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All right, Wesley Morris is here, Vayne Lathan is here. We're going to talk about coming to America that has a sequel coming out pretty soon, which has made this movie relevant again. It came out in 1988. Let me start here.
I bought all these premiere magazines from basically the first issue in 1987 all the way through 1992. I went into the collection because I was like, oh, I can't wait to see what they wrote about coming to America. It's June 88. Be really interesting.
I wonder what the piece is. I wonder if there's some little factoids. Nothing. Nothing.
Yeah, nothing. Any issue, no piece, no anything. This one turned out to be one of the biggest movies of 1988. It got me thinking because I just know this movie because I love it and it's Eddie and Eddie's my guy and I've seen it a million times.
It's a way more ahead of its time movie than I think I realized even in the moment with the All Black Cast and just what it was trying to do in 1988. So, Wesley, when you look at this in the big picture of stuff, where does this rank for you for the All Black Cast, All Black Film stuff they were trying to do that was really ahead of its time? Well, let's think about this for a second, though. I mean, first of all, I cannot believe this movie was made in some ways because of how anomalous it was given what else was happening in 1988.
It is the second biggest movie of that year, but it's also the same year as Good Morning Vietnam and Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Big and Crocodile Dundee Two and Three- Cocktail. There are no Black people in the movies in 1988. Alfred Woodard and Scrooge is maybe the best you're going to do and, you know, Reginald Vail Johnson in Dye Park, but that's not a hit. So it is interesting to see that this movie exists in 1988 as its own thing, but in the larger culture at this point, the Cosby show is on, a different world is either about to start or has just started.
You have an entire 1970s in which some version of this wouldn't have been entirely uncommon, although the class issues that we can talk about later would make this distinctive. But yeah, I mean, it's simultaneously behind a curve and yet at the same time, making up for a lot of lost time. What do you think, man? Well, the interesting thing about this film to me is the way that I know that this film is just dripping with culture is that I can't remember the first time I saw it.
It's one of those movies that it feels like you saw in utero. Like literally you were born saying sexual chocolate, you know what I mean? And so I just, for me, first of all, I was eight when it came out, so I was less aware of things to that degree, like period. And it was the most gigantic, hugest, biggest thing in the world for me, for us at that point.
It was almost the point in Eddie's career that really sort of, it was like the next thing. Coming to America was, this is the first time you start to see him as all the characters and that whole deal. It's almost a thing that it was almost like a look into the future of who Eddie would end up sort of becoming. Because the movie at the end of the day has a very like wholesome sort of takeaway.
And it's black because of that. If it was remade today, like if it was just straight May today, like Tyler Perry would make this, like the movie where it's actually who you are, what you are, it's not the rich well to do sort of black people that are the champions or sort of the heroes of the movie. It's getting it back down to, hey, man, community, us together, you're no better than me. So I don't know, for me, it's like a movie that's always been a part of my film going experience or my film watching experience.
Yeah. Yeah, and it's interesting because the reviews weren't great, but, and it's almost described when you read some of the stuff now, like it's like, it's a cult film. Meanwhile, it was the second biggest film in 1988. To me, like we got to start with Eddie in the arc of Eddie because it's almost like if you're looking at him like an athlete, 48 hours training places, Beverly Hills Cop, and he's on SNL and he's the best person he's ever been on that show and he's in our life.
Like this is my favorite person other than maybe Letterman and he's in my life a lot. And then he leaves SNL and then it's like, he's singing with Rick James, he doesn't make a movie for all of 1985, comes back in 86 with the Golden Child, which was the anticipation for that movie was a headies back on like, and it was like, eh, it was okay. It was not fucking with the Golden Child. It's fine.
I watch that movie. I watch that movie. I watch that movie. We're 10.
It's like a seven and a half. I want the knife. I love the Golden Child. Right.
Beverly Hills Cop coming to America. He puts those two back to back and it's like, my guy's back. This is it. He has laid this back down.
This is like LeBron winning the two straight MVPs, but it's kind of the end of the era for Eddie, right? Wesley, this is, then he kind of moves into a different phase. You go from 82 to 88, one of the great runs anyone's ever had ever, actor, actress, director, anything. And then this is it.
This is kind of a farewell. It's weird about Eddie's performance in this. I guess we're strained. He's playing a character.
Right. Right. Right. And really where the real Eddie comes out is in all of these other characters.
And that was when seeing this movie, I remember when I saw it the first time, just being so delighted by like the barbershop. And it felt like S and L and he was kind of, they figured out how to move S and L and E into a movie. And I think that to me was the special takeaway in the moment. Yeah.
I think that the, you know, to Van's point about how you remember this movie, I definitely saw it in the theaters when it came out. I don't remember watching it in its entirety until I watched it to talk to you guys. But I know every scene is, I know every, and I don't even think it's from having seen it. I think it's from people quoting it to me and us quoting it to each other or like saying, like reenacting it, you know, in the dorm room that, you know, I went to, I went to low boarding school and like coming to America was source material for so much comedy for, you know, my 11 and 12 year old self.
I mean, like, as for Eddie Murphy, I think that what, I mean, raw is, is 87. Oh, yeah, I forgot raw. Yeah, you're right. This happens.
And the movie after this is Harlem Knights, right? Yeah. Yeah. So I actually find that his project is defined with this movie in an interesting way.
He's got like several projects, right? Like one of them is to sort of is to hold on to the stand up comedian championship belt in Richard Pryor's late, right? Well, also like setting fire to Bill Cosby and, you know, those so-called respectability comedians, but in, not that Pryor was a respectability comedian Cosby was, and to think about the way that in a movie like this, and Harlem Knights and the, the 90 Professor movies and even to some extent, Life Boomerang, all of these movies are about this class convergence within Black Americans. I mean, I think the African royalty aspect of this movie is a proxy for upper class Black people.
And while also sort of like being very respectful of it, I mean, there's a version of this movie where like it is very disrespectful to African people, culture. I mean, you know, you got a contrast with that with the way Eric LaSalle, for instance, talks to, to a team, but I do think that Eddie Murphy is secretly, you know, and war with himself about how Richard Pryor, he's going to be versus how Bill Cosby he's going to be, right? Like what is where is the, where is the line going to be for him as an entertainer with respect to how dignified my movies are going to be and how much my movies, the ones I'm responsible for, the ones I either conceive or produce and direct. What is, what am I saying about Black family and Black, Black life that is, that is recognizable to Black people as being in tension with, with itself?
And that's true pretty much from a lot of the things he does after this movie. Well, that part's interesting because that was one of the reasons he was a comment on S and L because he's on that show, but he's also dipping into Black culture in a way that, you know, just about nobody had done before. And I think that was one of the reasons like that became so memorable. But yeah, you're right.
Once we got to the mid 80s. Remember he took some shit from Spike Lee, Spike Lee did the classic beef up. Why doesn't, do you remember that van? Spike Lee did the, why doesn't Eddie Carrey, why doesn't he try to put more Black people in his movies, why doesn't he use more Black people behind the scenes and really went Adam at a time when Spike wasn't, this was pre-do the right thing.
So I was about like the coming to America, everything he tried to do in that movie was a little bit of a response to that because he got called out and Spike had real juice at that point. Well, I think Eddie, well, even so like there's even two Richard Pryor's, right? Yes, yes. Right.
Because there's like, because the Richard Pryor, I have to relearn the Richard Pryor that my dad knew. I had to learn all about that guy because the Richard Pryor that I grew up with was, you know, Bruce's millions. Yeah. The toy.
The toy. The toy is a rough one. But here's the thing though, it's a rough one to a lot of people. It's not a rough one to me.
The toy was shot in Baton Rouge. So it was a celebratory moment to us. We look at that. He's in the governor's mansion and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
So the toy is a five star, you know what we're going to do? It's a five star film, it's cinematic experience for me. Okay. We love the movie.
Wow. This is the first positive feedback I've ever heard of the toy. Oh my God. You're talking to people from South Louisiana.
That movie is a classic for us. Like he's actually got me doing something, whatever. So Wonder Wheel. Yeah.
It's a whole deal. Yeah. With Pryor, it was kind of pre-Cocaine Richard Pryor and then post-Cocaine Richard Pryor. And the pre-Cocaine Richard Pryor, I think was probably the biggest influence ever on Eddie.
Post-Cocaine Richard Pryor was probably where Eddie didn't want his career to go. I'm guessing. Right. And so when I saw this movie, a lot of times also this movie played on sort of little almost miniature cultural things that black people have, miniature cultural things.
Almost like a micro cultural things. Like for example, the idea that we come from a lineage of Kings and Queens in Africa, right? And this movie is the first time that we really on screen, kind of in a real way, not even in the comedic way, we had to address like what we like those Kings and Queens. Like if we met the Kings and Queens in Africa that we used to instill ourselves with pride, like are they us?
What would happen if those two cultures clashed, right? And I think that he knew that that was happening and that it was the perfect device for Eddie to be who Eddie was. And this is the Richard Pryor point I was making. Because Eddie represented at that point this sort of triumvirate of people who did very, very much, in my opinion, they were steeped in blackness, but also were accepted by mainstream American.
It was that this happens in do the right thing. They talk about it. Eddie, Michael Jackson and Prince, where everything that they did was incredibly influenced and very inspired. We loved it and then they loved it.
It was almost a new kind of black star. And so this movie, which was at to this point, the blackest movie that he'd done for it to like be as big as what it was, it spoke to Eddie being the screen version of Michael Jackson. It spoke to him being that guy that sort of could do something that was super duper black but bring everybody in because the story is, it's very, it's rich, it's very culturally rich. But it's also very simple.
It's a guy who's been repressed, this time not repressed by poverty or repressed by an access to things. He's repressed by privilege and affluence. That's what's repressing him. And his repression is stopping him from being the best version of himself.
That's a very black story, but it's not one that ever been told because you're too rich. Like that, you know what I mean? So he has to come here and reconnect with black American life in order to like fulfill who he was. And so in a lot of ways, it was kind of daring.
I mean, they're coming out and they dance and it's African, it's like, I could see a lot of people being like, yo, this is kind of not what I'm into, but it worked. And that reason for that reason, because there's something so familiar about it, I think that's why I had the cultural power that he did and that it still does, to be honest with you. Yeah, it's a fairytale. Right?
I mean, it's a fairytale with these little interesting moments between the sisters of like, those are Jane Austen. Those are, that's Jane Austen, like you're in simple, the conversations that two of them have the stuff with the dad, the Eric LaSalle character versus a keen, it's not like another version of this movie would have made it a class issue between, you know, like somebody who actually worked at the restaurant and a keen, like she has a boyfriend, Lisa has a boyfriend who already works at the restaurant and, you know, he lives in Queens too and, you know, is poor, right? And this is like, this is the job that he needs for his life. It's not Louis, it's not Louis Anderson character, but played by, I don't know who it would even have been in 1988.
He probably would have had to have been Eric LaSalle or young Wesley Snipes, or young Wesley Snipes who in 88, what was he doing? Was he around? He would have been around doing something. Or Denzel even could have played this part, because I mean, yeah, I was eight years old.
He could have done the part and it wouldn't have been strange. But instead, it's the Jane Austen thing, where you've got two rich guys competing for the love of this woman who is principled in one's the thing that she wants, which is the same thing that the principal wants. They both want principal partners in some way. And so there is just like a very sort of corny basic classical structure that it moves all of this sort of black cultural, all these black cultural ideas and questions and just experiences into.
And that's the innovative thing that, well, we can talk about the Siskel-Nieber thing later, but yeah, I mean, it was just, it's a very interesting movie without it necessarily having to be great. It is just a perfectly successful entertainment that is more sophisticated for not hitting all the buttons on the nose. I want to, Van mentioned Michael Jackson before. I want to put this in context, because you're talking pre-hip-hop era, and this is a real moment, right?
So Eddie's filming this movie in 87, Michael Jackson's bad comes out, I think probably sometime between August and October in 87. September 87. Prince, Prince has the sign of the times, that's the sign of the documentary, that's 87. Michael Jordan has become Michael Jordan in 87, that's the 87, 88, that's his MVP season.
And Bill Cosby's still the biggest TV star in the world. So you have these five super famous black people, all kind of going parallel to each other, and they're not really competing. Can I add one thing, by the way? They all have different pieces of turf.
Whitney Houston is also the biggest art in the world. We should have mentioned her. Yes. After Michael Jackson.
Yeah, I was going, dude, but yeah, let's throw her in. So you got six people on this parallel course. And Oprah. Is Oprah really, is her show, out of the game, over at that point, is national, in 87, 88, yes.
Because I think she has, I think Eddie goes on the show. I don't know if Eddie goes on for this, but anyway, anyway, anyway. Well, and then the other piece you have, Arsenio, this is right around when he starts guessing for Joan Rivers. When they pull Joan Rivers off, they're using these rotating hosts.
And I remember I was always up every night watching late night, and I was like, who's this guy? This guy's great. He's really funny. They should give him the show.
And it took like an extra year for them to actually give him the show. And his show becomes this, people are on his show that were just not on late night TV before. All these different things happening all at the same time. And when I think about this movie, I kind of think about it in the context of all those other things.
There was this moment that it felt like it was happening where somebody like me, a white kid living in the East Coast, and all these people are my favorite people. And they're pushing the envelope in ways, you know, you have crews and Letterman obviously is, is said at that point, Larry Byrne, all people like that. But it felt like there was something happening. Did you, do you see that van looking back?
Like that you're talking pre hip hop rap blowing up to where it was like, this is like the end of some sort of era. Well, I think it's the beginning of one. I think it's the beginning of the era of the megastar, which we are now out of. Which sort of kind of began around this time.
Every single industry had to have a megastar, somebody that was set aside, somebody that was bigger and better and untouchable. And it's so funny that you mentioned so many of these things. Like for me, when I first saw this movie, I had actually probably seen the Arsenio Hall show before I saw the movie, because I was like a kid. So I, when I saw Arsenio Hall, that was even more reason for me to be super into it.
I was like, oh, look, I don't even do that. I didn't even, I'm like, oh my, it's Arsenio Hall. And all of it. And then, so when I say the era of the megastar, I mean the bonafide super brand.
Super brand that's in a familiar way. Take all of these people. Eddie was familiar to people, to black culture, because they had watched him grow from Saturday Night Live all the way into this. Whitney was familiar.
Why? Because she was, I think, Dion's niece and Cece's daughter, right? So there was a story, right? Michael Jackson, once again, grew up with them the entire time.
Bill Cosby, all of these people were black, not just mainstream American stars. They were black cultural brands. Even Prince Prince comes out as a funky genius, right? And the same vein of a Rick James or somebody like that, but that takes it to the next level.
We understood Prince and we, we understood all of these people. You can even throw in Jordan making the same final shot as a freshman in college. We were working from age 18. Right.
We got all of these people. This wasn't some, these weren't people that became this that we felt like weren't us. And so it was, it was something familiar about all of them. Something else about this movie, and then I'm sure we're going to talk about this, I'll bring it up now.
I'll tell you how hot Eddie was. The bit parts in this movie, the small one scene parts in this movie, Victoria Dillard, Garcel Bovey, Bondi Curtis Hall, like all of the people that Samuel L. Jackson, people that showed up just one scene, it's almost as if Eddie was the Sean McVey of movie stars, meaning that anybody had that had ever been in a scene with him. They just said, okay, you're going to go have a career now.
