kinda sing a Paul McCartney song with a band and everything. Isn’t that special? He gets so excited when they let him out of the home and the boys let him play with them, it’s good for him, great-granddad needs to make some new friends…

The saddest thing is that of McCartney’s tens of thousands of times performing this song, when it hit the atmosphere crackling like a million suns, this SNL 40 abomination (when it surfaces in mainstream social media) is going to be the most codified, the most batted about the internet like cats and tits, commented on and analyzed and critiqued by this generation of twitter twats. Weep for the death of legends. Weep for the death of youth. Weep for Gollum who lost his Precious.

Some apologists might mitigate, Well, a couple of things were good (Billy Crystal asking, “You are Steve Martin, right?; a reasonably enjoyable “digital short” from Sandler and Sandberg, Will Ferrell’s Jeopardy, etc.). Of course a couple of things were good – these are professional comedians, and a stopped clock is right twice a day. But only a couple of things, in a show that is supposedly THE comedy lodestar of the United States? If you were making automobiles or heart monitors, this kind of percentage would be entirely unacceptable.

If SNL 40 had kept it to nanosecond montages of old bits, it could have salvaged a shred of dignity. Instead, each personality dragging their feet onto that supposedly hallowed stage just prolonged an agony that wasn’t going to go away with the constant sucking of Lorne Michaels’ dick.

Here’s to the next 40 years of not being funny.

END

The Biggest and Blackest!

The shot across the bow was BRING THE PAIN (HBO, 1996). A rising comedian then, now Chris Rock has honed his standup act to a knife-keen incisiveness in his third HBO Special, BIGGER AND BLACKER.

Chris Rock: The New Black Leader that moves us?

On the famed Apollo stage in Harlem, New York, attired in shiny black leather, Rock paces like a jungle cat, spitting like a raptor, his lexicon that of the mean streets, shotgunning his social commentary like an American prophet.

It’s still current! Rock’s type of observational humor interwoven with politics has the danger of becoming outdated, but – shockingly – his 1999 topics still resonate in 2014!

School shootings, gays in the military, gun control, health insurance, irresponsible mothers – even the Clinton Lewinski scandal (which Senator Rand Paul has dredged from the cobweb past in an attempt to undermine Hillary’s 2016 run, and also to prove, I dunno, that he’s a giant dick?)! It’s eerie that society is still death-locked in these same issues. And it makes Rock look like a soothsayer. He was even right about Ricky Martin’s Living La Vida Loca: “That ain’t goin’ nowhere! That gonna be around for a looong time!”

On school shootings, he asks the same pertinent question that political commentator Melissa Harris-Perry voiced a few years ago, but in his own way: “Everybody wants to know, What kinda music was dey listenin’ to? What kinda movies was dey watchin’? Who gives a shit?! Whatever happened to ‘crazy’?” (Harris-Perry: “People are always talking about gun control. What about nut control?”)

And Rock has his own (excellent) theory on “bullet control”: they should cost $5000 a bullet, “cause if a bullet cost five thousand dollars, there’d be no mo’ innocent bystanders!”

He drinks in the adulation, the crowd eating from his hand, his accent becoming bigger and blacker as he smoothly transitions to irresponsible mothers: “If the kid call his grandmomma ‘mommy’ and his momma ‘Pam,’ he goin’ to jail!”

He gives a little sugar to Daddies – the real daddies “that handle dey business.” Yet – “What does daddy get for all his work? The big piece o’ chicken!”

On the Lewinski scandal, he brings his refreshing take on the juvenility of focusing on it as if it was important. And how it was mainly Hillary’s fault for not taking care of her man in the first place. He lets us in on a truth that every man knows, that he will not disclose to any woman closer than girlfriend-status: “A man is basically as faithful as his options.”

“Every woman in here, every guy you meet is trying’ ta fuck you: Can I help you with that? Can I help you to some dick? Can I get that for you? Can I get you some dick?!’ Again, it’s an old trope that comedians fall back on, but Rock nails it to the wall.

