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Hollywood Shuffle 
Actors : Gregory 'Popeye' Alexander, Sena Ayn Black, Conni Marie Brazelton, Sarah Kaite Coughlan, Starletta DuPois
Studio : MGM (Video & DVD)
by MGM (Video & DVD)
Brand : TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
Release Date : 2001-07-24
Publisher : MGM (Video & DVD)
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9780792850311
UPC : 027616864420
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 38 reviews)
List Price : $14.98
Our Price : $2.95
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Product Description |
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The best example of urban guerilla filmmaking is ironically and happily also one of Hollywood's most triumphant success stories. Actor Robert Townsend (I'm Gonna Git You Sucka!) decrying the lack of good roles for black actors puts his money where his mouth is and co-scripts (with Keenen Ivory Wayans) directs and stars in this "exuberant tirelessly energetic funny appealingly mean-spirited and easy-to-like" comedy (Janet Maslin The New York Times) that took Tinseltown by storm!Actor wannabe Bobby Taylor (Townsend) dreams of landing a role any role. But in a town where the best black roles are usually jive-talkin' gangsta stereotypes Bobby learns that you have to make your own parts even if they're just in your head. Spoofing everything from Michael Jackson's "Thriller" and Eddie Murphy to Siskel & Ebert Bobby's vivid imagination and Hollywood Shuffle are "an exhilarating blast" (New York)!System Requirements:Running Time: 81 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: R UPC: 027616864420 Manufacturer No: 1002211 |
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Americancivilwar.com |
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The alumni of Hollywood Shuffle are spread across dozens of current comedies and TV sitcoms--this is the movie that introduced Robert Townsend and the Wayans Brothers to the world. Townsend plays a young actor who struggles with being offered stereotyped street hustler roles while trying to maintain his self-respect and the approval of his family. Between scenes of comically humiliating auditions, Bobby has satirical fantasies about the plight of black actors, including the classic "Black Acting School" sketch, in which white teachers demonstrate jive talk and street moves for the befuddled black students. Townsend has a charming, low-key comic style, one considerably more subtle than that of some of the black comics who have risen to success with supposedly self-aware renditions of the stereotypes Townsend mocks. Townsend made this movie on his credit cards and it is clearly a heartfelt labor of love. --Bret Fetzer |
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Winky Dinky Delicious! |
lt could've used more Eddie Murphy type humor. You'll be BATTY BATTY BATTY over this tounge in cheek expose of despite leaps and bounds that Afro-Americans have made in ''the biz'', from their point of view, Townsend explains that they've gone from point A to point A.OOOO1 and point B still seems light years away.
Sit back and relax with a plate full of ho-cakes. |
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Boyfriend loved it, I thought it was ok |
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I brought this as a gift for my boyfriend. He loves it and qoutes it all the time. It's a classic. |
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Get lost in this shuffle |
Hollywood Shuffle is one of the best black comedies of all-time. It served as a big f--- you to Hollywood for its sickening portrayal of black people. Robert Townsend used comedy for a great purpose(to convey a truth) and it worked out splendidly.
Premise: Bobby(played by Robert Townsend) has dreams of making it big in Hollywood. He works for a crummy hot dog stand called Rinky-Dinky Dog(no, really) with idiotic co-workers as well as an idiotic boss. The only problem Bobby faces is the negative roles that Follywood tends to offer black people. He soon has to make a decision if he wants to go with the BS roles of the movie industry or to go a different route.
Opinion: This movie hits the nail on the head with the types of roles that Follywood has destined for us to play. Its funny as well as sharp in its delivery. The Black Acting School skit has to be the funniest sketch in the movie. The black detective is the second funniest thing. Sure most people might say that the acting is over-the-top but these actors who play in the types of movies that Hollywood Shuffle parodies are always over the top with their performance so what are you talking about? I respect Hollywood Shuffle for using humor to address a serious subject instead of stooping to the brainless comic dung that you get from these Chittlin Circuit movies that are produced nowadays. And the sad thing is that people are trouncing gems like Hollywood Shuffle while embracing minstrel rubbish like Soul Plane, Norbit, Code Name: The Cleaner, Juwanna Mann etc. A sad state of affairs. In closing I would say support comedies like Hollywood Shuffle any chance you get. They're the only bright light you get in the dark tunnel of comedy in Hollywood. |
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lessons learned in a comical style |
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Simply hilarious! Enough said. Well, not quite enough. Very tasteful too (somewhat). Ok, just watch it :-) |
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A head-on collision between blaxploitation and indie-film... in the best way |
by dane youssef
Movies in general are so formulaic that even most independent films are pretty routine and by-the-numbers.