You're in a boomerang too. Same thing. So it was just, it's something that really hasn't, hasn't been done since, and now we're completely out of that era. It's like, doesn't even matter anymore, but it's something that hasn't been done since almost in any way.
But yeah, it spoke very directly to the culture of that time as well. Yeah. And you talk about the 1988 movies, Wesley's point about how this was the only version of this kind of movie out there, the top 20. It's the only one.
You go to the 21st movie, the 21st movie on the list is Colors, which at least had black people. Maybe they're the villains at it. But after that, yeah, I mean, you're going into like the thirties, shoot the kills, Sidney Poetier was in that. Right.
Oh, yeah. That's, well, but Bill, it's interesting too, because if you look at this list, if you look at the top 20, just staying and go down to 25, just go read a test. Okay. I'm going to read from first to in your releases, not countergressed.
Wait, what do you mean? I want to go from the top? Quickly. Okay.
Rain Man, who from Roger Rabbit coming to America? Big twins. Crocodile Dundee Two. Die Hard.
Oh, I see what you're doing. Naked Gun Cocktail, Beetlejuice, Working Girl, Fish Called Wanda, Scrooge, Willow, Beaches, Rambo Three. Oliver, I remember what that was, both there in the land before time, those are top 20 movies in the night. Can I say something real quick?
Yeah. This is definitely, you know. No, they need to not speak. Okay.
Right. Well, okay. So there are, there are some movies in there. Most of those movies are, they're white movies, right?
But I'll say this. A lot of those movies, we watched the shit out of them. Oh, yeah. It's like, like, we, like, it's like, when I say us, us, my dad don't love nothing more than some people just, hey, don't let people do that.
He crazy. I won't watch it. You know what I'm saying? Like, a lot of those films were like, they're hood classics.
A lot of them. Like a lot of, we can say it was a great movie, Eric. It just was, it was, it was, it was. Read the top five again.
Cause I'm thinking about some, Rain Man, who from Roger Rabbit coming to America, big and twins. Okay. Even seventh, even twins. And Roger Rabbit twins is an older pizza on a Thursday night.
It comes on Cinemax. We about to have a great time with a love twins. So there was a lot of, there was a lot of stuff in there, but it wasn't, I, you guys are making the right point, but we loved a lot of those. No, right.
The point is more to me that it exists on an island in which like, there just is no other. Right. I mean, Alfred Woodard, Reginald Vell Johnson, who's the other person I named? There's another person.
There's another black person in the top 20. I don't know who, that's it. That's it. Well, this is the point we made when we did one of the other Eddie Movie Pads where there was this moment on TV in 8283 range where he was before Cosby showed up where he was the only A-list black star on a TV show.
Right. Unless you count like Gary Coleman or Webster, people like that. So in 8 But they were doing a very specific non-electric character. Right.
Yeah. So now you go to 88. Denzel's not Denzel yet. Spike's not a superstar director yet.
I do feel like that. I feel like Eddie, we mentioned like Michael Jackson Prince, all those people. I feel like Eddie had the most pressure on him of anybody in those different fields because basically if his movie sucked, that was it that he had, he was the one that had the huge salary cap if he was a sports team, right? He had the chance to make whatever movie he wanted with, whatever people you want to make it with.
How many people in 1988 could have said that, actors, like Cruz, Eddie, was Cruz to that point yet? I think he was. Yeah. I mean, he was.
He spent his ducats on cocktail that year. But it was number eight. It was number eight. Stallone.
Probably Stallone and Schwarzenegger. Stallone and Schwarzenegger. I think it's just those four. And that's it.
Maybe Harrison Ford? I think Harrison. Not certain things done, but not. Well, I mean, it's still Harrison Ford.
He could probably, you know, nobody's gonna tell him no. All right. So you mentioned this is the first movie of its kind that became Nettie Staple. He's playing a bunch of different characters in the movie.
This is something that has now been, we're all used to, it's 33 years of this. This was groundbreaking in 1988. This was somebody really figuring out finally how to take some of the stuff that worked in SNL and sketch comedy and stuff like that and shoehorned it into a movie in a way that felt organic and worked and took advantage of somebody's skill set. And Eddie ends up doing a tries and a vampire in Brooklyn that he professor at the Clumps Norbit just became one of his staples.
But Wesley, do you remember any version of this before? I mean, Peter Sellers is the obvious person, you know, where, you know, an actor is playing well, is that what you mean? Like a person sort of being multiple people in a film or like like milking at his eddiness for all it can do in a single movie going? A slew of different comedy characters.
I mean, the difference here is he's using Rick Baker for the makeup. And he is a, you know, they're Rick Baker for people who don't know is the guy who did the thriller makeup and was the iconic makeup guy. He distantly tices the makeup for Jade Pitman too. Yeah.
I mean, he, I think that I'm pretty sure that should or maybe Stan Winston did it. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm getting my, I'm getting my great makeup artist probably confused. But the interesting thing about him playing all these characters in this, in this movie is that I wonder how many comedic actors would say that the person that they're most inspired by as movie actors is Peter Sellers. Because Peter Sellers was simultaneously capable of being extremely funny, was capable of creating these distinctive characters within the world of a movie.