“Insurance should be called ‘In Case Shit’…I give a company money In Case Shit happens – but if shit don’t happen, shouldn’t I get mah money back?!”

“You get paralyzed, doctors don’t got shit for you. Look at Christopher Reeve – paralyzed. What kinda sorry-ass shit is that? Superman can’t walk! What kinda injustice is this?”

“Everybody’s got to chill out on racism. Nobody’s got it worse than the American Indians… I have seen a polar bear ride a fucken tricycle in my lifetime; I have never seen an Indian family just chillin’ out at Red Lobster.”

The Apollo didn’t land on him. Chris Rock landed on the Apollo!

Then there is a quirky, retrospective moment for us in 2014, as Rock (back then in 1999) reflects on how he is waiting for a new black leader to really move him, running through a short list of potentials: Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan… And we smartypantses in the future wishing we could call back through time and tell Rock, “Just wait 5 years for the Democratic National Convention and watch for a young black man named Barack Obama…

More classics: “Man’s needs: food, sex, silence; feed me, fuck me, shut the fuck up!”

“Men lie the most – Women tell the biggest lies… The visual lie: look at you: you got on heels – you ain’t that tall; you got on makeup – your face don’t look like dat; you got a weave – your hair ain’t that long; you got a wonder bra on – your titties ain’t that big! Everything about you is a lie and you expect me to tell the truth? Fuck YOU!”

Distilled honesty, raw exposition, simplifying the complicated, prosecuting the adjudicated, vindicating the prognosticated, Chris Rock, unintentionally or not, may just one day be that New Leader that moves us. And after all he’s given us, all the knowledge and insight and laughs, after opening our eyes to the pitfalls of hubris, the duplicity of society, the system built on fear, what does daddy get for all his work?

The big piece o’ chicken.

END

Fearless and Peerless.

A touch of Cosby, a sprinkle of Pryor – and a slam of Rock.

CHRIS ROCK: NEVER SCARED is the comedian’s fourth HBO Special, recorded in March 2004 at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. And I almost feel guilty making the inevitable comparisons to his predecessors. Because he’s better than both of them. Yeah, I said it.

Not the ‘next Pryor’ – the first Rock!

Chris Rock has matured. He is his own man. No more sideways association with supposedly greater men. Since his second HBO special, 1996’s BRING THE PAIN, he has worked through blood and bone to become a great man himself. His film career has still not scaled the heights of Eddie Murphy’s (whose standup movies and comedy albums in the mid-80s caused tectonic shifts in the comedy universe), but as a standup comic, he is untouchable.

Cosby had his family tales and his transcending of race and gender – the first white black comedian; Pryor brought the snarling street; Murphy brought simplistic funny anecdotes and impressions of Pryor and Cosby – and Chris Rock brings the pain. His sociological, deep-cutting, observational humor can best be described as “the black George Carlin.”

And his onstage presence is magnetic, a prowling jungle cat, still opting for a corded microphone (which he drops intentionally callously or slams to the ground at the end of every set – a rugged move!); his delivery a two-fisted attack, biting off every phrase like raw meat, hitting those hard consonants from his diaphragm (someone described it as “chiseled”); a little emphasis here, a lazy ghetto phrase there, voice rising and falling in frustration, anger, amusement of mankind’s foibles.

Written and executive-produced by Rock, he opens the show talking about his daughter. Now usually when a comedian starts in on pets or kids, it’s a death knell for the bit, but Rock goes in a direction that doesn’t bore us with cute idiosyncrasies that only a parent could love – he speaks of his daughter in relation to his role in her life: “My only job – is to keep her off the pole!” Which leads to strippers, and pondering how “clear heels” became their fashion statement of choice… And into the wild black yonder we go!

