Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

viewsonfilm.com James Toback directs an extremely underrated film that plays out like a slick, urban version of a Robert Altman piece. Things unfold like a sledgehammer towards the end (I like how a rap music video carries the closing credits into a sort of weird epiphany). The performances are solid and the plot lines intertwine with a feverish tone. Black and White got an extremely unfair ribbing from critics. I think it's powerful stuff. In terms of the acting, Ben Stiller as the unacquainted lead, anchors things and he deviates from his comedic persona to give a unhinge performance. Also, look for a scene where co-stars Mike Tyson and Brooke Shields share a weird and poignant moment. All in all, Black and White gets my full recommendation. See it again (or for the first time) and give it its rightful due.

Alexander_seth2000 I am not sure what this movie was trying to portray, whether it was white kids wanting to act black, or life stories of black hip hop artists/basketball players living in new york. If it was trying to display both it made a total mess of it.No story in the film was shown in depth, out of the all star cast only Brooke shields, Robert Downey Jr and Mike Tyson shone. Nice to see Claudia Schieffer on screen, she can act but her part in this film is awful. I became bored from listening to one constant hip hop song after another as well as the black rapper actors speaking in an unintelligible language which made the film even more confusing then it was before. The only highlights of the film for me was Robert Downey Jr confessing to his wife he is gay at the end, and Mike Tyson giving advice to a young rapper (he doesn't just box!) Anyways in my opinion, terrible, but if you got time to waste then perhaps watch it.

cadmandu A white woman and her gay (sic) husband are making a documentary about white high school kids who hang with and emulate black people. There are several sub plots, one involving a basketball player who is offered a bribe to throw a game, but it's not clear if there is actually an overall plot to which the rest can be sub.James Toback is a well respected indie writer/producer/director, and he got a stellar and eclectic cast to work in this film. There's Robert Downey, Brooke Shields, Elijah Woods (in probably the only serious role he's ever had), Claudia Schiffer (speaking flawless Americanese), Mike Tyson (worth seeing just for the novelty), Joe Pantaleone, Ben Stiller, and some folks who are probably famous rappers but I am not acquainted with that world.What happens when you put this wildly inconsistent cast on a film that has a very loose plot and a kind of cinema (quasi-)verite style (shot with steady-cam) it's a little like watching an ice hockey game in which all the players are chess masters -- it sure is strange. I didn't say bad, or uninteresting, or unworthy -- just strange! Mike Tyson playing himself in this film is about what you'd expect -- shallow, unreliable, and self-absorbed, like any ex-con you'll ever meet. Elijah Woods gets what amounts to a cameo of no substance. Robert Downey Jr. does a clichéd gay man, and I couldn't help but think he looked very worried what his friends would think about it. Claudia Schiffer absolutely cannot act, but fortunately she gets to play a woman who is twisted and obscure anyway. Putting her in this film was a poor choice, but casting Ben Stiller as a NYPD detective and Claudia's ex! has to be the casting blunder of all time.So this is not your ordinary flick, but if you're up for something different you might enjoy it. Fans of James Toback will no doubt enjoy it for its subtler fine points, but I think most people will just be baffled by all the noise.

Lars Ericson Robert Downey Jr. is fantastic in all of his 60 or so seconds in this film. I think he is one of the best comic actors of all time.Brooke Shields also does a spot-on amateur documentary film-maker shtick. I didn't even recognize her in her dreadlocks in the first half of the film. She and Downey trail a bunch of rich white high school kids half their age, trying to be one of them as they go slumming. Shields best moment is when she meets a recently married old friend on the Staten Island ferry, and you feel the disparity between Shield's refusing-to-grow-up character and her ordinary, grown-up old friend.Downey's best moments are when he tries to pick up Mike Tyson and when he tries to pick up one of the high school students, reprising his character in Wonder Boys. It's too bad Hollywood has an insurance clause against him now, because everything he does is exceedingly knowing.The flattest moments are the James Tolback Obligatory Sex In Central Park scene, apparently a rehearsal for an identical one in this year's "When will I be loved?", and in the contrived Typical Banker's Family Dinner with the Sullenly Rebellious Daughter While The Manservant Ladles the Soup. Please. We know Tolback has a lot of celebrity friends; they're all in his movies. I doubt he has met a single real banker in his life.Also we are treated to the same flaw which is in Black and White, namely the highly implausible plot devices that tie all of the characters together, wherever they live in the movie and whatever their social strata. He is a big buyer of the Deus Ex Machina.He's also a big buyer of improvisation. In the DVD he says almost all the films are improvised except the one where Claudia Schiffer impersonates what one critic called "the world's most unlikely graduate student", and another called "a surprisingly believable turn as a faithless brainiac". Whatever. She looks hot for the most part except towards the end where they're one outdoor shot in a riverside park where her lips just look too big and she looks like a squeaky and insufficiently made-up skinny yin-yang. What can you do. Her funniest moment was the split second sitting next to and conversing with Robert Downey Jr. when he turns to compare perfume notes with the young man sitting next to him, and she figures out she's no longer the center of attention and suddenly gets up and walks away. Her least likely moment is when she is about to have sex in a bathroom with her boyfriend's best friend. Not that the premise is unlikely: She is just too Teutonic and awkward beneath all that prettiness to look like she's about to tongue-wrestle with a big sweaty gangster. (Much more believable is the news story about her I read the other day where she is applying to private schools for her unborn child.)Tolback cast himself as Tolback pretty much, as usual. If you're the director, why not throw yourself a cameo? It's just a stone's throw from there to writing in a sex scene with the lead actress, but if he did that he'd have to write himself a lead part and then he'd be Vincent Gallo, but he's not, he's more of a voyeur; enough to write those Central Park scenes and shoot them in closeup with full improvisatory rein given to the actors. Let them really get into the moment, keep the cameras rolling.Am I boring you with this review? Is it running on a little long? Does it seem a little disconnected?If you think this is bad, go see the movie.