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Having previously seen Sweet Sweetback..., Watermelon Man, his son Mario's Badaaaasssss!, I took one look at this documentary on DVD at my local library and had to check this out quickly! What a fascinating look at Melvin Van Peebles' life and various careers (as a side note, I was pleasantly surprised finding out here that he was born in Chicago, Ill. which is also my birthplace). From train conductor to Air Force pilot to French novelist to filmmaker to musician, Van Peebles seems to have done it all and I haven't even mentioned Wall Street trader! However, because of his independent streak-Watermelon Man being his only Major Studio film-Melvin is not always respected. He's never out, however, and seems to treat his jobs like he treats women-one day at a time! Nice insights from fellow filmmakers Gordon Parks and Spike Lee but the real treats are of his children Max, Megan, and especially Mario who had played his father in one of the titles I mentioned. While the Sweetback movie gets the lion's share of attention here, we also see snippets of Story of a Three Day Pass, the Watermelon pic, his televised musical play "Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death", his musical movie-Don't Play Us Cheap-from the '70s, and the one he was shooting at the time-Bellyful. There's also some bonus features of some of his concert performances and of his commentaries he did for a New York TV station. The most hilarious of those was on his seeing "X-Rated" movies as a child which he defined as those that portrayed his race in a demeaning manner! Witty and refreshing, How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It) is a must for a look at this multi-talented man.
score 10/10
tavm 2 June 2008
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1885255/ |
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20-2-2021 12:06:03