Have you seen Chris Rock's Top Five yet? I found it affable and intermittently funny but perhaps never more than mildly so. Here are five quick notes on it..
1. Maybe a little too navel-gazing on Chris Rock's part but we'll let it pass since most comedians turned actors play it like that from Woody Allen back in the day to every comic with a sitcom deal from the past thirty years.
2. True story: This movie has a super cast. It would have made a smarter SAG nomination than The Theory of Everything. (But then what wouldn't? Sorry Theory. I like ya but that nom is a big "D'oh!"). It's great to see a film about a guy actually give actresses fun things to do and Sherri Shepherd, Gabrielle Union, Rosario Dawson, and Leslie Jones all have good moments. I attended a Paramount party a few weeks ago that sort of morphed into a Top Five party because Interstellar left early. I am usually very social at these things but somehow I spent most of it off in a corner discussing Vanessa Redgrave and Faye Dunaway with another writer (appropriate!). I was going to talk to Gabrielle Union but I didn't want to be one of those people and bring up the East Compton Clovers, you know? The reaction would surely have been...
Brrrrrr. It's cold in here.
I did actually talk to Rosario Dawson, though...
Three more bits including that "top five" after the jump...
She is, quite shockingly, more beautiful in person than onscreen. Which I would have not thought possible. I must have blurted some awkward variation of this out because she was all...
Are you saying I should quit my day job?"
I asked her what she gets recognized for most because she's in so goddamn many movies and I was pleased to hear 25th Hour among the handful of titles (my favorite Dawson) but now I've forgotten the other ones.
3. I was not offended by the film's gay joke (detailed at Gawker if you're interested) save for maybe feeling a little bit bad for straight gays who probably have to deal with gay panic (their own & their girlfriends) if they actually like some ass attention. Doesn't make you gay. I figure Chris Rock is our POV character and he doesn't seem to be shaming anyone with his amused but non-hateful response to the DL situation happening around him. And the joke was totally worthwhile just to get to Rosario Dawson's society-approved-hypocrisy dismisal when Rock asked her why her fling with a girl in the past is any different than a guy having a fling with a guy.
Whatever. I don't make the rules."
4. That roundtable junket scene. I did not need to see actual junketeers onscreen. I see them whenever I show up to interview an actor at a hotel. You know they'll be bragging about being in this movie forever!
5. Finally let us end our Five with the movie's adorable titular bit, a very random very loud peppering of characters shouting out their top five hiphop artists. If I made a self-serving movie about trying to reinvent my career as a blogger (don't worry) you know the running gag would have been forcing people to shout out their top five actresses. But since we're playing by Chris Rock's rules and not by mine, here's what I would have shouted out as my top five* if put on the spot like that!
Missy Elliott
Salt n Pepa
Lauryn Hill
The Beastie Boys
(I know this is only four)
This list dates me, but music dates everyone more than anything, you know it to be true! Plus my natural instinct when I'm asked "top ___?" is to list the classics and not 'what is awesome right now' unless someone says "top ___ contemporary???" And no one ever says that when they're asking, though they should if that's the list they're looking for. I have learned not to say "Classic or Contemporary?" when people ask me such questions IRL though. It was the looks they gave that taught me.
My Top Five are not mentioned in the movie (save Salt N Pepa - thank you Rosario!). But, like, some of the characters I would have struggled on number five but IF I didn't swing contemporary like Kanye I might have sheepishly name-checked LL Cool J just like in the movie with the same shouted caveat of "BEFORE THE TV SHOW" because, come on: "Goin Back to Cali," "Doin' It," "Mamma Said Knock You Out." On that same note, one priceless bit in the movie is the discussion of whether Tupac Shakur would have become a great politician or just ended up on a procedural like everyone else.
Top Five. Yours?
* True confessionz: My actual 100% accurate top five list of hip hop artists goes like so: 1. Missy Elliott 2. Missy Elliott 3. Missy Elliott 4. (written by Missy Elliott) 5. ("feat. Missy Elliott"). I miss MISSY so much. It's been almost ten years since her last CD! Are we never going to get "Block Party" her now unicorn like seventh record... originally due in (gulp) 2008... and still not released.