Relationships, affirmative action, gay marriage, President Bush, his lean on political issues (“Crime, I’m conservative; prostitution – I’m liberal!”), indefensible rap music lyrics (“Slap her with a dick, slap her with a dick, slap her with a dick!–“), Michael Jackson’s child molestation charges (“Remember there was that argument over who’s better – Michael Jackson or Prince? Prince won!”), the difference between rich and wealthy (“Shaq is rich. The white man who signs his check is wealthy!”); the war on drugs (“They say drugs are illegal for your safety. But they don’t give a fuck about your safety: They sell guns at Wal-mart! They don’t give a fuck about you.”); and of course, the ubiquitous takes on racism woven into almost every bit.

Of course, trying to convey one-liners out of context is akin to Eddie Murphy’s caveat that foreign audiences’ only take from his shows are the swear words (“Hello Eddiieee! Mr. Fuck-You Man!”). Rock’s act is also liberally sprinkled with all Carlin’s Seven Dirty Words and more, the mitigating factor being that he’s got his finger on the sociological pulse of a generation, and any prophet must necessarily speak in the parlance of that generation.

There are many good and great black standups (Martin Lawrence, Kevin Hart, Dave Chappelle, et al), but let’s just ‘fess up and say out loud that there is only one contender to be the new Richard Pryor.

Nay, the one and only – Chris Rock.

END

Groan Ups.

This movie should be spanked on its botty and sent to bed with no supper.

Written by Adam Sandler and longtime collaborator Fred Wolf, directed by longtime Sandler director, Dennis Dugan, GROWN UPS stars Sandler, Chris Rock, Kevin James, David Spade and tiresome tool Rob Schneider. Now I ask you: with the wealth of filmmaking experience in the room, why is this movie about as smart as a 12-year-old boy?

Five friends reunite for the funeral of their school coach and spend the weekend trying to be funny; between the ad-libs and the unfunny script, nostalgia is a bitch.

GROWN UPS has but one “moment” – that magical point in even some of the worst films where story, acting and emotion all comes together and bites us on the humanity bone: before taking a winning shot in the climactic basketball game, Lenny (Sandler) takes a look at his childhood rival, Dickie (Colin Quinn) and at Dickie’s trailer trash wife; in a slow motion moment, Lenny sees how desperately Dickie wants to win this meaningless game and assesses in that split-second how Dickie’s life might have turned out differently had he won a pivotal game against Lenny as a child. It’s a touching moment, as Lenny realizes how Dickie’s life was stuck on the low road, while Lenny went on to a successful career and a hot wife (Salma Hayek). Lenny decides to throw the game, to let Dickie “feel what it was like to win for a change.”

This moment would have read more emotionally had the movie been made by someone who understood movie structure. The miniscule foreshadowing of this moment was shunted aside by pee jokes, tit jokes, boring family activities and Kevin James substituting fatman-dancing for comedy.

Maria Bello plays Kevin James’s wife and is the absolute hottest thing on four decades. Even though 20-year-olds try to monopolize the perve angles (especially plastic blond Madison Riley), pretending to show off their bodies like they enjoy sex or something, you know that Bello is the Real Deal who would never object to a postman ringing twice with a manly back door delivery.

On that same tack, my, but that Maya Rudolph is one ugly woman! She plays Chris Rock’s wife, and she may be a wonderful person, a talented comedienne and more financially successful than I am, but GOD DYAM if she doesn’t have a face to sink an oil tanker. I’m just putting it out there, for all those people who are thinking it but too pc to say it. And she’s pregnant! Who was the half-blind guy who tripped over in the dark and accidentally spat DNA into that swamp thing? Eurph!

The only gag in GROWN UPS that actually works is the scene where the five friends watch Madison Riley bend over her car engine in short shorts, all agreeing that they shouldn’t be staring together, but taking shifts: the tree, the house, the lake, her ass – until they all end up staring at the tree together, no one on ass duty.

Then again – considering how many of them make rumps of themselves, they’re ALL on ass duty.

END