And also had this ability to be a great dramatic actor at some point too. I mean, that we can debate what he's doing and being there, but it is definitely a departure from anything he had previously done. Right. And I think that he, for a lot of people, I mean, the people that come to mind most immediately, I mean, maybe like anybody's ever been on SNL, but you know, especially people who've left it and gone to movie making, like Mike Myers, for instance, there's something about being able, being free enough to play all these different people in a movie while also playing a version of your, of your, of your movie star self.
Yeah. I don't know. I mean, he's the, he's the mold for that. Um, well, it even goes further because it's Arsenio's doing it and then his childhood buddy Clint Smith is in the barbershop.
Oh, yeah. That's with old guy makeup. It's just some friend. Yes.
Okay. It's, that's his best friend for when he was a kid. Okay. And, and to me, I always wondered about that guy.
Cause man, look, I wasn't supposed to laugh this much last night watching this movie again. I've seen this movie. Yeah. 500 times.
Yeah. And I swear to God, man, there is such a high bar that is set here. It's like, even when the friend right there, you know, I ain't never met. No model.
It's hilarious. Yeah. I don't know why. Like I have no clue.
Why? That is that funny to me. It's all of his that funny. Kalika got pissed off.
I rewound him stomping his feet, saying sexual chocolate like five times is just everything is working in the film. The little jokes are working. It's just like he's in his zone and it's weird because you just said something that's so super interesting. You say it.
Okay. If you don't know who Rick Baker is, you guys right now, you probably, you might not, but in 8990 Rick Baker was a celebrity. Yeah. Like when you watched, like, because we didn't just watch it, we didn't have the internet.
So like back in my day. So when you'd rent something on DVD, you'd rent Thriller and then it would come in this mega pack with the making of Thriller as well. Yeah. And so they talked to Michael.
They talked to John Landis. They talked to Rick Baker. And you kept hearing Rick Baker's name. So even when I'm, when I'm hearing my mom goes, Rick Baker did the makeup on this stuff too.
That's why it looks so good. The movie was a complete, it was a complete, it was an immersion of all of these great people. John Landis as well, the director of the film. She's going to bring him up.
Yeah. You know, black or white, not black or white, he had done Thriller, which was, he had done a lot of great movies. But the reason why we knew, we knew who John Landis was, at least Thriller, was Thriller because he had directed Thriller, you know, and looking back on some things that happened to John Landis, this was a very important movie for him as well to nail because there was some, you know, the huge controversy and stuff that had happened in his career and stuff. He had, I would say his comedy chops pedigree for me getting excited as somebody who was just a kid who loves movies.
His blues brothers trading places spies like us. Yeah. And when he was attached as a director of this, I didn't know anything. That actually meant something to me.
I'm like, oh, that guy's good. Like Rick Bakers did the makeup, John Amis is in this. John Amis. Once again, the greatest TV dad of all time, like we know, but once again, like that's what made the movie so, so interesting and so singularly unique, like John Amis is in that movie.
We know him. James Evans. James Earl Jones. James Earl Jones.
Like these are actors, like you didn't go out like they, there was not, the movie wasn't soft in that way. It was giving you real, real culture and for a mainstream audience and they worked. Well, it was James Evans, the greatest TV dad of all time. Oh my God.
I mean, I got a lot of feelings about TV dads and you know, that'll take us down. We'll save it for another five. But James Evans is definitely one of my favorite TV dads. Bill knows where I'm going to go.
Oh my God. James Evans is one of my favorite TV dads. Wow. Him being in this movie was meaningful.
It really was. It was like, cause I felt like he hadn't had the kind of career I wanted to have. He was in roots. It's a real mystery.
It's a bunch stuff, but yeah. It's a real mystery why whatever didn't happen for him didn't happen. When he left, good times, I mean, he left, he didn't, you know, he didn't leave the show went on without him, basically. Well, he got away from Jimmy Walker.
He's not enough. He's talked about it. I wonder what happened with the rest of that. I know what happened.
They're working hard. I mean, I can imagine it. Yeah. Well, parts, we're going to buy there.
I mean, it's just nuts to me that there wasn't anything interesting for him to do. I don't think people realize what his approval rating was with just people. I think they would have put him in more stuff if they knew how beloved he was. So nobody thought nobody thought nobody bothered to ask.
This movie is written by Barry Blastening and David Sheffield, who were two Eddie's dudes on SNL who followed him through and were involved in a bunch of his good stuff. Nominated for two Oscars, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup by Rick Baker. Mixed reviews as we mentioned. The great Cisco and Ebert YouTube clip that you can go watch.
Cisco loved this movie. Our guy Raj, which there's no review that he wrote of this movie, but we have this YouTube clip. He kind of kills the movie. He says, he calls Murphy's performance, quote, lethargic.
He said the screenplay was, quote, hackneyed couldn't believe in 1988 that they were so obsessed with looks of women with looks of the women in the movie, which is hilarious because he does this whole thing where he's like, I can't believe in 1988 that this is how we treat women or something like that. It's like, wait Raj, it's going to get worse. He said, so Cisco goes, so you didn't like the movie and he goes, I did not like this movie. And then he's like, give him a screenplay.
