politic1983 Now, here are two films I remember watching many moons ago, and for some strange reason was compelled to watch again. Of both, I remember slightly unusual techniques and styles, feeling more like home movies than big-budget films. But, neither is particularly big-budget; both controversial in their own way and quite experimental, designed to create emotion more than they are to entertain. Both, therefore, are not great films, but interesting ones nonetheless, perhaps not fully getting their ideas across, but based on good ideas.Starting with 'Slam', we see young Raymond Joshua living in D.C., working as a small-time drug dealer, occasionally writing the odd verse of poetry. Caught in a gang-land shooting, he sees himself arrested and trapped with the choice of going to prison or going to prison on a drug possession charge. Angered and frustrated, he again finds himself trapped in the middle of a gang dispute in prison resulting in him letting out his grievances in the form of poetry in the prison yard.If you like, 'Slam' is a musical; not so much a film, but a vehicle to showcase the talents of the cast as poets and emcees. Much of the cast are poets and/or rappers appearing in a debut acting role, or one of their few and had a big hand in the writing. Saul Williams plays the lead role, with Sonja Sohn, Bonz Malone and Beau Sia taking up supporting roles, among others. The acting and story, therefore, are never fully polished, with writer/director Mark Levin known more for his documentaries than feature films.The story moves on a little too quickly in parts and character motivation is not always fully explored, beyond William's character. But with the low-budget feel, this has that trapped-in-time quality, feeling isolated from the rest of the world. There is nothing Earth-shattering here, but some interesting social comment and, at times, powerful performances.Spike Lee's 'Bamboozled' is a satire of modern television and what those watching the 'idiot box' have come to expect on the small screen. Damon Wayans plays Pierre Delacroix, a sit-com writer criticised by a 'more black than black people' network executive for writing shows that are 'too white,' featuring 'white people with black faces.' Pushed to deny the existence of a middle-class African-American, Delacroix works to create a show so 'black' as to shock America into realising the stereotypes that are portrayed on every day television. Ticking-off every racial stereotype imaginable, he creates 'Mantan: The New Millennium Minstrel Show'. Amazingly, the show is a success, working only to further stereotypes rather than destroy them; leaving Delacroix viewed as a sell-out. Success and fame are predictably the downfall of those involved resulting in tragedy.'Bamboozled' is an interesting film for Lee to have made at the time; rising in his career and choosing to make a film that is quite low on a number of things. To start, the cast is low on out-and-out actors – and you can include Damon Wayans and Jada Pinkett-Smith within that – using rappers and comedians in many roles. It is also a film low on any nice Hollywood gloss and sheen – an effect probably desired considering the subject matter. The one thing it is high on is camera numbers, using numerous handhelds to take shots from various angles, such as audience reactions to a new breed of minstrel show. This creates a claustrophobic and documentary-like feel to the film.But being a satire, the film is more about the point it is trying to make; the use of footage from old television and film portrayals of African-Americans throughout and montaged at the end highlighting this. References are made to various moments where art and politics have collided, as well as using real-life figures vocal in such areas.But ultimately, 'Bamboozled' ends up a little messy in final execution. The lack of any real acting talent leaves performances a little wooden, as well as the characters they portray a little too extreme, notably the Mau Mau, led by Mos Def, who feel a little unrealistic despite Mos Def's usually charismatic on screen performances. A little too much can be rammed down your throat at times, with all imagery and dialogue geared towards one thing.Neither 'Slam' nor 'Bamboozled' will ever be regarded as great films, nor will they probably be remembered by many. But both are interesting examples of more creative film-making. Big budget effects, state-of-the- art camera-work and even actors are not required, as long as the film is based on a strong idea and purpose. They are portrayals of writers, trapped in different situations as they struggle to overcome stereotypes, relying on the talents of their non-acting casts. Well- executed at times or not, both still offer more than the endless big budget sequels and re-makes that make-up the majority of box office takings.politic1983.blogspot.com

Ian Ford The film itself, like the show it portrays, is a satire. This is an important point that the below reviewer seemed to miss.One should understand that many characters (socialist rappers, Harvard sell-out, white dudes dying to be black) are themselves caricatures and stereotypes. The reason why, for example, Wayans' acting is so forced and corny is because Spike seeks to mock the idea of someone who overhauls his personality to fit in with the "mainstream" (or whatever) world. He overacts because he plays a character who is himself acting. From a comic standpoint, these characters succeed. Which, again, is a satiric device.Excellent soundtrack.

