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Hollywood Shuffle



This debut feature by Robert Townsend is an ingenious guerrilla satire that takes riotous aim at the typecasting of Black actors in 1980s Hollywood. The writer-director-star’s megawatt charisma propels Hollywood Shuffle, the hilarious tale of a struggling actor attempting to break into an industry where the only roles available to Black performers seem to be hustlers, butlers, slaves, and “Eddie Murphy types”—forcing him to choose between selling out and maintaining his self-respect. Lampooning everything from film noir to zombie flicks to Siskel and Ebert, Townsend and cowriter Keenen Ivory Wayans cannily turn the frustrations of the Black artist into a subversively funny pop-culture critique.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New, restored 4K digital transfer, approved by writer-director-actor Robert Townsend, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• New audio commentary featuring Townsend
• New interviews with actors Rusty Cundieff, Anne-Marie Johnson, and Bobby McGee
• Radio program featuring Townsend in conversation with film critic Elvis Mitchell
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

PLUS: An essay by critic Aisha Harris

Welcoming Winky Dinky Dog into the collection.

Well, this is certainly a choice.

A funny, freewheeling, and pointed movie. Some scholarly extras would be nice, especially about the movie's various cultural targets and connections, but I look forward to hearing the director's commentary.

This movie is extremely hit-and-miss. Some of the satire is spot-on, while a lot of it feels like he really lowers the targets.

:-k Again with goddamn Elvis Mitchell

Kind of surprised that Keenen Ivory Wayans didn’t contribute to this release

Extremely uneven indeed, but the parts that are funny are quite funny — Black Acting School is absolutely one of the best critiques ever made of racial attitudes in Hollywood. Plus we can thank this film for giving us In Living Color

Black Acting School is great, but I thought the riff on At the Movies was just as strong, with the caveat that it goes on for way longer than necessary and takes a few risks that don't pay off with the same stable economy as the previous brief sketch. Still, the interplay between the two "critics" coheres to yield moments of absolute gold. Even if the lampoons of the films they watch aren't particularly funny, occasionally we get a subtle detail in these parodies that work regardless of the loud gestures of mockery that don't. Case in point: the comically tiny gun the central hoodlum is carrying in the Dirty Harry bit, which just killed me

domino harvey wrote: Tue Nov 15, 2022 7:42 pm Extremely uneven indeed, but the parts that are funny are quite funny — Black Acting School is absolutely one of the best critiques ever made of racial attitudes in Hollywood. Plus we can thank this film for giving us In Living Color

Yeah, Black Acting School was even redone into the Black People Awards. (See 3:15 to 4:55 for the most relevant section - pretty awesome that it actually features future Oscar winner Jamie Foxx.)