He was really, really mad and bitter about it. But I think that was one of the reasons people were kind of surprised that this became such a successful movie because a lot of the reviews didn't like it. Why didn't there be like it was like, I mean, it is, I mean, it's kind of on its face. If you, if you remove race, it's a movie about a prince looking for a princess and he leaves his kingdom to go out into the rest of the world to find her.
It's an old story. Like it, I mean, on its face, yeah, that is a hackneyed piece of screenwriting, you know, at least structurally, like the story is sort of old. But I think that anytime in the United States where you take an old idea and you blacken it, it just becomes more interesting, no matter how good or bad the writing is. It's just inherently more interesting when you take a thing that black people have never done before or never been like asked to do or shown doing and you let them do it.
It's automatically even on its, on its, on the most, on a pure anthropological level. Like what happens when you give black people an entire story that doesn't involve, that doesn't revolve around racism or white people? Like does black life look like according to black people? Now the director and the screenwriters are white, but you always get this, you know, and those guys are taking stuff from Mel Brooks.
There are a lot of Mel Brooks jokes in this movie or Mel Brooks level jokes in this movie. A lot of like borched, belty, Jewish humor sorts of jokes that get like stuck in there and not just with the Jewish guy that Eddie Murphy plays in the barbershop. Well, he's doing, he's doing gumbi with makeup, just different makeup. It's basically the gumbi character.
But I do think that, you know, I just feel like, I don't want to say Roger is wrong. Like I, I don't necessarily agree with him. I mean, it is, it is a little lethargic, but I think there's just all this interesting stuff that's happening that doesn't make the movie better, but it definitely makes it harder to dismiss. And I think the thing that is chief complaint with the movie is that it's not letting Eddie Murphy be Eddie Murphy.
That's, well, it is. He's playing all these different awesome characters and that's what I didn't understand with that review. Right. Well, I think there was a version of Eddie Murphy.
By the way, to Wesley's point, Wesley's right. This is why I keep begging Hollywood. They say they're going to do it. They're not going to do it.
I don't know if they're going to do it remake the picture all black cast. I keep trying to keep begging. I'm begging for the movie. I'll beg you.
I'll continue to beg. I mean, I'm just signed up. Right. I'm saying, I'm saying they said they were going to do it remake the big chill all black cast.
I swear to God, they have never gotten a Twitter engagement that they're going to get when that movie comes out because the big chill is nothing but a bunch of mess. I think they got to do it anyway. So, but I'll also say once again, this was a, he was used to one Eddie and this movie is the debut of 82.0. So he was used to the wise cracking.
I have to carry every single scene that I'm in, every scene that I'm in. If it's me and tag it in Rosewood. If it's me, Jamie Lee Curtis and Dan Accrault, even though I argue that that movie, everybody's getting off and trading places, everybody is on their game. I was texting you guys about that.
Yeah. Like if it's me and Nick Nolte, Eddie's doing his thing, every single scene. So there was probably something where he was taken aback by Eddie being less Eddie, but being more Eddie in other ways. So he hadn't seen that yet, but it still worked.
This was, I don't argue, this was the most Eddie you ever got because you got him in several different characters. Today's most rewatchable scene. It's brought to you by Crown Royal. Look at this box.
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We're going to do most rewatchable scene. We'll try to narrow this down. Well, let me ask you, would you put, would you just put the opening with him waking up with all the stuff? Would that be a most rewatchable scene for you?
Just how the first five minutes of the movie starts, there's a too slow. Just a quick answer. I would think it's too long. I would rewatch it, but I think it's too long.
I think it's too long. I remember like, when he finally, last night watching movie, I was like, yo, we're 40 minutes into this and he's really just getting to America. Right. Yeah, I think all that could go faster.
We'll get to that in one stage. I'm going to put the first rewatchable scene, the presentation of the future queen. There's so many people in that scene. It's so lavish and over the top, everything about it.
It's really well executed. And then the whole thing where he's like, can I talk to you for a second? I like what James Earl Jones says, don't you have sex with the bathers? I know, I know, I do.
I am not sure if I am ready. Son, I know we never had to talk about this, but I was assumed that you had sex with your bathers. I know I do. It's not that fun.
Like, they just take that in. I just did right. Uh, next one, first nightclub scene. Yeah.
So can I ask a question? Yeah. Or can I, can I say something? I just, I, the thing that I love about, I mean, I know it probably does go on too long, but the thing I love about that sequence is it is an old Hollywood trick to take these, like this set piece and essentially, like, just bling it to bling it beyond belief.
We're going to spend every single dime we can to make this look as real and as lavish. They're elephants just wandering around the property, like in the background, just elephants just wandering past windows, every, I mean, and think about like having that kind of attention as a person who's watched cabin in the sky and old Vincent Manelli movie from like 1941, I think, a bunch of times and noticing just the things you notice in a movie as a black person with a bunch of people just milling about not really doing anything while like, you know, Lena Horne and Elle Waters do their thing. Um, like this movie has that except, you know, it's just taken to like there are 400 people in this, in this castle watching this wedding and they, you have to costume them all. You have to, it's so lavish.
I would argue it's one of the most lavish scenes of any pre 1990 movie. It's just like 400 people at the wedding. Yeah, it's such an old Hollywood trick. We're like, this scene's only going to last for about two minutes, but we're going to, we're going to cast it, you know, we're going to cast every single person, dress every single person and just like make it look fabulous because we can, because we're Hollywood.
Uh, next one, first nightclub scene, which is really cleverly edited. They just work in a shitload of women in that scene, um, different characters, some great, some great, uh, expressions from Eddie and Arsenio and then ends with Arsenio and drag as the, uh, as the capper, um, Wesley, you can either, you can either make a veiled joke after this or we could just move on. It's up to you. Do, I mean, this is our fourth Eddie Murphy conversation.
I got it. I got to say it. I mean, Eddie, you talking to us, it's not talking to you. That's your mouth.
Eddie, I just think about this because the thing, the thing that's amazing about that scene to me is the way of block, right? It's blocked so that the first like eight women are sitting, you know, it's shot reverse shot, right? So the camera's on the women and then there's a cut to Eddie and Arsenio when it's Arsenio's turn, like the, the blocking is different. The blocking is different.
Eddie has now seated on the other side of the camera. So the reverse shot in the reaction is just Arsenio reacting to himself, basically. Eddie is seated next to Arsenio and drag. I hope you don't mind coming over and sitting down.
But I've been watching the wall, leaving and I want to tear you apart and your friend too. It's just, you know, God is trying to tell you something to quote people of the color purple. I remember distinctly my mom looking at her sister going. Hmm.
Okay. Yeah, it was just so fun. Yeah. No, you're, does he make it into what's the worst, though?
Is we going to age fucking terribly? Like, it's like fucking, it's all, it's just ripped up. It's like, it's a great first of all, the movie in and of itself is dripping, even the whole device of, let me see which woman is good enough to make my life whole. That's obviously that is what it is.
But there are a couple of moments where you look at the movie and you're like, I'm glad we're in a better place. Yeah. This is definitely a great way to put it, man. That's a great way to put it.
Next we watch the scene, which is probably gonna be my winner. Black Awareness Week, which features Arsenio's incredible character. The Dark One noise until the launch. I'm very happy to be here.
In Gasta, you're gonna be here now. I don't know what you're gonna do, but I call the pre-name. The Reverend Guy, whatever his name was. Yeah.
And introducing Randy Watson and sexual chocolate to type it applause from the crowd. If you're so lovely to be here, then what a beautiful, give yourself a round of applause. You're so lovely. Everyone's so lovely.
And why are you in a clapping mood? I like to give a big round of applause to my band, Sexual Chocolate. Sexual Chocolate. And you don't even realize it's Eddie for like 40 seconds.
The makeup is so good. He looks like, I don't know, somebody who opened for Luther Vangeros. They all look like actual people and not any Murphy in New York. Right.
It's everything is that scene is just perfect. They're cutting the crowd. The barbershop guys are in the crowd. It's just moving everything about it.
It's just such a great six minutes. I just love, you know, I work so well for me. I've been to so many of those. I've been to so many of those.
First of all, OK, Black Awareness Week, just this big open-ended thing that we have for a week, we all go down. If anybody knows what I'm talking about in Baton Rouge, is that the Leo Butler Community Center, there's an event, we have to go down and it's always a local celebrity that we are sick of seeing. This is the only guy that we could get. And it's always somebody at that time.
It was like, this person was a solid gold dance or something like that. It's like, it's like, it's when they get up and they dance and we're like, yo, somebody needs to pop from Baton Rouge, man. I can't watch this again. And so the applause and everything, that is so real, that entire sequence, which is why it's terrible to me get this dude off the stage.
You know, we had a version of that at Fairmount Park. Not every, I don't remember what we called it, but it wasn't, it wasn't Black because because Black Awareness Week is the like, can P's version of what that week is, right? Right. Everybody, everybody, like any person who's been to such a thing as like, oh, that's what they should call it.
Right. What Van described is captured so perfectly by the reaction to Randy Watson. That it's like, Oh, shit, this guy again? Yeah.
It was a nice straight year. Right. He's back. Goddamn it.
That's great. The thing that's great about that scene, though, to the point about like what what Blackness is doing among Black people. The other true thing about that moment is he does not come out and sing super freak. What does he say?
He sings the greatest love of all, which at that point is, I mean, for my middle school self was the bane of my existence. I never wanted to hear that song again is always saying anytime somebody got a diploma and anytime somebody moved up a grade, we sang the greatest love of all. And it's just like the interesting tension because it starts with a beauty pageant and ends with this Rick James impersonator singing this song of, of, of, you know, boring uplift and it's not way to use it. So you can hear how mediocre the song actually is.
Next one is just for me. It's the St. John's game. I just love seeing the 80s.
Big East really brought me back goes to the bathroom, gets recognized by my favorite scene, by the way. That's my second favorite scene. Oh, my goodness. Great thing.
Johannes, please, please stop bowing, please. I am a loyal citizen of Zabuna. Yes, but you're going to spill your beverages. This is the greatest day of my life.
Yes. It was very nice meeting you to excuse me. I mean, it makes me I will die. I actually I cried a little bit watching that because they're I don't think they're any of the black people in the line, right, in the to go to the bathroom.
I think it's just Eddie Murphy and Vinny Curtis Hall until the other guy who works at the at the garden comes over and takes the picture, who also apparently from Zamunda, but there is something about this African dude seeing this other African dude, but you know, also a black person, seeing a black person who means something deep to him in this in this common space. It just, I mean, to see it the way he sees it, it actually is so moving to see his, his, his prince, you know, this person who means the world to him, just standing in line to take a whiz or he wasn't actually taken a whiz. Probably clean his pants, but, you know, just it just is such a moving, it actually that scene moved me and it wasn't funny in this way. It was actually truly touching and I get it.
I agree as though next one, a game's first date with Lisa. There's some good stuff happening this scene, but most important, my favorite gimmick in any movie, the cross movie cameo, all of a sudden, Mortimer and Randolph are back as two homeless guys. When this happened in the theater, I didn't know this was going to happen. And I almost had a heart attack.
I was just so overcome with joy and delight. I love soap for people who don't know. Mortimer and Randolph were the guys that day and act right at him or if he turned the table to play, so the Duke brothers and they go bankrupt at the end. It looks like one of them is about to dive a heart attack.
And that's it. They're in the movie for them to pop up six years later. It was just such an incredible, holy shit. I can't believe it.
And there seems really funny Mortimer went back. We're back. Thank you. Let's do lunch because I remember my dad used to love that scene because my dad was like, those guys, I was going to take, you know, take that money.
I was going to take that money. I was going to take that money. I was going to take that money for that. Maybe like 10 bands or something.
I'll take that money and go and put it in. They're going to be back blah, blah, blah. We expected a movie out of that, by the way. Never came.
Never came. Right. Last one for me is after the king comes back and we get a John Amos first, James Earl Jones, get a little dad versus dad clash. It's just, it's really good.
The both those guys are really good that scene. And he says, I'm going to put my foot in your royal ass and it's the movies. It takes way too long. I think if we're going to do what stage the worst, I'm sure it's going to come up.
But just the culmination of this movie, the only thing I don't have for rewatchable is just I love all the barbershop scenes are all short. So I have that in one stage, the best. But anything else I'm missing for you guys for most rewatchable? You don't like the scene where all of the characters come together to straighten the plot out?
Yeah, it's fine. Oh, it's a little long. It's my favorite scene in the movie. OK, go make the case.
You know, I'm a sucker. I'm a sucker. If I told you guys this, do you guys know this about me? I have two favorite things to happen in movies.
Number one is party is party sequences. I love anything set at a ball, a party, like not like a wedding party, but like there's actual stuff happening and there were stakes. And like, you know, to the point of like, to my point earlier about the way they trick out Zamunda to be just this like extremely expensive looking experience, I love it when a movie has a party sequence that like where you can see for a whole mile, the depth of field is so deep in the room is so big. And there's a bunch of people in there and a lot of the people at this in this party matter in some way.
There are a lot of different interesting characters in it. I also love number two is the sort of bedroom, living room, farce plot adjustment where like all the all the mistaken identities are explained. All the plot is understanding to get ironed out. The three's company ending.
Yes. Yeah. Well, OK, sure. Wait, is Mr.
Roper, you knew her? We can start with peer in Delo, but I'll take three's company. Um, I really love when, when any work of culture has a big living room, farce ironing out of the plot. I just, I love it.
And you've just got all this list, other tension. You've got these great actors, you know, Amos and Sinclair, matching Claire, we have not discussed. Um, she's kind of. And, uh, uh, Jamesville Jones, just the three of them alone, like trying to, like being on different sides of this should a keem and Lisa be together question.
Um, I don't know. I just really, I love that sequence. I love it. Dan, what do you got from a living room?
I love a fucking living room. Sorry, go on. Uh, um, I love a fucking living room, too. To me, that made you was rich back in the day.
Um, I got the barbershop seats. The barbershop seats, it's because they're so short that they're so rewatchable, arguing over the same things that we argue over the barbershop. Yeah, but like in there, I got the barbershop seats. I had that for the single best, what stage, the best for me, because they were so short, but I'm happy to make an exception and say those collectively are the most radical scene I agree with you.
I love those scenes. And it's really good. You see YouTube, there's a YouTube quick that just has all of them strung together. And it's like, all right, it's almost like it's own movie.
Um, what's age the best? We mentioned Mortimer and Randolph crossing over the barbershop. The Joe Lewis was 136 years old. That fucking goes up in the age of 65 years old, he was 76 years old.
But the bad, Joe, look, rockin' my hand, shit. Joe, what was his ass? That's right. He didn't walk you over there.
Don't look at 75 years old anymore. I don't know how old he went, but he got an asshole. Joe, don't look at him. I retired back in my house.
The middle seven, six years old. Don't look at him. Oh, Joe, don't look at him. He said, hey, don't look at him.
30,000 years old. 100, 30,000 years old. Oh, man, you ain't never meet no Frank Sinatra. Bill, that's how it goes, bro.