Filmic Friday 246: Dolemite Is My Name

In Which I Learn Some Black History

You may have guessed it by now, but I'm from an area that is... lacking in racial diversity. I had maybe three black classmates growing up. You may also be able to infer from that that I am quite lacking in exposure to black culture, which is true. My first exposure to Blaxploitation was Shaft, which I'm told is a pretty good jumping off point, but let's be honest, most Blaxploitation movies that got famous were probably commissioned by white people. Kinda like Porgy and Bess is a black opera mostly created by a white guy (George Gershwin). And most Jazz and Blues these days seems to be proliferated by a bunch of burnt-out white people with boozy voices :| We may have a Blues Festival locally that drives me nuts every year.

So yeah, I haven't been that exposed to black cinema before now. I mean, I saw GET OUT, and it was brilliant, but! GET OUT was made by a famous black person and mainstreamed in the 21st Century. What about the movies made by renegade filmmakers in the 1970s?

What about the most famous filmmaker?

What about Rudy Ray Moore?

Ah, you may ask, if you're as white as me, but who was Rudy Ray Moore?

Well, I'll just let Eddie Murphy and Netflix tell you:

The blackest movie I'd ever seen,
it blew my white mind from the small tv screen!

If you've ever wondered where rhyming rap came from, it's attributed to Dolemite/Rudy Ray Moore.

Rudy Ray Moore was a man who brute-forced his way to success. That's not to say he wasn't talented! As a singer, he was good. As a comedian, he was hilarious. As an actor... well... there's where things got complicated, because unless he was telling his ridiculously blue stories live on stage, Rudy Ray Moore had a hard time being in character, as evidenced by my viewing of the actual Dolemite movie referenced in the Netflix/Eddie Murphy coproduction of Dolemite Is My Name.

But he was, as he said, a BAD mother.... uh... oh yeah, I don't curse on here.
This is going to be harder than I thought.
...
Rudy Ray Moore was dapper as heck.

Equal parts biopic and comedy, Dolemite Is My Name is a love letter to Rudy Ray Moore and his renegade Black movies. Rudy knew what the people wanted to see (sex, violence, themselves on a screen), and he knew what he wanted to make (a movie where he was the king of all things), but he lacked... well... funding. And knowledge of how to actually go about making a movie. Thankfully, the movie explains how this guy went from selling records from the trunk of his aunt's car (I'm willing to bet it wasn't his car, at least not at first) to selling out theaters across the country, because I'm honestly in awe of him and couldn't do it justice.

This guy was essentially the Old School YouTube of his day.

He was the Angry Video Game Nerd before Video Games and Nerds.

He was a king of social commentary making his presence known through whatever means he had available.

He was 100% unmarketable towards white conservatives.

And he was, most importantly, 100% uncensored and NOT FOR CHILDREN (though, like with all things adult, children found and loved Rudy Ray Moore's comedy albums, lol).

This movie tells the story of Rudy's slow rise from forgotten singer to memorable comedian (including him buying - not stealing, but buying - jokes from homeless guys) to unforgettable filmmaker, and it has one of the most incredible casts I've ever seen in a movie.

Look at these outrageous, amazing, fantastic people!
My only regret is that I don't think I see the most spot-on casting decision in this movie represented here...

I loved this movie. I loved every moment of every scene, and it did not feel like I'd just sat through nearly two hours of film. It felt like forty minutes. If there are cut scenes, they'll probably still be awesome. It really feels like the movie was a labor of love.

It also feels like we, sadly, missed two very important opportunities.

First: D'Urville Martin is played by Wesley Snipes who, if I recall right, was Moore's first choice to play Moore himself in a biopic. This is sad, but! I love Snipes as a frustrated auteur who... then went on to make a Dolemite ripoff when Dolemite took off despite his certainty that it would flop from incompetence.  Snipes is incredible.

Second: It feels like Eddie made this movie with the idea that his brother, the infamous and incredible Charlie Murphy, would play the lead. It's hard not to choke up seeing the In Memoriam card at the end. Charlie would have made an insanely good Rudy Ray Moore, and it breaks my heart that we never got to see that. I'm sure it breaks Eddie's heart too. That sucks.

But Eddie is still insanely good as Rudy Ray Moore. He actually brings way, way more life to the role in the filming scenes, because Rudy was maybe not the best actor, but when Eddie is on, he's 100% on, and he's positively electric here. It gives me hope that we're going to get an Eddie Murphy Renaissance over the next five to ten years :)

Now, if you're like me, and relatively sheltered (most black music was forbidden to me on the grounds that my mother didn't like it - no jazz, no rap, no R&B, no hip hop... and now I love them all), this movie may come as somewhat of a culture shock at first. Sit tight. Let the movie move you. Let yourself acclimate. Even start it over a couple of times if you don't understand at first what you're hearing. This is one time where I'll actively advocate against subtitles for those not hearing impaired, because the movie is so intensely visual and the audio is extremely important as well. You need to see. You need to hear. If you can do both at once, you begin to understand, and that is so important.

Watching this movie gave me a suddenly ravenous appetite for black cinema. From Blaxploitation to the Lincoln Motion Picture Co catalog of Noble Johnson (look him up - he played the Nubian in the 1932 Mummy and was pals with Lon Cheney Jr!), I want it all. I want Blacula, The Human Tornado, and The Realization of a Negro's Ambition. I want the good, the bad, and the ugly of it all.

And I want more Snoop Dogg as a DJ making fun of Rudy Ray Moore.

Seriously, him playing Roj is frickin hilarious!

As a final note, if you're wondering what I was talking about with "impeccable casting"...

Here on the left is the real Jerry Jones, writer and actor on the original Dolemite

And here is Keegan-Michael Key as Jerry Jones in Dolemite Is My Name

So with that, I demand you go watch this movie at least once, preferably twice!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC