I remembered hearing some fuss about this film some time ago when it was (briefly) in some theaters. So, I got sucked in an picked it up tonight on DVD.
Most of my feelings on this particular movie can be summed up by mentioning something that James Toback said during the 5 minute featurette on the disc. He seems to think his lack of direction and allowing for improv during the film's controversial opening sequence somehow makes him a great filmmaker.
And while he is right, you can't reasonably direct every move during a 3 way love scene in Central Park, but his lack of direction during the rest of the movie does, in my opinion, not work in its favor.
Clearly the script for Black & White was about ten pages long and this could help explain why it makes no sense whatsoever and says absolutly nothing, other than the fact that it's really easy to exploit racial stereotypes and degrade women.
This movie doesn't know if it is a documentary on black and white interaction or a murder mystery and seeming as how it is billed as a movie that takes on the issue of white kids trying to act "black" then it might have been better to spend a little more time dealing with that as a serious subject.
There are a lot of interesting ideas presented here, but the format, bad acting, and lack of function detract from the pursuit of them all. Instead of making a movie about a documentary perhaps Toback just should have seriously made the documentary. Now that would have been some interesting entertainment.
Most of my feelings on this particular movie can be summed up by mentioning something that James Toback said during the 5 minute featurette on the disc. He seems to think his lack of direction and allowing for improv during the film's controversial opening sequence somehow makes him a great filmmaker.
And while he is right, you can't reasonably direct every move during a 3 way love scene in Central Park, but his lack of direction during the rest of the movie does, in my opinion, not work in its favor.
Clearly the script for Black & White was about ten pages long and this could help explain why it makes no sense whatsoever and says absolutly nothing, other than the fact that it's really easy to exploit racial stereotypes and degrade women.
This movie doesn't know if it is a documentary on black and white interaction or a murder mystery and seeming as how it is billed as a movie that takes on the issue of white kids trying to act "black" then it might have been better to spend a little more time dealing with that as a serious subject.
There are a lot of interesting ideas presented here, but the format, bad acting, and lack of function detract from the pursuit of them all. Instead of making a movie about a documentary perhaps Toback just should have seriously made the documentary. Now that would have been some interesting entertainment.