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Black & White

Black & White

List Price: $24.95
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: James Toback view of kids in America
Review: I had long been waiting to see "Black and White," and when I finally did, I was torn between whether I liked it or not. It's hard for me to judge it because I had been waiting so long to see it. As the film opened, I thought that James Toback did an excellent job with the camera work, as well as the pen. He clearly showed the viewers the "differences" between the two races and how they try to intertwine. His use of witty vocabulary and camera techniques made his films deserve three stars, but the way he chose to proceed with the story and develop his ideas could have been done in a different way. As the film ended, I was wondering if this is how James Toback really sees the world, or if is just one of his fantasies. Worth watching on DVD for the deleated (and entertaining) scenes.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Two Faces
Review: I have watched this DVD several times, and that ususally means it is one of my favorites, a five star performance. In this case, however, because of the director's inability to create cohesion between his two visions of how to tell this story (these stories) I give the film only four stars.First of all, there are the films many strengths: the hip-hop world has never been better and more honestly and more non-judgmentally portrayed; Mike Tyson, Downey JR., Houston, Phillips, and Schiffer give great performances; Much is learned about the connection between affluent white kids and hip-hop culture. Deep stuff.The big problem with the movie is that it would have worked as a documentary style film, or it would have worked as a plotted detective story. When these two ideas come together, however, the gritty reality of the hip-hop world does not mesh with the necessarily artificial plot contrivances of the detective story (even though it is a pretty good detective story).

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: interesting but...
Review: I head about it, and I just saw it. For anyone who hasn't senn this, my recommedation is to just rent one to watch, with no need to to own one. It is very interesting to see how the director mixed real and scripted plots or things together to make such a film, which in a way is pretty raw and unpolished. Also, amateur and professional actors are mingled together, which makes the stories sometimes like a documentary and sometimes not. Some acting was fantastic or hilarious, like the scene Downey with Tyson, and the scene Downey leaving Sheilds, and the blackmail detective (Stiller) scenes. I would give those actings 5 star, but for the whole film, only 2 star. It is an interesting film, which shows a lot of interesting parts and yet doesn't really seem to form an integrated film. Again, Robert Downey Jr. showed in this movie his versatile acting capacity, and played his charactor just so real, and I do wish next time, he plays a non-gay charactor in a movie for a change.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: anti-white, especaily male
Review: i just saw Black and White and i must say it s the most anti-white film ever made. the white youth in film are totaly cut off and ashamed of their European culture.if you see the movie most of the time the white men are gay,weak and passed over for blacks or dangreous plotters.at the end one girl looks in the mirror and say "im f--ked up". id say so. many like her being trendy and messing with black men only show how spirtually sick and alienated from their people they are.movies like this the trendy airheaded whites who see it only devalue themselves.all in all its the best pro-miscegination,golbal mono-culture propaganda film made in recent times. the underlying theme having a basis that black males are morally and culturally better. and i think every day life shows otherwise. p.s. if amazon is for free speech theyll put this up. if not. then some thoughts are now crimes.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Black and White and hard to watch
Review: I like a few of the actors from other movies, and had heard Ebert's positive review (especially about Robert Downey Jr, & Mike Tyson's part) so I decided to watch Black and White.

This movie now sits in the bottom of the barrel of bad movies I've seen, next to Armageddon, Lost and Delirious, and a few others.

I've never seen Brooke Shields look worse - dreadlocks and a nose-ring...I understand it is not a movie about her or her looks, but still, her dialogue ("Let us share your life!" or whatever - I'm trying to forget the movie) was just weak. Also, for some reason, that tiny camera she carried did not convince me of her documentarian prowess...

Robert Downey Jr was kind of interesting as Brooke's gay husband, and his brief scene with Mike Tyson was kind of funny, but that did not make up for the rest of the movie.

Claudia Shiffer was pretty good, although her character ...., as did all the others.

I had no interest in the characters or the lifestyle that was portrayed.

The commentray by James Toback was just as hard to listen to as the movie was to watch. He seemed to be on tranquilizers, mumbled frequently, and thinks himself great.

1 star, only for Robert Downey Jr & Mike Tyson. Can you decipher my vernacular?

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: What were they all thinking?
Review: I read that this movie was supposed to be completely adlibed. Kinda makes you think that most of the people on here really do need a script to get through a movie. I'm not a big fan of rap, and I had thought this movie was going to be something different than what it was. I think that about half-way through it I ended up fast forwarding it with just subtitles on to see the dialogue, which wasn't really saying much anyway. And the credits, I was rather lost. Elijah Wodd's character with Brooke Shields. That's an odd mix no matter what way you look at it. This movie is so overly clique and rather insulting to the black community that it shouldn't have even been released.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: 5 movies in 1.
Review: I really didn't enjoy watching this movie, the movie started out with some very vulgar scenes to begin with. This movie had a lot of celebrities starring in it but I wouldn't be involved if they paid me. There was almost 5 different stories in 1 movie, the plot was very hard to understand and I thought the story was very poorly written. I do not recommend this movie.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: One Star
Review: If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it all.

Therefore, I will not say anything about this movie.

I do not recommend it.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Black and White and a Mess in Color
Review: It is certainly possible that a good, insightful film could be made about the phenomenon known as "wiggers," but this isn't it. This movie is bad in so many ways that it's hard to know where to start. "Black and White" looks more like a mediocre film school project than a professional Hollywood production. The plot and acting are both abysmal. The actors state their points rather than demonstrate them by their actions. One wonders what favors the cast, which includes Robert Downey, Jr., Brooke Shields, and Ben Stiller, must have owed the director to appear in this sorry mess. Characters are uniformly cardboard on both sides of the racial divide, with almost no one with whom the audience can care about. Whites are portrayed as either decadent or corrupt, blacks as either stupid or criminal thugs. Stiller's character is the most unbelievable, a former sports bookie now an undercover cop. It is indicative of just how bad this movie is that Mike Tyson is possibly the only sympathetic character in the whole film (and only because he's forced to play himself here). That this movie bombed so badly at the box office is a testament to the taste of the film-going public being better than that of the numerous critics who have praised it. Although it was undoubtedly not Toback's intention, the depiction of both races - the black rappers and their white wannabe hangers-on -- in "Black and White" is so uniformly unfavorable that it could serve as a recruiting film for the Ku Klux Klan.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Strangely hostile but not to be missed
Review: It may be uneven, but this is the kind of challenging film that you nearly never see. Challenging in an almost hostile manner, it's an examination of race at the street level. White kids trying to be black, rappers trying to make sense of it, black girlfriends jealous of white lovers. I was fascinated and repulsed, and that's rare.


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