 "Entertaining, thought provoking, controversial All In One - Amazing" | 2009-08-21 |
| - Reviewed By User: AV0VO7098CC1C |
| Spike Lee is a genius, and this work provides direct evidence. The cast gives outstanding performances, the musical score is right on key, the editing is exceptional. There is so much substance in this film that it is necessary to watch it multiple times and discuss its content with friends and family. This film is a grand contribution to progressing the dialogue and modern social consciousness about race, creative freedom, and media culture in America. |
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 "NOT a satire." | 2009-03-30 |
| - Reviewed By newmanmonster999 |
'Bamboozled' begins with a definition of the word "satire," which might lead audiences to think that that's what they're getting. Unfortunately, one of the key elements of satire is pretty much MIA here, and that would be humor. What we're left with isn't a SATIRE, but a SERMON. And not a particularly compelling one, alas.
The setup is fine, even promising. The principal cast is appealing or appalling as called for, and can't be faulted for anything but perhaps hoping that a difficult premise would come off in the execution, given Spike Lee's talent and reputation. (Some of the performances are VERY good - but the film seems to have nothing but contempt for the characters, so....) The failure isn't in the message. The anger is appropriate to the subject and the form. The problem is that Spike Lee just doesn't seem to have much in the way of a sense of humor, or a sense of tight storytelling (a perennial weakness). So what we get is a muddled, drawn out narrative that seeths bile, based on a premise that is so outrageous that it could ONLY have worked as satire - but isn't, and doesn't.
There are a few glimmers of what might have been. The early pitch meetings are ghastly funny enough to raise some legitimate hope. And there are a few fake ads that point in a direction that would have surely borne more fruit. But the meat of the story doesn't go anywhere really credible or interesting. As dumb as TV audiences are, I can't see them going for the minstrel show that we see on the screen - the material would probably be confusing to a contemporary audience at best. Now if the ignorant racism of a minstrel show had been spiked with the knowing racism of the kind of racist jokes people actually tell, the black performers giving the audience permission to laugh publicly at the kind of jokes we (I, anyway) only dare laugh at privately (and the nastier, the better, because the more you're not supposed to laugh the funnier they are), THEN we might be on to something at once valid, funny in a skin-crawling way, AND which implicates the audience. Anything, anyway, to make an audience responding week after week (or even once) to these moldy, obtuse sub-Amos 'n Andy routines more believable. The 'Ow, My Balls!' thing in 'Idiocracy' was funny because we could see audiences being reduced to that. Likewise the lowest-common-denominator pandering in 'Network.' Lee's minstrel show, as presented, doesn't even make sense no matter how far you try to go to meet it. Do (some) people laugh at racist humor? Yes. Would they laugh at THIS? Beyond the initial visual shock of blackface and watermelons, the material isn't crude or sophisticated enough to elicit much response beyond bewilderment, and ultimately, boredom (those routines go on and on) - even for the thickest and most insensitive audience, probably even for an overtly racist audience. Thus, we get to the central premise that the whole film rides upon, it fails (miserably) to sell, and the rest is pretty much an ill-tempered train wreck. Racism is certainly alive and well, we have a an army of contemporary stereotypes that fly under the radar, drawing a link between minstrel shows and MTV is a potent idea, there is plenty for this film to target, and it shouldn't be less than lacerating - so to see the ball fumbled so badly is mystifying.
Lee seems to hate his characters, and the final act is pretty much his opportunity to mete out contrived punishment for their sins. At least, that's what it felt like. Not that you'll care much by that time, because so much happens in the middle that only makes sense in terms of the film's political agenda that you'll have stopped relating to these characters as people, in spite of a talented cast's best efforts. And it's a shame, really, because some of those efforts deserved much better.