Maybe that's why "Hollywood Shuffle" feels so refreshing, like a much-needed change of pace. Most indies are made almost entirely by hand---one man writing, directing, and of course, producing (hey, they need every single spare little red cent they can get their grubby little hands on) and this one is no exception.
Townsend wears all the indie hats here... and he wears them proudly... and well.
This is the film that introduced the world to Robert Townsend. Well, that was it's whole purpose. Like Ed Burns' "The Brother McMullen," this star-vehicle was written and directed by Townsend about his dream to make it as a professional actor, trying to break into Hollywood, while at the same time, trying to over-come the cruel limitations mainstream Hollywood has set up for black people who want to act... and actors, in general.
Whereas the '70's was the birth decade of the blaxploitation, so many of them were just cheap, cheesy, corny knock-offs of popular white films. Blaxploitation got more blacks into films, but the films themselves weren't really about anything. "Hollywood Shuffle" is a Blaxploitation film that really has something to say... that has an agenda.
There is so much burning talent, so many struggling entertainers wanting to make something of themselves, that Hollywood can afford to treat the auditioning talent the same way a really strong cleanser treats germs.
Townsend's efforts to make this movie are inspiring--he borrowed every dollar he could, asked for movie footage that was left on the cutting-room floor, called in every favor he could, threw everything he had and more to get this one made.
To tell his story, get his foot in the door... and at the same time, tell a story about what this kind of life is like. For those with talent who dare to dream big.
The great Keenan Ivory Wayans (who co-wrote this one) and John Witherspoon have bit players as people who work at the local hog stand in the neighborhood who don't ask for much out of life... and don't get it. They're the kind of cynics who spend their lives saying, "You're a fool for following your dreams."
When you near the end of your journey in this world, you really fully understand the meaning of the old phrase, "Nothing ventured, nothing gained."
Townsend interlocks a variety of skits with this all-too autobiographical tale that are in the vein of blaxploitation--"Superman," "Rambo," "Siskel & Ebert" and a commercial for Black Actors who want steady work.
All of which are pretty funny and inspiring. You have to admire the way that Townsend wants to put out some legitimate roles for black actors to play and black actors to idolize. But most of his skits go on too long after the point has been made and there are quite a few moments that feel like someone (Townsend obviously) should have punched up. Townsend is a far better actor than he is a writer or director.
Perhaps because he is only a filmmaker by necessity for this one. He's more interested in using this to make up of all those dream roles he never got to play and showing his chops as an actor than really making a great movie.
There's a scene where he makes fun of "Siskel & Ebert"--before everyone started doing it.
Almost all the skits (where Townsend is fantasizing his dream roles as an actor) go on way too long, probably because Townsend is far less concerned with how funny the skits/movie is and more interested in using this movie to play all the dream roles he never got to before.
Every single actor is perfectly cast, especially Townsend himself. It's great to see
The movie captures the struggle of the out-of-work actor just right. We see lines and lines of actors warming-up, rehearsing their roles, going into the audition... all to hear, "Thank you, no. Next!" But some blessed, precious few are picked.
But those that are black are given racially-biased drivel to perform. Ethnic caricatures that shame and set back their race. Brothers and sisters who talk like stock characters frm the slave era, wearing redneck farm clothes, picking cotton, eating chicken and getting stinking drunk. Townsend tirades many black archetypes, most of which went out of style around the same time as blackface. Lil' Bobby obviously wants to say something about the way the brothers and sisters are treated in the biz.
There are some moments here you'll roar with laughter at. As well as moments that'll actually put a lump in your throat and a strange feeling of hope and pride. And there's another bit that spoofs the well-worn private eye genre, where the dick is after a killer Jeri Curl.
Like many other breakthrough films, especially independents, "Hollywood Shuffle" was another arrival of a fresh new talent. It happens as often as the rise and setting of the suns, but here is a film where it feels a little more special... because Townsend was really about something. You can see it here, not only in some of his satirist scenes, but some of the quieter moments where real drama in brewing and dreams are at stake.
We see where Townsend is asking himself if he's good enough, if he face the whole world (which is how it is when you're struggling to make it as an entertainer... or in life) and when life-long happiness is at stake. It almost hurts. And at the end of it all, when we wonder for Townsend's character, Bobby's sake... what will become of him? And then we realize we already know. We just found out.
It's like looking in the sky at the stars like you always do... and then there's a brand-new star shining in the night sky, standing out just a little bit bigger than the others. Haven't seen that one before. Hey, is that a new one? Couldn't be, could it? I don't remember... there are so many. Another star is born.
Or made.
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