OutsideHollywoodLand Faizon Love in Dinner for Five, July-'02 (On Spike Lee interjecting himself into his own pictures) "...don't do that, it looks stupid, don't cast yourself...the weakest thing can be the biggest blemish." I beg to disagree with actor Faizon Love (of "Friday" fame), the biggest blemish of a Spike Lee film is it's self-righteous preachy endings.Don't get me wrong — as an American white woman, I've wallowed in buckets of liberal guilt for the past U. S. genocidal policies. But Mr. Lee does not make films for marginally enlightened white folks.And while almost all of Hollywood's directors offer up a sanitized view of the process of racism, director Spike Lee does not. I can always count on Lee to "tell it like it is", and nowhere is this more evident than in his latest cinematic effort, Bamboozled.The key word is effort, because Lee is prone to hit us over the head with his point — again and again and again. It's as though he doubts that white America is smart enough to get his message and concerned that black America may have forgotten it while climbing up the assimilation ladder.And while I may squirm at his intellectual contempt for the audience, and be irritated that he plays his usual double standard, where EVERY white character as a racist stereotype), I'm drawn to the single - minded courage of his view.Bamboozled grits and grates on every nerve and then does a deft tap-dance on our last one---stretching it for all it's worth. For everyone in this movie becomes a giant-sized stereotype. And it leaves this viewer hoping he did this on purpose, but knowing its just the same old lack of self-control.And yes — we got the point, Mr. Lee — no thanks to your sledgehammer method of directing, that blacks who play roles to serve a racist stereotype are "the enemy" and deserve only death.I've seen almost every film that Spike Lee has created --- The Girl's Gotta Have It, Malcolm X, Girl 6, Do The Right Thing, Jungle Fever, etc. Each movie resonates with Lee's caustic and uncompromising world view — and there's nothing wrong with this — every great director keeps making the same movie of their limited viewpoint. Yet Lee is young enough for me to wish that he can cast off the S.O.S. — Same Old Stereotype - and create something truly original.In a way, Faizon Love is right on target — for while Spike Lee is an Oscar-caliber director, with piercing insight and uncommon talent, he still lacks any objectivity to truly "direct" that vision to it's desired end.For rather than just making a point that's obvious to all, we'd rather see whats' beyond that one-dimensional image to embrace a more three-dimensional viewing experience. So while America has been Bamboozled by racist stereotyping, Lee is still playing to it.

MisterWhiplash To give credit where it's due, Spike Lee is a genuine article, someone who came out of NYU and became one of the most recognizable personalities in film-making. His voice is his own, and whether working for a studio or on more independent terms it's always a "Joint". Is this always a marker of him hitting it out of the park every time? Not really. As if he was Jean-Luc Godard among the black filmmaker's circle, when he's on fire he's surely hot, and when he's not it's f***ing horrifying to see him fail. Bamboozled is one of those latter times, and it's so flawed in so many ways that it's a wonder that some of the good ideas come through in the mid-section. It's the kind of movie where one may like it more for what it could have been rather than what it is.Bamboozled is meant to be, as Lee's character Delacroix (Damon Wayans) points out more than once both to the audience in dictionary definition and layman's terms, a satire. Thanks for the reminder, Spike! This is all well and good, but it's ultimately misguided and without a really solid comic viewpoint. In essence what Lee is after is a premise sort of out of Mel Brooks's the Producers; a creative guy down on his luck finds something to push that he thinks is so offensive and terrible that it won't run for very long, only to find that it becomes a surprise smash hit. Where Brooks had really funny and spot-on casting with Mostel and Wilder and characters to care about in their lunacy, Lee makes it a total mish-mash that is unnerving. And for every little moment, like the "ads" for the likes of Timmy Hill(n-word), there are a lot of satirical targets that just fall flat.But back to the casting for a moment: Damon Wayans, both his performance and his character of Delacroix, is a total disaster. Maybe Wayans has done some good work in the past (ironically, as it's mentioned in the film as a point of reference for black variety shows, in In Living Color), but he makes the character sound totally off-key, sounding like a nerd with a bad accent and with mannerisms that are just awful. Whether or not the blame is Wayans or Lee's writing and direction is a 50/50 split; others like Davidson and Glover fare a little better, and Jada Pinkett Smith arguably delivers the best non-unreal performance of the lot. And Mos Def basically hadn't really become an actor quite yet, so his turn here is mostly as a spoof (a flat one at that as a gangster rapper). And don't get me started on Michael Rappaport, ugh! Bamboozled goes up and down in its level of pretentiousness and ineptitude: for the first half an hour I wondered if I was really watching a movie by Spike "Do the Right Thing" Lee, as it's mostly shot in mini-DV camera style like some amateurs from a college film program in their first year. It doesn't even FEEL like any semblance of a real movie, save for some attempts at moving the plot forward (Rappaport's insistence on getting more "edgy" black images on TV to Delacroix, who responds with his brilliant put-on), until about forty-five minutes in. Then it starts to get slightly more interesting, though still problematic in filming style and performances (albeit I did enjoy, as filmed in 16mm, the Mantan sequences as a hyper-stylized set-piece, and the one scene with Delacroix and his stand-up comic father played by Paul Mooney).But as Lee's polemic grows more dire and more serious, and as the circumstances of Womack and Manray's disagreement about what they're doing leads to a somewhat predictable, horribly melodramatic and preachy finale, I was ready to chuck my diet coke at the screen. Yet I stuck through to the end, and realized something during the final five or so minutes as the cavalcade of images in montage went by of American TV and movie history of black stereotypes (including the infamous Birth of a Nation racism); had Lee done much of what he's presented in Bamboozled as a real documentary- which is just as much if not more-so history lesson than satire- then he might be on to something with a better grip on minstrel shows and media-stereotypes. Instead, as with She Hate Me (though in a way not as entertainingly in a bad-movie sort of way), Lee vomits up all of his ideas in a spastic narrative, and only a few of them stick out. When they do stick out, it's cool to watch. When they don't, it's tiresome, scatter-shot, and ultimately very faulty in execution. 4.5/10