References to 'Network,' some of them ham-fistedly direct, don't help. When your movie isn't working, you don't really want to remind the audience of one that worked brilliantly. (Why remind an audience of other movies at all? Am I the only one who finds that lazy and way too common?) Apart from the obvious, it seems the only thing Lee really took away from 'Network' was the fire and brimstone (and he has cranked the bitterness up to 11). Certainly not the humor - nor the creepy plausibility that turned out to be chillingly prescient in the ensuing decades. (When Stepin Fetchit makes a huge comeback, let me know.) And the crackling narrative momentum is replaced here by a meandering scenario that gets less recognizable as relating to reality as it wends its way to a predetermined-by-the-author holocaust. The only impression I was left with is that perhaps Spike Lee personalizes things way too much to be a good match for the form he was going for here. That wouldn't necessarily be a deal-breaker in, say, a documentary that was up-front about its personalized point of view - which is the movie I actually wish I'd seen.
The satirical form can support anger - but leaving out the wit is like trying to make a souffle without eggs. You SHOULD be passionate about your subject, but to make a satire you also have to be capable of the kind of clinical emotional distance to laugh (however bitterly) at even (preferably) things you passionately hate - otherwise the hate can curdle into tedious, uninteresting preaching-to-the-choir that defeats the form. It's a tricky beast.
'Bamboozled' is strident and wounded and ineffective, and ultimately a more of a bore than anything else. But I didn't find it offensive enough to warrant only one star, mainly because it's a brave effort - and most movies that fail fail without ambition. That said, I didn't feel like my time had been well spent (although locating the points of breakdown has been moderately instructive), and I can't recommend it even for the curious. See it if you must, but you've been warned. |
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 "Wretched piece of work, Lee's worst film, and one of the worst films I've ever seen..." | 2009-02-06 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2UYAFQ40U2PHS |
| I saw this film in the theater when it came out, and sat in disgust and bewilderment at it. Recently, IFC showed it, and all those bad feelings came back. This is an awful film, possibly Spike Lee's worst "joint" (a stupid gimmick that he really should drop at this point), a real insult to people of ALL races. It's a ponderous, self important, heavy handed "satire" about corporate America, America itself, television, and the glorification of black stereotypes. It has awful performances, especially by Damon Wayans (who is a great comedic actor), who talks with an overblown, obvious fake accent. He's the TV network programmer who comes up with the idea of a modern day minstrel show for a programme. Michael Rappaport, another good actor, plays his boss, a clueless, cliched "ignorant white person who runs the corporation" here. In fact, most actors in this film are playing "types", not actual characters. The whole concept that the current day public would accept, a black TV programmer would propose, and a white executive would accept a minstrel show as a hit is preposterous. It's also deeply insulting to people of intelligence everywhere. Spike somehow thinks we're still in the days of D.W. Griffith, and blacks are being portrayed as ignorant and lazy, and all they want are watermelon and white women. This is so false. Now, one will argue that it's a satiric film, but it is not satiric. It is ugly, offensive to white and blacks, it is not funny, it's preachy. And the film itself looks awful. For some reason, Spike shot this on digital video, and it looks crummy, dark, and cheap. This is a really bad film from a filmmaker who has shown brilliance, but who also goes for cheap publicity (his recent dustup with Clint Eastwood is a great example of massive overreach), and makes some really misguided films. Bamboozled is an awful work, one of the worst films I've ever seen. |
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 "Painful, Powerful. A Spike Lee Classic." | 2008-05-17 |
| - Reviewed By mark_lee |
Angry, uneven, brilliant. . . This is not destined to be remembered as a great motion picture, but it sure is powerful. How do you even write about it? Spike Lee shoves everyone around, overturns tables, and leaves you to think about it all.
Pierre Delacroix (Damon Wayans) is a "negro" TV writer who is black enough to be upset about lack of representation of people of color in his business, but "white" enought to not understand fully the ramifications of what he does. His boss, Mr. Dunwitty (Michael Rappaport) is a white guy who thinks he's tuned into the black experience. Pierre decides, in protest, to revive an old time blackface minstrel show for modern television thinking that by sabatoging the TV programming he'll prove a point. The station goes for the idea. Pierre's conscience, personified by assistant Sloan Hopkins (Jada Pinkett Smith), protests.
And the public - enough of them at least - love the show.
What follows is a protracted (too long in my opinion), painful examination of historical racial stereotypes made modern. Savion Glover (the little kid from "Tap") and Tommy Davidson were so wonderful and sad as the minstrel show's blackfaced principals, "Mantan" and "Sleep 'n Eat." The first time the duo apply their blackface, it's revulsion toward the show itself. The second time, it's themselves they hate. Tommy's painful "it's showtime!" in the mirror to himself is a suffering for the sins of all people who would participate in such a spectacle.
For me, less would have been more with this film. Spike Lee disagrees and takes this show to the point that - in my opinion - the message gets muddied by excesses and moral high ground suffers in angry paroxysms, but it's his film and his anger.
But Lee is vindicated in the theme of the show and the general message that all of us can share in the racial difficulties in which we find ourselves and many of us are sheep. |
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| "Gotta gotta see this." | 2008-03-28 |
| - Reviewed By blueskytwo |
This is not your typical Spike Lee film, but perhaps his most important -- so important that the film is void of the director's ego for the most part. This film speaks about race issues in America, the unique issue of descendants of slavery fitting in to the culture that enslaved them, loving the hope that the country holds, yet not being given permission to hold residual pain and residual anger. It's a film about how the cultural norm creates and defines human beings who are other than the defining majority through objectification. It's a film about the stunning power of image and the media, especially when its creations are forwarded as politically neutral. Nothing I can write would be clearer than Lee's own words:
"The pain comes from looking at the images. How people of color in this case specifically African-Americans have been portrayed since the inception of film and also with radio with the Amos and Andy which was on film, radio, and television. Also we have to look at the way we portray black collectibles, when you see the dolls and the toothpaste and all the other things. You know, we're viewed as less than human, sub-human, and that stuff is painful. . . . There are certain things in this film where you want to laugh but at the same time you don't want to laugh because it's not funny. And it's . . . it's a very interesting phenomenon that happens in this film." --Spike Lee
"In doing the research [for the film] what hurt me was the depth that I saw. The hatred of us as a people. We saw the songs, when I see Bugs Bunny in blackface. I mean . . . I love Bugs Bunny. I had never seen him in blackface before. And Warner Brothers buried that, you know. And we wanted to include it in the film but they wouldn't let us. Bugs Bunny is an institution so they said hell no. But to see the depths to which America showed its hatred via radio, film, television, songs, Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben. You know, Niggerhead Cornflakes, whatever you want to . . . you know. It's just amazing." -- Spike Lee
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| "Spike Lee At His Best" | 2008-03-25 |
| - Reviewed By banksaftermath |
| Bamboozled has to be one of Lee's most shocking films yet.The plot about sterotyped minorities is shocking because it's true. Damon Wayans is great in his first dramatic role as are Tommy Davidson & Savion Glover. Spike Lee chose to shoot this film on digital camera and you get the feel of a real life news cast with Mr. Lee's cinematography .The film "Bamboozled" caught a lot of heat for it's portrayal of blackface (an issue that wasn't really talked about until the release of "Bamboozled") Writer Pierre Delacroix (Damon Wayans) sees his pitches for TV shows being rejected one after another. He is upset with his job and his boss Thomas Dunwitty (Mike Rappaport) He is under contract, he cannot quit because he will be sued. So he decides to get himself fired. He plans on reviving blackface and hopes that it'll be so controversial that CNS will be under fire and he'll get fired. He recruits two street performers Manray (Savion Glover) and Womack (Tommy Davidson) and pitches the show to his boss. The show gets green lighted, but unfortunately it becomes a big hit and destroys his whole plan. Spike got some heat for this (mainly because he criticized previous films for the way blacks are shown, then he made a film with blackface) But what people don't understand is that this is a satire. The images of rappers and "Timmi Hillnigger" are all poking fun at today's society. "Bamboozled" is clever and one of Spike's most explosive films next to "Do the Right Thing" and "Malcolm X". This film has Tommy Davidson performing in blackface, in a very funny routine. I wanted to laugh but at the same time it made me think. This sketch was making me laugh at every stereotype about my people that I hated. That was the smart thing about "Bamboozled", it caught you in the act of doing something and made you think. "Bamboozled" is a well thought, mentally challenging film that'll change your life |
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